Half Hours With Modern Scientists: Lectures and EssaysTyndall, John
Philosophy
Half Hours With Modern Scientists: Lectures and Essays
Tyndall, John
Science
There are, however, vast differences in women in respect to the
number of masculine traits they may have assumed before being
determined into their own special development. Woman also, under the
influence of necessity, in later years of life, may add more or less
to those qualities in her which are fully developed in the man.
The relation of these facts to the principles stated as the two
opposing laws of development is, it appears to me, to be explained
thus: First, that woman’s most inherent peculiarities are _not_ the
result of the external circumstances with which she has been placed
in contact, as the _conflict theory_ would indicate. Such
circumstances are said to be her involuntary subserviency to the
physically more powerful man, and the effect of a compulsory mode of
life in preventing her from attaining a position of equality in the
activities of the world. Second, that they _are_ the result of the
different distributions of qualities as already indicated by the
_harmonic theory_ of development; that is, of the unequal possession
of features which belong to different periods in the developmental
succession of the highest. And here it might be further shown that
this relation involves no disadvantage to either sex, but that the
principle of compensation holds in moral organization and in social
order, as elsewhere. There is then another beautiful harmony which
will ever remain, let the development of each sex be extended as far
as it may.
(_c._) _In Men._ If we look at the male sex, we shall find various
exceptional approximations to the female in mental constitution.
Further, there can be little doubt that in the Indo-European race
maturity in some respects appears earlier in tropical than in
northern regions; and though subject to many exceptions, this is
sufficiently general to be looked upon as a rule. Accordingly, we
find in that race—at least in the warmer regions of Europe and
America—a larger proportion of certain qualities which are more
universal in women; as greater activity of the emotional nature when
compared with the judgment; an impressibility of the nervous center,
which, _cæteris paribus_, appreciates quickly the harmonies of
sound, form and color; answers most quickly to the friendly greeting
or the hostile menace; is more careless of consequences in the
material expression of generosity or hatred, and more indifferent to
truth under the influence of personal relations. The movements of
the body and expressions of the countenance answer to the
temperament. More of grace and elegance in the bearing mark the
Greek, the Italian and the Creole, than the German, the Englishman
or the Green Mountain man. More of vivacity and fire, for better or
for worse, are displayed in the countenance.
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