420 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF [Sess. lvi. 



fusion of the male or female elements, or what I shall call 

 reciprocal integration without loss of molecular identity, or 

 as it is commonly called, to ' fertilisation.' Fertilisation is a 

 reciprocal restoration of the equilibrium between the chro- 

 matin or nucleoplasm and the cytoplasm of Ijoth ovum and 

 spermatozoon ; this takes place not with accompanying mole- 

 cular disintegration, but by actual fusion of both elements 

 without the sacrifice of the molecular identity of either. 



" Mutual digestion is not possil)le, for both elements are 

 already composed of similar molecules. This molecular 

 similarity constitutes the means through which the hereditary 

 traits and tendencies of the male and female are transmitted " 

 (p. 155). " The one sex appears to supply the held for 

 segmentational activity [the ovum], the other the segmenta- 

 tional impulse itself " [the spermatozoon] (p. 140). 



Hartog seems to hold that the essential factor in fertilisa- 

 tion is the transplantation of a new nucleus into the ovum, 

 to avert the dangers of over-stimulation of either sexual 

 nucleus by its own cytoplasm. That this hypothesis is not 

 likely I have already mentioned above. 



My conception as to the Origin of Sex is based upon 

 views to which I have been led by the study of cell- 

 structure. 



It will have Ijecome apparent tliat I consider the plasm 

 of a cell to be achromatic ; that further, the stainability of 

 a cell by ordinary anilin dyes, carmine, h;ematoxylin, &c., is 

 merely due to food-materials in various degrees of transition 

 into achromatic substance. The chromatin-segments of the 

 nucleus would then be organs consisting of an achromatic 

 network, in the interstices of which food-materials in a pro- 

 cess of transformation are being stored (fig. 48, clir.). 



The nucleolus would either be an organ for the further 

 transformation of substances already elaborated by the 

 nucleus, or simply a storehouse for food-material, which has 

 been already transformed by the nucleus into substances 

 directly available for the nourishment of the achromatic 

 elements of the cell. 



I have been also led to the conclusion that the achromatic 

 frameworks of the various organs of a cell will vary from 

 one another, inasmuch as they have undergone specialisation 

 according to the functions which they have to perform. 



