In pursuance of this policy it naturally turns out that
those types showing greater morphological and functional complexity,
along with freer movement and more mental ingenuity, come into the
more perfect control and use of their environment, and consequently
have greater likelihood of survival. Failing of this greater
complexity, their chance of life lies in occupying so obscure a
position, so to speak, that they do not come into collision with more
dominant forms, or in reproducing at such a rate as to survive in
spite of this. The number of devices in the way of modification of
form and habit to secure advantage is practically infinite, but all
progressive species have utilized the principle of sex as an accessory
of success. By this principle greater variability is secured, and
among the larger number of variations there is always a chance of the
appearance of one of superior fitness. The male in many of the lower
forms is very insignificant in size, economically useless (as among
the bees), often a parasite on the female, and, as many biologists
hold, merely a secondary device or afterthought of nature, designed
to secure greater variation than can be had by the asexual mode of
reproduction.
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