Feminism and Sex-Extinction Part 34

XII

_Dual planes of Mentality: Outer and Material, Inner and Occult_

As in the Domain of Life and vital processes, so in the Domain of Consciousness and nervous processes, there are two planes of function; an Inner and occulted plane of Mind, or potential Consciousness, and an Outer plane of material Consciousness; representing respectively afferent (or centripetal) and efferent (or outgoing) nervous currents.

Faculty and sense may be regarded as having developed in one direction along lines of the telescope, with increasing capability to horizon the Without; while they have developed simultaneously along lines of the microscope, to reveal an Invisible Within.

The Senses, which adapt man's Consciousness to environment by the functions of Sight, Hearing, Touch, Taste, Smell, have become, with evolutionary development, so increasingly sensitised in response to The Without as ever further to have set him in rapport with the world exterior. While, at the same time, so have they become sensitised in response to The Within, as ever further to have deepened and quickened his apprehension of an occulted Interior plane. Faculty has acquired thus, simultaneously with its increasing power of focusing the Outer and Objective, an increasing power so to invert its focus as to penetrate ever more deeply into the Inner and Subjective, alike of man's own const.i.tution and that of environment.

These two contrary, but co-operative, modes of mentality are, respectively, Intellection and Intuition--Male and Female modes of mind.

XIII

_Differentiation of the Zygote, or Mated s.e.x-cell_

I have described, throughout, the right side of the human body as the male-side--that in which the Male-traits of Humanity are specialised in the individual; the left as the woman-side, that in which the Woman-traits of Humanity are centred.

But the modes of const.i.tution, as of inheritance, are more complex, of course, than that one parent supplies the potential of one side, the other parent that of the other side.

As regards inheritance, the maternal ovum comprises, I believe, the potential of the whole body, with the exception of the brain, the spinal-cord and the spinal nerves. But because the mother is descended from parents of both s.e.x, and possesses, therefore, both Male and Female elements, the ovum must contain (as must every other cell) both male and female factors. These, it is conceivable, are grouped, by contrary polarities, into two areas, or hemispheres; an upper and a lower. Of these the upper is Male in inherency. It comprises the potentials of shoulders and spinal column which are fulcra of action, and of lungs and heart which are the _energising_ organs of Life. The lower hemisphere of the ovum is Female in inherency. It comprises the potentials of the pelvis, which is the cradle of Maternity, of the reproductive organs, which engender Life and the emotions, and of the digestive and a.s.similative organs, which engender vital processes.

So too, because the male parent is likewise descended from parents of opposite s.e.x, his contribution to offspring must also contain both male and female factors. But while the mother supplies, in the ovum, the potential of the whole body--face and head, trunk, limbs and vital organs, the father contributes the potential of the brain, the spinal cord and the spinal nerves only, which adapt the organism, by way of form and Consciousness, to environment. The limbs, which adapt it, by way of Motion, to environment, may be regarded as differentiations primarily of the brain and nervous system.

The ovum is spheroidal; the sperm-cell rectilinear (following the rule that the line of Maleness is a straight one; that of Femaleness, a curve). And as in the spheroidal ovum, the factors of the opposite s.e.xes, grouped into two areas, separate it into hemispheres of opposite s.e.x-inherency, so in the rectilinear sperm-cell, we may surmise the factors of the two s.e.xes to be grouped lengthwise, and to separate it thus into a male side and a female side. Such a sperm-cell penetrating the ovum, and developing laterally, further differentiates this into anterior, posterior and lateral areas. The two lateral developments of this potential brain and spinal cord and nerves eventually const.i.tute the right and the left brain-hemispheres, and differentiate the body into right and left sides.

The left brain-hemisphere, with its half of the spinal cord and nerves, is derived from the _male_ side of the sperm-cell; while the right brain-hemisphere, with its half of the spinal cord and spinal nerves, is derived from the _female_ side (by inheritance) of the sperm cell.

Weismann describes the Germ-Plasm as being transmitted in the female line solely, from ovum of mother to that of daughter.

This supports the above view; namely, that the Germ-Plasm proper is inherent in the ovum, in which it exists in potential, or undifferentiated, form, and that it becomes differentiated (in both s.e.xes) into a right and a left-reproductive gland of contrary s.e.x-inherence, by differentiative power of the dual-s.e.xed sperm-cell.

The re-polarisation of the fertilised ovum, which is visible beneath the microscope, would seem to represent this differentiative process.

Since the microcosm is as the macrocosm, the Dual const.i.tution must be repeated in every living cell of the body; the cell-plasma representing the vegetative system, the cell-nucleus representing the cerebro-nervous system. Possibly the nucleolus is the Supra- and Subconscious element.

XIV

_Inorganic Matter is Dual and Hermaphrodite. Life breaks up this Neuter counterpoise, and progressively unlocks and segregates, and thus reveals and specialises the inherent attributes of s.e.x_

Phenomena of Duality characterise not Living Matter only, but Inorganic Matter too. The elemental atom is never found manifesting singly, but always as two atoms coupled together, in the form of "the molecule"; these mated atoms being of opposite electrical potential.

And since Living Matter has evolved out of Inorganic Matter--what is to be inferred but that the duality of the living cell is the evolution, on the plane of Life, of the duality of the chemical molecule?

Further, that the duality of living forms in terms of s.e.x-characteristics is the evolution, on the plane of Living Faculty, of the duality alike of the living cell and of the chemical molecule; the two s.e.xes representing, respectively, the contrary inherences of all these dualities, specialised and ever further intensifying in the contrary trends of the opposite s.e.x-traits of Male and Female.

The elemental molecule is seen thus to be hybrid, or hermaphrodite, in const.i.tution, precisely as the living cell and the living body are.

While that both living cells and inorganic crystals reproduce, proves factors of s.e.x differentiated and functioning in them.

The inertia of Matter is due to the hermaphrodite state; its contrary s.e.x-impulses interlocking and nullifying one another. Life breaks up this neuter state of equipoise, by increasingly segregating the dual-s.e.x-inherences and evolving each along its own intrinsic trend; thereby engendering between their dual factors fructifying interoperations which result in the motions of Growth and other vital processes.

Growth is a phenomenon of Reproduction. Living cells increase their substance by germination of their bi-s.e.xual elements. Attaining maturity, a cell divides into two cells, each of which by way of similar processes develops into a mature cell.

And since for all Change, two (or more) contrary impulses are necessary, and since Reproduction is a function of s.e.x, what is to be inferred but that Evolution and Growth and all other phenomena of living cells result from oppositions, co-operations and correlations of the contrary impetus and processes of two orders of s.e.x-factors present therein? By way alone of their bi-s.e.xuality, are cells, both animal and vegetable, able to reproduce the cell-offspring required by living organisms for processes of growth, of function and repair.

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WOMAN AND LABOUR

By OLIVE SCHREINER

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_SEVENTH IMPRESSION_

"At last there has come the book which is destined to be the prophecy and the gospel of the whole awakening.... Remarkable as this book of Olive Schreiner's is, merely as an intellectual achievement, its greatness and its life are in the emotional power which has found its stimulus and its inspiration in a vision of the future.... A book which will be read and discussed for many years to come."--_The Nation._

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BABY WELFARE

A GUIDE TO ITS ACQUISITION AND MAINTENANCE

By W. E. ROBINSON, M.D. _a.s.sistant Physician and Pathologist to the Infants' Hospital, London_

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