We have seen that the concepts of Man and Woman are the end-points of a curve including variations of every possible combination that are embraced in the construction of a sex index.  This sex index is not an absolute constant, although its range of fluctuation is pretty well fixed at birth.  It varies from day to day, year to year, depending upon the influences that have been brought to bear upon it.  But it determines the character of the three planes of sex:  the endocrine, the vegetative, and the psychic.  The endocrine is concerned with the fundamental chemistry of sex, the internal secretions, which determine the chemical reactions that provide the free energy for the sex process.  Upon the vegetative plane occur those transformations, tensions, and relaxations, in the viscera, which are controlled in part by the endocrines and in part by the experiences of the individual as registered in his subconscious.  Upon the psychic, conscious planes appear the echoes and reflections of the occurrences upon the other two planes, as well as reactions arising in the brain from the necessity of the organism reacting as a whole to isolated episodes.  Accompanying is a self-awareness of the organism as a unit.  The three planes are not like separate plates of glass one raised above the other, the usual idea picture of planes.  They are nebulae, swirling into each other, influencing and being influenced continually.  The reactions among these three complexes of sex create the milieu for the variations and aberrations of tendency, character and conduct which stamp his unique quality upon the individual.  Sex morale is likewise so influenced.  The fundamentals of sex ethics will, in due time, be revised in accordance with these conceptions.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW THE GLANDS INFLUENCE THE MIND

It is impossible to review here in detail all the facts accumulated concerning the influence of the internal secretions upon all the processes of mind, intellectual and emotional.  A volume would not suffice for their adequate consideration.  Reflexes, instincts, habits, tendencies and emotions are involved in their machinery.  The development and normal functioning of the intellect, the pure reason as Kant called it, are controlled by them.  Brain, without them in solution, without enough of them in that wonderful solution, the blood, sleeps or remains dormant like the butterfly in the cocoon.  The cretin, who has not enough thyroid or no thyroid, is an imbecile because of his deficiency.  Supply him with thyroid from outside sources, feed him animal thyroid, be it of the sheep, the pig, or the goat, and behold a miracle! he is restored to the level of at least the relatively normal intelligence.