this subject, or has treated it in a more interesting manner, than Mi 

 Roussel, in an excellent work entitled, Syateme physique ct morale de la 

 femme. 



XCIX. Htrmaphrodism. Hermaphrodism 9 or the union of the two 

 sexes in the same individual, is impossible in man, and in the numerous 

 class of red-blooded animals* There is, on record, no well authenticated 

 case of such a combination^ and all the hermaphrodites, that have been 

 hitherto met with, were beings imperfectly formed ; in whom imperfect 

 male organs, or female organs unnaturally enlarged, rendered the sex du- 

 bious. None was ever found that had the power, by itself, of begetting 

 a similar being to itself: the greater number were incapable of reproduc- 

 tion : the imperfection, or the faulty conformation of their organs, con- 

 demned them to barrenness. Such was the case with the hermaphrodite 

 mentioned by Petit Namur, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences; 

 with that one whose case is related by Maret, in the Memoirs of the Aca- 

 demy of Dijon, and with all those to be found in the records of the Me- 

 dical Society, which contain the greatest number of facts of this kind. 



But though, in man^ and in all beings that most resemble him, in their 

 Organization, complete hermaphrodism has never been met with, it is a 

 frequent occurrence among the white-blooded animals, and especially 

 among the plants that occupy the lowest part of the scale of organized 

 beings. The same is observed in polypi, in several kinds of worms, in 

 oysters, and snails. The latter present a singular variety of hemaphro- 

 dism, in this, that the male and female organs being combined in the 

 same individual, it is still, singly, not capable of generation, but is obliged 

 to copulate with another being likewise an hermaphrodite, so as to re- 

 ceive, from friction, and other means of irritation, the excitement of the 

 act of reproduction, 



In the immense tribe of monoecious plants, the male and female organs 

 are combined on one stalk, and even sometimes within the same flower* 

 A number of stamina surround one or more pistils, and shed on the stig- 

 ma their fertilizing dust or pollen, which is conveyed, along the canal of 

 the style, into the ovary, there to impregnate the seeds by means of which 

 the species are perpetuated, The same vegetable species containing, some- 

 times, male and female individuals, the sexes may be at considerable dis- 

 tances from one another; the seminal dust is$ in that case, conveyed by 

 the air from the male to the female. This is the case with the palm trees 

 on which Gleditsch made his tirst observations on the generation of plants; 

 hemp, spinage, mercurialis, &c, 



CC. It is a distinction of the human species that* in them, the func- 

 tions of generation are not under the influence of the seasons. The lower 

 animals, on the contrary, draw together, and pair stated periods of the 

 year, and seem afterwards to forget the enjoyments of love, that they may 

 attend to their other necessities. Thus, wolves and foxes copulate in the 

 middle of winter; deer, in autumn, most birds in spring. Man alone 

 seeks his partner at all seasons of the yearj and impregnates her under all 

 latitudes and in all temperatures. This privilege is not so much the 

 consequence of his peculiar constitution, as a result which he derives 

 from his industry) protected by the shelters which he constructs against 

 the inclemency of the seasons, and the variations of the atmosphere ; 

 always capable of gratifying his physical wants by help of the stores 

 which his foresight has led him to collect, he can at all times indulge in 

 the enjoyments of love. The domestic animals which we have, in great; 



