held that
genius is linked with maleness: that it represents an ideal
masculinity in the highest form; and from genius the feminine mind
must, therefore, be excluded. But in truth it is not easy to credit
such assumptions, or to see the strangeness of the difficulties in an
exact opposite view, if we understand the significance of those
qualities of femaleness which are allowed to women by those who most
deny to her the possibility of genius. Such a denial serves only to
show the absurd presumption of present knowledge of this kind in its
hope to solve a problem so difficult.

Let me try to sift out the facts. And first we must inquire on what
grounds this opinion is based. I have already alluded to the general
belief in the greater degree of variability in men, which, if
established, would on the psychical side involve an accentuated
individualism and hence a greater possibility of genius. This view
has been supported by John Hunter, Burdach, Darwin, Havelock Ellis,
and others. Ellis, in the chapter on "The Artistic Impulse" in _Man
and Woman_, says, "The rarity of women artists of the first rank is
largely due to the greater variational tendency of men." Now, this
biological fact is certainly of great importance, _if it can be
proved_. But can it? It has recently been contested by anthropologists
at least as distinguished as those who have given it their support.
Manouvrier, Karl Pearson, Frossetto, and especially Guiffrida-Ruggieri
have brought forward evidence to prove the fallacy of this belief in
the slighter variability and infantile character of woman. Now, it is
clearly impossible for me in the space at my command to go into the
conclusions brought forward on both sides of this difficult question.
What I want to make clear is that this greater variability of man has
not been established, and therefore cannot be accepted as a condition
of male genius. I am glad to be able to give a statement on this
question by Professor Arthur Thomson, which will sufficiently show
that my opinion is not put forward wantonly and without due
consideration, but that it coincides with the conclusion of one who is
an acknowledged leader in the advanced biological study of the sexes.

Professor Thomson writes thus[321]--

"We would guard against the temptation to sum up the contrast of
the sexes in epigrams. We regard the woman as relatively more
anabolic, man as relatively more katabolic, and whether this
biologi