354 Dr Barry on the Unity of Structure 



state. But does it warrant the conclusion, which Meckel seems 

 to draw, that females are scarcely more than imperfectly deve- 

 loped males ? Female bees may rest in an imperfect stage, so 

 that their sex is not obvious : by treatment, they become pro- 

 claimed as females : but, we ask, would any further treatment 

 make them males? 



Yet it is not easy to conceive that Meckel intended the ex- 

 pressions used, for literal acceptation. Perhaps this proposition 

 is to be regarded as not less susceptible of a modified applica- 

 tion, than the one alluded to before. 



Sexual characters bespeak properties that are innate ; though, 

 from being nearly the last that make their appearance in deve- 

 lopment, they are among the least established, and therefore 

 very liable to vary. The sexual character has been said to 

 stand between the character of the species, and the special or 

 particular character of the individual being.* This is true, in 

 as far as specific characters manifest themselves prior to those 

 of sex, and those of sex prior to the last touches, stamping the 

 individual character ; yet it must not be forgotten, that through- 

 out development, all innate properties^ from those common to 

 animals in general, down to those distinguishing the species 

 and the sex, are modified in their individual reappearance by 

 individuality. 



Now, just as parts of structure common to the class are, in 

 essential character, fundamentally the same ; so are those com- 

 mon to an order, family, genus, and species.-^ The sexual or- 

 gans, also, are in both the sexes of a species, in essential cha- 

 racter fundamentally the same;! just as vertebrce are fundamen- 

 tally the same in all the Vertebrata. Male and female organs 



* Valentin, 1. c. p. 594. 



t It is only individual peculiarities, that are shared with no other being. 



$ An interesting proof of this occurs in the Order Marsupialia. Males 

 have not, of course, a marsupium or pouch, unless in a rudimental form ; but 

 they have the marsupial bones. We need not, however, go for illustrations 

 beyond the human race ; in which the males have rudimental mammae. 



These examples will serve further to illustrate an explanation offered in 

 the former memoir, regarding another branch of our subject (p. 140), viz. 

 that rudimental structures seem to answer no other purpose than the ful- 

 filment of the law, requiring that a fundamental or general type shall uni- 

 formly manifest itself before the appearance of one subordinate thereto, and 

 special. 



