WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



and to which women, consequently, must resign themselves 

 as to one of the inexorable laws of nature." 



It would be difficult to cite a more preposterous example 

 of ratiocination. If it were true that there is a necessary 

 relation between vigor of body and vigor of mind; that 

 mental power is proportional to physical power; that 

 thought is but a special form of energy and capable of 

 transformation, like heat, light and electricity; that it, 

 like the various physical forces, has its chemical and me- 

 chanical equivalents; that psychic work corresponds to a 

 certain amount of chemical or thermic action; that in- 

 tellectual capacity in man is proportional to muscular 

 strength ; it would follow that the great leaders of thought 

 and action through the ages have been Goliaths in stature 

 and Herculeses in strength. But so far is this conclusion 

 from being warranted that it is almost the reverse of the 

 truth. For many, if not the majority, of the great geniuses 

 of the world in every age have been either men of small 

 frame or men of delicate and precarious health. 



Among the men of genius who were noted for their 

 diminutive stature were Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the 

 Great, Archimedes, Epicurus, Horace, Albertus Magnus, 

 Montaigne, Lipsius, Spinoza, Erasmus, Lalande, Charles 

 Lamb, Keats, Balzac and Thiers. Many others were re- 

 markable for their spare form. Among these in the prime 

 of life were Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, St. Paul, Kep- 

 ler, Pascal, Boileau, Fenelon, D'Alembert, Napoleon, Lin- 

 coln and Leo XIII. Others, like ^Esop, Brunelleschi, 

 Leopardi, Magliabecchi, Parini, Scarron, Talleyrand, Pope, 

 Goldsmith, Byron, Sir Walter Scott, to mention only a 

 few of the most eminent, were either hunchbacked, lame, 

 rachitic or clubfooted. 



Others, still, were the victims of chronic ill health, or 

 of nervous disorders of the most serious character. Virgil 

 was of a delicate and frail constitution. He essayed the 

 bar, but shrank from it and turned to the "contemplation 



