cal hypothesis is a good one or not, it certainly does no
social harm. But when investigators begin to say that woman is
more infantile and man more senile, that woman is "undeveloped
man" and man is "evolved woman," we get among generalisations
not only unscientific but practically dangerous. Not the least
dangerous of these generalisations is one of the most familiar,
that man is more variable than woman, that the raw materials of
evolution make their appearance in greatest abundance in man.
There seems to be no secure basis for this generalisation; it
seems doubtful whether any generalisation of the kind is
feasible. Prof. Karl Pearson has made seventeen groups of
measurements of different parts of the body, in eleven groups
the female is more variable than the male, and in six the male
is more variable than the female. _Moreover the differences of
variability are slight, less than those between members of the
same race living in different conditions._ Furthermore, an
elementary remark may be pardoned. Since inheritance is
bi-parental, and since variation means some peculiarity in the
inheritance, a greater variability in men, if true, would not
mean that men had any credit for varying. The stimulus to
variation may have come from the mother as well as the father.
_If proved it would only mean that the male constitution gives
free play to the expression of variations, which are kept latent
in the female constitution._ But what is probably true is that
some variations find expression more readily in man and others
more readily in woman."

The italics in the passage are mine, for they make abundantly clear
the falseness of the old view, and show how much the question needs
reopening from the common-sense standpoint of opportunity. I shall,
therefore, only restate my opinion that it is impossible to assume a
fundamental difference in individuality as existing between woman and
man until it can be proved that the same free-play to the expression
has been common alike to both sexes.

To me it seems probable that what Samuel Butler insists upon is true,
and that the origin of variations must be looked for in the needs and
experiences of the creature varying. But let this pass, as it opens up
too large and difficult a question to enter upon here. The effects of
environment and function must act as a kind of arbiter directin