1887.] on Mental Differences between Men and Women. 79 



virtues — was destined afterwards so greatly to exalt in the estimation 

 of man the character which belonged by nature to woman. 



Dealing lastly with the will^ Mr. Romanes observed that this was 

 certainly less powerful in women than in men. We rarely found in 

 the former that firm tenacity of purpose and determination to overcome 

 all obstacles which was characteristic of what we called a manly 

 mind ; and when a woman was urged to any prolonged exercise of 

 volition, the prompting cause was usually to be found in the emotional 

 side of her nature. Moreover, even in the lesser displays of 

 volitional activity required for close reading, studious thought, &c., 

 women were usually less able to concentrate their attention; and 

 therefore they seldom specialised their pursuits to the extent usual 

 among men. Their indecision of character often led to timidity and 

 diffidence in adopting any line of conduct where issues of importance 

 were concerned, thus leaving them in the painful condition, as they 

 graphically expressed it, of " not knowing their own minds." 



Coming next to the causes of these mental differences between the 

 sexes, the lecturer argued that the biological principles of selection 

 had determined the physical superiority of male animals in general, 

 and with it the psychological qualities of courage, self-reliance, deter- 

 mination, and, in short, all those mental characters which belonged 

 to a consciousness of bodily strength ; while, conversely, members of 

 the opposite sex had acquired the opposite characters. And in the 

 case of our own species these principles of selection further operated 

 with a conscious reference to psychical as well as to physical endow- 

 ments, thus acting directly as well as indirectly in severing the 

 psychological characters of sex. 



Again, the maternal instincts and the prolonged association of 

 the mother with her children in our own species imparted to her a 

 fulness of emotional life, the whole quality of which was distinctively 

 feminine. Thus, in accordance with the law of inheritance as limited 

 by sex, we could understand how these influences became in successive 

 generations cumulative ; while in the fondness of little girls for dolls 

 we might note an interesting example in psychology of the law of 

 inheritance at earlier periods of life. 



There remained but one other assignable cause of the mental 

 differences in question. This cause was education. From the con- 

 dition of abject slavery to which woman was consigned in the lower 

 levels of human evolution to her condition at the present time, her 

 mental culture had been widely different from that of man. It was 

 not until the middle of the present century that any attempt was any- 

 where made to provide for the higher education of women. But now, 

 whether we liked it or not, the woman's movement was upon us, and 

 we must endeavour to guide the flood into the most beneficial channels. 

 What were these channels ? Assuredly not those which ran straight 

 athwart all the mental differences between men and women. No 

 amount of female education could ever make equal this natural 

 inequality, nor was it desirable that it should. Woman was the 



