PSYCHOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL ASPECTS. 249 



demolishing the established castes, was a natural and serviceable one. 

 We have above traced the development of this, however, and it is now 

 full time to re-emphasize, this time of course with all scientific rela- 

 tivity instead of a dogmatic authority, the biological factors of the case, 

 and to suggest their possible service in destroying the economic falla- 

 cies at present so prevalent, and still more toward reconstituting that 

 complex and sympathetic cooperation between the differentiated sexes 

 in and around which all progress past or future must depend. Instead 

 of men and women merely laboring to produce things as the past 

 economic theories insisted, or competing over the distribution of them, 

 as we at present think so important, a further swing of economic 

 theory will lead us round upon a higher spiral to the direct organic 

 facts. So it is not for the sake of production or distribution, of self- 

 interest or mechanism, or any other idol of the economists, that the 

 male organism organizes the climax of his life's struggle and labor, 

 but for his mate; as she, and then he, also for their little ones. Pro- 

 duction is for consumption; the species is its own highest, its sole 

 essential product. The social order will clear itself, as it comes more 

 in touch with biology. 



It is equally certain that the two sexes are complementary and 

 mutually dependent. Virtually asexual organisms, like Bacteria, 

 occupy no high place in Nature's roll of honor; virtually unisexual 

 organisms, like many rotifers, are great rarities. Parthenogenesis 

 may be an organic ideal, but it is one which has failed to realize itself. 

 Males and females, like the sex-elements, are mutually dependent, and 

 that not merely because they are males and females, but also in func- 

 tions not directly associated with those of sex. But to dispute whether 

 males or females are the higher, is like disputing the relative superior- 

 ity of animals or plants. Each is higher in its own way, and the two 

 are complementary. 



While there are broad general distinctions between the intellectual, 

 and especially the emotional, characteristics of males and females 

 among the higher animals, these not unfrequently tend to become 

 mingled. There is, however, no evidence that they might be gradually 

 obliterated. The seahorse, the obstetric frog, many male birds, are 

 certainly maternal; while a few females fight for the males, and are 

 stronger, or more passionate than their mates. But these are rarities. 

 It is generally true that the males are more active, energetic, eager, 

 passionate, and variable; the females more passive, conservative, slug- 

 gish, and stable. The males, or to return to the terms of our thesis, 

 the more katabolic organisms, are more variable, and therefore, as 

 Brooks has especially emphasized, are very frequently the leaders in 

 evolutionary progress, while the more anabolic females tend rather to 



