140 THE GLANDS REGULATING PERSONALITY 



function. If the sex glands themselves fail, as occurs usually in 

 most women sometime in the forties, the thyroid-pituitary-adrenal 

 association must readjust itself to the new development. The 

 adaptation evokes the phenomena of the transition to a new life, 

 the climacteric. 



The Significance of Puberty 



Tracing the development of sex life there is a certain order of 

 events in a normal history. Before puberty, the ova have lain 

 asleep, as it were, in a cocoon state. Now with puberty they 

 awaken. And with them all those profound mechanisms and in- 

 ventions that have to do with their nutrition up to ripening. 

 Then revolve the cycles that are translated as menstruation, the 

 propulsion, fertilization and implantation of the ova in the uterus, 

 — the full development of the fetus, — its birth, and feeding after 

 birth — all of which are ductless gland controlled. 



Samuel Butler once noted that: 



"All our limbs and sensual organs, in fact, our whole body and 

 life, are but an accretion round and a fostering of the sperma- 

 tozoa. They are the real "He." A man's eyes, ears, tongue, 

 nose, legs and arms are but so many organs and tools that 

 minister to the protection, education, increased intelligence and 

 multiplication of the spermatozoa, so that our whole life is in 

 reality a series of complex efforts in respect of these, conscious 

 or unconscious according to their comparative commonness. They 

 are the central fact in our existence, the point towards which 

 all effort is directed." 



Nothing could be said more truly of Woman, and the ova she 

 carries. All that transpires during pubescence is symptomatic of 

 the underlying tidal stir in the cells. The uterus becomes gorged 

 with blood periodically, to provide an enriched soil for the perhaps 

 to be fertilized ovum to plant itself. The breasts grow, and fat 

 is deposited in particular places as reserve material for the making 

 of milk. The qualities which are to appeal to the eye and ear 

 and even nostrils of the male appear. Instincts dawn, an inde- 

 pendence of spirit germinates, emulsified with a curious shyness 

 and coyness and a desperate loneliness and secrecy. And all be- 

 cause there have been let loose in the blood from the glands of 

 internal secretion the chemical substances that set going the 

 clockwork of sequential incidents elaborated and repeated through 

 countless aeons of time. 



