as fixed and
unalterable in either the female or the male organism; but rather
that the secondary sexual characters must be considered as depending
on environmental conditions, among which are included the occupational
activities, the scarcity or abundance of the food supply, the relative
numbers of the two sexes, and, in particular, the brain development
and the strength of the parental emotions. We followed the development
of the female element and the male element. The male at first an
insignificant addendum to the female, but the long process of love's
selection, carrying on the expansion and aggrandisement of the male,
led to the reversal of the early superiority of the female, replacing
it by the superiority of the male. The female led and the male
followed in the evolution process. We saw that there are many curious
alternations in the superiority of one sex over the other in size and
also in power of function. Below the line, among backboneless animals,
there is much greater constancy of superiority among the females, and
this predominance persists in many higher types. Even among birds, who
afford the most perfect examples of sexual development, the cases are
not infrequent in which the female equals, and sometimes even exceeds,
the male in size and strength and in beauty of plumage. The curious
case of the Phalaropes furnished us with a remarkable example of a
reversal of the role of the sexes. We found further that (1) an
extravagant development of the secondary sexual characters was not
really favourable to the reproductive process, the males thus
differentiated belonging to a lower grade of sexual evolution, being
bad fathers and unsocial in their conduct; (2) that the most oppressed
females are as a rule very faithful wives, and (3) that the highest
expression of love among the birds must be sought in the beautiful
cases in which the sexes, though maintaining the essential
constitutional distinctions, are, through the higher individuation of
the females more alike, equal in capacity, and co-operate together in
the race-work.

It were well to keep these facts clearly in sight; for, in the light
of them, it becomes evident that there is an error somewhere in the
common opinion of the true relationship of the sexes. Let us go first
to the very start of the matter. It is always held that the sperm
male-cell represents the active, and the germ female-cell the passive
principle in sexuality, and on this assump