THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIFE OF OTHERS 319 



universe. Undoubtedly sex then had physio- 

 logical advantages ; but when in a later day the 

 ethical advantages become visible, and rise to such 

 significance that the higher world nearly wholly 

 rests dpon them, we are entitled, as viewing the 

 world from that higher level, to have our own 

 suspicions as to a deeper motive underlying the 

 physical. 



Apart from bare necessity, it is further remark- 

 able that no very clear advantage of the sex- 

 distinction has yet been made out by Science. 

 Hensen and Van Beneden are able to see in con- 

 jugation no more than a Verjiingung or rejuven- 

 escence of the species. The living machinery in 

 its wearing activities runs down and has to be 

 wound up again ; to keep life going some fresh 

 impulse must be introduced from time to time; or 

 the protoplasm, exhausting itself, seeks restoration in 

 fertilization and starts afresh.^ To Hatschek it is 

 a remedy against the action of injurious variations; 

 while to Weismann it is simply the source of 

 variations. " I do not know," says the latter, 

 " what meaning can be attributed to sexual repro- 

 duction other than the creation of hereditary indi- 

 vidual characters to form the material on which 

 natural selection may work. Sexual reproduction 



^Geddes and Thomson, The Evolution of Sex, p. 163. 



