re acquainted with bearded women, athletic women, as well as
beardless men and puny men. From the mental point of view, there are
also viragos and men with feminine instincts. Imbeciles are not
wanting in both sexes, but no reasonable person will deny that an
intelligent woman is superior to a narrow-minded man even from the
purely intellectual point of view. In spite of these difficulties, I
shall attempt to bring forward the principal points which distinguish,
in a general way, the masculine mind from the feminine, relying on my
own observations and especially on the mental phenomena of both
sexes.
=The Weight of the Brain.=--According to statistics, the weight of the
brain in men of our race is on the average 1350 grammes, while that of
women averages 1200 grammes. The absolute weight is, however, not of
much importance, because part of the cerebral substance in the larger
animals is only for the supply of a greater number of cellular
elements of the rest of the body, which necessitates a greater number
of nervous elements.
To make the matter clear, it is necessary to separate the weight of
the cerebral hemispheres from the other nervous centers, such as the
cerebellum, corpora striata, the optic thalami, the mid-brain, the
pons Varolii, the medulla oblongata and the spinal cord, for these
centers constitute parts which are phylogenetically older, that is to
say, inherited from lower animal ancestors. Compared with the cerebral
hemispheres, these nerve centers are relatively more important in
other vertebrates than in man, and are in more constant proportion to
the size of the body, the muscular, glandular and sensory elements of
which they supply. When the intelligence is about the same, they are,
therefore, compared with the cerebral hemispheres, much more developed
in the larger than in the smaller animals. For example, they are very
large in the ox, but small in mice. I have weighed a considerable
number of human brains separated in this way with the following
results:
CEREBRAL HEMISPHERES OTHER CEREBRAL CENTERS
Man 1060 grammes, 78.5% | 290 grammes, 21.5%
Woman 955 grammes, 77.9% | 270 grammes, 22.1%
Thus the cerebellum and basal ganglia are a little smaller in men than
in women, compared with the cerebral hemispheres.
These figures appear to show that the cerebral hemispheres in woman
are on the average a little smaller than in man, even proportionately
to the stature; for, ac
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