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The egg proceeds to develop quite regularly. There is no fusion of the nucleus of the egg-cell with any matter from the outside; no paternal "material" is introduced, but the nucleus of the egg-cell divides just as though there had been! The whole progeny of cells, successively formed, are the pure offspring of the maternal egg-cell and its nucleus.
And undoubtedly it founders on the facts of embryology, which disclose nothing to suggest the unfolding of a pre-existent miniature model, but show us how the egg-cell divides into two, into four, and so on, with continued multiplication followed by varied arrangements and rearrangements of cells—in short, all the complex changes which constitute development.
Parthenogenesis, or the development of an embryo from an egg-cell without the latter having been fertilized, has been described in species of Thalictrum, Antennaria and Alchemilla. Polyembryony is generally associated with the development of cells other than the egg-cell. Thus in Erythronium and Limnocharis the fertilized egg may form a mass of tissue on which several embryos are produced.
As has already been mentioned every individual inherits, generally speaking, as much from his paternal as from his maternal progenitors. This in spite of the fact that the tiny paternal germ-cell is the only medium of transmission of the paternal qualities, while the mother furnishes the much larger egg-cell, and feeds him throughout the embryonic period.
The newly-formed parent-cell, or fertilised egg-cell, contains potentially, in their rudiments, all the bodily and mental characteristics which the child inherits from both parents. It is clearly against reason to assume an eternal and unending life for an individual phenomenon whose beginning in time we can determine to a hair's breadth, by direct observation.
We now know that this process essentially consists simply in the copulation or fusion of two microscopical cells, the female egg-cell and the male sperm-cell. The fusion of the nuclei of these two sexual cells indicates with the utmost precision the exact moment at which the new human individual arises.
But, of course, he could not have any knowledge of the egg-cell, nor does he say anything about the reproduction of plants. But there was no idea of holding this as a general and universal law.
The meaning of the ovaries as sources of the egg-cells and of the uterus as the place for development of the fertilized egg-cell should be explained in a serious way that will help boys get some fundamental ideas as to what motherhood means Boys, moreover, should be informed concerning the existence of the periodic disturbance in the other sex, for unless they know they are sure at times to misunderstand their sisters and other girls.
And yet, from the moment of conception, the egg-cell repudiated complete adhesion and even communication, and asserted its individual integrity. The child in the womb, perfect a contact though it may have with the mother, is all the time also dynamically polarized against this contact. From the first moment, this relation in touch has a dual polarity, and, no doubt, a dual mode.
It is a fourfold interchange of consciousness, the moment the egg-cell has made its two spontaneous divisions. As soon as the child is born, there is a real severance. The contact of touch is interrupted, it now becomes occasional only. True, the dynamic flow between mother and child is not severed when simple physical contact is missing.
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