Part 20 (1/2)
As a matter of course, in so far as the cited differences depend upon the nature of the s.e.x-distinctions, they can not be changed; in how far these differences in the make-up of the blood and the brain may be modified by a change of life (nourishment, mental and physical gymnastics, occupation, etc.) is a matter that, for the present, lies beyond all accurate calculation. But this seems certain: _modern woman differs more markedly from man than primitive woman, or than the women of backward peoples, and the circ.u.mstance is easily explained by the social development that the last 1,000 or 1,500 years forced upon woman among the nations of civilization_.
According to Lombroso and Ferrero, the mean capacity of the female skull, the male skull being a.s.sumed at 1,000, is as follows:--
Negro 984 Slav 903 Australian 967 Gipsy 875 Hindoo 944 Chinese 870 Italian 921 German 838-897 Hollander 919 (Tiedemann) Englishman 860 Hollander 883 (Davis) Parisian 858
The contradictory findings for Hollanders and Germans show that the measurements were made on very different quant.i.tative and qualitative materials, and, consequently, are not absolutely reliable. One thing, however, is evident from the figures: Negro, Australian and Hindoo women have a considerably larger brain capacity than their German, English and Parisian sisters, and yet the latter are all more intelligent. The comparisons established in the weight of the brain of deceased men of note, reveal similar contradictions and peculiarities. According to Prof. Reclam, the brain of the naturalist Cuvier weighed 1,861 grams, of Byron 1,807, of the mathematician Dirichlet 1,520, of the celebrated mathematician Gauss 1,492, of the philologist Hermann 1,358, of the scientist Hausmann 1,226. The last of these had a brain below the average weight of that of women, which, according to Bischoff, weighs 1,250 grams. But a special irony of fate wills it that the brain of Prof. Bischoff himself, who died a few years ago in St. Petersburg, weighed only 1,245 grams, and Bischoff it was who most obstinately grounded his claim of woman's inferiority on the fact that woman, on the average, had 100 grams less brain than man. The brain of Gambetta also weighed considerably below the average female brain, it weighed only 1,180 grams, and Dante, too, is said to have had a brain below the average weight for men. Figures of the same sort are found in Dr.
Havelock Ellis' work. According thereto, an every day person, whose brain Bischoff weighed, had 2,222 grams; the poet Turgeniew 2,012; while the third heaviest brain on the list belonged to an idiot of the duchy of Hants. The brain of a common workingman, also examined by Bischoff, weighed 1,925 grams. The heaviest woman's brains weighed 1,742 and 1,580 grams, two of which were of insane women.
The conclusion is, accordingly, justified that as little as size of body justifies inferences as to strength of body, so little does the weight of the brain-ma.s.s warrant inferences as to mental powers. There are very small animals (ants, bees) that, in point of intelligence, greatly excel much larger ones (sheep, cows), just as men of large body are often found far behind others of smaller or unimposing stature. Accordingly, the important factor is not merely the quant.i.ty of brain matter, but _more especially the brain organization, and, not least of all, the exercise and use of the brain power_.
The brain, if it is to fully develop its powers, must be diligently exercised, the same as any other organ, and also correspondingly fed.
Where this is not done, or where the training is turned into wrong channels, instead of the sections of the understanding being developed, those are developed in which imagination has its seat. In such cases, _not only is the organ stunted, but even crippled. One section is developed at the expense of another._
No one, approximately familiar with the history of the development of woman, will deny that, for thousands of years, woman has been and continues to be sinned against in that direction. When Prof. Bischoff objects that woman could have trained her brain and intelligence as well as man did, he reveals unpardonable and unheard of ignorance on the subject. The sketch, drawn in this work, of the position of woman in the course of the progress of civilization, explains fully how the thousands of years of continued male supremacy over woman are mainly responsible for the great differences in the mental and physical development of the two s.e.xes.
Our naturalists should recognize that the laws of their science are applicable to man also, and to his evolution. The laws of evolution, of heredity, of adaptation, hold good with human beings as with all other creatures of nature. Seeing that man is no exception in nature, the law of evolution must be applied to him also: forthwith light is shed upon what otherwise remains confused and dark, and, as such, becomes the fit subject for scientific mysticism, or mystic science.
The training of the brain took its course with the different s.e.xes wholly in conformity with the difference in the education of the two--if such a term as ”education” is at all allowable, with regard to woman in particular, during long stretches of the past, and the term ”bringing up” is not the correcter. Physiologists are agreed that the organs of thought are located in the front part of the brain, and those especially of feeling and sentiment are to be looked for in the middle of the head.
With man the front, with woman the middle of the head is more developed.
_The ideal of beauty, male and female, shaped itself accordingly._ According to the Greek ideal, which is standard to this day, _woman has a narrow, man a high and, particularly, broad forehead_,--and this ideal an expression of their own degradation, is so stamped on their minds, that our women bewail a forehead that exceeds the average, as a deformity in their appearance, and seek to improve nature by art, drawing their hair over the sinning forehead, to make it look lower.
In a polemic in Nos. 39 and 40 of the ”Sozialdemokrat” for 1890, which appeared in London, Sophie Nadejde had two articles in which she sought to refute the charges concerning the great inferiority of woman. She says therein that Broca, a well known Parisian physiologist, measured the cubic contents of 115 skulls from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and got an average of 1,426 cubic centimeters. The measurements of 125 skulls from the eighteenth century gave, however, an average of 1,462 cubic centimeters. According to this, the conclusion would be that, in the course of a few centuries, the brain had grown considerably. A measurement by Broca of skulls from the Stone Age resulted, however, in an average of 1,606 cubic centimeters for the skulls of men, and 1,581 for the skulls of women,--accordingly, both considerably larger than those of the eleventh, twelfth and eighteenth centuries. Mrs. Nadejde concluded therefrom that Herbert Spencer was right when he claimed in his physiology that brain weight depended upon the amount of motion and the variety of motions.
The lady furthermore emphasized the point that it depends a deal less on the brain-ma.s.s than on the proportion in the two s.e.xes of the brain-weight to the weight of the body. Proceeding from these premises, it appeared that _the female brain was heavier than the male_. The argument on this head, Mrs. Nadejde presents in these words:
”Let us compare the average weights of the bodies, and let us take, as the difference between man and woman only 8 kilograms, although many naturalists, among them Gay, whom Delaunay quotes, takes 11 kilograms.
According to the average weights of 9,157 American soldiers: 64.4 kilograms (average weight of the male body): 56 kilograms (average weight of the female body) = 1,141 or 1.14, i. e., the average weight of woman being taken as 100, that of man is represented by 114. According to the average weights of 12,740 Bavarians: 65.5 kilograms (average for males): 57.5 (average for females) = 1,139 or 1.14 as above. a.s.suming the average weight of woman as 100, that of man is found to be 114.
According to the average weights of 617 Englishmen, 68.8 (average for males): 60.8 (average for females) = 1,131, or 1.13; the average weight of woman being a.s.sumed as 100, that of man is found to be 113.[135]
”Accordingly, it appears that, under otherwise equal conditions, women have per cent. of brain-ma.s.s in excess of men. That is to say, for every 100 grams of female brain-ma.s.s, men should have 113 or 114 grams; in reality, however, they only have from 110 to 112 grams. The fact can be put still more plastically: According to this calculation, _the male brain falls short 25 to 51 grams of brain-ma.s.s_.[136]
”But L. Manouvrier proves more. He says:[137] 'The influence of the weight of the body strikes the eye when we note the figures among the vertebrates. The influence is equally manifest with man, and it is a wonder how so many naturalists have not yet recognized this truth, even after it was ill.u.s.trated and treated by others.
”'There are a number of facts that prove the influence of the size of the body upon the weight of the brain. The lower races and of high stature, not only have a larger average weight of brain than the European, but also is the number of large brains greater with them. We must not imagine that the intelligence of a race is determined by the number of large brains: the Patagonians, Polynesians and Indians of North America (and according to the figures given above the people of the Stone Age may be added) greatly surpa.s.s us Parisians and all races of Europe, not only in the number of large brains, but also in the large average capacity of the skull.
”'The influence of the weight of the body upon the size of the brain is confirmed by the fact that the small skull capacities are found among races of slight stature, like the Bushmen, the Andamans, and the Hindoo pariahs.'
”All scientists who have treated the brain question in a really scientific manner, have expressed themselves with greatest caution on the difference shown by the two s.e.xes. Other writers, on the contrary, especially during the last years, have treated the question with such levity, that it has been compromised in the public esteem. If there be any intellectual difference between man and woman, it must, at any rate, be very slight, a physiologist like Stuart Mill having declared that he failed to find the difference. Size of body, strength of muscle, ma.s.s--all of these present decided differences. Due to these differences woman has been termed the defective s.e.x; and authors who were not able to understand these manifest differences, presumed to establish a physiologic difference; to solve a much more difficult and complex question, they raised their voices in praise of their own s.e.x!
”It follows that the difference between the s.e.xes in point of weight of brain and capacity of skull, considered scientifically, can not be scored to the disadvantage of woman. All the facts point to the conclusion that the difference depends upon the weight of the body.
There is no anatomical reason to represent woman as a backward and, in point of intelligence, subordinate being, compared with man. I shall presently prove this.
”The proportion between the weight of the brain and the height of the body is smaller with the female than with the male s.e.x.[138] But the fact is easily explained. The height of the body does not actually express the development, or, rather, the weight of the body.
”But when we compare the proportion of the brain-weights we find that women have more brain than men, in childhood as well as throughout life.
The difference is not great, but it would be much more considerable, if we did not include in the weight of the body the fat, which is present in much larger quant.i.ty with women, and which, as an inert (inactive) ma.s.s, has no influence whatever upon the weight of the brain.”