Chap. XIX.] MENTAL POWEES OF MAN AND WOMAN. 313 



to be patience ; and patience, in this sense, means unflinch- 

 ing, undaunted perseverance. But this view of genius is 

 perhaps deficient ; for without the higher powers of the 

 imagination and reason, no eminent success in many sub- 

 jects can be gained. But these latter as well as the for- 

 mer faculties will have been developed in man, partly 

 through sexual selection — that is, through the contest of 

 rival males, and j)artly through natural selection — that is, 

 from success in the general struggle for life ; and as in 

 both cases the struggle will have been during maturity, 

 the characters thus gained will have been transmitted 

 more fully to the male than to the female ofisj^ring. Thus 

 man has ultimately become superior to woman. It is, 

 indeed, fortunate that the law of the equal transmission 

 of characters to both sexes has commonly prevailed 

 throughout the whole class of mammals ; otherwise it is 

 probable that man would have become as superior in 

 mental endowment to woman, as the peacock is in orna- 

 mental plumage to the peahen. 



It must be borne in mind that the tendency in charac- 

 ters acquired at a late period of life by either sex, to be 

 transmitted to the same sex at the same age, and of char- 

 acters acquired at an early age to be transmitted to both 

 sexes, are rules which, though general, do not always hold 

 good. If they always held good, we might conclude (but 

 I am here wandering beyond my proper bounds) that the 

 inherited eflects of the early education of boys and girls 

 would be transmitted equally to both sexes ; so that the 

 present inequality between the sexes in mental power 

 coiild not be efiaced by a similar course of early training ; 

 nor can it have been caused by their dissimilar early 

 training. In order that woman should reach the same 

 standard as man, she ought, when nearly adult, to be 

 trained to energy and perseverance, and to have her rea- 

 son and imagination exercised to the highest point ; and 

 33 



