THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMAN. 219 



seen, are more noticeable in women than in men. That women 

 are less modified mentally and are more alike than men also 

 argues for arrested development. It is well known that in insane 

 asylums the female patients are more destructive, noisy, abusive, 

 and vicious than the male patients, although their insanity is less 

 serious and more curable. This fact, together with the other, that 

 when women become bad they become more hopelessly bad, has 

 led some too hastily to conclude that women, like children, are 

 natural savages. The fact that woman has less logical and phil- 

 osophical ability and has taken so little part in the development 

 of the sciences, arts, and inventions, which are considered to 

 represent human progress, is adduced as further confirmation of 

 this theory. But in many of her mental traits woman departs 

 further than man from the savage type. In her moral qualities 

 she represents higher evolution. This is notably true in respect 

 to her altruism, charity, sympathy, and pity. Woman's greater 

 humanity, philanthropy, conscientiousness, fidelity, self-sacrifice, 

 modesty, and patience, as well as her lesser disposition to crime, 

 are qualities which separate her further than man from the 

 savage. The same may be said of certain other subtle and 

 scarcely definable feminine qualities, such, for instance, as grace 

 and refinement. Woman's development along these lines cer- 

 tainly has not been arrested, and although it may be argued that 

 these qualities are the logical outcome partly of her physical 

 weakness and partly of her maternal duties, still it would be dif- 

 ficult to show that evolution in this direction represents less 

 progress than in the more intellectual direction in which man 

 has developed. It must be admitted, however, that woman's 

 purely intellectual development has been retarded, and this may 

 have a practical significance considering that on these qualities 

 the struggle for existence now so largely turns. 



But we must now consider another series of differences be- 

 tween the sexes which, it is alleged, more fully prove the arrested 

 development of woman. These relate to methods of dress and 

 adornment and to habits of life and conduct, in which the history 

 of civilization has shown a constant and definite advance, but 

 in which, it is said, woman is centuries behind. While some of 

 these differences appear of a trifling character, we must admit 

 that they have a certain cumulative force, and even the most 

 trifling may have an anthropological significance. 



One of the most interesting chapters in anthropology is that 

 relating to dress. The origin of dress, as is now well known, was 

 the desire to adorn the person, not to protect it. For the sake of 

 adornment, the savage was willing not only to expend a con- 

 siderable amount of time and wealth, but even to undergo much 

 physical discomfort. To this end were used various paints and 



