and Sutton pointed out the function of the sex chromosome in 1902 and
1903. Present-day "theories" are little more than working hypotheses,
developed, not in a library or study, but with one eye glued to a
high-power microscope.

Besides its faulty foundation as to facts, the old gynæcocentric theory
involved a method of treatment by historical analogy which biologists
have almost entirely discarded. Anyone interested in the relative value
of different kinds of biological data for social problems would do well
to read the opening chapter of Prof. Morgan's "Critique of the Theory of
Evolution"[9], for even a summary of which space is lacking here.
College reference shelves are still stocked with books on sex sociology
which are totally oblivious of present-day biology. For example, Mrs
Gilman (Man-Made World), Mrs Hartley (Truth About Woman) and the
Nearings (Woman and Social Progress) adhere to Ward's theory in
substantially its primitive form, and not even sociologists like
Professor Thomas (Sex and Society) have been able to entirely break away
from it.

The old question of male and female predominance in inheritance has been
to a considerable extent cleared up, to the discomfiture of both sides
to the controversy. Most exhaustive experiments failed to trace any
characters to any other part of either sperm or egg than the nucleus.
Transmission of characteristics seemed to be absolutely equal by the two
parents. The male nucleus enters the egg practically naked. Hence if the
characters are transmitted equally, there is certainly ground for
supposing that only the nucleus of the egg has such functions, and that
the remainder merely provides material for early development. Yet this
does not seem to be strictly true.