redly the main thesis of the volume stands, and profoundly
concerns every student of womanhood in any of its aspects. It will
continue to stand when the brilliant foolishness of such writers as poor
Weininger, the author of that evidently insane product "Sex and
Character," is rightly estimated as interesting to the student of mental
pathology alone. There has lately been a kind of epidemic citation from
Weininger, whose book is obviously rich in characters that make it
attractive to the ignorant and the many; and it is high time that we
should concern ourselves less with the product of a suicidal and
much-to-be-pitied boy, and more with the sober and scientific work for
which daily verification is always at hand.

We cannot do better than have before us at the outset the authors'
statement of their main proposition, in the preface to the new edition
of their work:--

"In all living creatures there are two great lines of variation,
primarily determined by the very nature of protoplasmic change
(metabolism); for the ratio of the constructive (anabolic) changes
to the disruptive (katabolic) ones, that is of income to outlay,
of gains to losses, is a variable one. In one sex, the female, the
balance of debtor and creditor is the more favourable one; the
anabolic processes tend to preponderate, and this profit may be at
first devoted to growth, but later towards offspring, of which she
hence can afford to bear the larger share. To put it more
precisely, the life-ratio of anabolic to katabolic changes, A/K, in
the female is normally greater than the corresponding life-ratio,
a/k, in the male. This for us, is the fundamental, the
physiological, the constitutional difference between the sexes; and
it becomes expressed from the very outset in the contrast between
their essential reproductive elements, and may be traced on into
the more superficial sexual characters."

A little further on (p. 17), the authors say:--

"Without multiplying instances, a review of the animal kingdom, or
a perusal of Darwin's pages, will amply confirm the conclusion that
on an average the females incline to passivity, the males to
activity. In higher animals, it is true that the contrast shows
itself rather in many little ways than in any one striking
difference of habit, but even in the human species the difference
is recognized. Ev