Читать книгу The Truth About Woman - C. Gasquoine Hartley - Страница 27

Summary of conclusions arrived at in the previous chapters—The necessity of a further examination of sexual love among our pre-human ancestors—The question approached from a different point of view—The impelling motive of love the union of two cells—Hermaphroditism—Its various forms—The first step in the ladder of sex—Reproduction among fishes—The next step—The attraction of one sex for the other—The female and the male begin to associate in pairs—Illustration of the salmon—Sexual differences become more frequent—The males distinguished by bright colours and ornamental appendages—Sexual passion and jealous combats of rival males—Examples—A further step—The note of physical fondness—The male plays with the female, wooing and caressing her—The love play often extraordinary—The case of the stickleback—The males, passionate, polygamous, and jealous—The paternal instinct of the stickleback—Nature making experiments in parenthood—Parental forethought among insects—Illustrations of male parental care—The obstetric frog—Further examples of primitive animal courtships—A psychic attraction added to the physical—The courtship of the octopus—A final step—The co-operation of the sexes in work together—The dung-rolling beetle—The significance of these early courtships—Analogy with our sex-passions—The love-process identical throughout the whole of life.