GENERAL ADAPTATION 29 



connected with adaptations of other organs and the 

 whole individual, it will be interesting to read what 

 Virchow says, in a pamphlet entitled The Cell and 

 Woman, which I find quoted by Haeckel : * 



" Woman is only woman through her glands of 

 generation. All the characteristics of her body, 

 her soul, her life of nutrition, her nervous activity, 

 her delicacy, the roundness of her form, the narrow- 

 ness of her pelvis, the development of her thorax 

 cavity accompanied by a paralysis in the develop- 

 ment of the organ of the voice, her luxuriant hair, 

 contrasting with the finest down which covers the 

 rest of her body, and finally the intensity of her 

 feelings, her rapid and accurate perception, her 

 sweetness, abnegation, and fidelity, and all the 

 essentially feminine characteristics which we admire 

 and venerate in woman, all depend on the ovary. 

 Do away with the ovary, and the virago will appear 

 in all her horrible imperfection." 



This same correlation between the functions of 

 nutrition and generation is seen in plants. When 

 a certain quantity of leaves or branches are taken 

 from them the flowers are more plentiful ; or, on 

 the contrary, when branches meant to flower are 

 cut, the green organs of the plant are more 

 developed. 



This is a sort of preparation for the better under- 



1 Histoirn de la Creation naturelle, p. 217. 



