A STATISTICAL STUDY OF EMINENT MEN. 375 



I have spoken throughout of eminent men as we lack in English 

 words including both men and women, but as a matter of fact women 

 do not have an important place on the list. They have in all 32 repre- 

 sentatives in the thousand. Of these eleven are hereditary sovereigns 

 and eight are eminent through misfortunes, beauty or other circum- 

 stances. Belleslettres and fiction the only department in which 

 woman has accomplished much give ten names (of which three are in 

 the first 500) as compared with 72 men. Sappho and Joan d'Arc are 



ranee 



The Curves Show the Relative Contribution of Different Nations to Different 

 Lines of Activity. 



the only other women on the list. It is noticeable that with the excep- 

 tion of Sappho a name associated with certain fine fragments women 

 have not excelled in poetry or art. Yet these are the departments least 

 dependent on environment and at the same time those in which the 

 environment has been perhaps as favorable for women as for men. 

 Women depart less from the normal than man a fact that usually 

 holds for the female throughout the animal series; in many closely 

 related species only the males can be readily distinguished. The dis- 

 tribution of women is represented by a narrower bell-shaped curve.* 



* Since the above was written Professor Karl Pearson has questioned the 

 lesser variability of woman. The matter can only be decided by facts; these 

 statistics certainly show greater variability for the male. 



