f sense, we find it
remains the same in male and female in structure, in appearance, and
in function throughout life; while the breast, closely connected with
reproduction, though absolutely identical in both forms in infancy,
assumes a widely different organisation when reproductive activity is
actually concerned.

When we turn to the psychic phase of human life an exactly analogous
phenomenon presents itself. The intelligence, emotions, and desires of
the human infant at birth differ not at all perceptibly, as its sex may
be male or female; and such psychic differences as appear to exist in
later childhood are undoubtedly very largely the result of artificial
training, forcing on the appearance of psychic sexual divergencies long
before they would tend spontaneously to appear; as where sports and
occupations are interdicted to young children on the ground of their
supposed sexual unfitness; as when an infant female is forcibly
prevented from climbing or shouting, and the infant male from amusing
himself with needle and thread or dolls. Even in the fully adult human,
and in spite of differences of training, the psychic activities over
a large extent of life appear to be absolutely identical. The male and
female brains acquire languages, solve mathematical problems, and master
scientific detail in a manner wholly indistinguishable: as illustrated
by the fact that in modern universities the papers sent in by male and
female candidates are as a rule absolutely identical in type. Placed in
like external conditions, their tastes and emotions, over a vast part of
the surface of life, are identical; and, in an immense number of those
cases where psychic sex differences appear to exist, subject to rigid
analysis they are found to be purely artificial creations, for, when
other races or classes are studied, they are found non-existent as
sexual characteristics; as when the female is supposed by ignorant
persons in modern European societies to have an inherent love for bright
colours and ornaments, not shared by the male; while experience of other
societies and past social conditions prove that it is as often the male
who has been even more desirous of attiring himself in bright raiment
and adorning himself with brilliant jewels; or as when, among certain
tribes of savages, the use of tobacco is supposed to be a peculiarly
female prerogative, while, in some modern societies, it is supposed
to have some relation to masculinity. (