[348] Arab. 'Khunsa'flexible or flaccid，from Khans=bending inwards，i.e. the mouth of a waterskin before drinking. Like Mukhannas，it is also used for an effeminate man，a passive sodomite and even for a eunuch. Easterns still believe in what Westerns know to be an impossibility，human beings with the parts and proportions of both sexes equally developed and capable of reproduction；and AlIslam even provides special rules for them （Pilgrimage iii. 237）. We hold them to be Buffon's fourth class of （duplicate） monsters belonging essentially to one or the other sex，and related to its opposite only by some few characteristics. The old Greeks dreamed，after their fashion，a beautiful poetic dream of a human animal uniting the contradictory beauties of man and woman. The duality of the generative organs seems an old Egyptian tradition，at least we find it in Genesis （i. 27） where the image of the Deity is created male and female，before man was formed out of the dust of the ground （ii. 7）. The old tradition found its way to India （if the Hindus did _disibledevent=lit. nights which，I have said，is often applied to the whole twentyfour hours. Here it is used in the sense of 'fortune'or 'fate ；'like 'days'and 'days and nights.'
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