We naturally ask, then, how the two
parents are concerned in this matter; and the first remarkable answer
returned by the Mendelian workers during the last three or four years is
that it is the mother who determines the sex of her children in the case
of all the higher animals. Her contribution to the new being is called
the ovum, and it is believed that ova are of two kinds, or, we are quite
right in saying, of two sexes.
Those who are now working at these problems experimentally, actually
seeing what happens in given cases, and whom we may for convenience call
Mendelians after the master who gave them their method and their key,
have latterly obtained results the main tenour of which must be stated
here, as they indicate the lines of a portion of the succeeding
argument. The task was to attack experimentally the determination of
sex--a fascinating problem for which so many solutions that failed to
hold water have been found, but hitherto no others. In finding the
answer to it, as they appear certainly to have done so far as the higher
animals are concerned, the Mendelians are also beginning to ascertain,
as we shall see, certain basal facts as to the composition or
constitution of the individual; and to us, who wish to know exactly
what a woman is, and what she is as distinguished from a man, this
discovery is of the most vital importance. The experimental facts are
not yet numerous, and if they were not consonant with facts of other
orders, it would be rash to proceed; but it will be evident, in the
sequel, that common experience is well in accord with the experimental
evidence.
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