Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/216

204 its parallel in the "subjugation" of the cow, the mare, the ewe, the lioness?

That the women of the middle class in all civilized countries, and of the higher in some, would be much healthier and stronger if they took more exercise in the open air and swallowed less tea, we admit. But in that case we contend that their increased vigor would descend not to their daughters exclusively or specially, but to all their children.

Further, in some countries and among certain classes, a great amount of physical labor falls to the lot of the women, without their being thereby rendered equal in strength to the men. Among the North American aborigines the squaw has the monopoly of hard work, while her husband—save when on the chase or on the war-path—indulges in idleness. Yet he runs no risk on that account of being surpassed in strength by his wife, and ultimately finding himself in consequence "subjugated."

No less is the superior cerebral development of the male sex in the human species, to which we have already referred as an indisputable fact, devoid of functional importance. It has, indeed, been contended that the difference in weight between the brain of the two sexes is a mere "survival" from some lower state of civilization, or of existence which we may expect to see ultimately disappear. Such hopes, if they anywhere exist, must be abandoned in view of the results of M, le Bon, already quoted. This biologist finds that "the difference between the respective weight of the brain in man and woman constantly goes on increasing as we rise in the scale of civilization, so that as regards the mass of the brain, and consequently in intelligence, woman becomes more and more differentiated from man. The difference which exists between the mean of the crania of contemporary Parisian men and that of contemporary Parisian women is almost double the difference which existed in ancient Egypt.

Taking hold of this simple fact, that the brain in the male is not merely larger, but increasingly larger, than in the female, we need not long search for its meaning. As the same writer to whom we have referred declares, "On examining series of crania sufficiently numerous we find that in the human species the largest brains belong to the races highest endowed intellectually, and in each race to its most intelligent members." Just, therefore, as higher civilization is heralded, or at least evidenced, by increasing bulk of brain; just as the most intelligent and the dominant races surpass their rivals in cranial capacity; and just as in those races the leaders, whether in the sphere of thought or of action, are eminently large-brained—so we must naturally expect that man, surpassing woman in volume of brain, must surpass her in at least a proportionate degree in intellectual power. We are sorry to be compelled here to own that while we know that in most, if not all, mammalian species the brain of the male exceeds in size that of the female, we have no observations as to any corresponding difference in mental