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 “Not necessarily,” he said. “Such a one might be reborn in a world of desire,—like this,—but neither as man only, nor as woman only.”

“Reborn, then, in what form?” I asked.

“In that of a perfect being,” he responded. “A man or a woman is scarcely more than half-a-being,—because in our present imperfect state either sex can be evolved only at the cost of the other. In the mental and the physical composition of every man, there is undeveloped woman; and in the composition of every woman there is undeveloped man. But a being complete would be both perfect man and perfect woman, possessing the highest faculties of both sexes, with the weaknesses of neither. Some humanity higher than our own,—in other worlds,—might be thus evolved.”

“But you know,” I observed, “that there are Buddhist texts,—in the Saddharma Pundarîka, for example, and in the Vinayas,—which forbid….”

“Those texts,” he interrupted, “refer to imperfect beings—less than man and less than woman: they could not refer to the condition that I have been supposing…. But, remember,