Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/257

Rh is sufficient to show that for more than a century past evidence has accumulated which indicates that the group of data on which Professor Pearson solely and absolutely relies for the foundation of his argument is modified by an influence which renders it tainted for such a purpose. In view of this circumstance, and of the fact that I had rejected this group of evidence on these grounds, the onus probandi clearly rested with Professor Pearson. In other words, he had to show either that male children are not larger than female children at birth, or else that large children do not suffer more than smaller children in passing through the maternal pelvis. The fact that Professor Pearson gives no indication that he had realized the necessity of this preliminary step is sufficient proof that he was not adequately equipped for the task he has undertaken.

We now come to a point which is not the less interesting for being entirely hidden from Mr. Pearson. It has been seen that the selection exercised by the pelvis to the detriment of male children is not absolutely proved. But if for the moment we assume that it exists, what are the phenomena that we should expect to find, as regards size, among the survivors? Obviously, a more or less diminished sexual difference during life, with a maximum of sexual difference immediately after birth Now this is exactly what Professor Pearson found! 'Summing up in general our conclusions for weight,' he states, 'it would appear that, except at birth, man is not more variable than woman.' The very great significance of this exception, as affecting any argument on these premises brought against the position maintained in 'Man and Woman,' he undoubtedly failed to see. Still the exception evidently puzzled him. He accumulated series of data on the subject, and indeed initiated an entirely new and very extensive investigation. But the conclusion remained on the whole unaffected. Thus we see that our author, in all innocence, supplies a valuable piece of proof in favor of that very position which he imagines that he is upsetting! If this is the way that the axe is to be laid to the root of 'pseudo-scientific superstitions' they will certainly continue to flourish exceedingly.

We have now reached the climax of Professor Pearson's argument. It is from this giddy height that Mr. Pearson surveys with contempt those foolish persons who still believe that the variational tendency is greater in men than in women, and nothing further remains to be said. If instead of hastening to execute a war-dance on what he vainly imagined was the body of a prostrate foe, Mr. Pearson had pointed out, as he would have been quite warranted in doing, that