Reproduction (art)

“ There is evident, without doubt, an effort on the part of Nature to secure economy of method in the attainment of ever greater perfection in the process of reproduction, but we cannot deny that the primary motive seems to be that of reproduction pure and simple. The tendency toward reproduction is indeed so fundamental in Nature that it is impressed with the greatest emphasis upon every living thing. ”

“ Notwithstanding the fact that the male energy had come to be recognized as the principal factor in reproduction, it is observed that wherever these monuments or other symbols of fertility appear, there is always to be found in close connection with them certain emblems symbolical of the female power ”

“ The reproductive faculty of the males and the females of this distinct and peculiar animal is limited to the generative reproduction of individuals of the same type, by a sexual union of two individuals of that type. ”

“ II. That sex is determined in the moment of fertilization by the reciprocal interaction of male and female, of zoösperm and ovum. One variant of this theory maintains that each reproductive element strives for the reproduction of its own sex; that a struggle takes place and that the victor in the contest stamps its own sex-likeness upon the fertilized product. ”

“ In examining the characteristics of sex in Man under its dual aspect, male and female, Nature’s primary or rudimentary aim in establishing sex must be clearly recognised. This aim is the reproduction of the species. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life? ”

“ Following Darwin's argument—"the greater eagerness of the male has thus indirectly led to the more frequent development of secondary sexual characters in the male than in the female"—secondary sexual characters being those not directly concerned in reproduction. ”

“ Under this old traditionary conception reproduction was regarded as a process in which men's minds and wills had no part. To those holding it, knowledge of Nature was still too imperfect for the recognition of the fact that the whole course of the world's natural history has been an erection of barrier against wholesale and indiscriminate reproduction. ”

“ With man, as with all living beings, the constant object of all sexual function, and consequently of sexual love, is the reproduction of the species. It is therefore necessary to treat the question from the point of view of the natural sciences, physiology, psychology and sociology. ”

“ We shall perceive that during an earlier age of human existence, not only were the reproductive powers throughout Nature, and especially in human beings and in animals, venerated as the Creator, but we shall find also that the prevailing ideas relative to the importance of either sex in the office of reproduction decided the sex of this universal creative force. ”

“ It may be inferred, therefore, that the higher animal types could not have been evolved without sexual reproduction, and something of the meaning or significance of sex in the whole life process will, therefore, be helpful in understanding all of the higher forms of evolution. ”

“ This participation of the brain in the reproductive stimulus is an absolute necessity in order to place the sexes in a relation favorable to an observance of one of the laws of their existence. With the gradual evolution of sex physically there is a corresponding evolution psychically. The one is necessary to the organic part, the other is necessary to the mental part, of reproduction. This development of the possibility of love with structural completion is one of the most striking examples of the evolution of organic life into consciousness. ”

“ CHAPTER IVToC THE SEXUAL APPETITE
If we sum up the three preceding chapters we arrive at the philosophical conclusion that reproduction depends on the general natural tendency of all living beings to multiply indefinitely. Fission and sexual reproduction arise from the simple fact that the growth of each individual is necessarily limited in space as well as time. Reproduction is thus destined to assure the continuation of life; the individual dies but is perpetuated in his progeny. We do not know why the crossing of individuals is rendered necessary by the phenomenon of conjugation. ”

“ But when I maintain that the meaning of sexual reproduction is to render possible the transformation of the higher organisms by means of natural selection, such a statement is not equivalent to the assertion that sexual reproduction originally came into existence in order to achieve this end. ”

“ Nature making no mistake, never putting on a fresh kind of leg, or head, or tail, but always tending to repeat and to return to the primitive type.
It is the same in sexual reproduction: it is a matter of perfectly common experience, that the tendency on the part of the offspring always is, speaking broadly, to reproduce the form of the parents. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Comparison shows that there is, on the one hand, no essential distinction between ordinary growth and reproduction by budding, and, on the other hand, none except the necessity for impregnation to distinguish asexual from sexual reproduction. ”

“ Not only in America and England, but now also in Germany, there exist excellent books which may actually be put into the growing girl’s own hands, by means of which she will be introduced in an intelligent manner to a knowledge of the method of reproduction in the human species. ”

“ If it be never forgotten that human ingenuity has been taxed in untold numbers of unsuccessful experiments to produce life by other than [36] nature's methods, while the power of reproduction resides in even the lowliest of living organisms, the mystery and marvel are multiplied a hundredfold, and the subject of reproduction is invested with a halo of splendid and inspiring proportions. ”

“ In the simplest forms of conjugation the functions of both parents appear to be identical, but in organisms which are a little more specialized we find male and female reproductive bodies, and the offspring is the result of the union of the male element of one individual with the female element of another; that is, we have true sexual reproduction in its simplest form. ”

“ And the chief facts in reproduction are practically the same wherever the phenomena occur. Here, as everywhere else in the world, when a new life-form appears, it is always the result of the union of two forces, elements, germs or whatsoever. ”

“ Through Biology we learn that the first manifestation of life is feminine. The albuminous protoplasm lying in silent darkness on the bottom of the sea, possessing within itself all the phenomena exhibited by the highest forms of life, as sensation, motion, nutrition and reproduction, produces its like, and in all forms of life the capacity for reproduction undeniably stamps the feminine. ”

“ When we come to study reproduction among the human race, we find the same plan; in fact, we find it in all forms of organized life, plants, animals and man. That is, there must be fathers as well as mothers. ”

“ Every individual lives again in his offspring.
THE TRUE MISSION OF SEX
This rebirth of the individual in his descendants represents the true mission of sex where the human being is concerned. And reproduction, the perpetuation of the species, underlies all rightful and normal sex functions and activities. The actual physical process of reproduction, the details which initiate reproduction in the case of the human being, it seems unnecessary here to describe. ”

“ Before bringing our subject to its practical bearings, it seems necessary that the reader should divest his mind of any vestiges of the glamour of superstition which has so long been around the reproductive process. Darwin succeeds in this with admirable directness by putting reproduction simply as a process of growth. ”

“ Yet the whole process of sexual reproduction undoubtedly has, as its origin and explanation, the fusion in the first cell of the new generation from which all the rest will arise, of the material of two distinct individuals. ”

“ But even at this point it becomes evident that the true office of sex was not the first need of securing reproduction—that had been done already—rather it was the improving and perfecting of the single-cell process by introducing variation through the commingling of the ancestral hereditary elements of two parents, and, by means of such variations, the production of new and higher forms of life—in fact, progress by the mighty dynamic of sex. ”

“ Having once originated, the sexual type of reproduction possessed a definite survival value which assured its continuation. Sex makes possible a crossing of strains, which evidently possesses some great advantage, since the few simple forms which have no such division of reproductive functions have undergone no great development and all the higher, more complicated animals are sexual. ”

“ But before closing this chapter upon the complemental differences between the two sexes, it will be interesting to observe some remarkable similarities in the reproductive organs themselves, and to note how, in that infinite wisdom which is marvelous in our eyes, God has so modified their form and office that the external organs of reproduction in man become the internal and seemingly different organs of reproduction in woman. ”

“ Sexual and asexual reproduction are thus seen not to differ essentially; and we have already shown that asexual reproduction, the power of re-growth and development are all parts of one and the same great law. ”

“ The lower forms of animal and plant life often reproduce themselves without the aid of sex, and it has even been argued that reproduction and sex are directly antagonistic, that active propagation is always checked when sexual differentiation is established. "The impression one gains of sexuality," remarks Professor Coulter, foremost of American botanists, "is that it represents reproduction under peculiar difficulties." ”

“ Reproduction is the natural end and object of the sexual instinct, but the statement that it is part of the contents of the sexual impulse, or can in any way be used to define that impulse, must be dismissed as altogether inacceptable. ”

“ And so, when we come to consider the question of reproduction in the higher forms of life, we are apt to focus attention too much upon the sexual function and too little upon the contributory factors, the failure of any one of which would mean failure of the whole. ”

“ During this period the creative life has the one primary mission of maintaining his manhood. While the reproductive function remains possible it rarely would be advisable to express this energy in this way.
The creative life.—Until recent years nearly all students of sexology considered sex as essentially physical. Now the idea is growing that sex is vitally{310} a part of the physical, mental and soul life of the individual. The sexual organs are simply the generators of the creative life and mediums through which this creative life is expressed in reproduction. ”

“ At first primitive people did not realize that the manifestations of the sex instinct had anything whatever to do with reproduction. They were aware of the fact that women gave birth to children; and the organ concerned in this process was regarded as the giver of life, the creator. The apotheosis of these powers led to the conception of the first deity. But it was only secondarily that these life-giving attributes were brought into association with the sexual act and the masculine powers of fertilization. ”

“ Sexual reproduction does not essentially differ, as we have seen, from budding or self-division, and these processes graduate through the repair of injuries into ordinary development and growth; it might therefore be expected that every character would be as regularly transmitted by all the methods of reproduction as by continued growth. ”

“ Although reproduction and sex are two distinct things, and although a creature that reproduces without sex cannot properly be called either male or female, still so completely have these conceptions become blended in the popular mind that a creature which actually brings forth offspring out of its own body, is instinctively classed as female. The female is the fertile sex, and whatever is fertile is looked upon as female. ”

“ Why should the mother conceal the fact that it is nearly the same in man as in animals? The child never thinks of blushing or laughing at natural phenomena.
The initiation of children into the mechanism of reproduction is best obtained by the study of botany and zoölogy. If no mystery is made of these things in the case of plants and animals, why should not instruction be given in human reproduction? ”