It were well to keep these facts clearly in sight; for, in the light of them, it becomes evident that there is an error somewhere in the common opinion of the true relationship of the sexes. Let us go first to the very start of the matter. It is always held that the sperm male-cell represents the active, and the germ female-cell the passive principle in sexuality, and on this assumption there has been based by many a fixed standard for the supposed natural relation between man and woman--he active and seeking, she passive and receiving. But is this really a fair statement of the reproduction process? The hunger-driven male-cell certainly seeks the female--but what happens then? The female cellule, the ovule, _preserves its individuality and absorbs the masculine cellule, or is impregnated by it_. Thus, to use the term "passive" in this connection is surely curiously misleading; as well call the snake passive when, waiting motionless, it charms and draws towards it the victim it will devour. Illustrations are apt to mislead, nevertheless they do help us to see straight, and until we have come to find the truth here we shall be fumbling for the grounds of any safe conclusion as to the natural relationship of the female and the male. I think we must take a wider view of the sexual relationship, and conclude that the passivity of the female is not real, but only an apparent passivity. We may even go so far as to say that the female element has from the very first to play the more complex and difficult, the more important part. Herein, at the very start of life, is typified in a manner at once simple and convincing that differentiation which divides so sharply the sexual activity of the female from that of the male. The serious part in sex belongs to the one who gives life, while in comparison the activity of the male can almost be regarded as trifling. And I believe that this view will be found to be amply supported by facts if we turn now to consider the later and human relation of the sexes. In all cases it is the same, the serious business in sex belongs to the woman. As it was in the beginning, so, it seems to me, it continues to the end--it is woman who really leads, she who in sex absorbs and uses the male.