All these remarkable and widely divergent structures and arrangements depend not upon chance or on the fantastic expression of a 'formative power,' as an earlier generation was wont to phrase it; they are undoubtedly without exception adaptations to the most intimate conditions of fertilization in each individual case. I lay particular stress upon a recognition of this, because it permits us to infer with certainty that even the variations of the single cell, if they are sufficiently important for the species, may be controlled by natural selection. It is obvious that the adaptations of the sex-cells must depend not on histonal selection, but only upon personal selection, since it is indifferent for the individual sperm-cells whether fertilization is accomplished successfully or not, while it is by no means indifferent for the species. The organism dies without descendants if its sperm-cells do not fertilize, and the carrying on of the species must be left to those of its fellows which produced sperm-cells which fertilize with more certainty; thus it is not the sperm-cells themselves, but the individual organisms which are selected, and that in relation to the quality of the sex-cells they produce. In contrast with the great diversity of form exhibited by the spermatozoa, the differentiation of the ovum appears very uniform, at least in regard to form and activity. The main form is spherical, but it is subject to many variations in the way of elongation or flattening. In the lower forms of life, as, for instance, among the sponges, and also in the polyps and Medusæ the egg-cells possess, until they are mature, the locomotor capacity of unicellular organisms; they creep about after the manner of amœbæ, and indeed, as I showed years ago, this movement from place to place in many polyps is exactly regulated; thus at a definite time they may leave the place where they originated and may, for instance, creep from the outer layer of cells (ectoderm) of the animal into the inner layer (endoderm) by boring through the so-called 'supporting lamella,' then they may creep further in the endoderm, and finally return to quite definite and often remote spots in the ectoderm (_Eudendrium_, Fig. 95). In another hydroid polyp (_Corydendrium parasiticum_) the mature egg-cells leave their former position within the endoderm and creep entirely outside of the animal which produced them, establishing themselves in a definite spot on its external surface, where they await the fertilizing zoosperms. Many ova can accomplish slight amœboid movements, but in most animals these do not suffice for movement from place to place, and the ova remain quietly in the spot where they were developed, or are passively pushed to another. Cases such as that of the polyp I have cited, in which the ovum actually comes to meet the male element, are quite exceptional, for in general the ovum is the passive and the spermatozoon the active or exploring element in fertilization.