THE STRUGGLE FOB THE LIFE OF OTHERS. 255 



nothing does so more there will "be a growing dif- 

 ference, as time begins to accumulate the effects, be- 

 tween the organization and life-habit of male and 

 female respectively. In the male, destructive processes, 

 a preponderance of waste over repair, will prevail ; the 

 result will be a katabolic habit of body ; in the female 

 the constructive processes will be in the ascendant, 

 occasioning an opposite or anabolic habit. Translated 

 into less technical language, this means that the pre- 

 dominating note in the male will be energy, motion, 

 activity ; while passivity, gentleness, repose, will char- 

 acterize the female. These words, let it be noticed, 

 psychical though they seem, are yet here the coinages 

 of physiology. No other terms indeed would describe 

 the difference. Thus Geddes and Thomson : " The 

 female cochineal insect, laden with reserve-products in 

 the form of the well-known pigment, spends much of 

 its life like a mere quiescent gall on the cactus plant. 

 The male, on the other hand, in his adult state, is 

 agile, restless, and short-lived. Now this is no mere 

 curiosity of the entomologist, but in reality a vivid 

 emblem of what is an average truth throughout the 

 world of animals the preponderating passivity of the 

 females, the freedomness and activity of the males." 

 Rolph's words, because he writes neither of men nor 

 of animals, but goes back to the furthest recess of 

 Nature and characterizes the cell itself, are still more 

 significant : " The less nutritive and therefore smaller, 

 hungrier, and more mobile organism is the male ; 

 the more nutritive and usually more quiescent is the 

 female." 



Now what do these facts indicate? They indicate 

 that maleness is one thing and femaleness another, 



