Part 4 (1/2)
However that may be, we shall probably find at last that we must fall back on the ancient truth that no external regulation, however pretty and plausible, will suffice to lead men and women to the goal of any higher social end. We must realise that there can be no sure guide to fine living save that which comes from within, and is supported by the firmly cultivated sense of personal responsibility. Our prayer must still be the simple, old-fas.h.i.+oned prayer of the Psalmist: ”Create in me a clean heart, O G.o.d”--and to h.e.l.l with your laws!
In other words, our aim must be to evolve a social order in which the sense of freedom and the sense of responsibility are both carried to the highest point, and that is impossible by the aid of measures which are only beneficial for the children of Perdition. That there are such beings, incapable alike either of freedom or of responsibility, we have to recognise. It is our business to care for them--until with the help of eugenics we can in some degree extinguish their stocks--in such refuges and reformatories as may be found desirable. But it is not our business to treat the whole world as a refuge and a reformatory. That is fatal to human freedom and fatal to human responsibility. By all means provide the halt and the lame with crutches. But do not insist that the sound and the robust shall never stir abroad without crutches. The result will only be that we shall all become more or less halt and lame.
It is only by such a method as this--by segregating the hopelessly feeble members of society and by allowing the others to take all the risks of their freedom and responsibility even though we strongly disapprove--that we can look for the coming of a better world. It is only by such a method as this that we can afford to give scope to all those varying and ever-contradictory activities which go to the making of any world worth living in. For Conflict, even the conflict of ideals, is a part of all vital progress, and each party to the conflict needs free play if that conflict is to yield us any profit. That is why Masculinists have no right to impede the play of Feminism, and Feminists no right to impede the play of Masculinism. The fundamental qualities of Man, equally with the fundamental qualities of Woman, are for ever needed in any harmonious civilisation. There is a place for Masculinism as well as a place for Feminism. From the highest standpoint there is not really any conflict at all. They alike serve the large cause of Humanity, which equally includes them both.
[1] ”Wurdelose Weiber,” _Die Neue Generation_, Aug.-Sept., 1914.
[2] Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fifth ed., 1914, p. 21.
[3] The conception of s.e.xuality as dependent on the combined operation of various internal ductless glands, and not on the s.e.xual glands proper alone, has been especially worked out by Professor W. Blair Bell, _The s.e.x Complex_, 1916.
[4] H.H. Laughlin, _The Legal, Legislative, and Administrative Aspects of Sterilisation_, Eugenics Record Office Bulletin, No. 1, OB, 1914.
[5] I have discussed these already in a chapter of my book, _The Task of Social Hygiene_.
IX
THE MENTAL DIFFERENCES OF MEN AND WOMEN
The Great War, which has changed so many things, has nowhere effected a greater change than in the sphere of women's activities. In all the belligerent countries women have been called upon to undertake work which they had never been offered before. Europe has thus become a great experimental laboratory for testing the apt.i.tudes of women. The results of these tests, as they are slowly realised, cannot fail to have permanent effects on the s.e.xual division of labour. It is still too early to speak confidently as to what those effects will be. But we may be certain that, whatever they are, they can only spring from deep-lying natural distinctions.
The differences between the minds of men and the minds of women are, indeed, presented to all of us every day. It should, therefore, we might imagine, be one of the easiest of tasks to ascertain what they are. And yet there are few matters on which such contradictory and often extravagant opinions are maintained. For many people the question has not arisen; there are no mental differences, they seem to take for granted, between men and women. For others the mental superiority of man at every point is an unquestionable article of faith, though they may not always go so far as to agree with the German doctor, Mobius, who boldly wrote a book on ”The Physiological Weak-mindedness of Women.” For others, again, the predominance of men is an accident, due to the influences of brute force; let the intelligence of women have freer play and the world generally will be straightened out.
In these conflicting att.i.tudes we may trace not only the confidence we are all apt to feel in our intimate knowledge of a familiar subject we have never studied, but also the inevitable influence of s.e.xual bias. Of such bias there is more than one kind. There is the egoistic bias by which we are led to regard our own s.e.x as naturally better than any other could be, and there is the altruistic bias by which we are led to find a charming and mysterious superiority in the opposite s.e.x. These different kinds of s.e.xual bias act with varying force in particular cases; it is usually necessary to allow for them.
Notwithstanding the fantastic divergencies of opinion on this matter, it seems not impossible to place the question on a fairly sound and rational base. In so complex a question there must always be room for some variations of individual opinion, for no two persons can approach the consideration of it with quite the same prepossessions, or with quite the same experience.
At the outset there is one great fundamental fact always to be borne in mind: the difference of the s.e.xes in physical organisation. That we may term the _biological_ factor in determining the s.e.xual mental differences. A strong body does not involve a strong brain nor a weak body a weak brain; but there is still an intimate connection between the organisation of the body generally and the organisation of the brain, which may be regarded as an executive a.s.semblage of delegates from all parts of the body. Fundamental differences in the organisation of the body cannot fail to involve differences in the nervous system generally, and especially in that supreme collection of nervous ganglia which we term the brain. In this way the special adaptation of woman's body to the exercise of maternity, with the presence of special organs and glands subservient to that object, and without any important equivalents in man's body, cannot fail to affect the brain. We now know that the organism is largely under the control of a number of internal secretions or hormones, which work together harmoniously in normal persons, influencing body and mind, but are liable to disturbance, and are differently balanced and with a different action in the two s.e.xes.[1] It is not, we must remember, by any means altogether the exercise of the maternal function which causes the difference; the organs and apt.i.tudes are equally present even if the function is not exercised, so that a woman cannot make herself a man by refraining from childbearing.
In another way this biological factor makes itself felt, and that is in the differences in the muscular systems of men and women. These we must also consider fundamental. Although the extreme muscular weakness of average civilised women as compared to civilised men is certainly artificial and easily possible to remove by training, yet even in savages, among whom the women do most of the muscular work, they seldom equal or exceed the men in strength; any superiority, when it exists, being mainly shown in such pa.s.sive forms of exertion as bearing burdens.
In civilisation, even under the influence of careful athletic training, women are unable to compete muscularly with men; and it is a significant fact that on the variety stage there are very few ”strong women.” It would seem that the difficulty in developing great muscular strength in women is connected with the special adaptation of woman's form and organisation to the maternal function. But whatever the cause may be, the resulting difference is one which has a very real bearing on the mental distinctions of men and women. It is well ascertained that what we call ”mental” fatigue expresses itself physiologically in the same bodily manifestation as muscular fatigue. The avocations which we commonly consider mental are at the same time muscular; and even the sensory organs, like the eye, are largely muscular. It is commonly found in various great business departments where men and women may be said to work more or less side by side that the work of women is less valuable, largely because they are not able to bear additional strain; under pressure of extra work they give in before men do. It is noteworthy that the claims for sick benefit made by women under the National Insurance System in England have proved much greater (even three times greater) than the actuaries antic.i.p.ated beforehand; while the Sick Insurance Societies of Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland also report that women are ill oftener and for longer periods than men. Largely, no doubt, that is due to the special strain and the rigid monotony of our modern industrial system, but not entirely. Nearly two hundred years ago (in 1729) Swift wrote of women to Bolingbroke: ”I protest I never knew a very deserving person of that s.e.x who had not too much reason to complain of ill-health.” The regulations of the world have been mainly made by men on the instinctive basis of their own needs, and until women have a large part in making them on the basis of their needs, women are not likely to be so healthy as men.
This by no means necessarily implies any mental inferiority; it is much more the result of muscular inferiority. Even in the arts muscular qualities count for much and are often essential, since a solid muscular system is needed even for very delicate actions; the arts of design demand muscular qualities; to play the violin is a muscular strain, and only a robust woman can become a famous singer.
The greater precocity of girls is another aspect of the biological factor in s.e.xual mental differences. It is a psychic as well as a physical fact.
This has been shown conclusively by careful investigation in many parts of the civilised world and notably in America, where the school system renders such s.e.xual comparison easy and reliable at all ages. There can now be no doubt that a girl at, let us say, the age of fourteen is on the average taller and heavier than a boy at the same age, though the degrees of this difference and the precise age at which it occurs vary with the individual and the race. Corresponding to this is a mental difference; in many branches of study, though not all, the girl of fourteen is superior to the boy, quicker, more intelligent, gifted with a better memory.
Precocity, however, is a quality of dubious virtue. It is frequently found, indeed, in men of the highest genius; but, on the other hand, it is found among animals and among savages, and is here of no good augury.
Many observers of the lower races have noted how the child is highly intelligent and well disposed, but seems to degenerate as he grows older; In the comparison of girls and boys, both as regards physical and mental qualities, it is constantly found that while the girls hold their own, and in many respects more than hold their own, with boys up to the age of fifteen or sixteen, after that the girls remain almost or quite stationary, while in the boys the curve of progress is continued without interruption. Some people have argued, hypothetically, that the greater precocity of girls is an artificial product of civilisation, due to the confined life of girls, produced, as it were, by the artificial overheating of the system in the hothouse of the home. This is a mistake.
The same precocity of girls appears to exist even among the uncivilised, and independently of the special circ.u.mstances of life. It is even found among animals also, and is said to be notably obvious in giraffes. It will hardly be argued that the female giraffe leads a more confined and domestic life than her brother.
Yet another aspect of the biological factor is to be found in the bearing of heredity on this question. To judge by the statements that one sometimes sees, men and women might be two distinct species, separately propagated. The conviction of some men that women are not fitted to exercise various social and political duties, and the conviction of some women that men are a morally inferior s.e.x, are both alike absurd, for they both rest on the a.s.sumption that women do not inherit from their fathers, nor men from their mothers. Nothing is more certain than that--when, of course, we put aside the s.e.xual characters and the special qualities a.s.sociated with those characters--men and women, on the average, inherit equally from both of their parents, allowing for the fact that that heredity is controlled and modified by the special organisation of each s.e.x. There are, indeed, various laws of heredity which qualify this statement, and notably the tendency whereby extremes of variation are more common in the male s.e.x--so that genius and idiocy are alike more prevalent in men. But, on the whole, there can be no doubt that the qualities of a man or of a woman are a more or less varied mixture of those of both parents; and, even when there is no blending, both parents are almost equally likely to be influential in heredity. The good qualities of the one parent will therefore benefit the child of the opposite s.e.x, and the bad qualities will equally be transmitted to the offspring of opposite s.e.x.
There is another element in the settlement of this question which may also be fairly called objective, and that is the _historical_ factor. We are p.r.o.ne to believe that the particular status of the s.e.xes that prevails among ourselves corresponds to a universal and unchangeable order of things. In reality this is far from being the case. It may, indeed, be truly said that there is no kind of social position, no sort of avocation, public or domestic, among ourselves exclusively appertaining to one s.e.x, which has not at some time or in some part of the world belonged to the opposite s.e.x, and with the most excellent results. We regard it as alone right and proper for a man to take the initiative in courts.h.i.+p, yet among the Papuans of New Guinea a man would think it indecorous and ridiculous to court a girl; it was the girl's privilege to take the initiative in this matter, and she exercised it with delicacy and skill and the best moral results, until the shocked missionaries upset the native system and unintentionally introduced looser ways. There is, again, no implement which we regard as so peculiarly and exclusively feminine as the needle. Yet in some parts of Africa a woman never touches a needle; that is man's work, and a wife who can show a neglected rent in her petticoat is even considered to have a fair claim for a divorce. Innumerable similar examples appear when we consider the human species in time and s.p.a.ce. The historical aspect of this matter may thus be said in some degree to counterbalance the biological aspect. If the fundamental const.i.tution of the s.e.xes renders their mental characters necessarily different, the difference is still not so p.r.o.nounced as to prevent one s.e.x sometimes playing effectively the parts which are generally played by the other s.e.x.