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 constitution and of dual functions of the two-sided body supplies an explanation, equally simple and inevitable, of the parental transmission of Sex. 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 sexes, 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 sex-inherence, it is only logical to conclude that the contribution the gland of one side makes will be of different sex-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 sex is characterised by traits of repose and conservation, and the male sex 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 Sex-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, pass 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 sex-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 sexes, cells of two sexes 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 sex-cells contributed by the male parent, mating with the Dominant, or male, sex-cells contributed by the female parent, male offspring results. While the Recessive female sex-cells contributed by the female parent, mating with the Recessive, or female, sex-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 sex-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, passing into latency, derives a new potential of further evolutionary impetus.
The differentiation of living creatures into two sexes, 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 constitutional organisation and of the evolution of Faculty and Reproduction, of the two Orders of Contrasting Traits, which I have assumed to be Maleness and Femaleness, respectively.
From this view-point, the female Sex and Sex-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 sex-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 sex-cells derived from one side are of opposite sex-inherence to those from the other side. Otherwise, why two reproductive glands?
The author of The Causation of Sex adduces evidence showing not only that the two glands are of opposite sex-inherence, but, moreover, that normally they function alternately; so that now a cell of one, now, of the other sex, is produced. It is likely, however, that function is seldom so mechanical, but that personal constitution 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 noblest of type, but that most adapted to environment secures