LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

use of the wings for flight, they must be detrimental to the entire structure. For the reason that females have managed to do without them, the plea that the great tusks, horns, teeth, etc., of mammals have been acquired for self-defence, is scarcely tenable.

      On the subject of the relative expenditure of vital force in the two lines of sexual demarcation, Mr. Darwin remarks:

      The female has to expend much organic matter in the formation of her ova, whereas the male expends much force in fierce contests with his rivals, in wandering about in search of the female, in exerting his voice, pouring out odoriferous secretions, etc. … In mankind, and even as low down in the organic scale as in the Lepidoptera, the temperature of the body is higher in the male than in the female, accompanied in the case of man by a slower pulse.[21]

      Yet he concludes: “On the whole the expenditure of matter and force by the two sexes is probably nearly equal, though effected in very different ways and at different rates.”21

      However, as has been observed, the force expended by the male in fierce contests with his rivals, in wandering about in search of the female, and in his exertions to please her when found, does not constitute the only outlay of vitality to which he is subjected; but in addition to all this, there still remains to be considered that force which has been expended in the acquirement of characters which, so far as his own development is concerned, are useless and worse than useless; namely, in birds, combs, wattles, elongated plumes, great wings, etc., and in mammals great horns, tusks, and teeth—appendages which lie outside the line of true development, and, as we have seen, are of no avail except to aid in the processes of reproduction and to assist him in the gratification of his desires; in fact, as these excrescences hinder him in the performance of the ordinary functions of life, they may be regarded in the light of actual hindrances to higher development.

CHAPTER III

       MALE ORGANIC DEFECTS

       Table of Contents

      We have observed that through the great sexual ardour developed at puberty within the male of the lower species, numberless variations of structure have been acquired, characters which, as they are the result of undeveloped atoms cast off from the varying parts in his progenitors, denote low organization. We have seen also that these characters require for their growth an immense amount of vital force, which, had the development of the male been normal, would have been expended in perfecting the organism, or would have been utilized in fitting it to overcome the adverse conditions of his environment. Secondary sexual characters, being so far as males are concerned, wholly the result of eagerness in courtship, cannot appear before the time for reproduction arrives, and as it is a law of heredity that peculiarities of structure which are developed late in life, when transmitted to offspring, appear only in the sex in which they originated, these variations of structure are confined to males.

      According to Mr. Darwin’s theory little difference exists between the sexes until the age of reproduction arrives. It is at this time, the time when the secondary sexual characters begin to assert themselves, that the preponderating superiority of the male begins to manifest itself.

      Although, according to Mr. Darwin, variability denotes low organization and shows that the various organs of the body have not become specialized to perform properly their legitimate functions, it is to characters correlated with and dependent upon these varying parts that the male has ultimately become superior to the female. If these characters, namely, pugnacity, perseverance, and courage have been such important factors in establishing male superiority, too much care may not be exercised in analyzing them and in tracing their origin and subsequent development.

      Sexual Selection resembles artificial selection save that the female takes the part of the human breeder. She represents the intelligent factor or cause in the operations involved. If this be true, if it is through her will, or through some agency or tendency latent in her constitution that Sexual Selection comes into play, then she is the primary cause of the very characters through which man’s superiority over woman has been gained. As a stream may not rise higher than its source, or as the creature may not surpass its creator in excellence, it is difficult to understand the processes by which man, through Sexual Selection, has become superior to woman.

      He who admits the principle of Sexual Selection will be led to the remarkable conclusion that the nervous system not only regulates most of the existing functions of the body, but has indirectly influenced the progressive development of various bodily structures and certain mental qualities. Courage, pugnacity, perseverance, strength and size of body, weapons of all kinds, musical organs, both vocal and instrumental, bright colours, and ornamental appendages have all been indirectly gained by the one sex or the other, through the exertion of choice, the influence of love and jealousy, and the appreciation of the beautiful in sound, colour, or form; and these powers of the mind manifestly depend on the development of the brain.22

      While the female has been performing the higher functions in the processes of reproduction, through her force of will, or through her power of choice, she has also been the directing and controlling agency in the development of those characters in the male through which, when the human species was reached, he was enabled to attain a limited degree of progress.

      Since the origin of secondary sexual characters is so clearly manifest, perhaps it will be well for us at this point to examine also their actual significance, that we may be enabled to note the foundation upon which the dogma of male superiority rests.

      Although the gay colouring of male birds and fishes has usually been regarded as an indication of their superiority over their sombre-coloured mates, later investigations are proving that these pigments represent simply unspecialized material, and an effort of the system to cast out the waste products which have accumulated as a result of excessive ardour in courtship. The same is true of combs, wattles, and other skin excrescences; they show a feverish condition of the skin in the over-excited males, whose temperature is usually much higher than is that of females. We are assured that the skin eruptions of male fishes at the spawning season “seem more pathological than decorative.”23 In the processes of reproduction, the undeveloped atoms given off from each varying part are reproduced only in the male line.

      The beautiful colouring of male birds and fishes, and the various appendages acquired by males throughout the various orders below man, and which, so far as they themselves are concerned, serve no other useful purpose than to aid them in securing the favours of the females, have by the latter been turned to account in the processes of reproduction. The female made the male beautiful that she might endure his caresses.

      From the facts elaborated by our guides in this matter, it would seem that the female is the primary unit of creation, and that the male functions are simply supplemental or complementary. Parthenogenesis among many of the lower forms of life would seem to favour this view. We are given to understand that under conditions favouring katabolism, the males among Rotifera wear themselves out, under which conditions the females become katabolic enough to do without them.

      Among the common Rotifera, the males are almost always very different from the females, and much smaller. Sometimes they seem to have dwindled out of existence altogether, for only the females are known. In other cases, though present, they entirely fail to accomplish their proper function of fertilization, and, as parthenogenesis obtains, are not only minute, but useless.24

      So long as food is plentiful, the females continue to raise parthenogenetic offspring, but with the advent of hard times, when food is scarce or of a poor quality, the parthenogenetic series is interrupted by the appearance of males. Although, unaided by the male, the female of certain species is able to reproduce, he has never been able to propagate without her co-operation.

      Concerning the conditions which underlie the production of females and males we have the following from The Evolution of Sex, by Geddes and Thomson:

      Such conditions as deficient or abnormal food, high temperature, deficient light, moisture, and the like, are obviously such as would tend to induce a preponderance of waste over repair—a katabolic habit of body—and these conditions tend to result in the production

Скачать книгу