94 SEX 



us not treat this characteristic as if it were 

 altogether and hopelessly mysterious. Without 

 straying far from our present path, we may 

 recall some of the possibilities. Fluctuations 

 in the nutritive stream may evoke responsive 

 changes in the germ-cells. The opportunities 

 afforded in maturation and fertilisation may 

 bring about a shuffling of the chromosome 

 cards. External changes may serve as varia- 

 tional stimuli to the highly complex germ- 

 plasm. 



Going deeper, perhaps, we recall what 

 Spencer, for instance, emphasised, and what 

 the progress of chemistry since his day has 

 made even more vivid, the tendency in matter 

 to complexify. Perhaps the living unit, 

 which we know as the germ-cell, utilises this 

 complexifying tendency in a progressive 

 differentiation of its own. It is important at 

 all events to remember that a sex-cell is not 

 an ordinary detached cell, it is a gamete, 

 an individuality condensed ; and just as an 

 intact organism from Amoeba to Elephant 

 tries experiments, so it may be that the 

 implicit organism of the germ-cell tries ex- 

 periments which we call variations. 



SUGGESTION AS TO MODE OF ORIGIN OF 

 SEX-CHARACTERS. Let us suppose that a 

 germ-cell already predisposed to develop 

 into a female is the seat of a variation in the 

 hereditary constituent corresponding to the 

 future ovary. Let us suppose that this 

 variation is in the direction of producing 

 an accessory yolk-gland. In the course of 

 development the variation, if consistent with 

 the rest of the constitution, is actualised and 



