Introduction to the Science of SociologyPark, Robert Ezra
General
Introduction to the Science of Sociology
Park, Robert Ezra
Sociology
I believe that we are justified in asserting that at the present time
the sexual differentiation manifested in respect of quite a number of
psychical qualities is the result of direct inheritance. It would be
quite wrong to assume that all these differences arise in each
individual in consequence of education. It does, indeed, appear to me to
be true that inherited tendencies may be increased or diminished by
individual education; and further, that when the inherited tendency is
not a very powerful one, it may in this way even be suppressed.
We must not forget the frequent intimate association between structure
and function. Rough outdoor games and wrestling thus correspond to the
physical constitution of the boy. So, also, it is by no means improbable
that the little girl, whose pelvis and hips have already begun to
indicate by their development their adaption for the supreme functions
of the sexually mature woman, should experience obscurely a certain
impulsion toward her predestined maternal occupation, and that her
inclinations and amusements should in this way be determined. Many,
indeed, and above all the extreme advocates of women's rights, prefer to
maintain that such sexually differentiated inclinations result solely
from differences in individual education: if the boy has no enduring
taste for dolls and cooking, this is because his mother and others have
told him, perhaps with mockery, that such amusements are unsuited to a
boy; whilst in a similar way the girl is dissuaded from the rough
sports of boyhood. Such an assumption is the expression of that general
psychological and educational tendency, which ascribes to the activity
of the will an overwhelmingly powerful influence upon the development of
the organs subserving the intellect, and secondarily also upon that of
the other organs of the body. We cannot dispute the fact that in such a
way the activity of the will may, within certain limits, be effective,
especially in cases in which the inherited tendency thus counteracted is
comparatively weak; but only within certain limits. Thus we can
understand how it is that in some cases, by means of education, a child
is impressed with characteristics normally foreign to its sex; qualities
and tendencies are thus developed which ordinarily appear only in a
child of the opposite sex. But even though we must admit that the
activity of the individual may operate in this way, none the less we are
compelled to assume that certain tendencies are inborn. The failure of
innumerable attempts to counteract such inborn tendencies by means of
education throws a strong light upon the limitations of the activity of
the individual will; and the same must be said of a large number of
other experiences.
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