C'lIAP. XIX. 
MENTAL TOWERS OF MAN AND WOMAN. 329 
rior in these same qualities. Thus man has ultimately 
become superior to woman. It is, indeed, fortunate that 
the law of the equal transmission of characters to both 
sexes has commonly prevailed throughout the whole 
class of mammals ; otherwise it is probable that man 
would have become as superior in mental endowment 
to woman, as the peacock is in ornamental plumage to 
the peahen. 
It must be borne in mind that the tendency in cha- 
racters acquired at a late period of life by either sex, 
to be transmitted to the same sex at the same age, and 
of characters acquired at an early age to be transmitted 
to both sexes, are rules which, though general, do not 
always hold good. If they always held good, we might 
conclude (but I am here wandering beyond my proper 
bounds) that the inherited effects of the early education 
of bovs and girls would be transmitted equally to both 
sexes ; so that the present inequality between the sexes 
in mental power could not be effaced by a similar 
course of early training ; nor can it have been caused 
by their dissimilar early training. In order that woman 
should reach the same standard as man, she ought, 
when nearly adult, to be trained to energy and perse- 
verance, and to have her reason and imagination exer- 
cised to the highest point ; and then she would pro- 
bably transmit these qualities chiefly to her adult 
daughters. The whole body of women, however, could 
not be thus raised, unless during many generations 
the women who excelled in the above robust virtues 
Were married, and produced offspring in larger numbers 
than other women. As before remarked with respect 
to bodily strength, although men do not now fight for 
the sake of obtaining wives, and this form of selection 
has passed away, yet they generally have to undergo, 
during manhood, a severe struggle in order to maintain 
themselves and their iamilies ; and this will tend to keep 
