In whatever way, then, we consider the brains of men and women, whether we compare the ratio of brain weight to height of body or to weight of body, or compare the relative amounts of gray matter in the two sexes, the advantage, in spite of her smaller body, is distinctly in favor of woman.
From the preceding considerations it seems clear that there is no ground from the point of view of brain anatomy for considering one sex as superior to the other. They evince, too, that quality as well as quantity of brain tissue must be considered in all our discussions on the relations between the volume of brain and the intelligence of its possessor. Whales and elephants have much larger brains than men, but they nevertheless stand far below him in intelligence.
It must be remembered, also, that the brain is not only an organ of mental function. It is likewise the center of the entire nervous system, and its volume, therefore, must correspond with the size and number of nerve trunks under its control. In man, as in animals, the brain elements are to a great extent but sensori-motor delegates whose function is the regulation and government of every part of the body. The superior size of the whale's brain, as compared with that of man, can readily be understood when we reflect on the much greater amount of territory which these sensori-motor delegates represent. When this fact is borne in mind it will be found that the whale's brain, relatively to that of man, is extremely small. For while the ratio of man's brain weight to that of his body is as 1 to 36, the ratio of the whale's brain weight to its immense body is but 1 to 3,000.
As an evidence that quality often counts for more than quantity, brain anatomists would do well to reflect on the marvelous intelligence displayed by ants and termites, those mites of animated nature which so excited the admiration of the naturalist Pliny and caused Darwin to declare, "The brain of an ant is one of the most marvelous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of man."[99]
Moreover, when discussing the relative brain weights of the two sexes, we must not lose sight of the fact that we have, with the solitary exception of the eminent Russian mathematician, Sónya Kovalévsky,[100] no record of the brain weights of any eminently intellectual woman. The brains of scores of men of genius and exceptional mentality have been weighed, but we are utterly ignorant of the weight of brain of such women as Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Madame de Staël, Maria Theresa, Sophie Germain, George Sand, Harriet Martineau, George Eliot, Eleanor Ormerod, Mary Somerville, and others of the same caliber. The only data so far available, regarding the average brain weight of women, are such as have been obtained from the inmates of hospitals, prisons and pauper institutions. And yet we are asked to accept the average based on such data as a fair term of comparison with the average male brain weight as increased by the superior weight of brain of such men as Cuvier and Turgenieff. And this is called science![101]
The attempt, then, to prove by weighing and measuring and studying brains that man is the intellectual superior of woman has been an ignominious failure. The old belief that woman is by nature and cerebral organization less intelligent than man is not borne out by the investigations of those best qualified to pronounce an opinion on the subject. To assert, as so many do, that woman was created man's intellectual inferior is begging the question. Science can adduce no proof of such a gratuitous statement. Broca, the most eminent of French anthropologists, regarded as an absurdity the attempt to establish a necessary relation between the development of intelligence and the volume and weight of the encephalon. With the ripe knowledge of his mature years he was inclined to believe that the apparent difference in intelligence in the two sexes was owing, not to a difference of brain organization, but rather to a difference of education, physical as well as mental, and that, with equal opportunities for intellectual and physical development, the present sexual differences that we have been considering—differences which are due not to nature but to the long ages of restraint and subjection under which women have lived—would gradually be lessened, and that men and women would eventually approach that equality which characterizes them in the state of nature.[102]
Realizing the impossibility of arriving, by the study of brain sizes and structure, at any satisfactory conclusion respecting the relative intellectual capacities of men and women, seekers after truth cast about for other methods that were free from the errors and fallacies of those which had proved so unreliable. The attempt to base the alleged mental inferiority of woman upon the facial angle of Camper, the metafacial angle of Serres, the craniofacial angle of Huxley, the sphenoidal angle of Welcker, or the nasobasal angle of Virchow had issued in utter failure, and had proved for the thousandth time that it is easier to formulate theories than to establish their validity. It was evident, notwithstanding the assertions of certain materialistic theorists, that the brain did not secrete thought as the liver secretes bile; it was evident, too, that intelligence could not be estimated in terms of any kind of mechanical units. Psycho-physiologists had no sort of dynamometer for measuring brain power as they would measure muscular energy. By means of the plethysmograph they might determine the amount of blood sent to the brain in a given time, but they had no psychometer of any description which would enable them to estimate the quantity, much less the quality, of psychic force such a blood supply was competent to produce.
Many, of course, still remained adherents of the old view that woman must ever remain the mental inferior of man because she is by nature physically weaker. These persons, however, seemed to lose sight of the fact that women who lead a rational life—who are not the slaves of fashion or the victims of luxury—have little to complain of on the score of physical weakness. This is evidenced by the life and habits of the women of the people, as well as by the tasks performed by women among savage tribes, who in health and strength are little, if at all, inferior to their male companions.
The late Professor Huxley, in referring to this subject, exhibited his usual acumen and sanity in such matters when he indited the following paragraph:
"We have heard a great deal lately about the physical disabilities of women. Some of these alleged impediments, no doubt, are really inherent in their organization, but nine-tenths of them are artificial—the products of their mode of life. I believe that nothing would tend so effectually to get rid of these creations of idleness, weariness and that 'over-stimulation of the emotions' which in plainer spoken days used to be called wantonness, than a fair share of healthy work, directed toward a definite object, combined with an equally fair share of healthy play, during the years of adolescence; and those who are best acquainted with the acquirements of an average medical practitioner will find it hardest to believe that the attempt to reach that standard is like to prove exhausting to an ordinarily intelligent and well-educated woman."[103]