Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-07-28
TEE WoMAN QUESTION AqAIN.

Dr.. William a. Hammond, in the North
Aaser5can Revie,o, has an article on Z" Wo-
man in Politics, which, we think, is less
creditable to his intelligence than to his
knowledge as a cultured physician. No
one can have any objection to DR.. Ham,
mond expressing his views upon the sub.
ject OF woman's physiological capability to
enter the realm OF business or of politics,
nor vii! he find strong exceptions taken to
his idea that woman is better adapted to
other spheres of activity than open for her
IN the political field. But woman may
well enter a positive denial, and take issue
with Dr. Hammond when he asserts that
for anatomical and physiological reasons
The progress of the revolution for the i'm.
provement of her condition should not
only be arrested, but should be turned
backward" Let US briefly examine the
doctors reasons for this positive con-
clusion. These may be fairly stated in
very brief form.
The brain of man is larger than that Of
woman. Relatively to the size of body
this is not true, he admits, but he holds
that the relatively of the question is not
to be considered, but the brain quality. It
is brain quality that governs in the world,
and not brain size. 1t is this that gives
man supremacy over the beasts. and the
intellectual man supremacy over the
physical giant with low quality of brain.
Thus far, then, we are agreed. The aver.
age male brain is about 40 ounces. and the
average female brain about A ounces in
weight. The female brain is not only
smaller, but it is different in structure.
In man the anterior portion of the brain,
in which the highest intellectual facul-
ties reside, is much more developed than in
woman, both in size and the conyolutions.
The part especially concerned in the evo-
luton Of mind is the grey matter, con-
stituting the cortex, and this is increased
or diminished in accordance with the num-
Der and complexity of the convolutions.
The frontal portions contain more of the
grey matter, and in man these portions
are larger than in woman. In man the
transverse and vertical measurements of
the brain are greater than in woman, and
the oonvolutions are more intricate, and
some believe the grey matter to be thicker.
But DR.. Hammond is too honest to claim
that this hiss been demonstrated to be a
fact. AS man hes more brain than woman,
be has, therefore, more mind and as the
brain Of man is more complex, its quality
Is OF higher order, for the difference of
structure involves difference of function.
Woman's brain is one from which emotion
rather than intellect is evolved. To the
ureponderance of the emotional is due the
fact thst woman is less capable Of intense
abstract thought, and less capable of origin
ating So it is that woman is initiative
and not inventive. She cannot originate,
but she can copy well. "No great idea,
no great invention, no great discovery in
science or art, no great poetical, dramatic
or musical composition has ever yet en-
anated from a woman's brain. There have
been a few second-class female painters,
and one frst-rate female novelist-that's
al" On these points we might pause to
f<ke Issue, but refrain. Again, be proceeds,