REPLY TO MISS HARDAKER. 75 



foot. Omitting altogether a consideration of the superior blood-circu- 

 lation of women as a class, overlooking entirely the probability (in- 

 dicated by the data of the idiot question heretofore discussed) that 

 proportion of brain to body is an element in the capacity of the for- 

 mer, the individual rapidity of circulation, the richness of food in 

 brain-making material become important terms of our problem. The 

 opium-eater, the wine-drinker, the consumer of brain-stimulants, cer- 

 tainly drive more than a proportional share of blood to the brain. At 

 the same time there is always a personal equation to vary the propor- 

 tional action of food-supply. The brains of Moses and Mohammed 

 were stimulated by prolonged fasts. The circumstances of travel, 

 temperament, companionship, wealth, the passions, music, art, dancing, 

 machine-stitching, and a thousand others, which can never be aver- 

 aged, often exert an adventitious influence on the appropriation of 

 fuel for thought. These influences are entirely independent of food- 

 consumption and brain-size ; they defy the application of any law of 

 mechanics. 



But Miss Hardaker's scientific argument, if true, proves too much ; 

 for if men, the greater consumers, think more or even better because 

 of the large size of their bodies and the larger power of their digestive 

 organs than women do, then it must follow that the larger and health- 

 ier men as a class must think, if not more, at least more profoundly, 

 than smaller and less robust men. Yet the bulk of the world's thought 

 has not been done by men of superior physique or even of superior 

 health. Aristotle, Napoleon, Jeffrey, Thiers, were short in person ; 

 Shakespeare, Buckle, Comte, were delicate in frame ; Descartes and 

 Bacon were always sickly ; Heine wrote his best while in physical 

 agony ; Newton and Spinoza were slight in form and of medium 

 height ; Herbert Spencer's health has always been precarious ; Mrs. 

 Browning was a life-long invalid ; while, unfortunately for a theory 

 based upon superior digestion, Goethe and Carlyle were confirmed 

 dyspeptics. 



The instances here crted are by no means exceptional. Indeed, the 

 seeker for data under this head will find that, instead of larger and 

 more healthy physiques evolving a larger average amount of mental 

 power than smaller and less robust ones, the contrary result is emphat- 

 ically true. As a matter of fact, the circumstance of superior muscu- 

 lar development seems unfavorable to great exertion of the mind. 

 The demands of the body itself are in large men imperative. The 

 waste of the system must be repaired, and the first draughts of energy 

 must go to this purpose. Afterward, though the potential energy 

 represented by the food consumed may still be stored up, there is little 

 power or little inclination to apply that energy to thought. The col- 

 lege student who is most active in the field, who has the greatest 

 height in his stockings, and the biggest biceps, is rarely at the head of 

 his class. Not Wly does the larger body require more in proportion 



