MENTAL DIFFERENCES OF MEN AND WOMEN. 391 



present time. Coyness and caprice have in consequence become a heritage of 

 the sex, together with a cohort of allied weaknesses and petty deceits, that men 

 have come to think venial, and even amiable, in women, but which they would 

 not tolerate among themselves. 



We see, then, that the principles of selection have thus determined 

 greater strength, both of body and mind, on the part of male animals 

 throughout the whole mammalian series ; and it would certainly have 

 been a most unaccountable fact if any exception to this rule had oc- 

 curred in the case of mankind. For, as regards natural selection, it is 

 in the case of mankind that the highest premium has been placed upon 

 the mental faculties or, in other words, it is here that natural selec- 

 tion has been most busy in the evolution of intelligence and therefore, 

 as Mr. Darwin remarks, we can only regard it as a fortunate accident 

 of inheritance that there is not now a greater difference between the 

 intelligence of men and of women than we actually find. Again, as 

 regards sexual selection, it is evident that here also the psychologically 

 segregating influences must have been exceptionally strong in the case 

 of our own species, seeing that in all the more advanced stages of 

 civilization or in the stages where mental evolution is highest, and, 

 therefore, mental differences most pronounced marriages are deter- 

 mined quite as much with reference to psychical as to physical endow- 

 ments ; and as men always admire in women what they regard as 

 distinctively feminine qualities of mind, while women admire in men 

 the distinctively masculine, sexual selection, by thus acting directly as 

 well as indirectly on the mental qualities of both, is constantly engaged 

 in molding the minds of each upon a different pattern. 



Such, then, I take to be the chief, or at least the original, causes of 

 the mental differences in question. But besides these there are sundry 

 other causes all working in the same direction. For example, as the 

 principles of selection have everywhere operated in the direction of 

 endowing the weaker partner with that kind of physical beauty which 

 comes from slenderness and grace, it follows that there has been every- 

 where a general tendency to impart to her a comparative refinement 

 of organization ; and in no species has this been the case in so high a 

 degree as in man. Now, it is evident from what has been said in an 

 earlier part of this paper, that general refinement of this kind indirectly 

 affects the mind in many ways. Again, as regards the analogous, 

 though coarser, distinction of bodily strength, it is equally evident 

 that their comparative inferiority in this respect, while itself one of 

 the results of selection, becomes in turn the cause of their comparative 

 timidity, sense of dependence, and distrust of their own powers on the 

 part of women, considered as a class. Hence, also, their comparative 

 feebleness of will and vacillation of purpose : they are always dimly 

 conscious of lacking the muscular strength which, in the last resort, 

 and especially in primitive stages of culture, is the measure of execu- 

 tive capacity. Hence, also, their resort to petty arts and pretty ways 



