Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/551

 of inferior anatomical construction to that of man, and that in consequence her intellectual powers differ from his, both in degree and in character.

—Voltaire has said, "le physique gouverne toujours le morale," which is strikingly illustrated by the present inquiry. In the lower animals there is a marked difference in the disposition and character of the sexes. The males are of a combative nature, and have a great tendency to fight. They are bolder, fiercer, and more untamable. The females have more highly exalted perceptive faculties, they are cautious, artful, and cunning, as is abundantly seen in the ingenious methods they adopt in the hiding and protecting of their young. These properties serve them to some extent in lieu of physical force, and they are altogether more gentle and more tractable in their nature. The same, in a different degree, is obvious in the human female. Every mother knows that a male infant is more troublesome to rear than a female. As children grow older the difference becomes more marked. The girl is less boisterous, willful, and imperious than the boy. She is more delicate, impressionable, and artful, pleased with attention, solicits admiration, and is readily moved to tears at suggestion of sorrow or pain. He courts danger, is bored with solicitude, and, more blunted or careless, laughs at what she weeps at. She, with her doll, already anticipates the gentle duties of maternity. He, with his sword and trumpet, mimics the glory of war. On the disposition of the fully-developed woman poets have written volumes. We, however, have to take a more matter-of-fact view of her than they have done. When Hamlet said, "Frailty, thy name is woman," he was scientifically correct, in more senses than he intended. Her natural muscular feebleness and delicacy of constitution render violent exercise and labor distasteful to her, and her inferiority of intellectual power makes severe and constant mental exertion a task. While the man, full of bodily and mental vigor, goes forth seeking and braving danger and labor, proud in the responsibility of those dependent on him, the woman fulfills a welcome task at home in the less active duties of matrimony, and of domestic and social observances, equally happy in the possession of a strong arm and head to protect and support her. Such an existence, however, fosters a great susceptibility of character in addition to her natural conformation. Hers is often a mixture of extreme happiness or of profound misery. She feels pain, grief, and anxiety acutely. To these she readily gives way, and as rapidly revives from their effects. Sensations of all kinds act on her powerfully. These she can not control, but exaggerates into extremes, and manifests by violent demonstrations. If she feels acutely it is not for long, her sentiments at the time being easily replaced by new ones, and her mental distress, if rapidly induced, is more poignant than deep. Woman is essentially impulsive and emotional; her sensitive and changeable nature is necessary for