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The “ Woman's Rights' " Question [October, 
that while we know that in most, if not all, mammalian 
species the brain of the male exceeds in size that of the 
female, we have no observations as to any corresponding 
difference in mental power. That such difference, on care- 
ful examination, will be found to exist is highly probable ; 
but we must likewise expert that it will be found less dis- 
tinctly marked the lower the rank of the species. 
To return : the intellectual superiority thus claimed for 
the male sex, in virtue of a higher cerebral development, is 
fully manifested in the history of the various arts and 
sciences. In every department the first, the leading, minds 
have belonged to the male sex. Homer, Shakspeare, Phidias, 
Beethoven, no less than Newton, Liebig, and Darwin, are 
men. 
In reply to this historical confirmation of what biology 
foretells, the advocates of the movement adduce three argu- 
ments, all, in our opinion, singularly inconclusive. 
Admitting the superiority of the male brain in bulk and 
weight to that of the female, they maintain the existence of 
a qualitative difference which renders the two incommen- 
surable. This hypothesis, however, is a pure assumption. 
We should have an equal right to maintain that the brains 
of different races of men, especially as existing in ages 
widely remote from each other, were incapable of mutual 
comparison. Or, in the same spirit, it might even be urged 
that the smaller size of the muscles in woman was no proof 
of any inferiority in physical strength. 
Secondly, it is contended by those who seek to identify 
the duties, functions, and spheres of aCtion of the two sexes, 
that many women have distinguished themselves in the arts 
and sciences. Admitting to the full this faCt, we can only 
place it on a level with the kindred phenomenon that not a 
few women have, in disguise, entered the army or navy, and 
have acquitted themselves as creditably as their male com- 
rades ; or that others have worked long and undetected as 
excavators, in the construction of railways, &c. The 
savante , — the woman of science, — like the female athlete, is 
simply an anomaly, an exceptional being, holding a position 
more or less intermediate between the two sexes. In the 
one case the brain, as in the other the muscular system, has 
undergone an abnormal development. That such cases 
should occur need no more surprise us than does the con- 
verse phenomenon, the existence of womanish man. We 
meet with subjects, otherwise of the male sex, in whom the 
beard is scanty or wanting, the limbs slight and rounded, 
the voice high, the chest narrow, and the pelvis broad, or 
