2 HEREDITY AND SEX 



females as the actors in the drama. But if we are 

 asked what advantage, if any, has resulted from 

 the process of sexual reproduction, carried out on 

 the two-sex scheme, we must confess to some un- 

 certainty. 



The most important fact that we know about living 

 matter is its inordinate power of increasing itself. If 

 all the fifteen million eggs laid by the conger eel were 

 to grow up, and in turn reproduce, in two years the 

 sea would be a wriggling mass of fish. 



A single infusorian, produced in seven days 935 de- 

 scendants. One species, stylonichia, produced in Gj/^ 

 days a mass of protoplasm weighing one kilogram. 

 At the end of 30 days, at the same rate, the number of 

 kilograms would be 1 followed by 44 zeros, or a mass of 

 protoplasm a million times larger than the volume of 

 the sun. 



Another minute organism, hydatina, produces about 

 30 eggs. At the end of a year (65 generations), if all the 

 offspring survived, they would form a sphere whose 

 limits would extend beyond the confines of the known 

 universe. 



The omnipresent English sparrow would produce in 

 20 years, if none died except from old age, so many de- 

 scendants that there would be one sparrow for every 

 square inch of the State of Illinois. Even slow- 

 breeding man has doubled his numbers in 25 years. 

 At the same rate there would in 1000 years not 

 be standing room on the surface of the earth for 

 his offspring. 



I have not gone into these calculations and will 



