MENTAL DIFFERENCE AND DISORDER. 197 



Age, as a predisposing cause, sometimes bears an im- 

 portant relation to it may determine the nature of certain 

 morbid phenomena occurring from the same immediate 

 cause ; it may determine, for instance, whether they shall 

 be motor or mental. Thus in cattle, we are told that con- 

 vulsions are apt to occur in the young, but delirium in the 

 old, from the same exciting cause. In certain other cases age 

 has an indirect, rather than a direct, influence in modifying 

 character. Thus the carnivora change their food with the 

 state of their teeth, and the latter depends upon their age 

 (Houzeau), while, as will become apparent in another sec- 

 tion of this chapter, the nature of the food itself directly 

 afPects both the mental and bodily condition. 



There are the same kinds of difference in intellectual 

 power, in mental quality or aptitude, character or disposition, 

 between the sexes in other animals, as in man (Darwin). In 

 other words, there is a sexual psychical distinction throughout 

 the animal kingdom, including man, a natural law or fact 

 that is apparently either not known to, or that is conveni- 

 ently ignored by, the declamatory and clamorous claimants 

 of woman's rights. Just as in man, there are occasional 

 exceptions to the general rule; certain animals assume the 

 duties and display the mental characteristics of the opposite 

 sex, either temporarily or permanently. But neither in the 

 case of man, nor of other animals, do such exceptions in- 

 validate the general law or rule. On the contrary, in both 

 cases these exceptions are so rare that they are striking, and 

 at once attract man's notice. 



Both in man and in other animals, superior force or 

 strength of character is the attribute of the male. It is 

 almost invariably from the males, for instance, that animal 

 leaders are chosen by groups of animals themselves, and 

 this not on account merely of physical strength, but also of 

 mental capacity, of courage, fertility of resource, presence 

 of mind in danger, and other important qualities of mind. 



Among the lower animals notably in monkeys the 

 male is bolder, fiercer, more pugnacious than the female 

 (Darwin). Among other alleged masculine qualities are to 

 be noted caution, composure, savageness, quarrelsomeness, 



