PART IX.
Psycho-Physiological Comparison of the Sexes.
It is not merely in the organs of generation that Nature has placed the differences between the sexes. She has deeply engraved them throughout the entire organization. Woman is distinguished from man under whatever aspect she is regarded. Differences are manifested in the form, and are apparent to the most superficial observer. The anatomist encounters them in the physical exploration of the body, and the physiologist recognizes them in the character and the functions of each organ, we might almost say of each fiber. Only the insufficiency of his means of observation arrests him in his astonishing revelations, and he is reluctantly obliged to confess that he can never arrive at the real limits of the comparison, which, however, he is ever tempted to project into the regions of hypothesis and pure conjecture. The relations of mind and matter may be studied almost positively in the integral composition of the human body; and the anatomist should never forget that man has a moral as well as a physical existence, and that a soul, the Divine breath, has inhabited the organism that he studies, has presided over its movements, has directed its actions.
The most obvious anatomical differences are those which relate to the external configuration. The relative stature of woman is less, and her joints are smaller, the bony protuberances less marked. The head is smaller, her forehead more depressed, the frontal line is straighter and more elevated. The chest is shorter and broader below; the hips wider and more prominent; the entire pelvis is
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