Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/97

Rh words, the intellect of either sex has found pleasure in association with something dissimilar to itself, not because one is better or worse than the other, but simply because the two are different. There is no more reason for the assertion that a woman's brain is an undeveloped man's which requires cultivation, than for the assertion that a man's pelvis is an undeveloped woman's which requires to be expanded, or that some of his muscles should be converted into fat. To him it is not, as a rule, given to express himself so rapidly as a woman; to her it is not, as a rule, given to think so deeply as a man. But she often sees what is lost to him during a fit of abstraction; and he is often indebted to her for the materials upon which his reflection may work. Genius, it has often been said, is of both sexes at once; and the saying well indicates the true relation of the male and female intellects. Each has powers and beauties of its own; each may profit by contact with the other, and it is not until some resemblance to a combination of the two has been effected that men recognize that highest mental development to which they give the name of genius.

There are few subjects interesting to man in which clever women do not sometimes also take an interest; and from this fact it has been hastily inferred that women might, with profit, devote the same attention as men to any and every branch of study. Such an inference leaves out of sight the fact that women rarely look at any subject from the same point of view as men; their opinions often have the value which is to be found in the observations of an intelligent spectator when persons, whose whole attention is absorbed in any pursuit, fail to perceive what most concerns them. The best critic is not always a good author or composer; and excellent suggestions are frequently made by those who are not fitted by Nature to carry their own ideas into operation. This is especially the case with women, who, if they were to devote their whole energies to science or to politics, would do violence to their physical organization. The prolonged effort which is necessary in order to work out any great scheme, to make any great discovery, to colligate any vast mass of materials by a great generalization, is a heavier strain on the vital powers than any merely physical exertion. It is, like military service, inconsistent with that bodily constitution which is adapted to maternity, and all that maternity implies; nor does it seem possible that by any process of selection, either natural or human, this difficulty can be overcome. The change in woman's nature must (if effected at all) be effected either in one generation or more; if in one, humanity must immediately cease to exist; if in more, humanity would only be extinguished by degrees; but the diversion of woman's vital powers, from the course which they take by nature, is neither more nor less than the abolition of motherhood. And this, either wholly or in part, either directly or indirectly, is what some earnest men are preaching in the name of sexual equality.

The modern attempts to deprive woman of her womanliness belong