Feminism and Sex-Extinction Part 32

"Ursula Raglan was a Beef-cow that milked heavily. To a Beef-bull, she produced Gainford Champion--a great bull. While to a Dairy-bull, she produced the dam of Priceless Princess--about the best Dairy-cow that ever looked through a halter."

Here we find the Vital-potential indispensable to the equipment of great offspring, proved great in the mother, by her Female vital-function of lactation. While her respective bull-mates appear as the determinant factors which differentiate this Vital potential in offspring, respectively, into the Beef-traits (stature and muscle, that is) or the Milking-traits (Vital function, that is). The very term "Dairy-bull,"

signifying a male with power to transmit to female descendants the purely Female trait of milking, is evidence, in itself, of a female trait, derived by a male from his mother, pa.s.sing into the potential, and lying dormant, or Recessive, for a generation, in his male organisation, and then emerging again in his daughter.

The great bull is sire of a great cow--_because he was son of a great cow_. And he is a great bull because he received from his dam a great female Vital-potential, for differentiation into greatness of the male traits that characterise great males. And in his turn, he may sire a cow greater than his mother, because in pa.s.sing on to his daughter the great female Vital-potential of his mother, he pa.s.ses on a female potential of greatness to which his own male inherence of greatness has added a further power of Differentiation. This increased _Male_ power of differentiation, descending in the female line, however, manifests in traits of increased _Female_ functioning--the function of milking, that is.

The daughter inherits thus from her father the Female potential of her paternal grandmother, with new power of Male differentiation acquired by its residence during a generation (so to speak) in a male organisation.

Which new power, when reawakened to function in a female organism, manifests in a further degree of Femaleness.

Male development having progressed along lines of increasing brain- and nervous power, which the female has ever further inherited, Female development has progressed along lines of such increasing brain-power as has enabled her to transform her native simple and undifferentiated Femaleness into ever further developed and more complex Female _traits_, or functional and nervous characteristics.

While, on the other hand, since Female evolution has proceeded along lines of increasing Life, or Vital Power, which the male has ever further inherited this increasing Vital power it has been that has served as _potential_ for the evolution of his Maleness in terms of higher brain- and nervous power.

The great cow is mother of a great bull _because she was daughter of a great sire_. And she was a great cow because she received from her sire a great male complement of developmental power, which imparted to her Recessive, and undifferentiated Femaleness, further power of functioning as female characteristics. And she may mother a son greater even than her sire because the great male Developmental impetus of her father becomes in her a greater Vital potential; which, descending in the male line, engenders further power for the further differentiation of male characteristics.

III

_Evolution of Species and evolution of the Individual occur on different planes_

The Evolution of Species progresses in every generation by way of each s.e.x having derived from the other s.e.x a new and opposite potential to engender, in every alternate generation, the further evolution of its s.e.x-traits along its own (and contrary) lines.

It may be considered therefore that Type, or Species, evolves to higher inherences by way of progressive divergences of s.e.x-characteristics.

While the Evolution of the individual progresses in every generation in proportion as parents of both s.e.xes had mated, in the previous generation, with such members of the opposite s.e.x as were best fitted to supply, in the gametes contributed to offspring, complements which, by union with their own, so matched and supplemented their own as to have quickened and energised the development of offspring to the fullest and the most efficient issues. In any line, however, a strain of greatness or of other inherence descends in alternating succession, now in the female, now in the male line; receding now into the potential, and then evolving in development. So that while the Individual normally evolves in every generation, the Type evolves only in alternate generations.

The evolution of Type, or Species, is the intrinsic function of the spontaneous Evolution of Life into two orders of s.e.x. It occurs on a wholly different plane from that of the evolution of the Individual. But by way of his, or her, complement to the biological const.i.tution of offspring, members of both s.e.xes contribute alike to the evolution of _Species_ and to that of the _Individual_--according as such complement enhances the power of the traits of the opposite s.e.x to manifest, and further to evolve in offspring.

The intensification in the one s.e.x of its own inherences stimulates a proportional intensification of the opposite inherences in the other s.e.x, both as regards the evolution of the Type and of the Individual.

The phenomenon would seem to be akin to that increase of one electrical potential evoking a proportional increase of the other electrical potential, to complement it. When one s.e.x fails to supply its due potential, or complement, to the other, the evolution both of Type and Individual receives a check.

And because the evolution of Type is achieved by the Germ-plasm derived from a parent of one s.e.x obtaining new increment from being invested in the organisation of offspring of the opposite s.e.x, it is not until the new Typal-inherence of this Germ-plasm is revivified again in the organisation of a member of the s.e.x from which the plasm was derived, that such new impulse manifests. Hence the phenomenon of characteristics being transmitted from parents to offspring of opposite s.e.x. So that daughters of normal womanly organisation reproduce the Typal characteristics of their fathers' maternal line; while in sons of normal male organisation those of their mothers' paternal line emerge.

Hence too, the reversion of offspring of hybrid plants to the types,--pure Dominant and pure Recessive--of their grandparents.

IV

_Progressive segregation of Male and Female traits in opposite sides of body ever further intensifies and differentiates their intrinsic qualities_

The biological const.i.tution of humans and of the other higher organisms differentiating them into two opposite symmetrical sides, in which, as development rises higher in the scale, the Dominance, or Maleness, in them is ever further and more perfectly segregated from the Recessiveness, or Femaleness, in them, secures the progressive intensification, respectively, of Maleness or of Femaleness in them, by ever further ranging the factors, or traits, of these on opposite sides of the biological equation; and by thus more effectively centralising the powers, according to s.e.x, in one or the other side thereof.

Mendel's peas, not thus differentiated into two sides, are bi-s.e.xual and self-fertilising. Of the original stock, that order in which Dominant traits are prepotent is differentiating toward a male _genus_, however.

While the Recessives are differentiating toward a female _genus_.

Although regarded as "pure" Dominants and "pure" Recessives, they are nevertheless hybrids in respect of s.e.x. Being self-fertilising, both Dominants and Recessives are of low power, alike for reproduction and development. Because the Dominance, or Male developmental power, of the Recessives being inhibited by the Recessiveness, or Femaleness, in them, is of low Vigour. While the Recessiveness, or Female vital power in the Dominants being unduly expended by the Dominance, or Maleness, in them, is of low Vitality. The male s.e.x-cells of the self-fertilising Dominants thus fertilise female s.e.x-cells of low vitality. While the female s.e.x-cells of the self-fertilising Recessives are fertilised by male s.e.x-cells of low vigour.

In cross-breeding, the conditions cease not only to be those of self-fertilising, but they cease, moreover, to be those of the close inbreeding of self-fertilisation. In the "hybrids" obtained by crossing the higher-vigoured male s.e.x-cells of the "pure"

Dominants with the higher-vitalised female s.e.x-cells of the "pure"

Recessives, the Dominants--because Dominance is prepotent for exterior characteristics--submerge the external traits of the Recessives, which are prepotent for vital and internal functioning. Such Dominants are a bi-s.e.xual species in which the male is prepotent. And to be male, means that they have expended, in terms of structural development, a great proportion of the female Vital power inherent in them; thus masking the Recessive female traits in them, as regards exterior characteristics.

But since reproductive power inheres in these Recessive traits, these traits are preserved in the s.e.x-cells, equally with the Dominant traits.

The plants being not only bi-s.e.xual, but self-fertilising also, the s.e.x-cells must obviously be bi-s.e.xual too; in order to provide the organism with factors both of life and development. Every s.e.x-cell is a hybrid cell, therefore; bearing both Dominant and Recessive traits. But, like their parents, in some, the Dominant, in others, the Recessive traits are prepotent. And the Dominant s.e.x-cells mating with Dominants, the Recessives with Recessives, the original types of so-called "pure"

Dominants and "pure" Recessives reappear in the third generation.

V

_Self-fertilising organism is a female organism with a male organism differentiated in it_

Because the female represents the Life-potential of species and the Vital potential of organisms, a self-fertilising plant or creature must be regarded as a female organism, with a male organism of Adaptation, or Differentiation, developed in it. This male organism energises both its developmental and its functioning power, and fertilises it; although the _potential_ of structure, of growth, of function and of reproduction are engendered in the female organism. The female is the root-stock or parent-stem of all species, therefore.

If Dominance is Maleness, and Recessiveness is Femaleness, and if Dominance energises structural development while Recessiveness engenders reproduction, a Dominant self-fertilising plant is a female plant, with a male plant of superior Dominance differentiated in it. While a Recessive self-fertilising plant is a female plant of superior Recessiveness, with a male plant of inferior Dominance differentiated in it. In crossing stock of superior Dominance with stock of superior Recessiveness, the Dominant prevails over the Recessive in the general structural traits of the resulting "hybrid," but not in its reproductive inherence. The new hybrids being male in inherence, nothing is added to the female reproductive, or Vital, potential in them. The root-stock transmits to its s.e.x-cells therefore just as its grandmother did--Recessives of her type, and Dominants of the type of the Dominant male engrafted on her, of the male grandfather of this third generation, that is. Hence reversion.

VI

_Sterility of offspring of alien species proves evolution of Species and of Individual are independent phenomena_

The fact that dog and wolf, when mated, breed fertile species, proves them sprung from the same root-stock. While the hybrid offspring of different species are sterile. Showing such an intrinsic incompatability of the alien complements in the zygote as, while operating as no bar to their immediate union and their development into a complete hybrid individual, nevertheless bars the incorporation of the alien breed in the Vital potential of stock.

Such sterility in the offspring of creatures of different species is weighty evidence that the Evolution of Type, or Species, and the Evolution of the Individual are wholly independent phenomena; occurring upon wholly different planes, and involving wholly different principles and sets of processes. In the mating of alien species, the two s.e.x-cells, although of dissimilar species-inherence, unite nevertheless and develop in the maternal environment into a living ent.i.ty of mongrel order. But the Germ-plasm contained in the gamete of one species will not germinate in the alien environment of an organism of alien species.

No potential, either Vital or of Differentiation, is engendered, therefore, for production of offspring. Hence sterility results. The potential of a living individual is seen thus to belong to a wholly different plane of phenomena from the potential of Stock. Conditions which do not annul the powers of life and of function in the one, quench life and function in the other with the seal of sterility.

VII

_Possible explanation of "Sports"_

Mr. Regnart says: "We often meet with Sports. Second- and third-rate parents may produce an exceptionally fine individual, but such animals are always failures to breed from. The law of Filial Regression comes into operation. Our aim is to find families that have produced a large number of fine animals--we know then that we are on safe ground."

In these cases, it would seem that the "fine individual" results from so singularly harmonious and successful a complementing and fructifying of the parental halves in offspring as conduce to develop the best points of both; doubtless, too, to eliminate or to annul weak or faulty factors of either parental strain. Neither of such inferior-grade parents transmitting a fine _lineal_ potential, however, the exceptional fineness of the individual is not inherent in the Germ-plasm he or she transmits to offspring. The fine characteristics of such "Sports" are not transmissible, therefore, to descendants.

Proof again of two planes of Life and Evolution, that of Species and that of the Individual. Moral, too, of the importance of fine selection in mating, since the harmonious mating of second- or third-rate parents may produce finer offspring than are born of ill-a.s.sorted matings of two finer breeds of parent.

The case is recorded of a pony about the size of a Shetland pony, which was the offspring of pedigree Shire-parents on both sides, _both parents being over 17 hands_. The most striking feature about the animal was that there was nothing of the _horse_-type about him--he was a perfect example of _pony_.

Shire horses are typical examples of Vigour, or developmental power, expressed in terms of stature, muscle and nervous energy. And for so long as the breeding for these characteristics was supplemented in terms of vital organs and vital functioning, by an equivalent maternal complement of Vital potential, to sustain the const.i.tutional expenditure involved in stature, muscular equipment, and nervous energy, the breed improved in these particulars. Pushed beyond this limit, by introducing into stock further strains of Vigour, or developmental initiative, without simultaneously providing the indispensable equivalents of these in increasing Vital potentials, all at once the balance toppled, and reversion to inferior type resulted.

An excessive proportion of the Vital power of these two Pedigree Shires of great stature and great strength had been expended in the achievement of such great stature and great strength, and in the equipment of digestive and a.s.similative organs required to sustain these. But little had remained, accordingly, for Reproductive investments. Hence reversion in the de-vitalised stock.

One conceives of the counterpoise in Stock, of Male and Female complements, as being akin to that of the opposite and complementary curves of an arch. So long as equipoise is sustained by the perfect balance of the contrary curves, so long each re-inforces the other to support a heavy superstructure of development. Lopsidedness of either curve leads to collapse.

VIII

_Vigour is Male. Vitability is Female_

"Vigour," which breeders regard as a potent factor in heredity, is commonly confounded with Vital Power, or Vitability; although the two would seem to be diametrically opposite in cause, in nature and effect.