REPRODUCTION AND SEX 571 



is to-day a woman ; the record for roping steers (a feat depending on 

 manual dexterity rather than physical force) is held by a woman; 

 and anyone who has watched girls giving change before the pneu- 

 matic tubes in the great department stores about Christmas-time 

 will experience the same wonder one feels on first seeing an expert 

 shuffling cards! This consideration is extremely important in 

 relation to mental ability." 



The mind is in great part a social product. As Thomas puts it: 

 "The mind and personality are largely built up from the outside, 

 and if the suggestions are limited and particular, so will be the 

 mind. ... At present we seem justified in inferring that the 

 differences in mental expression between men and women are no 

 greater than they should be in view of the existing differences in 

 opportunity." 



First Proposition. — ^We have outlined the biological view that 

 there is a deep constitutional or organic divergence between man 

 and woman, and that this finds expression in a large number of 

 detailed differences, which are natural in origin and natural also in 

 being the outcome of ages of elimination and selection. Coming, 

 now, to practical theses, we notice first of all that some of the 

 educational, occupational, and social differentiations of man and 

 woman in past times have been harmonious and consistent with the 

 fundamental divergence. It seems consistent that men should fight, 

 if there's fighting to be done ; and that women should nurse, if there's 

 nursing necessary. Man hunted and explored, woman made the home 

 and brought up the children. Man sailed the seas, woman developed 

 home industries. Woman is naturally a teacher of the young, a 

 domesticator, a gardener, and so on. Scores of these harmonious 

 differentiations still exist, and even develop, despite examples of 

 the contrary. 



This is an historical commonplace, which need not be elaborated; 

 it suggests, however, several remarks that may be of service, 

 (i) When we say that this or that occupational differentiation is 

 natural to woman, we do not simply mean that it has been sanc- 

 tioned by convention. We mean that it is congruent with female- 

 ness, that it occurs in many races and countries, and that it has 

 stood for a long time the test of eliminative selection. 



(2) The harmless historical commonplace has sometimes been 

 used in an obscurantist way to discourage the education of woman 

 and the widening of her share in the world's work. "Her place is in 

 the home", one is still told. To which one might answer much, but 

 firstly, that much depends on the home. It was in very many-sided 

 homes that woman evolved. And, secondly, that in the present 

 condition of things, in this country for instance, a very large number 

 never have what most men and women mean or should mean by a 

 home. 



