PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SEXES. 33 



and this mental specialization, though primarily related to the rearing 

 of offspring, affects in some degree the conduct at large. 



The remaining qualitative distinctions between the minds of men 

 and women are those which have grown out of their mutual relation 

 as stronger and weaker. If we trace the genesis of human character, 

 by considering the conditions of existence through which the human 

 race passed in early barbaric times and during civilization, we shall 

 see that the weaker sex has naturally acquired certain mental traits by 

 its dealings with the stronger. In the course of the struggles for ex- 

 istence among wild tribes, those tribes survived in which the men 

 were not only powerful and courageous, but aggressive, unscrupulous, 

 intensely egoistic. Necessarily, then, the men of the conquering races 

 which gave origin to the civilized races, were men in whom the brutal 

 characteristics were dominant; and necessarily the women of such 

 races, having to deal with brutal men, prospered in proportion as they 

 possessed, or acquired, fit adjustments of nature. How were women, 

 unable by strength to hold their own, otherwise enabled to hold their 

 own ? Several mental traits helped them to do this. 



We may set down, first, the ability to please, and the concomitant 

 love of approbation. Clearly, other things equal, among women living 

 at the mercy of men, those who succeeded most in pleasing would be the 

 most likely to survive and leave posterity. And (recognizing the pre- 

 dominant descent of qualities on the same side) this, acting on succes- 

 sive generations, tended to establish, as a feminine trait, a special so- 

 licitude to be approved, and an aptitude of manner to this end. 



Similarly, the wives of merciless savages must, other things equal, 

 have prospered in proportion to their powers of disguising their feel- 

 ings. Women who betrayed the state of antagonism produced in 

 them by ill-treatment would be less likely to survive and leave off- 

 spring than those who concealed their antagonism ; and hence, by in- 

 heritance and selection, a growth of this trait proportionate to the re- 

 quirement. In some cases, again, the arts of persuasion enabled 

 women to protect themselves, and by implication their offspring, 

 where, in the absence of such arts, they would have disappeared early, 

 or would have reared fewer children. One further ability may be 

 named as likely to be cultivated and established — the ability to dis- 

 tinguish quickly the passing feelings of those around. In barbarous 

 times, a woman who could, from a movement, tone of voice, or expres- 

 sion of face, instantly detect in her savage husband the passion that 

 was rising, would be likely to escape dangers run into by a woman 

 less skilled in interpreting the natural language of feeling. Hence, 

 from the perpetual exercise of this power, and the survival of those 

 having most of it, we may infer its establishment as a feminine faculty. 

 Ordinarily, this feminine faculty, showing itself in an aptitude for 

 guessing the state of mind through the external signs, ends simply in 

 intuitions formed without assignable reasons ; but when, as happens in 



VOL. IV. — 3 



