222 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



On this Galton remarks: "It will be seen here, as in every other faculty 

 that has been discussed, the male surpasses the female'." Elsewhere Galton 

 writes' : 



"The tritilM 1 Imve as yet niH<le on the sensibility of different persons confirm the rejiHon- 

 able ex[>ect«tion that it would, on the whole, Ix? Iii}{liest among the intellectuully ftblest. At 

 first owing to my confusing the quality of which I am sjxyiking with that of nervous irrita- 

 bility, I fanciiNl that women with tielicate nerves who are distressed hy noise, sunshine, etc., 

 would have acute jtowers of discrimination. Hut this 1 found not to l>e the cas<'. Tn morbidly 

 sensitive persons, Iwth pain and sensation are induced by lower stimuli than in the healthy, 

 but the number of just perceptible grades of sensation between the two is not necessarily 

 altered. 



I found, as a rule, that men have more delicate ])Owcrs of discrimination than women, and 

 the bu.siness experience of life seems to confirm this view. The tuners of pianofortes are men. 

 and so, 1 understand, are the tasters of tea and wine, the sorters of wrK>l, and the like. These 

 latter occupations are well salaried, becau.se it is of the first moment to the merchant that he 

 should be rightly advised on the real value of what he is about to purchase or to sell. If the 

 siMisitivity of women were superior to that of men, the self-interest of merchants would lead to 

 their being always employed, but as the reverse is the ca-st; the i)p|)Osit<' stijiposilion is likely to 

 be the true one." 



The suggestion here made was worth consideration, but only limited 

 weight can be given to it, when we consider how many callings at that date 

 were closed to women, without their l>eing really unfitted for them. Greater 

 stress must, however, be placed upon Galton's actual observations such as 

 thase just recorded for the audibihty of high notes. At a later date' Galton 

 made experiments on the sensitivity of men and women with regard to their 

 discrimination in touch, using as an aesthesiometer a pair of dividers applied 

 to the nape of the neck. He found that women were supmior to men in 

 tactile sensibility in the ratio of about 7 to G. Galton's result has been con- 

 firmed by many later investigatoi-s. He also shows in the same paper that 

 women are more variable in sensitivity of touch than men. He dealt with 

 932 males and '^77 females, and worked by the method of median and quartiles. 

 There are irregularities in the tabled data, however, which suggest some 

 anomalies in the recorder's (Sergeant Randall's) methfKl of measurement; 

 they are probably injidequate to mfluence the main results. 



Thus Galton's original generalisation was too sweeping. If we look to 

 the evolutionary standpoint and indulge for a moment in hypotheses, we 

 might suj)pose natmal selection endowed the hunter and warrior with 

 great sensitivity in the matter of sight and sound, while sensitivity to 

 touch after capture may well have played a part in the surrender of the 

 female and successful mating in a much earlier stage of living forms than 

 the human'. 



{h) For Sight : Keenness of Vision, measured by an ingenious arrange- 

 ment, one size of type, diamond, only being used, and the specimen cards, all 



' Loc. cit. pp. 278, 286. 



* Journal of the ArUhropological Institute, Vol. XII, pp. 472-3, 1883. 



' "The Relative Sensitivity of Men and Women," Nature, Vol. ^ p. 40, 1894 (May). 



* One may reasonably recognise female sensitivity to touch in the play of tail, rubbing of 

 fur, and other excitatfjry actions of the male dog in courtship. 



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