JO THE CAUSATION OF DISEASE. 



feelings. This is especially marked in the girl. With the 

 development of ovaries, uterus, and mammas, an extensive and 

 highly irritable sensory surface is added to the nervous system, 

 and a corresponding development occurs in the sensory cortex. 

 A new keyboard and a fresh series of pipes have been added to the 

 instrument ; consequently additional chords can now be struck, 

 and effects produced which were before impossible. 



The reproductive system is far more extensive in the female 

 than in the male, for not only has the woman to prepare the 

 ovum — an effort which in itself involves far more sensory dis- 

 turbance than the manufacture and discharge of semen (which 

 practically sums up man's share in the reproductive process), 

 as is evidenced by the wide and varied sensations which are 

 apt to accompany menstruation — but she has also to support- the 

 child nine months within her body ; and for the same, or even 

 longer, period of extra-uterine life. The effect of pregnancy and 

 parturition on the feelings is even observed in many of the 

 lower animals. 



Wherefore it is obvious that woman must have more feeling 

 than man, and must needs be more emotional. It is also mani- 

 fest that the sexual calls upon the woman must necessarily 

 handicap her in the intellectual race. If a woman does not 

 marry she will be capable of greater intellectual exertion than 

 if she does, and the brain will grow accordingly ; but this will 

 not affect future generations. We must, therefore, conclude 

 that mental differences will ever exist between the sexes. 



The intellectual difference is, I repeat, solely due to disuse. I 

 cannot believe, as some do, that high intellectual development in 

 woman is incompatible with proper child-bearing. If we can 

 adduce one single example of a highly intellectual woman who 

 has healthily reared children, such a case once and for all puts 

 this question at rest. I doubt not many such could be given. 

 That of Mary Somerville at once occurs to me. If there is one 

 department of mental activity which, above all others, requires 

 sheer intellect, it is surely mathematics. Now, Mary Somer- 

 ville was one of the greatest mathematicians our country has 

 produced ; but she was also a woman of essentially feminine 

 parts, and the devoted mother of several healthy children. 



One proof of the necessary and a priori inferiority of the 



