CORRESP ONDENCE. 



615 



they may feel themselves called. While thus 

 developing their individual powers, it is 

 probable that all the industries and activi- 

 ties of life would also be bettered by the 

 introduction into their management of the 

 spirit of " greater tenderness and less self- 

 ishness " which it would seem that heredity 

 and selection have bestowed upon her. Our 

 courts of law are often characterized by 

 scenes of harshness, and brutality even ; 

 and surely the professions of theology and 

 medicine furnish fitting fields for the exer- 

 cise and culture of these beneficent quali- 

 ties. Without doubt the possession of these 

 traits, in a somewhat higher degree, by 

 woman than by man, will counterbalance 

 her disabilities in other directions, so that, 

 in the struggle for success, she will suffer 

 no serious disadvantage. 



While intellectual arenas may always 

 furnish a neutral ground where the two 

 sexes shall meet on the common basis of 

 actual achievement where all work shall 

 be submitted to the common test of merit 

 in matters of general interest to society, 

 qualities essentially masculine on the one 

 hand, or peculiarly feminine on the other, 

 will turn the balance of power according as 

 the interests or necessities of the hour are 

 best subserved thereby. The existence of 

 war would seem to furnish an extreme case 

 in which masculine traits would be in the 

 ascendant, and receive supreme considera- 

 tion ; but the hospital and the ambulance 

 the sanitary commission and the nurses' 

 field-staff present the converse of the pict- 

 ure, where feminine qualities assert their 

 natural supremacy. On the other hand, " the 

 instinct and genius for charity," ascribed to 

 woman, find their executive force in the 

 masculine arm, always at her command in 

 carrying out her most generous conceptions. 



Thus the contrasting phases of human 

 nature meet and blend, like the forces at the 

 opposite extremes of the spectrum, which, 

 presenting the unlike characteristics of heat 



, and actinism, unite in the visible middle 

 ground, and speak in the beautiful language 

 of color. Unrefracted, the full white ray 

 of perfect light is manifested as a unit. 



Solicitude is sometimes expressed lest 

 an enlargement of the activities of woman, 

 and the consequent mingling in the ruder 

 scenes of life, should impair the delicacy 

 and refinement which belong to woman- 

 hood ; but this would seem to be a needless 

 anxiety. Traits of character so inwoven in 

 the very fibre of the nature as those which 

 distinguish the sexes will not be easily 

 eradicated, and the same laws which are 

 now at work to check the too great differ- 

 entiation of both in the direction in which 

 they have hitherto tended, will prevent any 

 excess of reaction. In this imperfect re- 

 view of a subject commensurate with the 

 history of the human race, at least, and 

 generally believed to extend its rootlets to 

 the lowest grades of organic life, w r e have 

 seen that the key to the history of the evo- 

 lution of the race lies in the distinction of 

 sex. 



This distinction, making its appearance 

 at the very threshold of development of 

 organized structures, pari passu becomes 

 more marked and intricate with increased 

 complexity of form and function, till perfect 

 dualism is reached and exemplified in man, 

 the crowning result of creation by evolution. 



Its two phases, male and female, are not 

 opposed in the sense of being antagonistic, 

 but complementary rather, and so related 

 that each finds development only in and 

 through the other. 



In the eloquent language of Roehsig 

 " The law of polarity, which applies seem- 

 ingly to all inorganic Nature and controls 

 the realm of life, gains its crowning efflores- 

 cence in the cMstinction of sex, and asserts 

 its dominion over the operations of mind 



itself." 



Frances Emily White, M. D. 



Philadelphia, January 20. 1S75. 



