Part 18

Although men are much alike in the deeper qualities of their nature, there is a range of variation which is best understood by a consideration of the extremes of such variation, as seen in men of different latitudes, and women and children.

(a.) In Children. Youth is distinguished by a peculiarity, which no doubt depends upon an immature condition of the nervous center concerned, which might be called nervous impressibility. It is exhibited in a greater tendency to tearfulness, in timidity, less mental endurance, a greater facility in acquiring knowledge, and more ready susceptibility to the influence of sights, sounds and sensations. In both sexes the emotional nature predominates over the intelligence and judgment. In those years the character is said to be in embryo, and theologians in using the phrase, “reaching years of religious understanding,” mean that in early years the religious capacities undergo development coincidentally with those of the body.

(b.) In Women. If we examine the metaphysical characteristics of women, we observe two classes of traits—namely, those which are also found in men, and those which are absent or but weakly developed in men. Those of the first class are very similar in essential nature to those which men exhibit at an early stage of development. This may be in some way related to the fact that physical maturity occurs earlier in women.

The gentler sex is characterized by a greater impressibility, often seen in the influence exercised by a stronger character, as well as by music, color or spectacle generally; warmth of emotion, submission to its influence rather than that of logic; timidity and irregularity of action in the outer world. All these qualities belong to the male sex, as a general rule, at some period of life, though different individuals lose them at very various periods. Ruggedness and sternness may rarely be developed in infancy, yet at some still prior time they certainly do not exist in any.

Probably most men can recollect some early period of their lives when the emotional nature predominated—a time when emotion at the sight of suffering was more easily stirred than in maturer years. I do not now allude to the benevolence inspired, kept alive or developed by the influence of the Christian religion on the heart, but rather to that which belongs to the natural man. Perhaps all men can recall a period of youth when they were hero-worshipers—when they felt the need of a stronger arm, and loved to look up to the powerful friend who could sympathize with and aid them. This is the “woman stage” of character: in a large number of cases it is early passed; in some it lasts longer; while in a very few men it persists through life. Severe discipline and labor are unfavorable to its persistence. Luxury preserves its bad qualities without its good, while Christianity preserves its good elements without its bad.

It is not designed to say that woman in her emotional nature does not differ from the undeveloped man. On the contrary, though she does not differ in kind, she differs greatly in degree, for her qualities grow with her growth, and exceed in power many fold those exhibited by her companion at the original point of departure. Hence, since it might be said that man is the undeveloped woman, a word of explanation will be useful. Embryonic types abound in the fields of nature, but they are not therefore immature in the usual sense. Maintaining the lower essential quality, they yet exhibit the usual results of growth in individual characters; that is, increase of strength, powers of support and protection, size and beauty. In order to maintain that the masculine character coincides with that of the undeveloped woman, it would be necessary to show that the latter during her infancy possesses the male characters predominating—that is, unimpressibility, judgment, physical courage, and the like.

If we look at the second class of female characters—namely, those which are imperfectly developed or absent in men, and in respect to which man may be called undeveloped woman—we note three prominent points: facility in language, tact or finesse, and the love of children. The first two appear to me to be altogether developed results of “impressibility,” already considered as an indication of immaturity. Imagination is also a quality of impressibility, and, associated with finesse, is apt to degenerate into duplicity and untruthfulness.

The third quality is different. It generally appears at a very early period of life. Who does not know how soon the little girl selects the doll, and the boy the toy-horse or machine? Here man truly never gets beyond undeveloped woman. Nevertheless, “impressibility” seems to have a great deal to do with this quality also.

Thus the metaphysical relation of the sexes would appear to be one of inexact parallelism, as defined in Sect. I. That the physical relation is a remote one of the same kind, several characters seem to point out. The case of the vocal organs will suffice. Their structure is identical in both sexes in early youth, and both produce nearly similar sounds. They remain in this condition in the woman, while they undergo a metamorphosis and change both in structure and vocal power in the man. In the same way, in many of the lower creation, the females possess a majority of embryonic features, though not invariably. A common example is to be found in the plumage of birds, where the females and young males are often undistinguishable. But there are few points in the physical structure of man also in which the male condition is the immature one. In regard to structure, the point at which the relation between the sexes is that of exact parallelism, or where the mature condition of the one sex accords with the undeveloped condition of the other, is when reproduction is no longer accomplished by budding or gemmation, but requires distinct organs. Metaphysically, this relation is to be found where distinct individuality of the sexes first appears; that is, where we pass from the hermaphrodite to the bisexual condition.

Footnote 48:

Meehan states that the upper limbs and strong laterals in coniferæ and other trees produce female flowers and cones, and the lower and more interior branches the male flowers. What he points out is in harmony with the position here maintained—namely, that the female characters include more of those which are embryonic in the males, than the male characters include of those which are embryonic in the female: the female flowers are the product of the younger and more growing portions of the tree—that is, those last produced (the upper limbs and new branches)—while the male flowers are produced by the older or more mature portions—that is, lower limbs or more axial regions.

Meehan’s observations coincide with those of Thury and others on the origin of sexes in animals and plants, which it appears to admit of a similar explanation.

But let us put the whole interpretation on this partial undevelopment of woman.

The types or conditions of organic life which have been the most prominent in the world’s history—the Ganoids of the first, the Dinosaurs of the second, and the Mammoths of the third period—have generally died with their day. The line of succession has not been from them. The law of anatomy and paleontology is, that we must seek the point of departure of the type which is to predominate in the future, at lower stages on the line, in less decided forms, or in what, in scientific parlance, are called generalized types. In the same way, though the adults of the tailless apes are in a physical sense more highly developed than their young, yet the latter far more closely resemble the human species in their large facial angle and shortened jaws.

How much significance, then, is added to the law uttered by Christ!—“Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” Submission of will, loving trust, confiding faith—these belong to the child: how strange they appear to the executing, commanding, reasoning man! Are they so strange to the woman? We all know the answer. Woman is nearer to the point of departure of that development which outlives time and peoples heaven; and if man would find it, he must retrace his steps, regain something he lost in youth, and join to the powers and energies of his character the submission, love and faith which the new birth alone can give.

Thus the summing up of the metaphysical qualities of woman would be thus expressed: In the emotional world, man’s superior; in the moral world, his equal; in the laboring world, his inferior.

There are, however, vast differences in women in respect to the number of masculine traits they may have assumed before being determined into their own special development. Woman also, under the influence of necessity, in later years of life, may add more or less to those qualities in her which are fully developed in the man.

The relation of these facts to the principles stated as the two opposing laws of development is, it appears to me, to be explained thus: First, that woman’s most inherent peculiarities are not the result of the external circumstances with which she has been placed in contact, as the conflict theory would indicate. Such circumstances are said to be her involuntary subserviency to the physically more powerful man, and the effect of a compulsory mode of life in preventing her from attaining a position of equality in the activities of the world. Second, that they are the result of the different distributions of qualities as already indicated by the harmonic theory of development; that is, of the unequal possession of features which belong to different periods in the developmental succession of the highest. And here it might be further shown that this relation involves no disadvantage to either sex, but that the principle of compensation holds in moral organization and in social order, as elsewhere. There is then another beautiful harmony which will ever remain, let the development of each sex be extended as far as it may.

(c.) In Men. If we look at the male sex, we shall find various exceptional approximations to the female in mental constitution. Further, there can be little doubt that in the Indo-European race maturity in some respects appears earlier in tropical than in northern regions; and though subject to many exceptions, this is sufficiently general to be looked upon as a rule. Accordingly, we find in that race—at least in the warmer regions of Europe and America—a larger proportion of certain qualities which are more universal in women; as greater activity of the emotional nature when compared with the judgment; an impressibility of the nervous center, which, cæteris paribus, appreciates quickly the harmonies of sound, form and color; answers most quickly to the friendly greeting or the hostile menace; is more careless of consequences in the material expression of generosity or hatred, and more indifferent to truth under the influence of personal relations. The movements of the body and expressions of the countenance answer to the temperament. More of grace and elegance in the bearing mark the Greek, the Italian and the Creole, than the German, the Englishman or the Green Mountain man. More of vivacity and fire, for better or for worse, are displayed in the countenance.

Perhaps the more northern type left all that behind in its youth. The rugged, angular character which appreciates force better than harmony, the strong intellect which delights in forethought and calculation, the less impressibility, reaching stolidity in the uneducated, are its well-known traits. If in such a character generosity is less prompt, and there is but little chivalry, there is persistency and unwavering fidelity, not readily interrupted by the lightning of passion or the dark surmises of an active imagination.

All these peculiarities appear to result, first, from different degrees of quickness and depth in appreciating impressions from without; and, second, from differing degrees of attention to the intelligent judgment in consequent action. (I leave conscience out, as not belonging to the category of inherited qualities.)

The first is the basis of an emotional nature, and the predominance of the second is the usual indication of maturity. That the first is largely dependent on an impressible condition of the nervous system can be asserted by those who reduce their nervous centers to a sensitive condition by a rapid consumption of the nutritive materials necessary to the production of thought-force, and perhaps of brain-tissue itself, induced by close and prolonged mental labor. The condition of over-work, though but an imitation of immaturity, without its joy-giving nutrition, is nevertheless very instructive. The sensitiveness, both physically, emotionally and morally, is often remarkable, and a weakening of the understanding is often coincident with it.

It is necessary here to introduce a caution, that the meaning of the words high and low be not misunderstood. Great impressibility is an essential constituent of many of the highest forms of genius, and the combination of this quality with strong reflective intelligence, constitutes the most complete and efficient type of mind—therefore the highest in the common sense. It is not, however, the highest—or extremest—in an evolutional sense, it is not masculine, but hermaphrodite; in other words, its kinetic force exceeds its bathmic. It is therefore certain that a partial diminution of bathmic vigor is an advantage to some kinds of intellect.

Footnote 49:

Bathmic force is analogous to the potential force of chemists, but is no doubt entirely different in its nature. It is converted into active energy or kinetic force only during the years of growth: it is in large amount in acceleration, in small amount in retardation.

The above observations have been confined to the Indo-European race. It may be objected to the theory that savagery means immaturity in the senses above described, as dependent largely on “impressibility,” while savages in general display the least “impressibility,” as that word is generally understood. This cannot be asserted of the Africans, who, so far as we know them, possess this peculiarity in a high degree. Moreover, it must be remembered that the state of indifference which precedes that of impressibility in the individual may characterize many savages; while their varied peculiarities may be largely accounted for by recollecting that many combinations of different species of emotions and kinds of intelligence go to make up the complete result in each case.

(d.) Conclusions. Three types of religion may be selected from the developmental conditions of man: first, an absence of sensibility (early infancy); second, an emotional stage more productive of faith than of works; thirdly, an intellectual type, more favorable to works than to faith. Though in regard to responsibility these states may be equal, there is absolutely no gain to laboring humanity from the first type, and a serious loss in actual results from the second, taken alone, as compared with the third.

These, then, are the physical vehicles of religion—the “earthen vessels” of Paul—which give character and tone to the deeper spiritual life, as the color of the transparent vessel is communicated to the light which radiates from within.