Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/198

186 Parchappe makes the difference as 109·34 to 100, Broca; Rudolph, and Wagner, as 111 to 100; Huschke, as 112 to 100; Meyner, as 100 to 90. That this difference in weight does not depend upon the relatively smaller size of woman is shown by the statement of Parchappe, that while the stature of woman is to that of man as 927 to 1,000, the relative weight of the brains of the two sexes is as 909 to 1,000. M. Le Bon has found, on comparing the average weight of the brains of seventeen men of about five feet in height with that of the brains of seventeen women of corresponding size, a difference of one hundred and seventy-two grammes (six and one quarter ounces) in favor of the masculine brain. Diagrams of the feminine brains of different races show that even in the most intelligent populations, as among contemporary Parisians, the skulls of a notable proportion of women more nearly approach the volume of the skulls of certain gorillas than that of the better developed skulls of the male sex.

Other differences between the brains of the two sexes relate to the conformation. According to Broca, Wagner, and Huschke, and Wight, of New York, the frontal lobes, the seat of the highest intellectual faculties, are less developed in woman than in man. The occipital lobes, the seat of the sentiments, are more voluminous in woman. According to Professor Wagner, the brain of woman as a whole is always in a more or less embryonic condition. Huschke says that woman is only a child in growth, and belies her infantine type no more by her brain than by the other parts of her body. Some anatomists allege that the right side of the brain is superior in women and the left side in men; hence women pass to the left and men to the right. I have observed that man performs certain motions, as those of striking and buttoning the clothes, centrifugally, and woman centripetally—another sign of inferiority in woman.

The differences in the relative prominence of the lobes of the brain may explain why woman is more given to the life of the heart and man to that of the mind, a point in which all authors are agreed.

The question of the relative morality of the sexes has been debated by thousands of authors. Without going over their ground, we will endeavor to show what light has been cast upon it by recent facts in demography. Women incontestably commit a smaller proportion of crimes against persons than men. Quetelet suggests that they are more restrained by shame and modesty, by their condition of dependence, their more retired habits, and their physical weakness. When they do thus offend, they are more apt to adopt poisoning, the weapon of cowards. It is universally admitted, again, that woman is more devout and more charitable than man. Her charity is, however, it may be said, often narrow and intolerant, and exercised for the sake of proselytism.

We now come to the consideration of the intellectual faculties. The male is more intelligent than the female in all the superior species.