Mental Differences Between men and Women.

Southland Times, Issue 9541, 10 June 1887, Page 4

Mental Differences Between men and Women.

(Laaeet.) iTofessor Rooiaueß made the ' Mental D lierenees between Men and Women 1 the topic of a lecmre recently delivered at the Royal Institution. The views hia remarkdiscloaed are mose wnich must, we fancy, b< entertained by every -weY-iulviijae') .u.r. uaprejudiced observer. Menial dil'ienm d-> esiat between men and women, vv; ich ai> not simply the differences between i-.di viuuHl? 6f the twosexe.", but of a nature to show thataey depend upen the diverse cbHracteii*ucf aad purposes of the two classes of organic developement. And these differences, whei; they come to be studied closely, will be found t j partake very much of the nature indicate.: by Professor Romanes when he hinted thawomen are gifted with a more acute and f *ciipower of acquisiuoa ttann men, while tbt;> arc less able to originate ide*», and luer^t r not so well qualified to take (he lend .n iatellectual work. Professor Kotnane* aiu ■< to the somewhat smaller average weight <A the brain in women than in men. me <iiise ence being about bh oz. The avernae in... encephalon ha a been said to weigh 49^ cz. while the female average weight h ._ bet n i v at 44 oz. Theie aie, however, v.ry ur-M variations. Of 278 male and 191 Urn i brains the smallest male weighed 34 • z, wbn the largest weighed 65 oz. The unil« encephalon in 170 cases out of ihc 278 rar y r. f:om 4G oztosß oa. The smallest fetu* c bin i. o£ the total 191 weighed 81 ob and the Im^est 56 oz— that is 9 oz less thm. n-.e wfij;t: ef the largest male brain. Of 120 bran.# aelecttd ironi the 191 female br. ius, tbt weight ranged from 11 na to lit >*. 'ih..i-. speaking broadly, it is correct to athrm th« the male brain is heavier thao tbe fmmi* , an those who, perhaps too baeii.y, wrasurr. tb aainri by the absolute brain- weight, iuf.-r tb « S.n ita^totaiiry the mind of maw rami hi than tne mind of wornim. Thi?, bovsever i leads us to make a remark which we d . not remember to have encouh'ered — name:.! . that ac there i 6 very little difference between tb" proportionate Weight Of the cerebellum to the cerebrum In tne twoaeies, the proportion being as 1 to 8 l«7thsin themaleand osl to 8{ in tke female, there scarcely seems ground to infer from the existence of a smaller brain in woman than in man that she is necessarily inferior in proportional mental powers, because it cannot be forgotten thet woman has on the average a much smaller organism than man. It has not, so far as we are aware, been proved or even seriously contended, that a small man with a proportionally fullaized though actually small brain is not intellectually as good as a larger man with a brain only proportionally greater in size: We know that it has been the practice to weigh brains without reference to the total weight of the bodiesjwitb. which they were associated, but thia has always struck as as an unfair proceeding. It would, we believe, have heen found to explain most of the discrepancies between actual mind-power and brain- weight whicb have done violence to the prejudices of those who weighed the understanding solely by the brain, to take into consideration tke weight of the whole body. In short, we venture to urge that it is not, in our present state of knowledge at least; a justifiable p:o---ceeding to measure the mind by the brain ■without taking into account the organiim of which the brain forms part. It may well be that a email brain in a small body may be ■dually efiective as a mind-organ as a larger brain in a larger body ; and it follows that too much importance may be attached to the fact that the average weight of the female brain is less than the average weight of the male brain, because the average weight of the female body as a whole, including the brain, is less than that of the male organism, and it has not yet been shown that the female brain is gm&llei i>ro]wi't'touaU>/ than the maie. We think ' the mental differences between men and women ' are ratber differences of kind than of degree, and this will accord with the inferences of Profeisor Romanes, though it may not so closely accord 7vith tbe facts by which he seeks to support them. There are great differences in mental power and capacity between men and women, and we believe they are of a nature to tender impracticable the levelling views ana i_u ? poßes of tie pioawtew ci uniformity, b^ i

it is not upon such coarse data aB those of relative weight that the differentiation of mental power as exhibited by the two sexes Cm be satisfactorily established or elucidated.