Page:Homo-sexual Life by William John Fielding (1925).pdf/7

 sentiment. The first divinities were always bisexual, being either women with a penis or men with a female breast.

Lower down in the biological scale—in fact, at the very bottom—we find the amoeba, which represents an auto-sexual, or more accurately, a mono-sexual, form. It has all the potentialities for reproduction within itself. By the process of division, first of its nucleus, and then its whole self, it becomes two new individuals.

A little further up the evolutionary path, we find the paramoecium. At one stage of its career it will divide its nucleus first, and then itself (an autosexual act) similar to the amoeba. At another stage it will engage in an elementary sexual act by coming ventrally together with another paramoecium, exchange one-half of its nucleus for half the nucleus of the other paramoecium, through the mouth, and this process is followed by other nuclear changes, and finally each paramoecium divides itself into two new entities.

There is no apparent difference between these primitive little animals. They have no male and female organs, but it is a plausible assumption that the nuclei of each one contains a "male" and "female" portion—something unknown but necessary to procreation. In this instance we have the beginning of bisexuality; but autosexuality is still an essential factor in reproduction.

Somewhat higher up the scale we come across the hydra, a multicellular animal. Here, also, autosexuality plays a prominent role. The