SCIENCE AND THE WOMAN QUESTION 581 



to do and fewer hands to do it with, can not possibly keep pace 

 with his. 



If, now, we may further suppose this pound of bread converted 

 into its equivalent of thought, it is evident that a pound of bread will 

 represent as much thought in a woman's brain as in a man's ; but, as 

 her smaller organs refuse to assimilate as fast as his, the larger organ- 

 ism will have a permanent advantage over the smaller one in the ele- 

 ment of time. Any other conclusion than the one just stated implies 

 a contradiction of the established relations of matter and force, and 

 there is a general historic corroboration of this idea in the actual record 

 of sex activity. Women have done something of nearly everything 

 that men have done, but they have come later and with smaller offer- 

 ings. The time-factor is one which we are bound to include in casting 

 up our column of probabilities for the future intellectual equality of 

 the sexes. If our facts are reliable, and the reasoning correct, it must 

 be admitted as proved that the factor of size has given man a superi- 

 ority over woman, which he will always retain while he retains his 

 larger body and brain. The absolute gain in time which his greater 

 size has given him can not be set aside, unless he should cease to be 

 the medium of transformation of energy, and should wait a few cen- 

 turies for woman to overtake him, as he might have waited for her to 

 swallow her pound of bread. But even supposing such an impossi- 

 bility, and granting that she should once overtake him (in the factor 

 of time), so that the two sexes could start fairly in the race of prog- 

 ress, the man would immediately dart ahead again by virtue of his 

 larger size and consequently greater capacity for transforming energy. 

 But any such supposition as an even chance for the two sexes must 

 remain an absurdity. Unless woman can devise some means for re- 

 ducing the size of man, she must be content to revolve about him in 

 the future as in the past. She may resist her fate, and create some 

 aberrations in her course, but she will be held to her orbit nevertheless. 



The argument from physiology has still another element of strength. 

 The perpetuation of the human species is dependent on the function 

 of maternity, and probably twenty per cent of the energy of women 

 between twenty and forty years of age is diverted for the maintenance 

 of maternity and its attendant exactions. Upon the supposition that 

 woman's mental endowment were exactly equal to man's, the amount 

 diverted to maternity must be continually subtracted from it, so that 

 any original equality of intellect would certainly be lost through ma- 

 ternity. This diversion of power would also occur in the years of 

 highest physical vigor. This period in man is that of most active 

 intellectual development, because the physical basis of intellectual 

 energy is most abundant in these years. Consequently, his period of 

 greatest intellectual gain corresponds to her period of greatest loss. 



To make this position more intelligible, let us suppose the number 

 of men and women in the world to be exactly equal. Let us further 



