II.] EVOLUTION MAY PROCEED WITHOUT SEX. 69 



of pangenesis, but only stating what seems to me to be 

 a valid objection to the fundamental constitution of the 

 Weismannian hypothesis — that it is quite as easy to 

 assume, from the argument, one interpretation of the 

 process or means of heredity as another. And if there 

 is any vital connection whatever between the soma- 

 plasm and the germ -plasm — as the hypothesis itself must 

 admit — then why cannot the soma -plasm directly influ- 

 ence the germ -plasm? 



Again, I wish to point out that modification and 

 evolution of vegetable species may and does proceed 

 wholly without the interposition of sex — that is, by 

 propagations through cuttings or layers of various 

 parts. This proves either one of two things — that the 



and gives rise to a secondary generation which discharges tlie office of sperm, it 

 is still all contained in the stamen ; and the stamen is, in the broad sense of com- 

 mon language, a sexual member, because its entire office is the discharge of the 

 paternal relation. It is as much a member or organ of sex as the root is an organ 

 of nutrition. The meaning of the sex-process has not been materially changed 

 by the recent studies. " Male " and " female " never did and never can be made 

 to express strict morphological homologies. An organ of an animal or a plant is 

 male if it exercises the functions of paternity and not of maternity. The stamen 

 is such an organ. Its entire office is that of maleness. The attempt to restrict 

 the terms male and female to the ultimate sexual process seems to me to be un- 

 warranted and hypercritical. It is interesting to observe that the morphologists 

 fall into the very pit which they have digged, when they talk of male and female 

 prothalli. Surely the prothallus is no more sexual than a stamen or a leaf. 

 The egg-cell and the male cell are the sexual organs, unless we choose to carry 

 the purism to the physiological units; and since these organs soon disappear, as 

 such, it follows that we cannot apply the terms "male," "female," "sex," and 

 the like, to plants, save in the very brief period during which impregnation is 

 taking place. This practically means that we must eliminate any reference to 

 sexuality in all untechnical speech about plants, and the result would contribute 

 to anything but clearness. 



The common language of sex has always dealt in analogies. There are per- 

 fectly good and sufficient technical terms to designate the homologies and the 

 ultimate physiological processes. If the hypereriticism of the plant morpholo- 

 gists were to be accepted for the animal creation, pandemonium would come of 

 it. One could not speak of the members of generation as sex organs, nor of any 

 animal as male or female. 1 insist that it is perfectly proper to speak of a stam- 

 inate willow as male, because its ultimate function is paternity; if 1 cannot spenk 

 of it as a male plant, then 1 cannot call a bull a male animal. 



