vation of single parts thereof, especially those appertaining to the intelligence.

On the other hand, it must be conceded that up to the present we know of nothing to justify the assumption that there is anything in this inner formation of the female brain to make good its deficiency in size as compared to the male.

As it is, neither chemical nor physical examination of the brain by means of the microscope has yet shown any real difference between the two species of brain by which any distinction of functional capacity can be discovered; and although Professor G. B. Brühl, of Vienna, is wrong when, in his well-known paper on "Woman's Brain, Woman's Mind, Woman's Rights," he thinks that from this fact he may deduce the absolute intellectual equality of the sexes, for our means of investigation are at present too imperfect to admit of so hasty a conclusion, yet there is not the shadow of a foundation for the assumption that the female brain is superior to the male by reason of its more delicate formation. Nor have the advocates of women the least cause to boast of such a possibility because another and more important circumstance comes to their aid, which makes the supposed superiority in the size of the masculine brain appear quite irrelevant and insignificant. For not only the positive size of the brain, but also its relative size, i.e., its size in relation to the body, must be considered. Were this not the case, then man, for example, would stand below the elephant and the whale, as the brains of these animals far exceed his in positive size, whilst as regards relative size of brain they stand so far below him that while the brain of the elephant amounts to the five hundredth and that of the whale to the three thousandth part of the bodily weight of these animals respectively, the brain of man varies from one thirty-fifth to one thirty-seventh of his entire weight. The anatomical explanation of this is very simple, and lies in the fact that the brain is not only the organ of the intellectual or mental functions, but also the centre of the whole nervous system, and that, consequently, in its bulk it must stand in a fixed proportion to the magnitude of the nerve cords that converge into it from all parts of the body. If we apply these rules to the matter under consideration we shall now find that our conclusions will have undergone a considerable change. In general, and of course with many exceptions,* the whole

The exceptions occur mainly amongst the lower ranks and agricultural classes, in which the women perform hard bodily labour, and also in the lower human races, amongst whom the physical differences between the sexes are reduced to a minimum.

structure of woman is smaller and prettier than that of man, and in particular her delicate nervous system is in keeping with her inferior muscular development, as would be seen could averages of the size of these organs in both sexes be obtained. Hence it follows that the brain of woman, considered as a nerve centre, will also be less in bulk than that of man. As a matter of fact, when the relative and not the positive weight of the female brain is considered, we find (according to several investigators) that it is not less, but even slightly greater, than that of man. In other words, woman, taking into consideration her smaller bodily size, possesses not only not less but probably even more brain than man!

If, then, we are to judge only from the facts already stated, woman must be the equal, if not the superior, of man in mental powers.

But now, as truth is in all things the first object, notwithstanding our kindly sentiments towards the fairer sex we must not conceal the fact that this superiority is again cancelled by another great disadvantage of the female brain as compared to the male-a disadvantage which is caused by the singular proportions of its shape. The development of the female brain is less as regards the front portion and greater as regards the top or crown portion in comparison to the male; so that if one looks at a woman's skull from above, its outline approximates to that of two cones with blunted ends joined together at their bases, whereas a man's skull presents, from a similar point of view, an egg-like appearance, expanding in the middle and towards the back. It is also a matter of daily observation that, as a rule, the forehead and temples are lower in women. than in men; and so much is this the case that a low forehead is regarded as a requisite of female beauty, while a broad arched forehead is held to be an adornment to man.

The ancient Greeks as a rule gave their female statues relatively small foreheads, whilst, on the contrary, their representations of male figures, such as, for example, the Zeus of Phidias, exhibit the powerful forehead of intellectual ascendency. The strange fashion of wearing a "fringe" of hair over the brows is undoubtedly an endeavour to make the forehead appear as low as possible. This experience in daily life, which, like all rules, is of course limited by numerous exceptions, receives full confirmation from the observations made by Professor Huschke in brain and skull measurements, according to which the frontal bone of the female is less in area than that of the male by 2,000 millimetres, whilst on the other hand the female crown bones possess a proportionate

advantage over the male. In the course of his measurements of the brains of Germans, who of all nations possess the largest crowns, Huschke found that in the male this part measured on an average 262 cubic centimetres, in the female only 208. He also ascertained that the "middle brain" containing the "central grey" matter, which has no connection with the intelligence, and which in animals shows a considerable proportionate development compared to the rest of the brain, exhibits also in women a noticeable preponderance. In other words, the woman possesses more crown and middle brain, the man more forehead and thinking brain. Now, according to many scientific experiments, the details of which would lead us too far from our subject, it may be assumed that the front sections of the brain are the seat of the intelligence and higher intellectual activities, that is, the powers of imagination, proportion, and determination, whilst the locus operandi of the emotions and feelings lies in the crown or hinder part. Huschke sums up the result of his investigations as follows: The character of the masculine disposition is shown in the frontal bone, that of the feminine in the crown bones, and the woman whose physical character is a continuation of the child-like has remained a child in respect to her brain also, though more exceptions to the rule occur than in the case of the ordinary child, and though the difference between the crown and frontal bones is not marked in the same degree. This scientific result is therefore in accord with the view held for so many thousand years, that the woman is designed more for the life of the heart and of the emotions than for that of the mind and the higher intellectual activities.

It is well known that logic or exact reasoning is not regarded as the strongest side of a woman's mind, and that brilliant performances of women in the domain of strict science are of exceptional occurrence. Daily experience teaches that woman can only with difficulty be convinced by reason when the result to be obtained is one which runs counter to her feelings; she always, as one says, comes back to the point she started from and sees things more from a subjective than from an objective point of view. Therefore, argue the opponents of women, she is naturally kept in an inferior position in the legal and social scale, and it would be useless as well as foolish to struggle against such a law of nature. At the first glance this inference appears to be a very just one, and, as must be conceded, it has a certain amount of abiding force. But on the other hand it has many weak points, and should rightly be used only as an explanation and not as a justification of the present position

of the sex. For in the first place the bare fact of the weaker nature (mental or bodily) of the woman cannot palliate her oppression. Have we not long ago condemned the old law of slavery which said that the weaker was rightly oppressed because of his weakness? Do we not in this more enlightened age strive more and more for the realisation of the idea of the universal right to equality possessed by all mankind without distinction of colour, condition or sex? And would it not be absurd to omit this last consideration when the differences in mental ability between individual men are often far greater than those between man and woman? Further, it must not be forgotten that the proof of the foregoing explanation of the functions of the various portions of the brain is by no means as yet included amongst the dogmas of physiological science, but is regarded by many authorities as at least doubtful. Yet it has on the one hand so great an intrinsic probability, and on the other it agrees so well with the experiences of history and of everyday life, that it requires an exceptionally strong consideration to blunt the edge of the deduction formed from it. This consideration we find in the influence which cultivation and education exercise on the quality and capacities of the intellectual organ-an influence which is so considerable as to raise the question whether this singular defect in the female brain should not be regarded as the effect rather than the cause of her oppressed condition. We know that the human brain is a very receptive organ, that it easily changes its equilibrium, and that by use, as is the casewith the muscles, it gains in strength and capacity, increasing even in bulk, whilst disuse on the other hand entails on it a loss of development. Sufficient evidence of this is furnished by comparing the brains of learned men, and of the educated classes generally, with those of the lower orders, or of the civilised races generally with those of savages, and it is well exemplified by the gradual increase referred to by Professor Brokas in the size of the skulls of the Parisian population in the course of the last century. Seeming exceptions to this rule are easily explained by the fact that people with a large or talented brain have often not availed themselves of the same, whereas persons with comparatively fewer powers have understood how to make a better use of them by means of industry and the faculty of concentration-or else because a comparatively small brain may have been more finely developed in the regions of the intellectual powers than a large one. If, therefore, we consider that for thousands of years woman, by reason of her subordinate social position, has received a different education from her male

partner, and that her training has led her in quite another direction to his; that her horizon has been a more limited one, and moreover that every encouragement has been given to the play of her emotions at the expense of the activity of her intellect; and finally that this state of affairs has lasted from generation to generation, through mother to daughter, then I say, that from a physiological standpoint there should be no cause for surprise that as a result woman should differ from man, that her brain should be inferior to his, or at any rate should have developed on different lines, or, as we have been saying, that the fore part of her brain should be found to be proportionately less and the hind part proportionately greater than that of man.

The opponents of the movement in favour of women always point out, as did even the otherwise unprejudiced Darwin, that the intellectual achievements of individual women do not amount to a very imposing total and that a comparison between the sexes on this point must result very unfavourably to the women. This is certainly the case, and in face of their social disadvantages it would be wonderful if it were otherwise. But we cannot here deduce the conclusion that nature has for all time ordained the intellectual inferiority of woman, but rather must we agree that nature has not here spoken at all, especially when we call to mind the important circumstance mentioned at the beginning of this article, that the lower in the scale of civilisation that we look, the less do we find the difference in size between the brains of the sexes. This circumstance proves that in civilisation and not in nature must lie the causes for this difference in development. The fact is that in the process of the division of labour which has ever accompanied the march. of civilisation, the intellectual or brain work has fallen more and more to the lot of the man, while the sphere of woman has been confined more and more to the domestic duties. It may in all probability be assumed that the difference which has been found to lie, in this respect, between the higher and lower human races will be found to be still further accentuated between the upper and lower classes in civilised society, though no examination of this point has as yet been made; because the man whose labour is entirely physical generally works under the same conditions as the woman.

It must indeed be conceded that nature, while not directly causing the defect in woman's brain, is not entirely free from responsibility in the matter, since from the very beginning she has confided to the female sex the duties of maternity and the care of the young, whilst