Читать книгу Sex & Character онлайн

27 страница из 80

If the correctness of the conclusions so far stated may be assumed, the necessity is at once evident for a whole series of anatomical, physiological, histological and histo-chemical investigations into those differences between male and female types, in the structure and function of the individual organs by which the dowers of arrhenoplasm and thelyplasm express themselves in the tissues. The knowledge we possess at the present time on these matters comes from the study of averages, but averages fail to satisfy the modern statistician, and their scientific value is very small. Investigations into the sex-differences in the weight of the brain, for instance, have so far proved very little, probably because no care was taken to choose typical conditions, the assignment of sex being dependent on baptismal certificates or on superficial glances at the outward appearance. As if every “John” or “Mary” were representative of their sexes because they had been dubbed “male” and “female!” It would have been well, even if exact physiological data were thought unnecessary, at least to make certain as to a few facts as to the general condition of the body, which might serve as guides to the male or female condition, such as, for instance, the distance between the great trochanters, the iliac spines, and so forth, for a sexual harmony in the different parts of the body is certainly more common than great sexual divergence.