Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/743

Rh acquired characters are in small proportion to inherited ones. In all influence that depends on physical conditions, that of parents immensely preponderates over that of all others. Hence, in the present paper the relations of parents will be considered rather than those of other persons. For the good of the race, the parent must have the first place in the mind of the legislator, and all other persons must occupy a position of subordinate importance.

In comparing male and female minds we should take them at their best and not at their worst. We should take real livers and not pretenders; that is, persons who exercise their higher faculties, or who live up to their capacities. Very many men and women waste their higher faculties by disuse, but the married are less apt to live this aimless life than the unmarried. As there are persons who deny matters of ordinary observation, the actual differences of the minds of the sexes in general may be very briefly enumerated. We find in man a greater capacity for rational processes, a capacity which is not always exercised to its full. We find in men a greater capacity for endurance of the activity of the rational faculty. We find in men a greater capacity for work in those departments of intelligence which require mechanical skill of a high order. In the æsthetic department, we find incapacity more general than in women, certainly in the department of the aesthetics of the person. In woman we find that the deficiency of endurance of the rational faculty is associated with a general incapacity for mental strain, and, as her emotional nature is stronger, that strain is more severe than it is in man under similar circumstances. Hence the easy breakdown under stress, which is probably the most distinctive feature of the female mind. This peculiarity, when pronounced, becomes the hysterical temperament. But in all departments of mental action that depend on affection or emotion for their excellence, woman is the superior of man; in those departments where affection should not enter, she is his inferior. I think that most of the peculiarities of mind of the sexes may be traced to these first principles. The origin of these leading differences is not difficult to trace to the different functions of the sexes in the family relation, emphasized by repetition throughout the long ages of vertebrate, mammalian, and human history. Beginning with the maternal instinct, woman has become, by constant exercise, a being of affections. Her long protection by the male has reduced her capacity for defense; while the mastery by him has accustomed her to yielding, and to the use of methods of accomplishing her desires other than force. There are apparent exceptions to these definitions, but they are generally more apparent than real. For one of the characteristics of the female of man, acquired by long practice, is a capacity for keeping up the appearance of possessing qualities in which she is