238 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



is at once a tribute to the intelligence of anatomical 

 investigators, and a recognition of the transcendent 

 intricacies that inhere in profound studies directed 

 toward the most elaborately organized of all struc- 

 tures. The methods of physiology appear to me 

 almost equally ineffective for dealing with the highest 

 cerebral functions. They have failed to give us any 

 satisfactory conception of the differences between the 

 sleeping and the waking brain, or of the nature of the 

 nervous energies which are concerned with sensory 

 and motor functions. How, then, can we*expect from 

 physiology a solution of the question of sex differ- 

 ences as manifested in psychic activity? Psycho- 

 logical measurements reveal some facts of interest, 

 yet impinge but lightly on the essential problem. 



So we find ourselves in a position where we have 

 to rely mainly on empirical observations, making the 

 frank admission that the differences which we discern, 

 or fancy we discern, cannot at present be subjected 

 to satisfying biological analysis, and feeling that 

 great advances in method will be necessary before 

 we can hope for true progress. 



The essential differences between the mental life 

 of woman and that of man apparently depends upon 

 the fact that the cerebral organization represents 

 and reflects the various aspects of the sexual func- 

 tions, which irradiate, as it were, into the brain. 

 The circumstance that the body of the mother 

 nourishes both the embryo and the infant brings 

 her into an organic relationship to family different 



