en
have not excelled in poetry or art. Yet these are the departments
least dependent on environment, and at the same time those
in which the environment has been perhaps as favorable to women
as to men. Women depart less from the normal than men--a fact
that usually holds for the female throughout the animal series; in
many closely related species only the male can be readily
distinguished.[1]

[Footnote 1: Cattell: "A Statistical Study of Eminent Men,"
_Popular Science Monthly_, vol. LXII. pp. 375-77.]

In the facts of higher variability among males, and the
hitherto restricted social opportunities provided for women
are to be found the chief reasons for the comparatively high
achievement of the male sex as compared with the female.
But on the average the difference between the two sexes with
respect to mental capacity is slight.

THE INFLUENCE OF RACE. A second factor in determining
individual differences in mental traits is race. There are
certain popular presuppositions as to the inherent differences in
the mental activity of different races. The Irishman's wit,
the negro's joyousness, the emotionality of the Latin races,
the stolidity of the Chinese, are all supposed to be fundamental.
And in a sense they are. That is, in the life and
culture of these groups, such traits may stand out distinctively.
But most psychologists and anthropologists question
seriously whether these traits are to be traced to radical differences
in racial inheritance. For the most part they seem
rather to be the result of radical differences in environment.
"Many of the mental similarities of an Indian to Indians and
of his differences from Anglo-Saxons disappear, if he happens
to be adopted and brought up as an Anglo-Saxon."[1]

[Footnote 1: Thorndike _loc. cit._, p. 52.]

There have been various experimental studies made to
determine how much divergences in the mental activity of
different races are determined by differences in racial
inheritance. Such experiments have been conducted chiefly
upon very simple traits and capacities. The accuracy of
sensory response among different races has, for example, been
examined. There have proved to be, in regard to these, slight
differences in the effectiveness and accuracy of response.
There are racial differences in hearing, as tested by the ticking
of a watch or clock artificially made. In this test, Papuans,
to take an instance, were inferior to Europeans. The sense
of touch has been