REPLY TO MISS HARDAKER. 73 



facts, that woman's smaller heart beats faster than man's larger one ; 

 that her circulation is to his in swiftness as ten to nine ; and that, ac- 

 cording to Miss Hardaker's figures, and to some celebrated authorities, 

 the proportion of brain to body is larger in woman than in man. 



But to meet Miss Hardaker upon her own ground in the discussion 

 of her fundamental propositions, we shall waive, as she has done, all 

 sexual differences, of physical or local environment, and all analogical 

 inferences, and proceed to compare the male and female brains upon a 

 supposititious level of like conditions. She proposes to prove, on quite 

 new and highly scientific grounds, that absolute weights and meas- 

 urements are, after all, the ultimate tests of capacity. It may be 

 deemed singular that the profound students who have preceded Miss 

 Hardaker some of whom were undoubtedly scientists should have 

 entirely overlooked the beautifully simple conclusion she formulates, 

 thus : " If mass represents force, the larger the brain, the larger the 

 power." The reason why students have been so blind to Miss Harda- 

 ker's discoveries is quite as simple as the discovery itself. It is because 

 her premises are false. 



A large amount of matter does not represent more force than a 

 small amount, nor does it represent any force at all. There is an ele- 

 mentary law of physics which declares that the momentum of a body 

 equals its size multiplied by its velocity, and this may lead to the sup- 

 position that matter itself is force. But matter in a state of inertia 

 is not power ; it becomes powerful only when acted upon. The same 

 force acting upon different bodies imparts velocity in the inverse ratio 

 of their masses ; and, since velocity as well as size is a factor of power, 

 it follows that a force which imparts a greater velocity to a smaller 

 body gives it as great a momentum as a larger body obtains when 

 acted upon by the same force ; for the velocity in the latter case is 

 feebler. Even admitting (what Miss Hardaker does not appear to 

 claim) that potential energy may be proportionate to size of mass, we 

 see that potential energy can only be evolved by an appropriate force 

 acting through or upon the mass, and, to make the potential energy of 

 a large mass do more work than that of a smaller one, the force ap- 

 plied must always be greater. Hence, not the size of the body, but the 

 strength of the impelling force, is the ultimate test of its power. A 

 glance at obvious facts will show that size is not the gauge, that 

 weight may indeed be a direct impediment to the evolution of force. 

 The avoirdupois of the fat boy is a clog to his energy ; the fast run- 

 ner wins by his light weight ; the champion oarsman reduces his 

 flesh. 



In applying her theory to the brain, one fact which Miss Hardaker 

 herself states is sufficient to tell very disastrously against her conclu- 

 sion that larger brain-weight means larger thinking power. "Accord- 

 ing to Gratiolet, the male brain can not fall below thirty-seven ounces 

 without involving idiocy, while the female may fall to thirty-two 



