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Now the immature Reed-Bunting, though to our ears its song is but a poor representation of that of the adult, gains a mate; the Yellow Bunting pairs, and the discharge of the sexual function may even have taken place before its voice attains what we judge to be its full development; and there are no grounds for supposing that the Donegal Chaffinch, with its less musical notes, has on that account any the less chance of procreating its kind facts which demonstrate that the biological value of song is neither to be sought in the purity of tone, nor in the variety and combination of phrases, nor, indeed, in any of those qualities by which the human voice gains or loses merit, and which leave us with no alternative but to dismiss from our minds all æsthetic considerations in the attempt to estimate its true significance.
His volumes on the descent of man and on the expression of the emotions in man and animals, completed his contributions to the biological argument.
It would appear that heat, light, electricity, sound, the cathode rays, and all other forms of force in nature are probably variations, and as it were limited expressions and manifestations, of the one supreme force that supports the constitution of the physical universe; and that one supreme force is gravitation! Stages in Biological Inquiry.
So the whole range, we might say the whole conceivable range, of biological science is sketched out, and the greater part of the great canvas is painted in. But to bring it into touch with human life, and to make good its claim to the high places of philosophy, we must go yet farther and study Life itself, and what men call the Soul. So grows the great conception.
He develops according to the Oedipus hypothesis the desire to get away from the father or the father image. All other men are patterned after the father image and if this strong biological direction fails to take place, his interest not being directed in an opposite direction, he fails to mate and thus fails in his reproductive function.
The first lesson is a purely biological one which suggests the eugenic argument that defective humans, like undesirable animals and plants, should not take part in the perpetuation of the species. The second lesson is not biological but ethical, suggesting individual responsibility for conduct which may disastrously affect other individuals' lives.
One very remarkable organization, which has at its head an astonishingly buoyant and optimistic and, it is hardly necessary to add, successful man, teaches that character is nine-tenths of success in salesmanship and technique is only one-tenth. They study technique and character along with it, in a scientific way, like the students in a biological laboratory who examine specimens.
But if we look at the matter from a wider biological standpoint of development, our conclusion must be very different. So far from being animal-like, the human impulses of sex are among the least animal-like acquisitions of man. The human sphere of sex differs from the animal sphere of sex to a singularly great extent.
All of which savors of conjury, but is really only matter-of-fact biological experiment experiment, however, of which the implications by no means confine themselves to matters of fact biological.
What we call the "quantitative theory of sex" has, besides a place in exact science, an interesting relation to the history of biological thought, especially as applied to society. It is thus in order to state as clearly as possible what it now is; then, so that no one may confuse it with what it is not, to run over some of the old ideas which resemble it.
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