TABOO AND GENETICS 75 



Even this ignores the primary consideration 

 in the sex problem in society, the first of the 

 following two parts into which the whole problem 

 may be divided : (i) How to guarantee the 

 survival of the group through reproduction of 

 a sufficient number of capable individuals ; and 

 (2) How to make the most economical use of 

 the remaining energies, first in winning nutrition 

 and protection from the environment, second 

 in pursuing the distinctly human values over 

 and above survival. The sex problem as a 

 whole is concerned with adjusting two different 

 general types of individuals, male and female, 

 to the complicated business of such group life 

 or society. The differences between these two 

 sex-types being fundamentally functional, the 

 best way to get at them is to trace the respective 

 and unlike life cycles. 



We have already shown in rude outline how 

 a difference (apparently chemical) between two 

 fertilized eggs starts them along two different 

 lines of development in the embr3^onic stage. 

 One develops the characteristic male primary 

 and secondary sex characters, the other the 

 female. Throughout the embryonic or intra- 

 maternal stage this differentiation goes on, 

 becoming more and more fixed as it expresses 

 itself in physical structures. Childhood is only 

 a continuation of this development — physically 

 separate from the mother after the period of 



