JuNE 4, 1914] 
NATURE 
347 
to refer this or that movement to purely physio- 
logical, or purely psychological, or purely 
economic factors is a false abstraction. 
Of great interest and value, as it seems to us, 
is the author’s contribution to the theory of 
exogamy and totemism. In a discussion with 
Dr. Frazer—a model expression of vigorous differ- 
ence of opinion—Mr. Heape maintains that the 
origin of exogamy, the cause from which the 
habit arose, is to be looked for in “the natural 
desire of the male to seek for his mate outside his 
own family or clan; while totemism, in so far as 
it is a more or less elaborate system of restricting 
the wanderings of the errant male, was probably 
derived from the opposite sex.” To the male the 
sexual gratification is of more moment; the 
strange woman is more stimulating; hence exo- 
gamy. To the female the consequences of sexual 
consummation are of more moment; she is at 
heart a mother with a family; hence totemism, a 
product of the feminine imagination, which has 
aided enormously in the consolidation of the 
family. According to Dr. Frazer, .it was 
ignorance of. the physical significance of paternity 
that the primitive: mother explained to herself the 
quickening of the child in her womb as due to the 
entrance of a child-spirit from some external object 
a tree or fruit, a beast or bird—the totem. 
Mr. Heape points out the difficulties in the way 
of accepting this theory, and especially the diffi- 
culty of believing in a primitive ignorance of the 
part the male plays in generation. He suggests 
that the superstition was the outcome of the 
pregnant mother’s desire, hope, and finally belief 
that the virtue of something she admired in the 
outer world might pass into her child and endow 
it. This is, of course, the merest indication of 
the author’s thesis, which is admirably defended. 
(4) Mr. F. W. Ash propounds the view that 
male secondary characters are, in general, charac- 
ters of “abandoned function,” corresponding to 
parts which were functional and developed in both 
sexes in the comparatively recent ancestry; they 
develop in the adult male because there is nutritive 
material to spare, they do not develop in the 
female because “the surplus growth energy is 
more directly diverted to provide for a fresh 
generation.” The first part of this theory corre- 
sponds to the view of Tandler, Grosz, and 
Kammerer, that’ sex characters are derived from 
systematic characters once common to both sexes ; 
the second part of the theory corresponds to the 
much-discussed ‘“‘surplusage theory” of Hesse 
and Doflein. Towards the end of his paper the 
author maintains that the differences between the 
sexes depend on. differences in nutrition—which 
favour anabolic or katabolic preponderance—an 
NO. 2327, VOL. 93| 
in 
interpretation argued for by the authors of ‘The 
Evolution of Sex” (1889), and recently rehabili- 
tated by others. 
(5) If one wishes a descriptive account of the 
facts of sex, brought well up to date, one has it in 
Prof. Caullery’s volume. He discusses’ the 
gametes, hermaphroditism, sex dimorphism, 
sexual selection, castration, internal secretions, 
the determination of sex, Mendelism and sex, 
parthenogenesis, sex and asexual multiplication, 
sex in plants, and sex in the simplest organisms. 
We are not impressed with the arrangement of 
the book (the author has his own views on this 
subject), but we are impressed with its clearness, 
carefulness, and scepticism. It almost overdoes 
objectivity, and we are not left with an evolutionist 
picture—probably because the author thinks the 
times are not ripe. He is convinced, however, 
that sex is an aspect of the whole organism— 
dependent primarily, though not always finally, 
on the physico-chemical constitution of the fertil- 
ised ovum; and he leaves us with the conundrum : 
Does the germ determine the sex of the soma, or 
does the sex of the soma determine the differentia- 
tion of the germ? The answer is that the ques- 
tion is wrongly put. 
(6) Prof. T. H. Morgan seeks to link together 
the results of experimental and _ cytological 
analysis. Some of his general positions may be 
summed up:—Sexual reproduction has been 
utilised in evolution in the building up of new 
combinations, but it does not furnish materials for 
progressive advance; sex determination depends 
on an internal mechanism, which appears to be 
the same as that which regulates the distribution 
of Mendelian characters ; sex is due, like any other 
character, to some factor or determiner contained 
in the sex chromosomes, of such a kind that when 
present in duplex it turns the scale so that a female 
organism results, and that when present in sim- 
plex, a male results; sex-linked characters, while 
following Mendel’s principle of segregation, are 
also undeniably associated with the mechanism 
of sex—that is, with the behaviour of the chromo- 
somes at the time of the formation of the germ- 
cells; Darwin’s theory of sexual selection is open 
to serious criticism, for there is no clear proof 
of choice, and there is lack of evidence that selec- 
tion could effect the sex differences, which may be 
due to mutations; the secondary sex characters 
are not all on the same footing (in insects, for 
instance, their development is independent of the 
_ reproductive organs), and it is not likely that their 
evolution can be explained by any one theory. 
The author also deals with gynandromorphism, 
hermaphroditism, and special cases of sex inherit- 
ance; and one of the most valuable chapters in 
