Origin of Sex. 305 



the size and workmanship of the body. Among some of the protozoa, 

 the interval is nil where there is no body, and it runs up to days or 

 weeks or longer where there is one. But all this time, long or short, is 

 not lost. While the greatest activity appears to pertain to the develop- 

 ment of the body, there is yet a very important sub-activity in connec- 

 tion with the reproductive elements. The body itself ( of the next gen- 

 eration ) is to be reproduced, and, therefore, since it cannot reproduce 

 itself it must be done in connection with the separated sexual elements. 

 That is, the sexual elements constitute a nucleus the nucleus of a crys- 

 tal, let us say around which the modifying influences of the body are 

 thrown. So, while the sexual elements possess their hereditary bent or 

 crystalline constitution, it is but little if any more than a protozoan con- 

 stitution, until they receive the reinforcement of body elements and the 

 directive influence of body currents which cannot, of course, happen un- 

 til there is a body. So we may suppose the interval of time under con- 

 sideration, is employed in reinforcing the semi-protozoan hereditary sex- 

 ual elements, with the piggish, doggish, cattish or mannish elements of 

 the body, as they are severally growing into their own definite charac- 

 ters. This modification of the hereditary stock, by the body, continues 

 as long as it lives in such body. When the germ is turned out from an 

 old body to become the basis of a new one, the modifying elements it 

 received in the old, unfold in the formation of the tissues of the new. 



In connection with the hereditary sexual elements organs called glands 

 are always formed ; viz. , testes and ovaries. 



These organs appear, in the lowest sexual animals, to be formed by the 

 sexual cells themselves, and when reproduction is to be accomplished, one 

 cell detached from one such organ is a spermatozoon, and one detached 

 from another one is an ovum. While, as mentioned above, among many 

 simple animals the sexual elements are directly hereditary by means of 

 cells, one generation of cells begetting another, indefinitely, this has 

 not been observed to be a universal rule. Some biologists think that 

 although not actually seen and traced it must, nevertheless, be the rule 

 in all cases. Others hold that the continuity of the sexual elements is 

 through a perpetuation of a germ-plasma. In all probability both par- 

 ties are right. If we go back to our Protomyxa again for illustration, 

 we observe that part of the time it is a cyst or cell, and part of the time 

 it is in the shape of a " plasmodium, " which is entirely comparable with 

 a "germ-plasma." There is no violence to known facts in the hypoth- 

 esis that during the preparatory interval discussed above, the sexual 

 elements are in many cases in the condition of a germ-plasma, and a part 

 of this material is used to construct the sexual gland. When maturity 

 is reached the unused part of this plasma serves as a guiding agency in 

 the molecular arrangement of the elements of new germ-plasm secreted 



