Consistently with her smaller cerebel, VOLITION is feebler in woman than in man. Every thing indeed indicates the passive character in womanmentally and bodily.

The power of attention is the first reactive effort of the organ of the will-the cerebel, upon the observing portion of the brain, executed, as I have shown, in my work on The Nervous System, by means of the lateral portion of that organ and the cerebellic ring or tuber annulare. Both the power and the organ are feeble in woman: her attention is at once weak and incapable of being sustained without assistance: even the intensity, rapidity and variety of her sensations ensure this.

The muscular power of woman, 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 hanches 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 led 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 Rousseau 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 muscles 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.

Woman seizes the details and shades of objects, dependent on the senses, more than their remoter connection or their relations, dependent on reason. Madame 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

* Les femmes croient avoir l'esprit cultivé, quand elles se sont occupées de littérature sans avoir rien enchaîné. Elles se trompent: l'esprit se cultive premièrement par l'habitude de l'ordre et la justesse, secondement par la réflexion.

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 generalizing 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 only exists 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.;

* The posterior lobes are wanting in lower animals—a fact sadly opposed to the dreams of Phrenology.

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 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.