SCIENCE AND THE WOMAN QUESTION. 579 



ascertain its internal structure. The -weight which it will lift, or the 

 distance which it will travel in a given time, is an unfailing index of 

 its quality. If it were possible to collect all the results of the mus- 

 cular activity of men, from the beginning of civilization until the 

 present, and likewise all the results of the muscular activity of women 

 for the same period, we should reason instantaneously, from these 

 phenomena, to the superior quality of masculine muscle. We should 

 need no resurrection of dead men and women to demonstrate the 

 difference. 



Let us now consider with more attention the general physiological 

 law that quantity of power is in proportion to the size of the body. 

 This brings us to the still more fundamental principle of the insepa- 

 rability of matter and force. A large amount of matter represents 

 more force than a small amount ; and this law includes vital organisms 

 as well as inorganic masses. Under proper conditions for test, the 

 amount of power evolved by any vital organism is in direct ratio to 

 the size and weight of that organism. This settles the question of 

 quantity of power permanently in favor of man. The weight of all 

 the men of civilized countries would exceed that of all the women by 

 perhaps fifteen or twenty per cent. 



Again, it is an accepted truth of modern science that all human 

 energy is derived from the food, and is an exact equivalent of the 

 amount of food consumed and assimilated. The amount of food 

 assimilated by men exceeds the amount assimilated by women by 

 about twenty per cent. This fact has popular recognition in the 

 higher rate of board demanded for men. It inevitably follows that 

 man, as a sex, representing more food-assimilation than woman, must 

 represent more energy of some kind. If the collective weights and 

 food-assimilating capacities of men should ever fall below those of 

 women, there would follow a reversal of the present relations ; but, 

 while these two facts remain, it follows, with mathematical certainty, 

 that the amount of power evolved by men must exceed that evolved 

 by women. While man eats more, he will stand for more. It may 

 be simply more muscle, but it must be more of something. Scientific 

 students are rapidly coming to the conclusion that the human body is 

 subject to the same laws of the conservation and transformation of 

 energy which pertain to the whole material universe. Power is in 

 direct proportion to size. The kind of power will depend upon the 

 organization. Food converted into muscle will reappear as work ; 

 food converted into brain will reappear as thought and speech. We 

 have a right to insist on the legitimacy of judging brain-power by 

 brain-products. We value brains for thought as we value looms for 

 manufacture. A barrel of brains is of no account, unless we can 

 evolve from them a steam-engine or a poem. We have seen it hinted, 

 in a recent essay by Dr. Bedell, of Chicago, that women probably 

 possess a larger amount of actual nervous matter, in proportion to the 



