tensity, rapidity and variety of her sensations ensure this.

The muscular power of womar, executed by means of the central portion of that organ, is naturally feebler than that of man. The width of her pelvis and the consequent separation of her haunches and of the heads of her thigh-bones render even walking difficult. Her muscles are generally less voluminous and always of a looser and feebler texture than those of man.-These facts have lead Mrs. Wolstonecraft to acknowledge that "the female, in point of strength, is, in general, inferior to the male: this is the law of nature."

That no education or exercise will remedy these defects, or rather change these organic differences, has been proved in the case of the Spartan women; and we find that, though stronger exercises increase the strength of woman, she cannot, in this respect, be approximated to man. It is evidently incompatible with her organization as woman.

Women are so conscious of this, that "far from feeling ashamed of their weakness," as Rosseau observes, "they glory in it; their tender muscles are powerless; they pretend they cannot raise the lightest burdens; they would blush to be thought strong."

So universal a characteristic of woman is her extreme flexibility and mobility, naturally connected with her weakness, that not merely the voluntary mus. cles of her limbs and her features, but the involuntary fibres of her heart, arteries and all the moving parts of her vital system, are strongly marked by it; and hence the convulsive disposition of woman under many circumstances.

Even the female writer I have quoted, accordingly, says, "A degree of physical superiority cannot, therefore, be denied to man-and it is a noble prerogative! It must render women, in some degree, dependent on men in the various relations of life."

...

At an early age, girls try also the art of conversation, dependent on the same muscular system, which they soon after practise incessantly. "They speak earlier," says Rousseau, " more easily and more agreeably than men. They are accused also of speaking more; this is what should be, and I willingly change the reproach into eulogy." The mouth and the eyes have in them the same activity, and for the same reason. Man says what he knows, woman what she pleases; one, in order to speak, requires knowledge, and the other taste; one ought to have for the principal object useful things, the other agreeable ones. Their conversation ought not to have any other common forms than those of truth.

We now arrive, in this sketch, at the power of REASONING, into which most of the preceding faculties enter.

Ma

Woman seizes the details and shades of objects, dependent on the senses, more than their remoter connection or their relations, dependant on reason. dame Necker accordingly says, "Women think their minds cultivated when they have attended to literature without having connected any thing. They are in error: the mind is cultivated first by habits of order and correctness, and secondly by reflection." And Mrs. Wolstonecraft (for it is important here to have the testimony of observing women) says, "To do every thing in an orderly manner, is a most important

precept, which women, who, generally speaking, receive only a disorderly kind of education, seldom attend to."

This prevents their generalizing matters of fact, or their extracting, from many scattered ideas, a greater idea that embraces the whole. And therefore Rousseau observes that "The research for abstract and speculative truths, for principles, for axioms in the sciences, for all that tends to generalize ideas, is not the province of women; their studies ought all to refer to practice."

Yet Mrs. Wolstonecraft says, "The power of gen. eralizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations, is the only acquirement, for an immortal being, that really deserves the name of knowledge. This power has not only been denied to women; but writers have insisted that it is inconsistent, with a few exceptions, with their sexual character. Let men prove this, and I shall grant that woman exists only for man."-This has been already proved by the smallness in women of the middle and posterior part of the brain-the seats of the highest faculties;* by that of the cerebel and cerebellic ring -the organs of will, attention, &c.; and by their incapacity to distinguish relations, to think in an orderly manner, to generalize; and as to woman existing only for man, there can be no more doubt of it, than that man exists only for woman.

Woman, by the intensity, rapidity and variety of her sensations, as well as by the causes just named, is

* The posterior lobes are wanting in lower animals-a fact sadly opposed to the dreams of Phrenology. (Appendix.)

of course incapable of thought separated from all external things, of trains of connected ideas, and of connected modes of reasoning.

Under such physiological conditions, we see why her judgment is often perverted by the prejudices of the senses. Instead, therefore, of producing any persisting determination, it leads to crowds of petty determinations every instant destroyed one by another.

Instead, then, of judgment, woman has rather a quick perception of what is fitting, owing to the predominance of her instinctive faculties. This quick perception, indeed, bears the stamp of instinct in that promptness and precipitancy which spring from its very nature, and from its embracing only limited objects. Hence alone it is that women, in certain circumstances, possess a presence of mind superior to that of the cleverest man, and in a moment seem to attain better combined determinations than result from laborious calculation.

That this has little to do with reason, is proved by its being the affair only of emergency and of the moment. Woman has little foresight. The girl in a moment tells her lover's proposal to all her female friends, and is then compelled to spend days, weeks, months, in mystifying them.

In perfect consistency with all this, Madame Necker says, "Want of perseverance is the great fault of woman in every thing, morals, attention to health, friendship, &c.-It cannot be too often repeated, that women never reach the end of any thing through want of perseverance."

There are, moreover, additional and perpetually recurring obstacles to the attainment of reasoning

powers by women; in the remarkable variations continually affecting their vital system. The periodical returns of the catamenia produce in many women indispositions more or less severe: their stomach performs its functions badly, and they are subject to very varied nervous affections: their sensibility becomes more exquisite; they are more susceptible of emotions and more disposed to love; they easily resign themselves to unfounded griefs and fears; they are liable to singular caprices, to spasmodic affections, and even to mental derangement; they are more sensible to cold; their whole organization is more or less disordered.

The necessity of love which, in my work on Intermarriage, I have shown to be more essential to woman than to man, and the conditions of pregnancy, delivery and suckling, produce similar derangements.

Connected with all this is woman's weakness and mobility, her ever-varying fancies and caprices, and her disinclination to every thing requiring attention, to the observation of relations, to order and method, to generalization, trains of connected ideas, modes of reasoning, &c.

We cannot wonder, then, that the reasoning faculties are easily deranged in woman, and that consequently the number of insane women always greatly exceeds that of men.

Moreover, it is well known that, when women are capable of some degree of mental exertion, this, by directing the blood towards the brain, makes it a centre of activity at the expense of the vital organs which are much more important to them; and, if the latter suffer from the activity of the former, their chief value