He sagely examines the intellectual life of woman and pronounces it inferior to that of man: he measures her brain and finds it smaller than that of man, and thus discovers the scientific basis of her inferiority; and he never reflects that, since he, on the whole, forbade her to develop her brain and intelligence during the fifteen centuries of Christian domination, it may be that her brain is not working with all the energy of which it is capable. He lays down for this dependent creature a certain code of deportment and behaviour, and, when it has enfeebled her, he discourses on her inferior muscular development: if any girls or women defiantly exercise their muscles and become strong, he calls them "unwomanly" and happily exceptional. He observes that woman is more emotional than man; and, of course, he does not ask physiologists whether this may be merely, or mainly, the effect (as it is) of the muscular and intellectual restrictions he has placed on her. He bids her develop pretty curves on her body for his entertainment, and never thinks about the physiological and psychological effect of the dead mass of fat and the flabby muscles. He kindly undertakes (for a consideration) the care of this weaker companion, and, when she begins to prove that she can fend for herself, he severely censures her for intruding on his labour-market. He learns from novelists that she has a peculiar power of "intuition" (in fiction), and a greater fineness of perception than man (which exact experiment in America has shown to be untrue), and is altogether a deep and unfathomable being. And he then, in virtue of his superior understanding of her "mysterious" nature, proceeds to dictate to her about her sphere and her capacities. The absurdities and contradictions of male writers on women, supported by some women writers, during the last two hundred years, would fill a volume. They were more or less intelligible, and certainly entertaining, in the earlier part of the modern period, but at a time when we have scientific and historical information to guide us they are neither intelligent nor amusing. We now know that there is no such thing as an unchangeable nature of a living organism. Structure and function vary with use and environment, whatever theory of heredity one follows. Forbid the brain and muscles to function for some centuries, and they will become feebler: restore their activity and they will return to strength. Shut a woman out of politics or business or war, and she will lose her capacity for it: reintroduce her to it, and her faculties are sharpened. When the kings of Dahomi formed a regiment of women in their army, the women were found to be more deadly fighters than the men, and they drank as heavily.