The thesis that I desire to establish is that the heredity of each individual and each type is compounded of variations or changes of two distinct origins, one external and one internal; that is to say, of variations resulting from changes originating in the germ-cells or gametes, and of modifications produced originally in the soma by the action of external stimuli, and subsequently affecting the gametes. When we study the characters of animals in relation to sex we find that in many cases there are conspicuous organs or characters present in one sex, usually the male, which are absent or rudimentary in the other. The conception of adaptation applies to these also, since we find that characters consist often of weapons such as horns, antlers, and spurs, used in sexual combat, of copulatory or clasping organs such as the pads on a frog's forefeet, of ornamental plumage like the peacock's tail serving to charm the female, or of special pouches as in species of pipe-fish and frog for holding the eggs or young. Darwin attempted to explain sexual adaptation by sexual selection. The selective process in this case was supposed to be, not the survival of individuals best adapted to secure food or shelter or to escape from enemies, but the success of those males which were victorious in combat, or which were most attractive to the females, and therefore left the greater number of offspring which inherited their variations. But, as Darwin himself admitted, this theory of selection does not in any way explain the differences between the sexes--in other words, the limitation of the characters or organs to one sex--since there is no reason in the process of selection itself why the peculiarity of a successful male should not be inherited by his female offspring as well as by his male offspring. The real problem, then, is the sex-limited heredity, and we shall consider later whether in this kind of heredity also there are characters of internal as well as external origin, blastogenic as well as somatogenic. CHAPTER II Mendelism And The Heredity Of Sex