Cast (reproduction)

“ The instances just surveyed, these extremes of the potentiality of procreation, are instructive in more ways than one. They are to be regarded as “excrescences” of reproduction, comparable to those “excrescences” of individual growth which we call “ornament,” for example. Individuals on whom this fertility has settled, so to speak, are the victims of the machinery of sex and reproduction. Their amazing powers of multiplication303 are not of their own seeking, they are inherent manifestations of variations of growth, uncontrollable save by the machinery of Natural Selection. ”

“ A partial transformation of the male structure makes the female. A suitable adjustment of the male organs, and the implanting of the sexual impulse in both sexes, by the agency of the gods, make provision for generative reproduction, and a species is formed, which takes the place of the primitive non-sexual type which did not reproduce itself in the original scheme. ”

“ Reproduction a group—not an individual problem. Conflict between specialization and adaptation. Intelligence makes for economy in adjustment to environment. Reproduction, not production, the chief factor in the sex problem. ”

“ In the higher families however of animal life the distinction of sex in different individuals has become [107] the universal rule, and it produces a polarity or contrast which becomes ever more conspicuous as we rise in the scale of creation, until it attains its highest development in the highest stage hitherto reached, that of civilised man and woman. Both physical and mental characteristics depend mainly on the fact that the ovary or egg-producing organ is developed in the female, and thus the whole work of reproduction is thrown on her. ”

“ In the course of specialisation of function, as I have outlined, just as other organs arose, so arose sex-differentiation. Previous to that time there was no sex. A single organism realised all potentialities, fulfilled all functions. Male and female, the creative factors, were incoherently commingled. Such an individual was both male and female. It was complete in itself,—mark this, Dane, for here individual completeness ends.
The labour of reproduction was divided, and male and female, as separate entities, came into the world. They shared the work of reproduction between them. ”

“ When sex-determination had become possible through centrifuging human sperm to separate the male-producing and female-producing types, most parents decided to have sons, especially for their firstborn. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the young never succeeded in obtaining a female, the habit of early reproduction would perhaps be sooner or later eliminated, from being superfluous and entailing waste of power. ”

“ It is a common belief that the original purpose of sex is to ensure reproduction, whereas fundamentally it is not necessary to propagation at all. It is perfectly true, of course, that [36] in the majority of animals, and also in many plants, an individual life begins in the union of two minute elements, the mother egg-cell and the sperm father-cell. But this is not the earliest stage, and below these higher forms we find a great world of life reproducing without this sex-process by simple separation and growth. ”

“ Diana as a Goddess of Fertility.—We have seen that according to a widespread belief, which is not without a foundation in fact, plants reproduce their kinds through the sexual union of male and female elements, and that on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic this reproduction is supposed to be stimulated by the real or mock marriage of men and women, who masquerade for the time being as spirits of vegetation. ”

“ It has taught us by experiment that boys come from their mother’s right side, and girls from her left side, and in a healthy mother the rhythm of sex [Pg 11] is regular. The symbolism of the Fall might indeed apply to the history of the cell which at first contains its own force of reproduction, but in the case of a female ovum deliberately parts with some of its original power in order that it may be replaced by the vital power of a male. The male cell also rends itself apart, and becomes quite unfit for reproductive purposes until it can find another cell with which to join. ”

“ When, in the course of time, sexual reproduction eventuated in a mammalian type, with greater intimacy between mother and offspring and a longer period of dependence of offspring on the mother, the function of the male in assisting the female became social as well as biological ”

“ Here in a nutshell is the biological basis of sex problem in human society. Human individuals do wear out and have to be replaced by reproduction. In the reproductive process, the female, as in mammals generally, is specialized to provide an intra-maternal environment (approximately nine months in the human species) for each new individual, and lactation or suckling afterward. The biological phase of the sex problem in society consists in studying the nature of that specialization. ”

“ We are assured that the principles of construction and destruction are mutually employed in the reproductive processes, that continuous death means continuous life,—the katabolic or disruptive tendencies of the male being necessary to the anabolic or constructive habits of the female. As it is in reproduction, so has it been through the entire course of development. ”

“ By this method there is of necessity great waste in the production of offspring, many thousands of eggs are never fertilised. The union of the sexual cells must be something more than haphazard for further development. There must be some reason inherent in the female or male inducing to the act of reproduction. In other words, there must be a psychic interest preceding the sex act. In this way a higher grade is reached when the presence of one sex attracts the other. Gradually the female and the male begin to associate in pairs. ”

“ The best equipped males will thus crowd out the less well-equipped in the matter of reproduction, and thus the relevant characters will be increased and perfected through sexual selection. It is, of course, a necessary assumption that these secondary sexual characters may be transmitted to the female, although perhaps in rudimentary form. ”

“ To those who find it difficult to assimilate this somewhat startling idea, we now present a brief statement of the infinitely greater facility toward reproduction manifested by living creatures lacking in sex-differentiation as compared with those possessing it. ”

“ As we know ectogenesis is now universal, and in this country less than 30 per cent of children are now born of woman. The effect on human psychology and social life of the separation of sexual love and reproduction which was begun in the 19th century and completed in the 20th is by no means wholly satisfactory. ”

“ Eugenics, or the science of human good breeding, is just now the most popular of the problems concerning human sex and reproduction. In recent years, the biological investigators of heredity have published some startling facts which show that the human race must soon check its reckless propagation of the unfit and encourage reproduction by the best types of men and women. ”

“ Normal sex-distinction manifests itself in all species in what are called primary and secondary sex-characteristics. The primary are those organs and functions essential to reproduction; the secondary, those modifications of structure and function which subserve the uses of reproduction ultimately, but are not directly essential,—such as the horns of the stag, of use in sex-combat ”

“ The destruction of the male apparatus for reproduction, whether it be by castration after puberty, or by an accident to the parts, or by a lesion of the spine, or by excessive equitation, as appears proved from the history of nomad tribes, causes men to approximate physically to the female type, and to affect feminine occupations and habits. ”

“ We can make the mother produce alternately male-producing daughters or female-producing daughters; so that in this case the sex is determined before the egg, concerning which the decision is made, has come into existence. ”

“ Racial decay in modern society; Purely "moral" control dysgenic in civilized society; New machinery for social control; Mistaken notion that reproduction is an individual problem; Economic and other factors in the group problem of reproduction.
From the discussion in the preceding chapter, it becomes apparent that for the half of the female element in a savage society possessing the most vigor and initiative to turn away from reproduction would in the long run be fatal to the group. Yet this is what occurs in large measure in modern civilized society. Reproduction is a biological function. ”

“ The 'male' ids—if I may be allowed the expression—become active in the absence of fertilization, the 'female' ids on the occurrence of fertilization, and the kind of food supplies the stimulus for the worker-ids or queen-ids. Slow processes of selection have gradually changed the 'female' ids in two directions, and finally led to the establishment of two perfectly distinct forms of females. ”

“ The mode of reproduction is by ova, which are sometimes vivified in the body of the parent, and not only do they give birth by ejection from the mouth of a numerous progeny, but actual divisions of the body may be made, and each division will acquire completeness. ”

“ Again, masculine characters generally lie dormant in male animals until they arrive at the proper age for reproduction. The curious case formerly given of a Hen which assumed the masculine characters, not of her own breed but of a remote progenitor, illustrates the close connection between latent sexual characters and ordinary reversion. ”

“ Now, according as a developing ovum or an embryo either receives the juice, the means of impulse, for the acquisition of the male sex, or for the acquisition of the female sex, so will a male or a female result. ”

“ The queen lays the whole of the eggs which are designed to become workers, before she begins to lay those which become males. But probably the condition of her reproductive system governs the matter of sex, for it is remarked that when her impregnation is delayed beyond the twenty-eighth day of her entire existence, she lays only eggs which become males. ”

“ For is not that to be accounted efficient in which the reason of the embryo and the form of the work appear; whose obvious resemblance is perceived in the embryo, and which, as first existing, calls forth the other? Since, therefore, the form, cause, and similitude inhere in the female not less—and it might even be said that they inhere more—than in the male, and as she also exists previously as prime mover, let us conclude for certain that the female is equally efficient in the work of generation as the male. ”

“ Finally the art to improve the sexual progeny of either vegetables or animals must consist in choosing the most perfect of both sexes, that is the most beautiful in respect to the body, and the most ingenious in respect to the mind; but where one sex is given, whether male or female, to improve a progeny from that person may consist in choosing a partner of a contrary temperament. ”

“ Since the specialization to furnish the intra-maternal environment for the young makes the female part of the reproductive process essentially and unavoidably more burdensome than the male, it results that an economical division of the extra-reproductive activities of any group must throw an unequal share upon the males. This specialization to carry the young during the embryonic period is thus at the base of the division of labour between the sexes. It is the chief factor involved in the problems of sex, and gives rise, directly or indirectly, to most of the others. ”

“ In the old days of unlimited fecundity, the early marriage of a beautiful, or intelligent, woman meant a probable perpetuation of her endowments; but at present, when artificial restraint of fertility is so widespread, the result does not follow as a matter of course: and it is evident that the race is little or not at all helped by the early marriage of an attractive woman, if she has too few or no children.
Fecundal selection, then, is becoming the important phase of reproductive selection, in the evolution of civilized races. ”

“ So, among half-breeds, the number of girls usually predominates; [426] while among in-and-in bred plants, animals, or men the reverse is the case. Hence it seems probable "that the degree of differentiation in the sexual elements of the parents exercises some influence upon the sex of the offspring, so that, when the differentiation is unusually great, the births are in favour of females; when it is unusually small, in favour of males." ”

“ The dual basis for femaleness and maleness in each individual simply means that both factors are present, but that only one expresses itself fully. The presence of such a dual basis is proved by the fact that in castration and transplantation experiments both are exhibited by the same individual in a single lifetime. In the case of the Free-Martin cattle, even the female sex-glands are modified toward the male type to such an extent that they were long mistaken for testes. ”

“ Before this egg has left the woman's ovary, before impregnation has been effected, it may perhaps be considered as a part and parcel of herself, but not afterwards. When it has reached the womb, that nest provided for the little one by kindly nature, it has assumed a separate and independent existence, though still dependent upon the mother for subsistence. ”

“ The subsequent history of sex is, roughly speaking, the history of its invasion of more and more of the organization of its possessors. First the male as a whole, and not merely its reproductive cells, tends to become organized for finding the female. The female’s whole type of metabolism is altered to produce the most efficient storage of reserve material in her ova, and later she almost invariably protects and nourishes the young during the first part of their development, either within or without her own body. Appropriate instincts are of course developed in both male and female. ”