CHAPTER XXXII 

 SEXUALITY 



ONE of the oldest known facts of natural history is the 

 necessity at least, among the higher animals of the inter- 

 vention of two progenitors for the production of a new indi- 

 vidual. Rabbit, crow, or lizard, though living and endowed 

 with assimilation, can never reproduce itself when alone. 

 In other words, there does not exist in these animals one 

 single histological element which, separated from the parent 

 body, can assimilate in the surrounding medium and build 

 up, in virtue of the morpho-biological theorem, a new being 

 like to the preceding. 



In such beings the elements called reproductive or genital 

 are impotent of themselves, incapable of assimilation. But 

 there exist in every higher species two types generally very 

 distinct externally, man and woman, stag and doe, cock 

 and hen in one word, male and female, such that the 

 genital element of the male is the complement of that of 

 the female. The fusion of these two elements of opposite 

 sex elements either of which is incapable of assimilation 

 gives an egg capable of assimilation, the starting point of a 

 new individual. And this fusion, which is the essential 

 factor in fecundity, is facilitated by the very general fact 

 that the female element attracts to itself the male element. 



In animals of lower organization like the snail, leech, 

 earth worm, the same individual produces at the same time 



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