Feminism and Sex-Extinction Part 6

II

Despite the fact that Nature has evolved the complex human races from the single-celled microscopic _amoeba_ ("Protoplasmic father of Man," as science has styled this), there are those who regard it as another of numerous blunders on the part of the Great Mother that the left side of the body is a more or less pa.s.sive and powerless member. Accordingly, the doctrine of Ambidextry has arisen. With the result that its wiser exponents have abandoned it. Because it has been found that children trained on Ambidextrous lines develop neurotic symptoms. This occurs even in cases in which children naturally left-handed are taught to use the right hand, as is normal.

In a lecture given before The Child-Study Society in London, Mr. P. B.

Ballard, London County-Council Inspector of Schools, stated that left-handed bowlers send down the ugliest b.a.l.l.s, left-handed boxers deal the most unexpected blows--blows that hurt terribly. To be left-handed, it seemed, was to be not merely awkward, but to be wicked, moreover. Yet any attempt to interfere with a child's natural habit is liable to make him stammer. (The evil bent of left-handed persons has a special significance in view of my hypothesis of the dissimilar mental functions of the two brain-hemispheres. The term "sinister" expresses this bent.

The inference is that in such transposition of the normal functions of the brain-halves, the tempering and humanising influence of the Woman-half is counteracted.)

Of a group of 545 left-handed children, 1 per cent. of pure left-handers stammered, against 43 per cent, of 399, in course of being taught to use the right hand, Mr. Ballard further stated. In another group of 207, the figures were 42 per cent, and 218 per cent. respectively. Six out of ten left-handed children who had been taught to use the right hand were practically cured of stammering after having been allowed to use the left hand exclusively for eighteen months. There are twice as many left-handed boys as left-handed girls; and stammering is twice as prevalent among boys.

All of which indicates normal differences in function of the two sides of the body--differences suggesting that, as I have surmised, each is the site and the agency of a principle totally unlike that of the other.

III

Upon referring to Biology--on the processes whereof every development, both physical and psychical, of living creatures rests--this curious dual const.i.tution of the body, together with the problems of dual s.e.x-transmission and inherency, become explicable.

And the solutions are at the same time so simple and inevitable as to be the strongest possible confirmation of my thesis.

As already stated, living organisms, offspring of two parents, derive half the source of their structure from one parent, half from the other.

All plants and living creatures evolve their organisation from a single microscopic cell, precisely as Life itself evolved primarily, and has developed out of the single-celled, microscopic _amoeba_. The microscopic cell which develops into a living creature is composed thus of two halves, or "gametes," to employ the scientific term. One half was contributed by the father: the other, by the mother. The two have united to form a whole cell. From such a cell (zygote), half male, half female, the body of every living organism has sprung.

Now, although these two half-cells unite to form a whole cell, exchange const.i.tuents, and appear to lose their ident.i.ty each in the other, it is, in the face of the strange dual const.i.tution of the body, difficult to doubt that each half actually retains its ident.i.ty and s.e.x-inherences, and develops along its own lines (albeit in close correlation with the other), throughout all the marvellous, intricate, and complex processes of embryological existence, during which the zygote is evolving into a living creature, capable of separate and individual life. And the inherences of these two halves are represented, at birth, in the respective sides of the body; each being, as it were, a complete and perfect ent.i.ty, although inseparably knit in one flesh to its twin. And throughout all the further intricate and complex processes whereby the creature comes to maturity, lives, reproduces its species, and dies, each half preserves its individual inherence alike in const.i.tution and in function. And yet in the mystical unity of their commingling duality, they are one flesh.

Each of the parental half-cells contained, marvellously, the potential moiety of a living personality. But either, alone, would have been but an incomplete and valueless thing, had it not become united with the complementary half-cell required to complete it structurally, and to engender and energise its potentialities. Nevertheless, throughout all the immature and the mature phases of life, from conception to birth, and from birth onward to death, the opposite sides of the body represent normally the opposite s.e.x-inherences of their respective parents. They are, in humans, the Man and the Woman--two in one--that exist in every living man and woman. They represent contrary principles; they perform different functions; they engender and energise dissimilar processes.

One is the centre of the Male characteristics, Dominant upon the material plane; the other, of the Female characteristics, Recessive thereon.

Normality and health are the mean and balance, in the individual, of the complementary and supplementary functions and processes of the opposite s.e.x-inherences of his, or her, body. Precisely as in the social economy the complementary and supplementary roles of men and women counterpoise the apt.i.tudes and determine the effectiveness of human life and action.

The left, Female-half of the body, with its allied half-brain,[1] is inhibitive, and engenders the evolution and the preservation, physical and mental, of The Type; sustaining health and vital power by way of the female attributes of rest and conservation.

The right, Male half, with its allied half-brain, is executive, and energises the development (Adaptation) of The Type in its relation to Environment, and, disbursing and applying the vital resources, generates and differentiates potential faculty in terms of living function.

IV

This hypothesis of the dual const.i.tution and of dual functions of the two-sided body supplies an explanation, equally simple and inevitable, of the parental transmission of s.e.x. _Natura simplex est_, said Newton.

And Du Prel, "Nature is much more simple than we have any conception of."

Because, as Biology shows, not only does each of the two parents contribute to offspring, but there being both a right and a left reproductive gland in members of both s.e.xes, the contribution either parent supplies must have been derived from one or other of these glands in them. And if the two sides of the body are of different s.e.x-inherence, it is only logical to conclude that the contribution the gland of one side makes will be of different s.e.x-inherence from that of the other.

Since all forms of Energy have two modes, potential (or latent) and kinetic (or active), on the plane of physics, this must be true, of course, of Vital Energy.

Life-energy must be present in all living bodies in the forms, respectively, of _latent_ Vital Energy and _functioning_ Vital Energy--energy conserved and available for functioning, and energy expending itself in the living processes of mentality and action.

An individual is able to move his limbs by power of the _potential_ motion stored, or latent, in the muscle-cells of his limbs. Just as a locomotive-engine is enabled to travel by power of the _potential_ motion stored in the steam generated in its boiler. And as in the living organism, so in the engine, the mechanism and the processes that engender in it the _potential motion_ of steam are wholly distinct from those which convert this potential motion into _actual motion_.

One is able to think, by power of the _potential_ mentality stored, or latent, in his brain-cells. For not only the vital processes which sustain the life of the organism, as those too which enable it to function in terms of living personality and action, but brain-power also must exist in the dual forms, respectively, of _potential_ Faculty and _functioning_ Faculty. So too, Reproductive power. In all of these appear again the modes of Dominance and Recessiveness, of powers _positive_ and _manifesting_, and of powers _negative_ and _latent_. And since the female s.e.x is characterised by traits of repose and conservation, and the male s.e.x by traits of action, the dual modes of vital, muscular, cerebral and reproductive energy _in potential_, and of vital, muscular, cerebral and reproductive energy _in course of generating function_, range themselves inevitably on the two sides of the living equation as s.e.x-characteristics differentiating the male organisation from that of the female. Thus ranged, they characterise the two sides of the body as representing, respectively, a right, male side which is the central agency in function, and a left, female side, which is the reservoir of the _potential_ of function.

If then the female mode of functioning is the Potential, or Recessive, a mode of latency, it is to be inferred that the male traits every female creature inherits from her father will, when incorporated in a body of female prepotence, pa.s.s into the potential, or Recessive, mode; and will thus become inhibited from developing as male-characteristics.

Nevertheless, this male potential will be preserved in that reproductive gland which represents the paternal inherences in her, and will be transmitted, as her contribution to male offspring, in the s.e.x-cells generated by this gland.

While the female inherences every male derives from his mother will, in the presence of the Dominant male-characteristics he derives from his father, retain their latent, or Recessive, mode; and will thus not emerge as female characteristics. The female inherences will be preserved, however, in that reproductive gland which represents the maternal inherences in him; and will be transmitted as his contribution to female offspring.

It will be seen thus that, as in hybrid plants, so in hybrid creatures of both s.e.xes, cells of two s.e.xes are generated: in the male, cells Dominant for maleness and cells Recessive for maleness--female that is; in the female, Recessive cells, prepotent for femaleness, and Dominant, or male, cells.

And of these, the Dominant male s.e.x-cells contributed by the male parent, mating with the Dominant, or male, s.e.x-cells contributed by the female parent, male offspring results. While the Recessive female s.e.x-cells contributed by the female parent, mating with the Recessive, or female, s.e.x-cells contributed by the male parent, female offspring results.

Furthermore, Dominance being paramount in development, it must be from the Dominant inherence imparted by residence in a male organisation to the potential, or Recessive, female Germ-Plasm that the latter derives the new developmental impulse it transmits to s.e.x-cells. While Recessiveness being Life and Faculty in the potential mode, it must be from the Recessive inherence engendered in the Dominant male Germ-Plasm, by residence in a female organisation, that its Dominance, pa.s.sing into latency, derives a new potential of further evolutionary impetus.

The differentiation of living creatures into two s.e.xes, therefore, of bodies into two sides, of brains into two halves, and of Germ-Plasm into two reproductive glands, would seem to have had for object the ever further specialisation and segregation in the individual, for purposes alike of const.i.tutional organisation and of the evolution of Faculty and Reproduction, of the two Orders of Contrasting Traits, which I have a.s.sumed to be Maleness and Femaleness, respectively.

From this view-point, the female s.e.x and s.e.x-traits are Recessive, or Potential, always, on the material plane, and manifest increasingly thereon only by way of ever more complex alliances with male-traits; which, being positive on the concrete plane, equip the female inherences for function thereon. Femaleness, or Recessiveness, on its side, however--being Life-Energy in the potential--is all the while engendering new potence for Dominance to transform into active, or functioning, power. While although negative, it is equally potent, on _its_ side of the equation, to alter the values and manifestations of Dominance. Just as negative electricity inhibits the positive and destructive forces of positive electricity, although it does not, of itself, _manifest directly_.

The Dominant traits of Tallness and Strength, for example, are direct and _positive_ factors in physical development. Dwarfness and Weakness are indirect and _negative_ factors therein. Nevertheless, degrees of Dwarfness or of Weakness must proportionally reduce and modify the tallness of Tallness or the power of Strength.

But that Recessiveness is not a _minus_ sign merely, as algebraically understood--but is an essential potence on another, and a psychical plane, is shown by the lesser height of woman rendering itself as a Grace; her lesser strength appearing in the new virtue of Gentleness.

That the female provides, for fertilisation, only a single s.e.x-cell, from the reproductive gland of one or other side, while the male provides multiple and commingled cells from both sides, supports the view that s.e.x-cells derived from one side are of opposite s.e.x-inherence to those from the other side. Otherwise, why two reproductive glands?

The author of _The Causation of s.e.x_ adduces evidence showing not only that the two glands are of opposite s.e.x-inherence, but, moreover, that normally they function alternately; so that now a cell of one, now, of the other s.e.x, is produced. It is likely, however, that function is seldom so mechanical, but that personal const.i.tution or nurture modifies its operations.

That the male cells are multiple in number points to such a struggle of survival-fitness as ever characterises the more strenuous male destiny.

Not, perhaps, the fittest as regards intrinsic superiority, but that most compatible with the requirements of the Queen-cell is selected for mate. Should the Queen-cell be of inferior standard, therefore, then (as happens in life) not the n.o.blest of type, but that most adapted to environment secures racial survival.

So that here again, evolutionary racial advance may derive its impulse from the Female factor.

A singular phenomenon, recorded by the biologist, Rorig, and one which materially supports my argument, is that disease of the ovaries of a female deer will cause _male_ antlers to develop in her. Proving a male organism concealed, or held Recessive, in her, by power of her female s.e.x-organs normally to inhibit the development of her inherited male-traits. A strange feature of this abnormal occurrence is that disease of _one_ ovary only causes antlers to develop on _one_ side only--and this on the side opposite to that of the diseased gland.

On the other hand, castration of male sheep of the Merino breed (only the males of which are horned) occasions hornlessness.

V

Male traits being paramount on the plane of concrete function, although they exist (normally) in Recessive form in the female, it is from the male inherence of her active right side and its allied brain-half that she derives her concrete powers alike of body and of brain.

It is obvious, therefore, that when abnormally stimulated by undue exercise, such male-traits may develop into abnormal dominance.

The left arm of woman is essentially the woman-member. In its half-pa.s.sive action of supporting her infant for hours together, it is stronger for this maternal ministration than is the more active and doughty right arm of the male. Her left hand is more delicate of form, gentler and more soothing of motion than her right hand is. It is the hand she caresses with. While for direct, strong action--masculine action, that is--the paternal right half of her is dominant, as in the male. And although in our present-day stages of Evolution, the Recessive Woman-traits have emerged as definite characteristics, emanc.i.p.ating themselves from subjection by the Dominant male-traits, it must be remembered that their impulse and their powers are yet but rudimentary.

Woman is still more male than she is female; her methods being more masculine still than they are womanly. And this in the degree of her cruder racial stock, or of the harder conditions (natural or artificial) of the environment in which she finds herself, demanding more of masculine proclivity in her--of physical activity and mental a.s.sertiveness--than of her intrinsic Woman-qualities of emotion and ministry.

Civilisation, foreshadowing evolutionary ideals, discountenances, the fighting female. Nevertheless, the cruder female _fights_ still with her male right arm, and the more cultured female, with tongue and tactics.

The intrinsic Woman-qualities, whereof Christianity is the gospel, are yet in their infancy of development; are yet more ideals for which we are shaping and waiting than they are realised and abiding facts.

Even their own babes are not secure from the instinct of blows inherent in the male-muscles of their mothers' right arms, when these are restrained neither by a woman's tenderness nor by a man's chivalry.