The Courtship of Animals

The Courtship of Animals

The nature of Life and its power of reproductionThe stuff of which Life is madeThe EmotionsThe simplest living thingsWhere is neither Birth nor Death yet the Population increasesThe First MarriageThe beginning of sexThe two dominating instinctsThe conditions of survivalThe Oysters narrow worldFiddling workAmorousnessThe superior MaleWhere Death beginsGerm-plasm and what it meansSex and Secondary sexual CharactersSome theoriesHormones what are they? The nature of life is generally regarded as affording a theme which possesses no more than an academic interest: but there is one aspect of this great subject which must attract us all, and that is its power of reproducing itself. Life begets Life, as Love is said to beget Love. The nature of this mysterious power we can only dimly realize, and the forces which underlie its manifestations few even suspect, save perhaps in a vague way. Yet the tree of Knowledge bears no fruit more vitally important to our well-being, than that which will make us as Gods, knowing good and evil in all that concerns the processes of reproduction. But curiously enough, this is a forbidden fruit, and those who eat thereof are expected 2to maintain a discreet silence on the subject. These enlightened ones, however, cannot remain altogether dumb. But they speak, in the veiled language, of Art and Poetry, Literature and the Drama. They talk round the subject rather than of it. Love, Hate, Jealousy, and Envy, are but attributes thereof. We profess to believe that Knowledge is Power and to desire to increase its force among us by raising the standard of our system of education. But education which does not, of set purpose, reveal the sources of our being and of our emotions, good and evil, is no more than a travesty of education; and they who seek to foist upon the community Knowledge thus emasculated, are unworthy to wield the power which has been placed in their hands. If social well-being be the aim of the high-priests of Education, then something more than copybook maxims like Be good and you will be happy must henceforth be preached. Of what avail is it to exalt the name of Knowledge, while the straightest road thereto is barred across and marked No thoroughfare! These blind leaders of the blind seem to imagine that the social well-being they profess to desire can only be attained by side roads, leading anywhere, save in the direction of this Pool of Siloam. The stuff of which living things are made is called Protoplasm. Text-books of Physiology give its chemical constituents with fearsome accuracy, and each of these constituents can be isolated in the laboratory, but all the kings horses and all the kings men cannot build these up again into living matter. Its consistent inconsistency defies us; every statement we make of it has to be qualified by reservations and saving clauses. 3Its permanency is attested by the fact that it has endured through millions of years, yet we are daily reminded of its evanescent nature. Its power of reproducing itself according to type, none can doubt, yet no two individuals are exactly alike. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 60517
Author: Pycraft, W. P. (William Plane)
Release Date: Oct 18, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English