A spermatozoön is a microscopic body contained in the semen, to which
the seminal fluid owes its vitality; and which is the immediate means
of impregnating or fertilizing the ovum of the female; a spermatic cell
or filament; a spermatozoid. (Cent. Dic. 7, p. 5819.)
The spermatozoön is composed of protoplasm and is one of the smallest
cells in the animal body. The seminal fluid is called “sperm” or
“the male seed.” Sperm, like saliva or blood, is not a simple fluid,
but is a thick agglomeration of innumerable cells swimming about in
a comparatively small quantity of fluid. It is not the fluid, but
the independent male cells, which swim in it, that cause conception.
They have, as a rule, “a peculiarly lively motion.” In most animals,
the spermatozoä have a very small naked body, inclosing an elongated
nucleus and a long thread like tail, hanging from it. It was long
before we could recognize that these structures were simple cells. We
now know that the spermatozoä are nothing but simple and real cells of
the kind we call “ciliated” cells, equipped with cilia or “lashes.”
The body of the spermatozoön is divided into “head,” “trunk” and
“tail.” The head is merely the oval nucleus of the cell; the body
or middle part is an accumulation of cell matter and the tail is
a thread-like prolongation of the trunk or body. The form of the
spermatozoön is not peculiar to it; cells with similar forms are found
in various other parts of the body. Such forms as the spermatozoön are
called caudate or tailed cells. See Haeckel, _Evolution of Man_, p.
52-53.
“The spermatozoä,” says Professor Martin, “are motile bodies about
1/500th of an inch in length; they have a flattened, clear body or head
and a long vibratile tail or cilium; the portion of the tail nearest
the head is thicker than the rest, and is known as the neck. The mode
of development of a spermatozoön shows that the head is a cell-nucleus
and the neck and tail a modified cell-body.”--(Martin, _Human Body_,
p. 651.)
According to Haeckel, the spermatozoön is about 1/10,000th of an inch
in diameter. See _Evolution of Man_, p. 53, fig. 22.
“The striking differences,” says Haeckel, “of [between] the respective
cells, in size and shape … are easily explained on the principle of
division of labor. The inert motionless ovum grows in size according to
the quantity of provision it stores up in the form of nutritive yelk
for the development of the germ. The active swimming sperm-cell is
reduced in size in proportion to its need to seek the ovum and bore its
way into its yelk.”--Haeckel, _Evolution of Man_, p. 57.
These statements appear to be true; but the work described by Haeckel,
cannot be done by man nor woman; nor by their sexual organs; nor by the
blind unthinking atoms which go to build up the spermatozoön and the
ovum. The Creator only, can make them!
“The phenomena we have described,” he says, on another page, “can
only be understood and explained by ascribing a certain lower degree
of psychic activity to the sexual principles. They feel each other’s
proximity and are drawn together by a sensitive impulse (probably
related to smell); they move towards each other and do not rest until
they fuse together.” (Haeckel, _Evolution of Man_, p. 58.)
There is no pretense that the spermatozoön has any brain, eyes, ears,
nose, taste or touch; nor that the ovum has any such organs. Then, how
can they have any “degree of psychic activity;” how can “they feel each
other’s proximity;” how can “they move towards each other?” How could
either know in what direction to go in order to reach the other?
It is absurd to suppose that the spermatozoön and ovum have any
knowledge of each other, or of anything else; and the only reasonable
hypothesis is that the Creator generates, guides, and controls the
forces which bring them together and fuse them into the germ-cell.