674 The Theory of Sex and Sexual Genesis, (Jey, 
highest animals of the present time are functional hermaph 
dites. Says Gegenbaur : “ The hermaphrodite stage is the lowe, — 
and the condition of distinct sexes has been derived from it Tis — 
change is due to the decrease in size of one or the other orga l 
so that hermaphroditism is the precursor of sexual differentia — 
tion. This differentiation, by the reduction of one kind of s 
ual apparatus, takes place at very different stages in the develo» ‘ 
ment of the organism, and often when the sexual organs hat i 
attained a very high degree of differentiation. In these œs 
ontogeny exhibits the two kinds of organs primitively united, aat 
so causes the individual to be hermaphrodite at a certain staget 
development” (Compar. Anat., Eng. ed., 1878, p. 54): But this 
general hypothesis becomes inconsistent with the facts when cr 
ried out in its application to the higher vertebrate animals. kti 
in the highest animals that the most perfectly formed rome l 
are found, in each sex, of the sexual organs that in wr 
oped or functional state are proper to the opposite sex alone. # 
they are reduced representatives of organs that were once p 
tional, those organs must have been functional in animals of : 
perpetuate their species by a complete functional 
of the sexes, at the present time, should have been pe 
to do so as hermaphrodites at a former period. In 
place, the whole morphological type of the reproduc 
of either sex in any species of the higher anit 
both rudimentary and developed sexual organs, S°" i 
up a full complement of the developed sexual o “ 
sexes. Referring to the higher animals, > ‘dual OP 
hermaphrodite was defined by the ancients as yE of both ext. 
ble of fulfilling by turns the reproductive pra a male 
or at least one who simultaneously possessed ver, is 
female organs fully developed; such a being aie "a as 
only unknown among the authentic det pee of asi 
physically impossible in man and the higher the be 
without extensive alterations in the connections 
