CYCLE TWO

1. Males and females are not equal but distinctly unequal in the ways to which they relate to psyche and nature, self and not-self, with the free will and spirit in not-self of the female gender conditioning determinism in self on the basis of the transmutation of soul into id by will and of ego into superego by spirit, but the free ego and soul in self of the male gender conditioning determinism in not-self on the basis of the transmutation of will into mind by ego and of spirit into subspirit by soul.

2. Thus far from the genders sharing a common agenda of either free nature or free psyche, they pull in opposite directions, and it is this tension in sexual polarity which both creates and sustains life, without which it would simply grind to a non-dialectical halt. For were not females conditioned to psychic determinism from a basis in free nature, it is doubtful that mankind would have been able to reproduce itself over the generations. And were not males conditioned to natural determinism from a basis in free psyche, it is inconceivable that they would have grappled with Nature, in the broader sense, to the extent and in the ways they have, and thus developed Civilization as a framework in which both to survive the inclemencies of land and climate and to develop knowledge and truth to ever greater extents.

3. For the sensible advantages of Civilization, in this broader environmental and social sense, ensure that even where deference to beauty and strength is still desired, as must be the case in the breeding of offspring from a marital or equivalent basis, the sensual bedrock of life need not become an end-in-itself, but can be subsumed into and even transmuted by Civilization to an extent whereby, with the freest males, knowledge and truth become their own ends and Man is no longer simply a plaything of sensuous Nature, grovelling before a sensual hegemony in animal-like fashion, but master of his own destiny, be that destiny physical or metaphysical, manly or godly, or even a compromise between the two.

4. For certainly there are no grounds for supposing that enhanced sensibility is handed to one on a plate, as it were, by those sensual aspects of Nature which more accord with a rural background, or that females willingly go out of their way as creatures, in Wilde's proverbial phrase, of matter over mind, or free nature conditioning psychic determinism, to ensure that a male hegemony is established in sensible contradiction to their own sensual interests, and precisely on the reverse terms of free psyche conditioning natural determinism.

5. The struggle of Civilization against Nature, to speak in conveniently simplistic dialectical terms, is a very real and even uphill one, with nothing guaranteed in the way of enhanced sensibility should the struggle with sensuality come crashing to a halt or be otherwise thwarted by malevolent powers, powers, in other words, which do not have the interests of sensibility at heart, but are beholden to a sensual hegemony.

6. But just as Nature is in reality a two-edged sword which cuts both ways, so, in a manner of speaking, is Civilization, and one can easily settle for a more specific definition of Civilization which allows for either strength or knowledge, depending on the gender affiliation of what, I suppose, in terms of plane, is a manifestation less of space than of volume, and not at all of either time or mass, the planes lying directly under each of the aforementioned ones.

7. For just as we can differentiate between space, time, volume, and mass on a descending basis, so we should distinguish between culture, race, civilization, and generation in like manner, while allowing for diagonal ascents or descents, according to gender, between both the upper-class planes of time and space and the lower-class planes of volume and mass, in order to account for the way in which gender either rises in salvation on the male side or falls in damnation on the female side, as already described in both this and earlier texts.

8. For the masculine-male rise from mass to volume is no less between generative and civilized forms of knowledge than the feminine-female fall from volume to mass is between civilized and generative forms of strength, while the divine-male rise from time to space is no less between racial and cultural forms of truth than the diabolic-female fall from space to time is between cultural and racial forms of beauty, each gender remaining consistent with its elemental attribute according to class affiliation.

9. Therefore we can no more limit Nature just to sensuality than Civilization to sensibility, even though, on a plane-by-plane basis, we can distinguish the principal manifestations of Nature in terms of race and generation in relation to time and mass on both a sensual and a sensible basis, while likewise distinguishing the principal manifestations of Civilization in terms of culture and civilization in relation to space and volume on both a sensual and a sensible basis.

10. But while this division between Nature and Civilization is not equivalent to sensuality on the one hand and to sensibility on the other, it nevertheless happens to be incontestably the case that the knowledgeable and true forms of Nature, being male, can be saved, following a diagonal rise, to the knowledgeable and true forms of Civilization, whereas the beautiful and strong forms of Civilization, being female, can only be damned, following a diagonal fall, to the beautiful and strong forms of Nature, which are no less sensible than their civilized counterparts in male salvation.

11. Hence the position of the female forms of Civilization over the male forms of Nature in the sensual contexts is reversed in terms of the male forms of Civilization over the female forms of Nature in the sensible ones, as males become hegemonic in contexts owing more to knowledge and truth than to generation and race.

12. But, in another sense, Civilization is commensurate with the self, the psyche, and Nature with the not-self, with soma, and therefore the shift from a female-dominated position of Civilization-over-Nature in sensuality to a male-dominated position of Civilization-over-Nature in sensibility is equivalent to the shift from psychic determinism and free nature in the one context to free psyche and natural determinism in the other, as knowledge and truth eclipse beauty and strength in relation to the hegemonic positions we have characterized, in these broad terms, by the generic term Civilization.

13. Therefore the equation of Civilization with the self, and Nature with the not-self is broadly a valid one, even though the female forms of Civilization, being objective, will be secondary to the female forms of Nature, which condition psychic determinism, while the male forms of Civilization, being subjective, will be primary to the male forms of Nature, thereby conditioning natural determinism.

14. Now this is so, with different and even antithetical ratios, of both sensuality and sensibility, except that the hegemonic positions of a given gender in either context will condition, to a large extent, the fates of the subordinate gender, making them less like themselves and more akin to shadow versions of the prevailing gender, and thus to the reign of Civilization over Nature on either a bound (female) or a free (male) basis.