The Eoidencefroiii Intellectual Differences. 257 



course no one can doubt that a new habit is represented 

 by a new speciuhzation of structure, and is transmitted, 

 like any other peculiarity, by heredity. 



If this is so, and if the female organism is the con- 

 servative organism, to wliich is intrusted the keei^ing of 

 all that has been gained during the past history of the 

 race, it must follow that the female mind is a storehouse 

 filled Avith the instincts, habits, intuitions, and laws of 

 conduct which have been gained by past experience. 

 The male organism, on the contrary, being the variable 

 organism, the originating element in the process of 

 evolution, the male mind must have the power of ex- 

 tending experience over new fields, and, by comparison 

 and generalization, of discovering new laws of nature, 

 which are in their turn to become rules of action, and 

 to be added on to the series of past experiences. 



Our examination of the origin and significance of the 

 physiological differences between the sexes, and of the 

 parts which they have taken in the progress of the past, 

 would therefore lead us to expect certain profound and 

 fundamental psychological differences, having the same 

 importance ; and it Avill be interesting to examine what 

 these intellectual and ethical diffciences arc, and how 

 far experience and the common consent of mankind ac- 

 cord with the demands of our hypothesis. 



If, as we suppose, the especial and j^eculiar function 

 of the male mind is the expansion of our circle of exper- 

 ience ; the more exact apprehension of all onr relations 

 to the external world ; the discovery of the laws of 

 thought, of society, of ph^'siology, and of the material 

 universe, and of the bearing of these laws upon individual 

 conduct — it will follow that men must excel women in 

 their power to discover the manner in which a new ex- 

 ternal relation shall be met and provided for by a new 



