twins

68:6.8The early races of­ten re­sorted to prac­tices de­signed to re­strict pop­u­la­tion; all prim­i­tive tribes killed de­formed and sickly chil­dren. Girl ba­bies were fre­quently killed be­fore the times of wife pur­chase. Chil­dren were some­times stran­gled at birth, but the fa­vorite method was ex­po­sure. The fa­ther of twins usu­ally in­sisted that one be killed since mul­ti­ple births were be­lieved to be caused ei­ther by magic or by in­fi­delity. As a rule, how­ever, twins of the same sex were spared. While these taboos on twins were once well-nigh uni­ver­sal, they were never a part of the An­don­ite mores; these peo­ples al­ways re­garded twins as omens of good luck.

62:3.1Early in the ca­reer of the dawn mam­mals, in the tree­top abode of a su­pe­rior pair of these ag­ile crea­tures, twins were born, one male and one fe­male. Com­pared with their an­ces­tors, they were re­ally hand­some lit­tle crea­tures. They had lit­tle hair on their bod­ies, but this was no dis­abil­ity as they lived in a warm and equable cli­mate.

111:4.6Snow crys­tals are al­ways hexag­o­nal in form, but no two are ever alike. Chil­dren con­form to types, but no two are ex­actly alike, even in the case of twins. Per­son­al­ity fol­lows types but is al­ways unique.

62:3.10Soon af­ter the com­ple­tion of their home, this cou­ple, vet­er­ans of so many strug­gles, found them­selves the proud par­ents of twins, the most in­ter­est­ing and im­por­tant an­i­mals ever to have been born into the world up to that time, for they were the first of the new species of Pri­mates con­sti­tut­ing the next vi­tal step in pre­hu­man evo­lu­tion.

62:4.1Go­ing back to the birth of the su­pe­rior twins, one male and one fe­male, to the two lead­ing mem­bers of the mid-mam­mal tribe: These an­i­mal ba­bies were of an un­usual or­der; they had still less hair on their bod­ies than their par­ents and, when very young, in­sisted on walk­ing up­right. Their an­ces­tors had al­ways learned to walk on their hind legs, but these Pri­mates twins stood erect from the be­gin­ning. They at­tained a height of over five feet, and their heads grew larger in com­par­i­son with oth­ers among the tribe. While early learn­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with each other by means of signs and sounds, they were never able to make their peo­ple un­der­stand these new sym­bols.

85:6.2Early man re­garded all un­usual per­sons as super­hu­man, and he so feared such be­ings as to hold them in rev­er­en­tial awe; to some de­gree he lit­er­ally wor­shiped them. Even hav­ing twins was re­garded as be­ing ei­ther very lucky or very un­lucky. Lu­natics, epilep­tics, and the fee­ble-minded were of­ten wor­shiped by their nor­mal-minded fel­lows, who be­lieved that such ab­nor­mal be­ings were in­dwelt by the gods. Priests, kings, and proph­ets were wor­shiped; the holy men of old were looked upon as in­spired by the de­i­ties.

62:3.11Con­tem­po­ra­ne­ously with the birth of these Pri­mates twins, an­other cou­ple—a pe­cu­liarly re­tarded male and fe­male of the mid-mam­mal tribe, a cou­ple that were both men­tally and phys­i­cally in­fe­rior—also gave birth to twins. These twins, one male and one fe­male, were in­dif­fer­ent to con­quest; they were con­cerned only with ob­tain­ing food and, since they would not eat flesh, soon lost all in­ter­est in seek­ing prey. These re­tarded twins be­came the found­ers of the mod­ern simian tribes. Their de­scen­dants sought the warmer south­ern re­gions with their mild cli­mates and an abun­dance of trop­i­cal fruits, where they have con­tin­ued much as of that day ex­cept for those branches which mated with the ear­lier types of gib­bons and apes and have greatly de­te­ri­o­rated in con­se­quence.