Kyder.J ^ 158 [May 16, 



tion," is an asexual method of reproduction superimposed or blended with 

 another in which the last evolved sexual element has been hypertrophied 

 as an ovum. The exhaustion of the central controlling mass of nucleo- 

 plasm or chromatin after expulsion of the polar bodies, together with the 

 great size of the egg, has rendered it passive. The recurrence of the 

 minute flagellate condition as "male" has rendered the male element 

 active. 



29. Male and female "sexual " products were at first and still continue 

 to be dehisced as useless products of overassimilation or as a consequence 

 of the cumulative action of integration, after further recapitulative 

 growth in the form of new axes or individuals, growing in organic union, 

 as in colonial organisms, became impossible, due to crowding, the culmi- 

 nation of seasonal growth or the morphological specialization leading to 

 definite or constant formal individuality. 



30. The "setting aside" of germ plasma must therefore be attributed 

 to the direct action of cumulative integration, and cannot logically be 

 considered as a "device " through which the immortality-isolation of ger- 

 minal matter was to be achieved as a purpose or end. 



31. Continuity of growth as continuously maintained through the phys- 

 ical capacity for living matter to increase its mass, was the primary factor 

 in divergent evolution. The first step which it effected in adaptation was 

 the necessity for segmentation either with or without karyokinesis, accord- 

 ing to the law of Leuckart and Spencer. As soon as coherent, successive 

 segmentations became possible, the first stage of which is seen in Volvox, 

 the first step of morphological differentiation also conformed directly to 

 the requirements of external conditions in that a blastula form was 

 assumed which gave the maximum of surface in combination with the 

 simplest form of coherence which could be developed through successive 

 a?nd simultaneous coherent processes of cleavage. 



32. Sexuality, parthenogenesis, the extrusion of the polar bodies, larval 

 development and the direct divergence of all higher types from the 

 oosperm, are some of the effects of continuous growth as caused by con- 

 tinuous cumulative integration working under diverse conditions and the 

 capacity to make direct adaptive responses. 



33. The available evidence tends to show that sex is not predetermined 

 in the egg, but is dependent upon internal conditions and correlations of 

 metabolic activity within an embryo, so that sex may very often be influ- 

 enced directly by the regulation of the food-supply long after develop, 

 ment has begun. 



34. The polar bodies are a phylogenetic reminiscence of the asexual or 

 male flagellate state. There is not the slightest evidence to show that 

 they are other than one of the manifold effects of continuous growth im- 

 pelled to proceed as supposed above. They can certainly not be identified 



