246 THE THEORY OF THE GENE 



females, on Goldschmidt 's view, if the female factors are 

 in the W-chromosome. 



Before leaving Goldschmidt 's theories a very interest- 

 ing suggestion that he has made to account for the mosaic 

 character of the intersexes must be mentioned. The inter- 

 sex consists of parts that are male and parts that are 

 female — patches of each. Now Goldschmidt suggests that 

 this is brought about by a difference of time at which the 

 male and the female parts are determined in the embryo. 

 Expressed in a different way, one may say that in certain 

 combinations of the sex factors of the racial hybrid- 

 intersexes, the individual starts as a male. The organs of 

 the embryo that are the first to be laid down are therefore 

 male-like. In later stages, the female factors overtake 

 and surpass the male-producing ones, so that the later 

 stages of the embryo are like the female. Hence the 

 mosaic characters for this one class of intersexes. 



Conversely, in the reciprocal type the embryo starts 

 under the influence of the female factors, and the first 

 parts of the embryo to be laid down are female-like. In 

 later stages the male-producing factors overtake and sur- 

 pass the female tendencies, and male organs develop. 



This is his theory in broad outline. When examined in 

 detail doubts arise, since it is bound up with assumptions 

 concerning enzymes that are philosophical rather than 

 chemical. Moreover, the male- and the female-producing 

 factors are identified as the genes themselves. Such an 

 interpretation of the process is at present purely specu- 

 lative. Furthermore, his basal assumption, namely, that 

 whichever enzyme starts first, it is overtaken later by the 



55 chromosomes. The absence of one chromosome, presumably the W, pro- 

 duces no visible changes in the character of the female. That the missing 

 chromosome is really a sex-chromosome and not an autosome is highly 

 probable from the fact that individuals lacking it are always females. 



