Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul.

by Wilhelmine von Hillern

Moritz turned hastily round to Johannes, who sat almost behind him, and stared as if a new idea had suddenly occurred to him. "What the deuce, Johannes! do you know her? Oho! indeed! now I understand the interest that you take in her. Well, you can teach her to make good her omissions."

"I should really like to be present at such an interesting lesson!" said Herbert.

"Laugh away," said Johannes calmly. "You may laugh at me as much as you please, but have the goodness, Moritz, to spare your jests as far as Fräulein Hartwich is concerned; and you too, friend Herbert. Pray heed what I say. We have nothing to do here with the personality of this girl; it is nothing to us. All we have to do is to pass judgment upon her intellectual capacity, and to accede or not to her request. Go on, Moritz!"

And Moritz read further: "Even the law, without knowing it, recognizes this physiological fact, for it punishes less severely a murder committed in the heat of passion than one that is premeditated. And what is a murder committed in the heat of passion, in reality, but a reflex motion in a broader sense? If this theory be correct, many a poor criminal may escape not only a violent death at the hangman's hands, but also the flames of the material hell to which bigoted moralists have consigned him. Let us endeavour, therefore, to discover what relation these facts sustain to Free Agency. All that we can do to attain the self-control which is the germ of all the virtues is, from earliest childhood, to exercise the inhibitory nerves in the discharge of their functions. It is an undoubted fact that, from the beginning of life, the mind must learn to use as its tools the various organs of the body. We cannot understand the use of a tool to which we are unaccustomed as we can one that we have frequently handled. Thus it is with the mind and the nerves. Every nerve that is often called into activity by the mind is strengthened by exercise. For example: the sense of touch grows remarkably keen with blind people, who depend upon it as a substitute for eyesight. By continual exercise of the nerves of sensation in his finger-tips, the blind man achieves the greatest perfection in his sense of touch. 'Practice makes perfect,' we often hear said with regard to arts and occupations difficult of mastery. And what is this practice but the custom of the mind to exercise this or that nerve, bringing into play the required muscular activity,--the exercise of certain nerve-fibres? Are the inhibitory nerves alone not to be thus controlled? Certainly not! The mind can make them also implicitly obedient to its will, if it neglects no opportunity for exercising them,--and why should it not apply itself to this task with the same zeal that is expended upon the attainment of an art or handicraft? I, for example, was in the habit of screaming at the unexpected discharge of a pistol. I had a pistol discharged daily in my hearing, without warning, and in a short time I was able to suppress the scream. It may be urged that I had gradually become accustomed to the noise, and was no longer startled. But this was not the case. I was as much startled as ever, but I had taught the appropriate inhibitory nerve to cut off the reflex motion upon the larynx. I know that a subjective experience of this kind proves nothing objectively; but such a simple inference, I think, needs no proof. Here we come again to the boundary-line separating the physiological from the psychological, where free agency results from a material law, just as fragrance comes from the chalice of a flower. Only let us be sure that our nerves are but a key-board upon which, if we strike the right keys correctly, we shall produce the harmonious accord of our whole being, and, if we do not learn to do so, we are to be pitied or despised, according to the school in which the lesson is needed."

"And so on," said Moritz, turning over the leaves. "The rest can be easily imagined. Here is a special treatise upon the motor nerves,--it seems pretty fair,--and rather a long essay upon nervous excitement, but I think we have done our duty and read enough of the testimony. How shall we decide? Shall we carry out the joke, and admit a student in petticoats to the lectures and the dissecting-room?"

"Why not?" said Professor Taun with some humour. "We admit so many stupid lads, why not one woman?"

"My dear friend," old Heim began, "I do not think we have ever had many pupils more gifted than Fräulein Hartwich. And is not a talented woman better than a stupid man?"

"That is a question," remarked Herbert, riveting his sharp eyes upon Heim's honest face. "I do not believe that the most talented woman can accomplish what is possible, with diligence and perseverance, for a man of common ability. What aid can a woman lend to us, or to science? The aid of her labour only, for no woman possesses creative force. And the feminine capacity for labour is so weak, that it is hardly worth while to commit an absurdity for the sake of making it ours."

"An absurdity?" asked Heim.

"Yes, I should call it absurd to admit a woman among our students, to degrade science to a mere doll to amuse silly girls withal, until, finally, there would be an Areopagus erected, before which we should be expected to make our most profound bow, in every feminine tea-party. There is competition enough already, without increasing it by the admission among us of the other sex."