The Sexes in Science and History: An inquiry into the dogma of woman's inferiority to manGamble, Eliza Burt
Philosophy
The Sexes in Science and History: An inquiry into the dogma of woman's inferiority to man
Gamble, Eliza Burt
Sex; Women -- History; Women -- Social conditions
Nor is this defective vision developed in men a peculiarity which
is confined within the limits of our own country. In Europe,
investigations analogous to those instituted in America have been
followed by the same or similar results. Until a comparatively recent
time this subject has received little or no attention, for the reason
that the processes of civilization and the various activities of life
have not, hitherto, demanded a correct or highly developed colour
sense; but with the requirements of more highly civilized conditions,
in vocations demanding more diversified and complicated physical
and mental activities, it is plain that man, because of this organic
imperfection, must labour under continuous disadvantages. Then add
to defective vision his lack of physical endurance, his liability
to various organic affections caused by structural defects, and
his abnormal appetites which are constantly demanding for their
gratification the things which are injurious to his mental and physical
constitution, and we are enabled to judge, to some extent, of the
obstacles against which, in the struggle for existence, the future man
will find himself obliged to contend.
Not only is man’s sense of sight less perfectly developed than is
woman’s, but his sense of touch is less acute. The hand, directed as it
is by the brain, is the most completely differentiated member of the
human structure. It may almost be said of the hand, that it assists the
brain in performing its functions. The female hand, however, is capable
of delicate distinctions which the male has no means of determining. A
dispatch from Washington says of the women of the Treasury Department:
So superior is their skill in handling paper money that they
accomplish results that would be utterly unattainable without them. It
has been found by long experience that a counterfeit may go through
half the banks in the country without being detected, until it comes
back, often torn and mutilated, into the hands of the Treasury women.
Then it is certain of detection. They shut their eyes and feel of a
note if they suspect it. If it feels wrong, in half a minute they
point out the incongruities of the counterfeit.
Although throughout the ascending scale of life, the female has
been expending all her energy in the performance of her legitimate
functions—functions which, as we have seen, are of a higher order than
those performed by the male, through causes which will be discussed
farther on in these pages, within the later centuries of human
existence—she has been temporarily overcome by the destructive forces
developed in the opposite sex, forces which are without the line of
true development, and which through overstimulation and encouragement
have overleaped the bounds of normal activity, and have therefore
become disruptive and injurious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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