1890.] 117 [Ryder. 



female by the male, and one of the causes of the genesis of sexual pas- 

 sion as interpreted farther on. Sexual passion, which accompanies the 

 highest forms of reproduction, finally becomes functional in this intricate 

 series of superimposed processes as a means tending to maintain the fertil- 

 ity of all the females of a species at its highest point of efficiency, and thus 

 reacts as an aid in the survival of species. The superabundant fertility of 

 the male renders the possibility of the conjugation of the male and female 

 elements more certain, under the favor of the various devices which have 

 been evolved to effect that process, and thus again be the means of assur- 

 ing reproduction and the survival of the species. 



The necessary correlation of the male and female is probably secondary. 

 In my view, that the flagellate forms are the oldest, since they are cer- 

 tainly the simplest and minutest, the male element represents, morpho- 

 logically, a perpetuation of the most primitive form of organized existence. 

 Through cumulative integration the germ elements, which would other- 

 wise have tended to break down into flagellate germs, have, on the 

 contrary, been impelled to grow to large dimensions as ova, through the 

 rapid access of nutriment to them, which probably prevented their cyto- 

 plasm from having time to elaborate nucleoplasm and chromatin, and thus 

 become male. in character. The male element is certainly the most 

 ancient, the female is a secondary and later product of evolution. The 

 correlation of the male and female was, therefore, secondary ; the male 

 elements represent, morphologically, the primordial asexual type. The 

 primitive representative of the male element was at one time " maternal," 

 through simple fission and a capacity for growth ; it became " paternal " 

 through conjugation. Sexuality was the outcome of the unequal growth 

 of germ-cells of the same species, induced by the self- regulative influences 

 exerted by internal physiological conditions operating under the influence 

 of varying external conditions. The determination of the sex of an 

 embyro has depended in some way upon a tendency, early established 

 through some internal equilibration of the forces of growth, in response 

 to outer conditions of nutrition, etc. There is no conclusive evidence 

 tending to show that the sex of an embryo is predetermined in the egg ; 

 on the contrary, much evidence exists tending to show that the sex of an 

 embryo may be influenced by an increase or diminution of the supply of 

 food. 



It is a curious circumstance to note that many writers on sex seem to 

 have failed to see that the sexual cells of multicellular forms were func 

 tionless, in that they exercise no physiological function which is essential 

 to the life of the parent organism. In that such functionless cells could 

 not disintegrate their substance through the active metabolism which 

 obtained in respect to all the other cells of the body, in consequence of the 

 action of the principle of cumulative integration or assimilation beyond the 

 current physiological needs of the body, they must either increase enor- 

 mously in size and become ova, or run down as a result of rapid karyokinesis 

 into minute male elements which are rapidly dehisced and set free. It is 



