128 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



We will now attack the problem in a somewhat 

 different way, even though it may involve some repeti- 

 tion. We shall avail ourselves of that most interesting 

 and important work by Messrs. Geddes and Thomson, 

 " The Evolution of Sex." l We must not allow senti- 

 mental or prudish ideas to prevent our approaching 

 the problem fearlessly the issues are too serious for 

 this. 2 



Everyone is aware that in Organic Nature the almost 



uniform fact is : There must be two sexes, male and 



female, in order to have a development of an offspring 



but not always, indeed, in the lower forms of life the 



the one task is widely different from that in which she has undertaken 

 the other. To her investigations in biology, science has brought a 

 single-minded devotion to the truth, a clear judgment, and a mind 

 absolutely unfettered by prejudice or bias." (" Social Evolution," 

 Benjamin Kidd, 1895, p. 19.) 



This statement is literally true, and curiously enough this depart- 

 ment of science seems the exception in its aims. Not so physical 

 science ; this department has largely given itself up to commercial 

 enterprise ; useful as it is, it is not however the highest aim of 

 science. How biologists wish for the help of the physicist 

 can hardly be better expressed than in the following words : 

 " Berthold's book on ' Protoplasmic Mechanics,' shows how the bio- 

 logist persistently seeks the aid of the student of physics in his 

 endeavour to explain the architecture of the living organism." (" The 

 Evolution of Sex," Prof. Geddes and Thomson, 1889, p. 223.) 



It is to be hoped that pages 53 to 67 in this work have successfully 

 put in this link the biologist so earnestly desires. 



1 London : published by Walter Scott, 1889. This work is a 

 vast compilation from many observers, and is written more free from 

 technical words than usual. 



2 " It is customary to mark off the reproductive and sexual func- 

 tions as facts altogether per se. Modesty defeats itself in pruriency, 

 and good taste runs to the extreme of putting a premium upon 

 ignorance." (" Evolution of Sex," p. 127.) 



