THE NATURAL 



CHAPTER VIII 



LOVE-ORGANS 



Sexual dimorphism and parallelism. Sexual organs oj 

 man and oj woman. Constancy oj sexual parallelism 

 in the animal series. External sexual organs oj placen- 

 tary mammijera. Form and position oj the penis. 

 The penial bone. The clitoris. The vagina. The 

 teats. Forked prong oj marsupials. Sexual organs o] 

 reptiles. Fish and birds with a penial organ Genital 

 organs oj arthropodes. Attempt to classify animals 

 according to the disposition, presence, absence oj ex- 

 terior organs for reproduction. 



SEXUAL dimorphism, physic as well as psychic, has 

 evidently one sole cause, sex; nevertheless the organs 

 which differ least from male and female among species 

 which differ most, are precisely the sexual organs. That 

 is, they are rigorously made the one for the other, and 

 the accord in this case must be not only harmonic, but 

 mechanical and mathematical. They are cog-wheels which 

 must bite one on the other with exactitude, be it, as in 

 birds, that there is but an exact superposition of two 

 orifices, be it, as in mammals that the key must enter 

 the keyhole. There is a dimorphism, but it is that of the 

 mould to the cast, of the scabbard to the blade; for the 

 parts where the contact is less strict, the parallelism id 

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