728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ence. It must be observed that sexual cerebration in its relation to 

 crime is not confined in its operation to the female sex. Its influence 

 on men may be observed in many of the crimes in which they exceed 

 their usual ratio of excess over women. Man's tendency to belligerency 

 evidently accounts in a measure for his great excess in the crimes of 

 murder and assassination. Attempts have been made to explain this 

 by the frequency of drunkenness, and the street brawls which it leads 

 to among men; but, when we take into consideration the fact that the 

 ratio of the sexes for drunkenness in England is, 1 woman to 1.49 

 men (Quetelet), we perceive that this cause can but act to a very lim- 

 ited extent. The sexual mental tendency of man to the wager of 

 battle, his physical strength, the almost unlimited opportunities af- 

 forded by the gi'eater range of his activities, enable man to exceed 

 his usual ratio of excess over woman in these two crimes. Crimes 

 against property, such as robbery from the person or highway rob- 

 bery, also offer evidence of the innate cerebral traits of the male. In 

 this offense man stands almost alone. It requires for its successful 

 perpetration bravery and daring. These are qualities belonging pe- 

 culiarly to men. In view of the intensity of feeling which attends all 

 discussion of matters in which women are concerned, either socially 

 or sexually, I think it better to qualify the last sentence, by calling 

 the attention of the reader to the very proper distinction between 

 moral and physical courage. The first exists as the result of intel- 

 lectual qualities, education, and moral training ; the last is purely a 

 phase of sexual cerebration. Some of the most beautiful examples 

 of moral courage are constantly offered by women. It is the posses- 

 sion of physical courage which is requisite to the commission of the 

 crime alluded to, and not its higher prototype, moral courage. This 

 form of sexual cerebration in the male is the coeflficient of bellisrer- 

 ency in the perpetration of many crimes, and united to physical 

 strength is, aside from opportunit)', capable of explaining many of 

 the circumstances attending man's excess over woman as a ciirainal. 



The action of sexual cerebration in its normal expression, as affect- 

 ing the relation of men to crime, has been traced far enough to de- 

 monstrate its important influence. Its operation in men is more easily 

 detected than in women. Man's career as a criminal is attended by 

 fewer complicating conditions. By the broader field of his activities, 

 he is directly exposed to criminal influences, while woman is hedged 

 in by the circumstances of her position. She lives in an atmosphere 

 of restraining influences, each one of which tends to obscure the effect 

 of the subtile yet potent sexual mental traits which characterize her as 

 a woman. The extent to which woman conforms to a common mental 

 type may be more surely measured by contrasting her as a criminal 

 with man in his relation to crime, than by studying her alone in her 

 usual social relations. Crime reveals to us some of the primeval ten- 

 dencies of society. By crime, notwithstanding all the varied results 



