48 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



[Nov. 18, 18^! 



iho moss of tlie pnople were sunk in i^^orance ; neither the 

 one sfx nor thi- other rcceivrd any education." He there- 

 fore iimintaiMS, with Professor Hiseliod', of Munich, " Uiat 

 women have not had to the e.xercise and evolution of their 

 hruin.s any other hindrances than those proceeding from 

 their constitution and their capacity for development" 

 On this point lie uses Cyril's argument : — 



"Tliry limit oUI trail.s," said Cyril, " vor)' well ; 

 Hut when (lid woniiin ever yi't invent !' " 

 " Female musicians receive," he says, "the same education 

 as males, an<l yet it is well known tliat, though there have 

 been some excellent feiriah; performers, there is no instance 

 of a great female coni[)os( r. It is the same with painters and 

 with the culinary art ; among the thousands of women who 

 liave exercised the latter, there liave been few, if any, 

 rori/oiin bletig. If we prepare a list of the men and 

 iinother of women most distinguished in poetry, painting, 

 sculpture, science, and philosophy, each containing a dozen 

 names, the two lists would not bear any comparison." He 

 cites the opinions of manufacturers and commercial men 

 who employ individuals of both sexes. 

 " They all agree that women are mon^ 

 assiduous, but less intelligent, than men. 

 In printers' establishments, for example, 

 women work with minute care, mecliani- 

 cally, without knowing very well what 

 they are doing. Thus they make good 

 comiiositors in tlic case of reprints, a 

 work not demanding much intelligence, 

 but set up manuscripts badly, not under- 

 standing them so well as men." To which 

 it may be replied that as yet the capacity 

 of women for such work has not been 

 fairly tested. Miss Emily Faithfull 

 asserts, however, that well-trained female 

 compositors show as much readiness to 

 deal with manuscripts as the best male 

 compositors. 



M. Delaunay touches, indeed, on the 

 moral qualities of men and women, re- 

 ferring to the many authors who ha\e 

 maintained that women are more prone 

 to every kind of wickedness than men, 

 though lie admits they commit j>ropor- 

 tionately fewer crimes. Poisoning is 

 more favoured by women — that is, the 

 poisoning of others — than by male 

 criminals. " Moralists liave noted that 

 woman is more playful, more change- 

 able, more capricious than man. She is also more de- 

 •structive and less circumspect. The number of women 

 run over in the streets is greater than that of men." 

 Quomnm liifc (am piilida Irndiinl ? What has all 

 this to do with M. Delaunay's subject ? The argument 

 which Mr. Delaunay uses to clinch his case, supplies the 

 best answer to this part of his reasoning. " All known 

 legislators take for granttxl the intellectual inferiority of 

 the feminine sex as compared with the masculine. Every- 

 where woman is regarded as a minor, incapable of taking 

 care of herself, and requiring a guide and tutor." The laws, 

 in fact, having been made by man, assert his superiority, 

 and so far as they can, ensure it. Woman is carefully 

 placed in an inferior position, and then assured that slie 

 is an inferior being. 



COMETS' TAILS. 



Rv THE EniTon. 



IT^ROM what we liavc already seen, it will be manifcKt 

 that the fonnation of comets' tails is u j)roce&s of a 

 very marvellous nature, as apparently involving forces 

 other than those with which we are aciiuainted. 1'lie tail, 

 ninety millions of miles in length, which was seen .stretching 

 from the head of Newton's comet nearly along the ]>;itli 

 which the retreating comet liad to traverse (the comet tliis 

 passing away with its tail in front, instead of U-liind. i^ 

 when it approached the sun), must, it would seem, b:i\ ■■ 

 been formed by some force far more active than the t.T >■ 

 of gravity. ITie distance traverse<l by the comet in thf la t 

 four weeks of its approach to the sun under gravity was nn 

 greater than that over which the matter of the tail, s. . ii 

 after the comet had circled around the sun, liad 1" ■•n 

 carried in a few hours. Yet we have no other evidemi- of 

 any repulsive force at all being exerted by the sun— ut 



i'ig. 1. — Uuuati's Comet, September 24, IboS. 



least, no evidence whicli can be regarded as demonstrative — 

 and still less have we any evidence of a repulsive force 

 exceeding in energy the sun's attracting powei'. 



This difficulty, and tbe circumstance that a comet's tail 

 lies in the direction opposite to the sun, or in the posi- 

 tion which the shadow of the head would occupy, has le<l 

 many, unl'amiliar with the laws of optics, to suppose that 

 the comet's tail may be simply the track of the luminous 

 rays which have pa.ssed through tlie comet's head. They 

 seem to think that the head may act in some way to send 

 a beam of condensed light along the region opiiosite to the 

 sun. It should hardly be necessary, however, to explain 

 that no such beam of light could ever be seen where we 

 see the comets tail. The cases supjxised to correspond 

 with the formation in this way of the tail-like appendage 

 are, in reality, of an entirelj- diti'erent kind. Thus, when 

 ■we see a long beam extending from a bright light, we tind 

 that lirst the light has been caused to pass in tliat direction 

 only (as when light is admitted into an otherwise darkened 

 room through a hole) ; and secondly, there is matter along 



