MENTAL DIFFERENCES OF MEN AND WOMEN. 389 



nificent spider of South America, which is large enough and strong 

 enough to devour a humming-bird, deserves to be regarded as the 

 superior creature. But, under another point of view, there is no spec- 

 tacle in nature more shockingly repulsive than the slow agonies of 

 the most beautiful of created beings in the hairy limbs of a monster 

 so far beneath it in the sentient as in the zoological scale. And 

 although the contrast between man and woman is happily not so pro- 

 nounced in degree, it is nevertheless a contrast the same in kind. The 

 whole organization of woman is formed on a plan of greater delicacy, 

 and her mental structure is correspondingly more refined : it is further 

 removed from the struggling instincts of the lower animals, and thus 

 more nearly approaches our conception of the spiritual. For even the 

 failings of weakness are less obnoxious than the vices of strength, 

 and I think it is unquestionable that these vices are of quite as fre- 

 quent occurrence on the part of men as are those failings on the part 

 of women. The hobnailed boots may have given place to patent 

 pumps, and yet but small improvement may have been made upon 

 the overbearing temper of a navvy ; the beer-shop may have been 

 superseded by the whist-club, and yet the selfishness of pleasure-seek- 

 ing may still habitually leave the solitary wife to brood over her 

 lot through the small hours of the morning. Moreover, even when 

 the mental hobnails have been removed, we generally find that there 

 still remains what a member of the fairer sex has recently and aptly 

 designated mental heavy-handedness. By this I understand the clumsy 

 inability of a coarser nature to appreciate the feelings of a finer ; and 

 how often such is the case we must leave the sufferers to testify. In 

 short, the vices of strength to which I allude are those which have 

 been born of rivalry : the mental hide has been hardened, and the 

 man carries into his home those qualities of insensibility, self-asser- 

 tion, and self-seeking which have elsewhere led to success in his 

 struggle for supremacy. Or, as Mr. Darwin says: "Man is the rival 

 of other men ; he delights in competition, and this leads to ambition 

 which passes too readily into selfishness. These latter qualities seem 

 to be his natural and unfortunate birthright." 



Of course, the greatest type of manhood, or the type wherein our 

 ideal of manliness reaches its highest expression, is where the virtues 

 of strength are purged from its vices. To be strong and yet tender, 

 brave and yet kind, to combine in the same breast the temper of a 

 hero with the sympathy of a maiden this is to transform the ape and 

 the tiger into what we know ought to constitute the man. And if in 

 actual life we find that such an ideal is but seldom realized, this 

 should make us more lenient in judging the frailties of the opposite 

 sex. These frailties are, for the most part, the natural consequences 

 of our own, and even where such is not the case, we do well to remem- 

 ber, as already observed, that they are less obnoxious than our own, 

 and also that it is the privilege of strength to be tolerant. Now, it is 



