WOMAN

PHYSIOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED

AS TO

MIND, MORALS, MARRIAGE,

ETC., ETC.

PART I.

MIND.

As all the actions of Woman are dependent on the operations of her MIND, it must be obvious that a brief philosophical and physiological consideration of these, is here a necessary preliminary to matters of lighter and more popular interest.

Mind is a general term expressing the aggregate of the acts or functions performed by the nervous organs situated chiefly in the head; just as life is a general term expressing the aggregate of the acts or functions performed by the tubular organs of which the central and greater masses occupy the trunk.

In darker ages, artful or ignorant men, not con. tented with soul as a principle self-existing (in rela

tion to matter) and immortal, sought to raise mind and life to the same rank; although they must have observed that both mind and life are born, that both grow with their respective organs, that both are liable to accident and disease with the organs of which they are the functions, that both become enfeebled and decay precisely as do their organs, that both die with their organs,-in short, that action can have no exist. ence without mechanism or organization. (Appendix p. 315.)

In times a little more enlightened, they gave up life as a self-existing principle. As all the functions that compose it-digestion, circulation, &c., are so evidently born, grow, become diseased, &c. with the stomach, intestines, heart, lungs, &c.-the organs of which they are the actions, artful or ignorant men became ashamed to insist on the self-existence of these functions, either as parts or as an aggregate. Life, moreover, as a self-existing principle, was awkwardly opposed by death; on the self-existence and immortality of which they might just as rationally have insisted.

In times still more advanced, it became obvious that mind is a term, not a thing, that it expresses not even a unity, but merely an aggregate-sensation which is a state of the organs of sense and dependent on every change in their structure, volition which is equally dependent on the cerebal, as both observation and experiments prove, and perception, combining, comparing, determining, &c., which are all acts of the cerebrum or brain properly so called-all growing with the growth and strengthening with the strength of their particular organs the actions, in short, of

these organs, and therefore ceasing when the organs are destroyed.

We are sometimes told that all these organs are merely the material conditions of the functions. The organs, however, can no more be called the mere conditions of their acts or functions than the levers and wheels of a steam-engine can be called the conditions of its actions. In both cases, these are instruments, not conditions, which, by such persons, are confounded together.

To prevent this blunder, if possible, I may observe that mere conditions are accidental, instruments essential; a condition may vary even from presence to absence, an instrument wanting in a machine affects its identity-in the brain it constitutes monstrosity, accident, or disease. The parts, therefore, which compose the brain and are never absent but from monstrosity, accident, or disease, are essential organs -not accidental conditions.

The causes are, both in the steam-engine and in the cerebrum, simple ;-in the engine the power of steam, in the brain impressions on the senses;-there is nothing in the intellect which is not first in the senses, as Locke has expressed in his aphorism, "nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu." These causes actuate the organization in both cases; and, in both, the mere conditions are, that the machinery is in order-in health, as we term it, in living and complex beings.

By some, it has been vaguely but truly asserted, that the size and the power of the brain, or chief or, gan of mind, are in general less in woman than in man. By others, it has been confidently but untruly

replied, that this difference is altogether owing to the better or greater education of the male. By none has a mode of determining this fundamental and important point been indicated.

Without such determination, however, it appeared to me to be impossible rationally to investigate the nature of the female mind; and knowing that there is always a right and practicable way of attaining every useful truth, I addressed myself to the subject. Looking, moreover, for what I wanted, in resources near at hand and open to every body, the examination of twins occurred to me.

A little reflection made it evident, that if twins, when of the same sex, were almost always of the same physiognomical character, an equally prevalent difference of such character, when they were of dif. ferent sex, would indicate sex to be its cause. I felt, moreover, that this would be confirmed, if the differ. ences thus arising were respectively well adapted to the nature and wants of each sex,

Seeking, then, first to observe, whether if, when twins are of the same sex, they present almost always the same physiognomical character, and especially the same developement of the brain, I found this to be ac tually the case,

I. Thus, in the heads of male twins of thirteen months, the children of James Thom, a Scottish soldier, I found the following dimensions, by means of a flexible measure applying around the surface of the head in the direction indicated, or from and to the points expressed :

In one, Alexander

1. Horizontally around the head, over the eye

brows and the greatest prominence of the back head -19 inches and 7ths.

2. From the glabella, or space between the eyebrows, over the corona, to below the spine of the back head-13 inches and .

3. From the depression immediately before and above the tragus of the ear, or upon the articulation of the lower jaw, over the middle of the head, to the same point on the other side-12 inches and 1.

In the other, Robert

1. Over eyebrows and back head-19 inches and . 2. From glabella to spine of occiput-13 inches and

3. From before one ear to before the other-12 inches and ths.

Here the utmost difference between the twins is ths of an inch in one dimension, and 4th in another, making, in all, 4ths or half an inch.

II. In the heads of female twins of 15 months, the children of Hippolite Bellenger, who very liberally permitted their examination, I found the following dimensions:

In one, Adele—

1. Over eyebrows and back head-18 inches and . 2. From glabella to spine of occiput-12 inches and 2.

3. From before one ear to before the other-11 inches and 2.

In the other, Clementine

1. Over eyebrows and back head-18 inches and 4. 2. From glabella to spine of occiput-13 inches and .