In the same way, cases of monstrosity, degeneration, epilepsy, and insanity are less frequent in the female of the human race; and the percentage of genius and criminality is decidedly lower. The examination of the senses showed that the normal human female possesses a lower degree of tactile, olfactory, auditory, and visual sensibility than the male, and also, contrary to the hitherto accepted opinion, a diminished moral and dolorific sensibility. Among savage peoples, the female appears to be less sensitive,--that is, more cruel than the male and more inclined to vindictiveness. But when we consider woman from the point of view of her maternal functions, her physiological, psychological, and intellectual nature assumes an entirely changed aspect; for maternity is the natural function of the female, the end to which she has been created. Lofty sentiments, complete altruism, and far-sighted intelligence develop all of a sudden when she becomes a mother. Maternity neutralises her moral and physical inferiority, pity extinguishes cruelty, and maternal love counteracts sexual indifference. Maternity stimulates her intelligence and sharpens her senses, explains and exalts those characteristics which have hitherto constituted her inferiority until they become signs of superiority when considered from the point of view of the reproduction of the species. A lessened sensibility enables woman to bear with greater ease the pains inherent to childbirth; her refractoriness to all kinds of variation--also that of a degenerate nature--serves to correct morbid heredity and to bring back the race, which owes its continuation to her, to its normal state. Women commit fewer crimes than men; and offenders of the female sex, generally speaking, exhibit fewer degenerate characteristics. This is due in part to the tenacity with which the female adheres to normality, but also to the deviation caused in her criminality by prostitution. The history of this social phenomenon, and an examination of the anatomy and functions of the types representing this variation of criminality show that the prostitute generally exhibits a greater number of degenerate and criminal characters than the ordinary female offender. Prostitution is therefore the feminine equivalent of criminality in the male, because it satisfies the desire for licence, idleness, and indecency, characteristic of the criminal nature.