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THE RELATIVE

INFLUENCE OF THE SEXES

CONSIDERED,

3it Befuence to IJropagattou,

AS WELL IN

MAN AS IN THE LOWER RANKS OF ANIMALS.

BY JOHN WRIGHT,

MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS IN LONDON.

Desine quapropter, novitate exterritus ipsil,
Exspuere ex animo rationem ; sed magis acri
Judicioperpende: et, si tibi vera videntur,

Dede manus; aut, si falsum est, adcingere contra.

Lucretius.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR.

1842.

Printed by C. Adurd, Bar

ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS
LIBRARY

CLASS

u

ACCN.

ifcrao

SOURCE

DATE

PREFACE.

An undertaking which shall have, for its object,
a furtherance of the interests of society, needs not
an apology for its introduction. Such is the cha-
racter, and such the pretensions, of the little work
which I now submit to the consideration of those
who may be seeking instruction on the several ques-
tions that come within its range. By education, no
less than by native bias, was I led, many years ago,
to inquire into the diversities of constitution, and the
extent to which they are influenced, by variableness
of circumstances, in connection with generative in-
tercourse. Modern physiology, though abounding
with every conceivable theory, on the subject of
generation, in the abstract, was found almost silent
in its application to my purpose. Nor could I largely
avail myself of the doctrines propounded in the
ancient schools of philosophy. Valuable apothegms
presented themselves ; but, as a system, I could
discover nothing that would bear the test of rigid
investigation. Even the authority of Epicurus, which,
in many respects, is greatly to be relied on, proved

IV

PREFACE.

to me a most formidable stumbling-block, on a point
of vital importance, until reconciled with the con-
struction which experience, at length, enabled me
to provide. After toiling long and fruitlessly, in
retirement, I resolved to depend mainly on the op-
portunities which medical practice should afford,
for noting the peculiarities of individual tempera-
ment,— the mode and degree in which such pecu-
liarities influence the sexes towards each other, —
and the effects produced upon the moral and phy-
sical condition of their offspring. At the same time,
I undertook a series of experiments, in the breeding
of cattle, pigs, fowls, and rabbits, with a view to
learn how close an analogy subsists, between man
and other animals, in the immediate, and ultimate,
tendencies of the reproductive passion. This part
of my engagement, I need hardly remark, had a
special reference to the improvement of whatever
breeds I should adopt : and, perhaps, I cannot con-
fer a greater service on those who may, hereafter,
be disposed to emulate the task, than by presenting
them with a cursory outline of my procedure. The
result will be seen to justify a remark addressed to
me awhile ago, by a very great and good man,*
that if a gentleman, turning his attention to farming

* The Right Honourable Earl Spencer.

PREFACE.

V

late in life, attempt such an enterprise, it might be
considered next to a miracle, if he did not fail.

In the first instance, I deputed a jobber to pro-
vide me with a few well-bred calves. A pleasing-
exercise, I thought it would afford, to watch their
growth ; and shortly I had an opportunity of gratify-
ing my desire. The man of business invited my
attention to some, recently weaned, which had been
brought from the hilly districts of Derbyshire, and
which he declared he could strongly recommend
for hardiness. The prevailing colour (light blue,
with black eyes and muzzles), uninitiated as I was,
appeared of very doubtful propriety ; yet I could
not withstand the repeated assurance that it consti-
tuted the proudest feature in the breed. He
wished particularly to sell them to me, because he
knew whence they came, how they were bred, and
he could, moreover, at any time, buy them of me
again. Sol gave him £4. lOs. each for starvelings —
any one of which I could have conveniently carried
home. They would have been £5 each, he said,
to any body else. This was at the commencement
of winter; and having folded them in a spacious
yard, behind my house, until the following spring,
at a considerable expense, in the purchase of hay,
turnips, and bran, without witnessing a correspond-
ing improvement in the carcase, I sold them, each,

VI

PREFACE.

for a few shillings less than they had originally cost
me. Nothing deterred by this unexpected discom-
fiture, I applied myself still to the work, but with a
determination, henceforth, to entertain none that
should present the colour of the first lot. I was
soon informed that a milkman, named Priestley, had
a good red and white cow-calf, out of a favourite
beast, for which lie wanted a kind master. It was
what, in the midland counties, is often designated a
“ spawny calf ” — a more exact definition of which
will be found in a subsequent part of this little
work. But I may here observe that it was of un-
common length, and “ up- standing ” too, as the
jobbers say, and only required to be proportion-
ally thickened , to make it represent a full grown
beast. Indeed my wife, unaccustomed as she was,
at that time, to regard animal organization, in refer-
ence to function, could not help exclaiming, when first
shown it, that this was the chief, and, in her judg-
ment, by no means an unimportant desideratum.
Milk was purchased for its use, until a cow in full
profit could be obtained; and, that the provision, thus
made, might not be extravagantly appropriated,
another calf, exceeding in length even that which
already graced my establishment, was bought in.
“ Lizard ” was the name employed to distinguish it
from the former ; and, as it happened to combine.

PREFACE.

Vll

with other advantages, the attributes of the ruder
sex, I contemplated, at no very distant period, a still
closer affinity between the pair. An act of in-
subordinacy, however, on the part of “ Lizard,” pre-
sently led to an abandonment of the design : for,
conceiving, one day, a wish to do violence to the
persons of myself and one of my children that was
standing near me, he proceeded, forthwith, to the
execution of his purpose — the consequence of which
was a speedy disinheritance of the privileges of his
sex. Eventually these animals were disposed of, as
unworthy of the generous fare they had received.

I now began to discover my ignorance in the
elementary duties attached to my province. I knew
not the distinction between a good, and a bad, ani-
mal, and might well, therefore, be unfortunate in my
choice. To supply this defect, I matriculated in the
best practical school ; and, for many years, endured
the opprobrium of an association with dealers, and
others of like character, who swell our cattle mar-
kets with their presence. Scarcely a fair, or public
sale, of interest, occurred within twenty miles of
home, at which I was not to be seen ; at the same
time that my private operations were being con-
ducted, to as great an extent as was compatible
with my means.

Beyond attaining to a knowledge of the indivi-

ym

PREFACE.

dual and relative merit of the several classes of
animals to which my observation was directed, an
attendance, on the occasions just referred to, did
not enable me to proceed. I had still to explore
the way to improvement ; and very naturally turned
to such works as professed to entertain the subject.
From them, however, I could reap little instruction.
They appeared, for the most part, to have been
written by practical farmers, who lacked both the
literature and science required to impart efficiency
to their teaching. Some authors I met with, who
had confined themselves to a rambling dissertation
on the merits of their own herd : others, venturing
on higher ground, had contended, with singular
obliquity of judgment, that the varieties which they
had been pleased, respectively, to adopt, were sus-
ceptible of higher cultivation than the rest. Few
had dared to grapple with general principles — to
argue that, cceteris paribus, all equally admit of
improvement, and that, therefore, we have only to
consult the soil and climate of whatever locality we
inhabit, with a view to determine the size we shall
adhere to, to succeed, by the application of general
rules, in perfecting the carcase. Mr. Cline attempted
to accomplish thus much : but he proved nothing ;
and the extravagant character of some of his apho-
risms, has tended to impair the credit due to his

PREFACE.

IX

performance in the main. It is a humiliating fact,
that notwithstanding the wealth, talent, learning,
and extreme facilities enjoyed by the agricultural
interest, for the performance of such a task, there is
not, at the moment I am writing, a work in the
English language, embodying the principles of
breeding, in accordance with the present advanced
state of science. My inability to profit from sources
of this kind, suggested the alternative of a personal
intercourse with experienced breeders. The only
objection that applied to the scheme, consisted in
the interruption my further absence might occasion
to the advancement of professional interests. But
this consideration lost much of its weight, from a
recollection of the fact, that, at no period, had what,
in modern parlance, we term a discriminating
public, imposed on me an excessive amount of duty ;
and it was now but too evident that they never
would : soon, therefore, I journeyed far and often,
_Jn the prosecution of my plan. And not unfre-
cpiently did it happen that the privations I endured
on such expeditions, were of a character to have
discouraged any one less passionately attached to
the pursuit. Not to trespass wantonly on the
indulgence of my readers, I will adduce one or two
instances. In the month of March, 1835, I deter-
mined to investigate the claims of the Devonshire

X

PREFACE.

cattle to the flattering representation given of them,
in the Treatise, published under the superintendence
of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know-
ledge ; and having business to transact in London,
which could very shortly be disposed of, I proceeded
by that route. The first day was consumed in reach-
ing the Metropolis, — the next in passing thence to
Exeter, where I arrived late at night, after travel-
ling, in two days, on the outside of coaches, a dis-
tance of two hundred and ninety-seven miles, in
unmitigated pain, arising from obscure abdominal
disturbance, of long standing, and counter- irritation,
established for its cure. The judges were, at that
time, on their circuits, and I could obtain no accom-
modation at either of the large inns in the town. A
fellow, after the class of those to be found often in
the neighbourhood of such establishments, tendered
his services to conduct me to an abode. Five
minutes’ stay, however, within its walls, served to
convince me that both my person and property
would be endangered by remaining ; and, in angry
mood, I rushed, unceremoniously, into the street, in
search of a more hospitable roof. Whilst treading
hastily along, and observing the previous bustle and
anxiety of the day merge into the growing stillness
of night, I was deploring the infatuation that had
brought me thither, when, on a sudden, my revery
was interrupted by the separation of two elderly

PREFACE.

XI

men, at the door of one of the parties. I mentioned
my condition to the resident of the house, who,
happening to be an innkeeper on a limited scale,
was glad enough to entertain me. On the follow-
ing morning I proceeded by coach to Barnstaple,
in time for a quarterly cattle market, to be held
there the next day. The business of the market
having been concluded, I rode a pony over ten or
twelve miles of bad road, to the house of Mr. Davy,
of North Molton (a man of pleasing frankness and
intelligence), with whom I passed an evening in
profitable conversation. Another day was spent
in the inspection of Mr. Davy’s beautiful herd of
North Devon cattle, and in visiting Mr. Tapp, of
Twitching, and the Messrs. Qnartley, of Molland,
for the same purpose. At night I reposed at
South Molton, intending to proceed by the mail,
that should pass through, the next morning, on its
way from Barnstaple to Bristol, in my return home.
I rose by 6, a. m., and the mail not being expected
till 9 o’clock, I slung my carpet-bag, weighing,
with its contents, and an upper coat, for which 1
had now little occasion, 17 lbs., across my shoulder,
and walked leisurely on to North Molton, for the
sake of contemplating, from a hill in its immediate
vicinity, a spot renowned for the excellence of its
cattle, and one too, where I had recently experienced

Xll

PREFACE.

the greatest possible kindness. After feasting my
soul awhile in meditation, I wandered along a cir-
cuitous path, that led me into the Bristol road;
and now I discovered that a walk of four or five
miles had served to advance me about one and a
half, on my way home. Presently the mail came
up, and lo ! it was full. I had, therefore, the
option to return to South Molton, where I must
have remained unoccupied till the following day, or
journey in a direction that should afford me no re-
freshment within the next fourteen miles. Not
liking to retrograde, I pursued my way, and, by
noon, found myself comfortably seated at the
Reindeer, near Bampton — having completed about
eighteen miles, under the grievous burden already
mentioned, without food. Ten or twelve miles, if
my memory serve me aright, yet lay betwixt me
and Wiveliscomb, whither I was anxious to arrive
that day. Before doing so, I grew very tired ;
when observing a man of professional exterior ap-
proach, who was riding in the same direction, I
begged that he would, for a few minutes, relieve
me of my load. Thinking, probably, that so great
an act of condescension would ill accord with the
dignity of his station, he refused ; and I, feeling-
invigorated by the repulse, experienced little sub-
sequent fatigue. Having reached Wiveliscomb, I

PREFACE.

Xlll

passed the night there ; and, hastening on to Bristol
the next day, arrived in time for the mail to convey
me thence to Birmingham, by night ; and at noon,
on the eighth clay, I was with my family, after
travelling six hundred miles (five hundred on the
outside of coaches), and that, too, under the pressure
of unceasing pain.

When, in pursuit of this recreative study, I have
been able to command sufficient time and strength,
my excursions have generally been performed on
foot, as conducive alike to meditation, and an eco-
nomical expenditure of money. And not uncom-
monly has a similar disappointment to that which
I encountered at Exeter, befallen me at the close of
a long day’s journey. At four o’clock one morning,
in the latter part of September, 1835, I set out for
Chesterfield, where the Derbyshire Annual Agricul-
tural Meeting was about to be held, intending to
proceed thence to Wiseton, for the purpose of en-
riching my stock of information, if possible, with
some facts, derived from a survey of Earl Spencer’s
short-horns. By 1 1 , a. m., I had accomplished the
first part of my undertaking; and after spending
two hours in the show-yard, I resumed my walk
in the direction of Worksop. In the village of
Staveley, I had the good fortune to come up with

XIV

PREFACE.

a gentleman, who was driving thither, and who
generously invited me to accompany him. I now
thought there was a prospect of reaching Barnby
Moor that night, and immediately, on leaving my
friend, proceeded along the road he had described,
through Bilby, and arrived where I anticipated the
comfort of repose, before 7 o’clock. Whether the
honour conferred on the posting establishment in
Barnby, by her Majesty (then Princess Victoria)
having been graciously pleased to sleep there, on
her way to Doncaster, shortly before, had rendered
its inmates insensible to the necessities of so mean
a subject as myself, or whether it was the custom
of the house to refuse an entertainment to pedes-
trians, I know not. But this I know — it was denied
to me ; and, at the instance of those with whom my
interview was conducted, I subsequently applied to
another establishment in the same place, where, for
my consolation, I was assured that they lodged
none but coachmen and guards. This negative,
like the former, was accompanied with a friendly
intimation that I should most likely be able to find
an asylum elsewhere — that is to say, if I would
incur the trouble of walking to Sutton. The pro-
position was, in some measure, acceptable to me,
since that village lay a mile nearer the estate I was
about to visit. Still I could hardly forbear to re-

PREKACli.

XV

proach myself for having risked so much bodily
fatigue and mental torture, without the least proba-
bility of realizing either an immediate or prospec-
tive advantage. Already had I walked nearly forty
miles, to say nothing of two hours’ exercise in
Chesterfield ; and had partaken of no food since
my breakfast at Mansfield, excepting some bread
and cheese, the best fare the good landlady, at
whose house I rested awhile, in Staveley, could
provide : and I was both hungry and tired. While
musing on the horrors of impending starvation, the
village I was in quest of appeared in sight ; and
thinking it advisable, without regard to the occu-
pation of its inhabitants, to make my case known,
wherever there should seem to be indications of
comfort, I did so. One had not a spare bed, —
another had, but it had been so long out of use,
that my safety would unquestionably be endangered
by sleeping in it. Others declared that to be a
cross-country road, in which men of honourable
pursuits were never benighted, and affected to
regard my application as a marvellous piece of
daring. Prudence forbade me to tell them that I
had money, wherewith to discharge every obliga-
tion, lest I should share the fate of a late resident
of that village, who had been murdered for the sake
of a few pounds he had with him. At length I

XVI

PREFACE.

entered a public house, at the farthest extremity of
the place, and was making my best appeal to the
feelings of its inmates, when a good-natured man,
who listened attentively to my story, observed that,
if I would wait till he should have emptied his
cup, he would engage to procure me a lodging at
Lound, another mile yet on the road to Wiseton.
With a promise of a few more “ cups” when
he should have accomplished his purpose, we
started off together ; and soon he introduced me
to a matronly lady, who, after surveying me with
an air of singular curiosity, avowed her willingness
to serve me in the best way she could. Having
administered to the demands of hunger, she con-
ducted me up a crazy staircase, into a three-bedded
room, appropriated, ordinarily, to the use of two
grown up sons, and an elderly man who lodged with
them. To have demurred would have been un-
grateful, since any accommodation within doors,
was preferable to the fields or highway ; but never
shall I forget the inconvenience to which I was sub-
jected. The bed set apart to my service was so
unaccountably short, that, though commanding no
greater altitude than five feet nine inches, I could
not stretch myself out at full length, even when
observing some degree of obliquity. In this state I
lay, unable to sleep, and afraid to request that the

PREFACE.

XVII

old man, whose stockings emitted a most noisome
stench, would be pleased, for my sake, to draw them
on his legs again, till the light of approaching morn
should invite me to a purer air. Shortly before
6 a.m. I arose, and walked to Wiseton Hall, where
I had the good fortune to meet his lordship’s bailiff,
commencing the routine of his daily labour. After
inspecting, with as much minuteness as time and
opportunity would allow, what, perhaps, might justly
be deemed an unrivalled herd of cattle, I returned
to Lound, at a somewhat unseasonable hour, for
breakfast : then walking to Worksop, in time for a
coach that should pass through that town, on its
way to Nottingham, I got home in the evening of
the same day.

From the preceding detail, may be formed an
imperfect idea of the labour I have sustained, in the
investigation of this subject. A very natural in-
quiry arising out of such consideration, is the
amount of verbal instruction I have been able to
obtain, in reward for my trouble. Little more, I
regret to say, than has been derived from books.
One portion of the agricultural community, number-
ing some of our wealthiest farmers, and the officials
of noblemen and gentlemen, I have usually found
difficult of access, as indeed are men of importance
in every sphere. Them I have hardly dared to

XV111

PREFACE.

address interrogatively ; and when presuming, occa-
sionally, on their indulgence, disappointment has
awaited me. Another section, including those, in
part, whose attention is more immediately and suc-
cessfully engaged in the practical department of the

*

subject, have shown a readiness to exhibit their
stock ; yet on all questions, involving the modus
agendi, they have preserved a studied silence. A
third party, no less distinguished as practical
breeders, have been free to communicate what they
have known, but for want of clearness of conception,
they have been unable, except in few instances, to
dispose advantageously of even facts. My under-
taking throughout, therefore, has been one of
extreme toil and perplexity ; and whatever may be
the defects observable in this attempt to make it
available to the interest of others, I am fairly entitled
to the sympathy of my readers. Let it not, however,
be inferred from this expression, that I am anxious
to elude the test of criticism. I court it, as the only
means afforded me of arriving at a just estimate of
my own performance. One indulgence only do I
crave — a correction of the sense, where obscurity or
error shall be detected ; so that, in the enjoyment
of such counsel, my advantages may be multiplied,
and truth eventually prevail. Unfeigncdly do I
protest that, in assuming the character of an autho-

PREFACE.

XIX

rity, I have no morbid ambition to consult — no
personal considerations to promote. I have always
thought it desirable to obtain instruction for the
farmer, at the hands of those who are professedly
engaged in agriculture ; and have looked to that
source, during the last three years, for contributions
to the subject on which I have at length ventured
to write, in pursuance of the example of a nobleman,
to whom all classes are deeply indebted for his
services, in the common cause of patriotism.* I
have looked in vain : and believing that I could, in
part, supply the deficiency, I have proceeded on the
somewhat novel system of generalization ; and
have, in so far, I hope, adapted my labour to the
prevailing wants of society. Still am I not without
apprehension that, in following the course which
philosophy has dictated, I shall subject myself to
animadversion. It will be alleged by two classes,
that comprise, unfortunately, the chief bulk of my
species — those, on one hand, who have yet to dis-
cover the infirmity of their own nature ; and those,
again, who, having attained to such knowledge,
affect to believe that no analogy can be drawn
between animal propensities, as developed in man,

* See Lord Spencer’s paper on the selection of male animals, in the
breeding of cattle and sheep, in the Journal of the English Agricul-
tural Society, vol. i. page 22.

XX

PREFACE.

and in the subordinate ranks of the creation— that
I have attempted to degrade the noblest work of
God to a level with the brute. My defence is
simple and easy. Sin has made humanity what it
is: I have taken Nature for my guide — “ nothing
extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice.”

With this apology for the general tenour of the
work, I beg to observe that there is one argument
contained in it, which, though strictly orthodox,
might, if published, give pain to the mind of an
individual whom I am bound in duty to revere — and
which I had not anticipated, until the entire edition
had been struck off. On this account it is my inten-
tion to limit its circulation to those, in whose hands
it will not be likely to sustain perversion.

Having, originally, designed to instruct those, for
the most part, who have not enjoyed the advantage
of a liberal education, it has been deemed advisable,
when, with propriety, they could be introduced,
to accompany the several classical passages with
appropriate translations.

21, High Pavement, Nottingham.
May 20, 1842.

THE

RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF THE SEXES
CONSIDERED.

Much has been said by agriculturists and
others, with a view to impress upon the minds of
those whose province it is to breed cattle, a con-
viction of the importance attachable to good
males in the perpetuation of their several species.
It is my object, in this work, to bring from the
varied sources of information to which I have had
access, such facts and reasoning as shall place the
subject, if possible, in a more inviting and intelli-
gible light than it has hitherto presented. To do
this it will be necessary, in the first instance, to
consider the relative character and disposition of
the sexes.

Throughout the animal kingdom, it is observ-
able that nervous vigour, from which strength,
courage, and all other physical attributes, pro-
ceed, is more freely bestowed upon males than
females ; and that this constitutional difference
gives, for the most part, a stamp of activity to

1

2

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

the former, and of passiveness to the latter. It
is only under peculiarly exciting circumstances,
as when charged with the protection of their
young, that Nature awards to females a tempera-
ment approaching to that of their male conso-
ciates. In no sense, perhaps, is this characteristic
distinction more palpable than in the influence of
physical love upon the sexes. Take, for example,
a male of our own species in the full exercise of a
generative faculty, and without that restraint
which morality very justly imposes: he seeks to
gratify his passion for selfish purposes ; no senti-
ment, in its best construction, identifies him with
propriety : the maid, the matron, the virtuous and
the dissolute, the cleanly and the dirty outcast,
are alike acceptable to him ; and, if none be avail-
able, he skulks into solitary intercourse with his
feelings, and practises the vice of onanism. His
disposition, still further outraged, prompts him to
ravishment and other personal abuses, which the
Christian shudders to contemplate. Physical love,
therefore, in our own sex may be said to exist, for
the most part, in an active and selfish form. Now
contrast it with a kindred faculty, as exemplified
in woman. Less powerfully influenced by ner-
vous impulse, she acquires the art of self-govern-
ment in so far, that neither the presence of stimu-

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

3

lating fluids, nor of men, offers her an inducement
to become actively regardless of the obligations
of her sex. She waits to have called forth a latent
disposition to sexual commerce, by the personal
attentions and entreaties of man ; and if the wiles
of the seducer betray her into sin, she yields as-
sent for his gratification more than for her own.
She is persuaded to believe that her indulgence
of the individual addressing her is indispensable to
his happiness, — and her acquiescence, whilst ori-
ginating in amiableness, is made, for want of yet
more self-possession, to constitute a crime. In
marriage, too, a like difference of feeling and of
action equally obtains, though subjected of course
to that modification which individual circum-
stances must, at all times, to a greater or less
extent, necessarily involve. Physical love, then,
in woman is distinguishable from that of man by
its passive and relative character ; and any devia-
tion from that law of nature which makes it such,
as witnessed in prostitutes for instance, is incom-
patible with the economy of the uterine system,
and forbids conception.* Hence I argue that no

* This doctrine constituted a prominent feature in the Epicurean
system of philosophy, as we learn from Lucretius. To quote the
original text would, I fear, be only to embarrass the genera] reader;
and a translation, unfortunately, would subject me to the charge of
indelicacy. The scholar may find it by referring to Lucretius, De
Rerum Natura, lib. iv. v. 1256.

4

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

greater injustice can be inflicted on the sex than
that which they not unfrequently encounter from
pseudo-philosophers and libertines, who ascribe
to them less control over their animal passions
than is maintained by ourselves.

Observation and analogy will justify me in de-
claring that the cow, sheep, and sow, when in
season, hold the same passive relation to the bull,
ram, and boar, which woman does, at almost all
times, to her favourite of the other sex. And
there being little inconsistency in the operations
of nature, we observe in females generally what
well agrees with the comparative inactivity of
their uterine organs, in a successful copulation, a
greater laxity of fibre throughout, than we recog-
nize in males of corresponding character*

* This condition was strenuously insisted on by the earlier au-
thorities as essential to success in the breeding of inferior animals.
Thus Virgil, in allusion to mares, observes:

Ipsa autem made tenuant armenta volentes ;

Atque ubi concubitus primos jam nota voluptas
Solicitat; frondesque negant, et fontibus arcent :

Stepe etiam cursu quatiunt, et sole fatigant,

Cum graviter tunsis gemit area frugibus, et cum
Surgentein ad Zephyrum palese jactantur inanes.

Georg, iii. 129.

But when connubial joys new passion fire,

By famine tame the bride’s intense desire.

From pampering food and gushing fount restrain,

Tire in the sun, and press along the plain,

When groans the barn beneath the dusty flail,

And the wing’d chaff light flies before the gale.

Sothvrv

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

5

Where this distinction duly obtains between the
sexes, their offspring inherits, most commonly, the
general configuration of the male, at the same
time that it blends the constitution and disposition
of each parent , more intimately than would seem
to be indicated by the physical outline. To what
precise cause such result is attributable, it is
difficult to determine. Popular opinion would
refer it to superiority of vigour on the part of the
male ; but that supposition is discountenanced by
the fact, that a change of moral circumstances is
sufficient to give ascendency to the female. Ob-
servation, directed no less carefully to the habits
of inferior animals than to those of mankind,
assures me that the venereal passion, viewed sim-
ply in regard to its intensity, can in nowise lead
to a solution of the problem. It must be con-
sidered in relation to the individual included in
the embrace ; and then it may be in excess, as ob-
servable in the healthiest males, or passive, as in a
majority of females : the sex that most indulges in
abstract voluptuousness — the one least enamoured
of the other’s charms, is always most faithfully
represented in the person of the offspring.

This I will now proceed to illustrate, beginning
with an alliance which seems best to harmonize
with the original intentions of nature ; and thence

6

TIIE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

advancing to the more subtle forms of association,
with a view to disabuse the subject of the pre-
judice and difficulty with which it has heretofore
been encumbered. First, then, I will entertain
the case of a duly proportioned man, of nervo-san-
guineous constitution (such as is commonly wit-
nessed in the person of a butcher), in a matri-
monial connexion with a woman of truly feminine
character, who shall have accepted him in the
capacity of husband, from a conviction that he is,
beyond all others, entitled to her confidence and
regard. Taking her estimate to be a just one, he
will not be found in constant dalliance at home,
but will seek to provide 'otherwise for her com-
fort, and give evidence in his own animal propen-
sities, of moderation in all things. Connubial
intercourse, in its most delicate sense, will be re-
gulated entirely by the healthful suggestions of
nature.* When the seminal vesicles shall have

* Lucretius happily portrays the more solid enjoyment of those
who thus fulfil the obligations of their sex, than of the libertine, who
wastes his energies in fruitless love :

Nec Veneris fructu caret is, qui vitat amorern ;

Sed potius, quse sunt sine ptena, commoda sumit.

Nam certe pura est sanis magis inde voluptas,

Quam miseris. DeRer.Nut. iv. 1066.

Nor are the joys of love from those shut out
Who brutal lust avoid; the pure of heart
Far surer pleasures, and of nobler kind,

Heap than the wretch of lewd and low desires.

Good.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

7

become loaded, his gratification will be sought,
and then, almost of necessity, to promote his own
personal interest and comfort. His wife, whose
moral goodness is implied in the circumstance of
her having married him from the purest motive
that can influence the female heart, and who,
during the absence of venereal excitement, will
have passed her time sufficiently requited with
an assurance that her domestic attentions have
been pleasing to him, will now so far sympathize
with his wants, as to account it a privilege to
supply them ; and whilst he shall be mainly intent
on his own enjoyment, she will repose in blissful
contemplation of his worth, and leave the task
of modelling the foetus to himself. Allowing both
parents to remain healthy and discreet, as I have
here represented them, their issue will consist
chiefly of sons, bearing a strong resemblance
to their father, but exceeding him in robustness,
unless he be remarkable for strength, in which
case, the limit assigned to improvement will have
been reached.

Descending again to inferior animals, I will
introduce as close a parallel as can be furnished
in the instance of an improved short-horn bull, and
a light-fleshed milking cow ; and, as the objection
that would have applied to the use of names in

8

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

the former illustration (which, hy the bye, is one
of many examples I see around me), cannot be
urged here, I shall remark that, in the summer of
1836, I bought in Nottingham market, of Mr.
Macldey, then occupying a farm at Carlton, about
three miles distant, a six-year-old cow for 18/.,
that produced in three days time, a cow calf, which
I immediately disposed of. She milked well, as
do most light-fleshed cattle, when feasting on a
luxuriant pasture ; and knowing that it would be
hazardous to attempt to breed a good calf from
her, whilst her constitutional energies were being
thus actively engaged, I suffered three months to
pass over before putting her to the bull. Her
frame was at that time considerably attenuated,
but it was not actually wasting. The secretion
of milk had greatly diminished ; and the food with
which she was supplied enabled her to sustain the
process, at the same time that the carcase was
preserved in health. I put her to Mr. Wilkinson’s
Will Honeycomb ; and on the 29th June, in the
following year, nine days after the completion
of the usual term of utero-gestation, she yielded a
cow calf, exactly resembling its sire. The little
animal was well provided with new milk, I con-
fess, for some time subsequently to its birth ; but
its allowance did not, by any means, exceed that

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

9

which is commonly apportioned by breeders to
their young stock. On the 6th December, some
time after milk in every form had been discon-
tinued, she weighed over a very correct machine,
36 stones. By January 5tli of the ensuing year,
she had increased to 42 stones, — by February 5th
to 46±. March 1st she weighed 50 stones, — and on
31st of the same month, 55i stones. Soon after-
wards she was turned to grass, and the scheme of
weighing was consequently abandoned. During
the two months that intervened between January
5th and March 1st, we had excessively cold frosty
weather ; and though protected by a shed, in some
measure, from its severity, it will be noticed that
her growth proceeded more slowly at that time
than before the commencement of such weather, or
subsequently. In six days under the four months,
throughout which her progress was watched, she
gained a gross weight of 19i stones (14 lb. to the
stone) ; and if the improvement realized in those
six days be taken into account, the gross increase,
in round numbers, may be said to have been 20
stones in four months, — an average of 5 stones a
month, from the completion of the fifth to that of
the ninth month of the animal’s life.

Some of my readers may wish to know a little
more of the history of this animal. I will, there-

10

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

lore, briefly add that she was pastured oil good
land, during the summer of 1838. In the winter
of 1838-9 she was less indulged, the black leg, a
disease allied to erysipelas in the human subject,
occurring to a most frightful extent, from reple-
tion, and arrested but by powerful cathartics,
early and copious bleeding, together with two
incisions of six inches in length, each, through
the skin and cellular membrane of the arm on the
milking side. In the spring of 1839, with a view
to check her disposition to fatten, I secured her
a pasture on Beeston Hassocks, the worst I could
find in the neighbourhood of Nottingham, where
she remained until July; and having failed to
conceive a calf, I sold her to a jobber named
Porter, for 25/. He disposed of her to Mr. Lyon,
a dealer well known in the northern and midland
counties, who declared to Mr. Wilkinson, myself,
and others, that she was the best he had ever
bought in his life. In virtue of this opinion he
sent her to a friend, who, as often as she came in
season, put her to his bull, for the space of two
or three months ; but she disappointed him, and
he sold her, if I mistake not, to a gentleman in
Oxfordshire, where, according to Mr. Lyon’s
report, a short time since, she quickly proved in

calf.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

11

Suspicion will probably have arisen in the
minds of some, that there was an inherent excel-
lence in the clam of this heifer, not yet acknow-
ledged, to account, in part, for the merit of her
offspring. Her pedigree is known to me; and
lest its non-insertion should be made matter of
complaint, I will give it. At the sale of the late
Mr. Champion’s stock, when quitting, I believe,
the farm he had occupied at Blyth, in this county,
many years ago, a cow, named Bridget, then in
calf by his bull. Aide-de-camp, was knocked
down to Mr. Mackley for 30/., or thereabout.
She might be said to be of respectable descent,
Mr. Champion having purchased, at the memor-
able sale of Charles Coding's stock, in 1810, a
heifer, called Magdalene, in calf by her sire,
Comet, for 170 guineas, from which the best part
of his cattle proceeded. I have, however, good
reason to believe that Mr. Champion, though a
zealous, was not a very successful, breeder. He
was an enterprising, generous man ; but he could
not comprehend the laws which apply to the
animal functions, and somewhat failed in his pur-
suit. Nevertheless his sale attracted much atten-
tion ; and it is not reasonable to suppose that a
beast of much worth would have been suffered to
pass into the hands of a bidder for so inconsider-

12

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

able a sum as that of 30/. She brought forth a
cow-calf, which, in contradistinction to the dam,
was called Young Bridget; and from her, by a
common bull belonging to Mr. Lacey, at that time
of Colwick, now of Adbolton, near Nottingham,
my cow proceeded. Young Bridget, when aged,
was sold, in calf, to a Mr. Neale, in the employ
of Mr. Walker, of Eastwood, for, I am told, 15/.
Whatever importance may be attached by the
lovers of pedigree to the animal whose history I
have just given, I can assure them that her birth
was never, with me, made a subject of much con-
sideration. Scarcely a fair, or even a market,
occurs in the midland counties, that does not
contain many in-calf cows possessed of greater
merit than fell to her share.

To explain the cause of so remarkably good a
heifer as the one in question being found to result
from sexual intercommunion of a first-rate bull
with a comparatively worthless cow, reference
must again be made to the law of sympathy.
No other theory can avail us. We must recollect
that the animal passions which influence us, as
human subjects, we share in common with animals
of a lower rank in the creation. The cow, as
previously observed, was introduced to the bull
under the happiest possible circumstances ; and

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

13

when she saw a much finer male than had been
looked for, one whose like she had never before (
witnessed, she felt precisely as does a woman of
easy virtue, who sighs and falls powerless into
the hands of a handsome member of our own sex,
so soon as an improper overture is made.* She
became instantly absorbed with admiration of his

* For an identity of feeling, on the part of all animals that come
under the influence of physical love, philosophers and poets have
long contended. Virgil, whom Dryden has vigorously sustained,
treats the subject unreservedly in the following verses :

Omne adeo genus in terris hominumque ferarumque,

Et genus aequoreum, pecudes, pictaeque volucres.

In furias ignemque ruunt: amor omnibus idem.

Georg, iii. 242.

Thus every creature, and of every kind.

The secret joys of sweet coition find:

Not only man’s imperial race, but they
That wing the liquid air, or swim the sea,

Or haunt the desert, rush into the flame;

For love is lord of all, and is in all the same.

So also Lucretius, to whom Virgil was probably indebted for the
argument :

Nee ratione alia volucres, armenta, feraeque,

Et pecudes, et equas, maribus subsidere possent.

De Rer. Nat. iv. 1190.

And Thomson, in a passage of inimitable beauty and pathos — too
long for insertion here, but the purport of which may be gathered
from the lines I have selected — equally subscribes to this view:

’Tis love creates their melody, and all
This waste of music is the voice of love,

That even to birds, and beasts, the tender arts
Of pleasing teaches. Seasons, i. 611,

14

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

beauty, and consequently imposed upon him all
the responsibility attached to the first grand
formative impression. He was two years old, in
the pride of health and condition, — a circum-
stance never lost sight of by a breeder of judg-
ment; and regardless of individual attractions,
he served her, as he would have done any other
female of his species, that should have invited
him, to gratify the irresistible promptings of vo-
luptuous ardour.

That the subject may be fairly argued, Mr.
Berry’s rationale, which may be instanced as the
one most commonly received, shall now be heard.
After remarking that the characteristic of a well-
bred animal is that which identifies its ancestors
for several successive generations with the pecu-
liarities in constitution and shape which it is the
object of experienced graziers to obtain in their
stock, he proceeds to contend that “ the ancestors
of a badly-bred animal will probably have varied
in every possible way, and therefore there will be
no distinguishing characteristic in its family. It
is consequently most probable that the offspring
produced from a cross between two animals so
circumstanced, will be more like the one in whose
family there is a distinguishing characteristic
than the one in whose family no such character-

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

15

istic exists.” Now if the ancestors of a badly-
bred animal have varied in every possible way,
what comes of the adage that “ like will beget
like ?” In few words, the characteristic of a well-
bred animal is to be found in an assemblage of
good points, — that of an ill-bred one in an assem-
blage of bad points, — and unless my explanation
of the most frequent result of a union of the two
be admitted, we are driven to the necessity of
arguing that, in a physical sense, a law obtains,
the reverse of what we recognize in morals, —
where good and evil are associated, the former
gains an ascendency. But to adopt this con-
struction, in principle , it follows that an ascen-
dency, once established, should, cceteris paribus,
be pretty steadily maintained : whereas we have
only to breed from the product of extremes,
amongst themselves, as will hereafter be more
circumstantially shown, to discover the futility of
such reasoning.

It cannot be denied that, though the physical
character of the offspring is conferred most fre-
quently by the sire, there are many instances
wherein it seems referable almost entirely to the
female. Such may occur even in the history of
parents whose union I have represented as con-
ducive to an opposite result, — either accidentally,

16

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

as when, in acknowledgment of female blandish-
ments, the husband is induced to contract a
generative intimacy, without the healthful incite-
ment of a truly masculine desire,— or, as not
uncommonly happens, when a change of circum-
stances or of bodily condition supervenes on ad-
vancing life. The common reward, say, of toil
and carefulness, is discoverable in an improve-
ment of their estate; and wishing, perhaps, to
employ their savings in some business that shall
admit of being conducted by the wife, whilst her
husband pursues his accustomed labour, they
open a retail shop, or embark in the “ public
line.” And now, indeed, conflicts with the world,
to which she has previously been a stranger,
gradually obliterate those indications of moral and
physical delicacy which have won for her the
esteem of a private circle, and a twelvemonth’s
exercise in her new calling exhibits her an altered
woman. Grown haughty and sensual, she con-
ceives possibly a secret fondness for another man,
and regards her husband only for the grosser pur-
poses to which he can be applied ; whilst he, ob-
servant of the change, thinks to recover the favour
he has lost by enacting the part of a suitor once
again. He takes on more or less of a maudlin
character,— defers to her in all things, and their

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

17

future progeny consequently bespeak the impress
of their mother, and consist, for the most part, of
females. A further rigidity of character — and the
masculine temperament is, in so far, acquired, as
to unfit the subject altogether for breeding.

Now, what is thus being continually exempli-
fied in our own species, occurs also amongst infe-
rior animals- The cow I have already mentioned
as the parent of an excellent calf, may be adduced
in illustration of a reverse order of things, on
being again put to the bull. She was one of high
nervous excitability, as will be readily understood
when it is stated that she had a bold staring pro-
minent eye, and that, in attempting to handle her
on the day following that on which she was pur-
chased, and but a few hours before calving, she
deliberately walked through one of the best con-
structed dead fences I ever beheld, lacerating her
teats most frightfully. She required to be kept,
as do all females of that class in particular, in low
condition, to preserve the feminine attributes in
their integrity. I lost sight of this fact, and pre-
sented her once more to Will Honeycomb, fresh,
and in a high state of generative excitement, having-
two germs fitted for impregnation. The bull had
grown rather too fat — therefore, taking on some
degree of passiveness, the “ ruling passion ”

9

was

18

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

hers, and in forty weeks time she gave birth to
twins exactly resembling herself, and died soon
after of puerperal fever. Thus, it will be seen
from this example, which will be found to corres-
pond in its result with many like experiments,
that where male and female of dissimilar charac-
ter are coupled, a compound, partaking equally
of the properties of both parents, does not com-
monly follow : nor do I believe that such can well
happen under ordinary circumstances. And I
derive no mean contribution to this theory, from
the concurrent testimony of those who have at-
tempted to commingle two distinct varieties of
cattle. A cow of Scottish birth, say, is put to a
pure Durham bull, until a calf of each gender is
obtained : admitting that they intimately com-
bined the properties of both parents, and thus
furnished what might be termed a singleness of
character, it follows that they should, when placed
in sexual apposition, perpetuate their species in
an undegenerate form. Experience, however, tells
us that this is not the case : they mostly deterio-
rate. They may exhibit decided evidence of ac-
tivity and predominance on the part of their sire
in the intercourse that called them into existence ;
but still there will prevail some inherent and dis-
tinct characteristics of the dam, which admit not

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

19

of assimilation. The parents being “ aliens in
blood,” — so far removed from all influence of con-
sanguinity as to be recognized only as individuals
of the same species, there is a distant approach, in
their reproductive exercise, to that outrage on na-
ture which is committed when two animals of dif-
ferent species, as the horse and the ass, are suffered
to procreate. If, then, their offspring be paired,
the secret antagonism of their better qualities,
though insufficient, as in the instance of a mule,
to forbid conception, is excited to activity, and,
like the bed of a healthful spring, when thrown
into agitation, corrupts the entire stream. To
justify the breeder’s favourite maxim, these ani-
mals, since they betray outward evidence of a
closer relationship to the sire than to the dam,
should perpetuate their likeness through succeed-
ing generations. But as well might we expect, by
associating in marriage two persons of cultivated
moral character, to witness a freedom from sin in
their issue. The inveterate propensities of na-
ture, whether moral or physical, are not thus easily
disposed of; and I know not an adage that has
prejudiced the interests of breeding, when used,
as it most commonly is, in a wide and uncondi-
tional sense, so much as the trite saying that “ like
will beget like.”

20

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

Unfortunate as it may sometimes appear, that
the constitutional peculiarities of an animal asso-
ciated, by accident or necessity, with one whose
distinguishing characteristics we may wish to
superabound, cannot be conveniently annulled,
it deserves to be considered that the same law
which binds it to a perpetuation of its individual
kind, we recognize as the pride of our hope in
those of a happier mould,— and that it is but a
literal application of the command originally insti-
tuted by Him who created all things, that the
“ earth should bring forth the living creature
after his kind , cattle and creeping thing, and beast
of the earth after his kind

* For wise and beneficent purposes, the laws which preserve the
various ranks of animals from generic intermixture, were originally
constituted absolute in their operation. Had they been otherwise, we
should have lost very early, in the history of the world, all trace of
distinct and specific breeds ; and the fabled stories of Centaurs, Scyllas,
and Chimeras, would have been submitted to posterity as so many
faithful portraitures from real life. No misapprehension, however,
prevails upon the subject, amongst those who either consult the accre-
dited testimony of past ages, or estimate aright the evidence afforded
by their own senses. For whether roaming at large, unrestrained
by the authority of man, or subjugated to his will, all living nature
declares, that whatever God has created for our use, and His Pro-
vidence secured from the perils of the flood, shall enjoy the faculty of
maintaining (subject only to the modifications which belong to diver-
sities of climate), through endless generations, their pristine form and
character. Hence all attempts to cultivate hybrid animals, combining
the properties of two distinct species, as mules do, for example, those
of the horse and ass, are directly at variance with the intentions of
nature, and can extend no further than the generation which inline-

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

21

Now suppose one of these animals, descended
from the Scottish and Durham breeds, say the

diately proceeds from such unnatural alliance. Under no circum-
stances of which I have any knowledge, has it been found that mules
are capable of perpetuating the individual qualities thus imposed
upon them, by sexual intercourse amongst themselves. And so remark-
able is the difference of constitution observable amongst the several
kinds of animals, that the blood of the ox cannot be injected into the
circulating system of the sheep, in any considerable quantity, without
incurring its destruction, though both shall share in some degree the
same common properties, and be subjected to similar treatment. They
are both, for instance, seen equally to delight in the same vegetable
product ; both chew the cud, and are unanimously allowed, by Jews
and Christians, to furnish an appropriate food for man ; and yet so
distinct and unlike are they in the secret constitution of their nature,
that the blood which, in each case, is elaborated from one common
food, by one common process, and made subservient to one grand ul-
timate design, cannot be transfused from one to the other, without
endangering the life of its recipient. On the contrary, an intermix-
ture of the blood of two oxen, two sheep, or of any other pair belong-
ing to the same species, may be practised with impunity — a circum-
stance that tends still further to prove that, to each of the ranks that
comprise the vast catenation of living animals, belongs a peculiar and
inhereut principle unknown to the rest, and which neither depravity
of instinct, nor human interference can, in anywise, disturb. The
fact is recognized by Lucretius, lib. i. 278, and again in the following
passage :

Lanigerm pecudes, et equorum duellica proles,

Buceriteque greges, eodein sub tegmine cosli,

Ex unoque sitim sedantes flumine aquai,

Dissimili vivunt specie, retinente parentem
Naturam ; et mores generatin', quseque imitantur.

De Her. Nat. lib. ii. 660.
The steed, the steer, the fleecy flock that range
Beneath the same pure sky, from the same fount
Their thirst that quench, and o’er the flowery lawn
Crop the same herbage, differ still, through time,

In form generic; each parental stamp

Retaining close, from sire to sire propelled. Good.

22

TIIE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

heifer, be put to a short-horn bull (if to her sire
the better), the contending disposition of the
northern variety, to gain ascendency in the pro-
duct, will be negatived by a preponderating in-
fluence of the opposite party ; and, after a few
generations, it will be thrown into complete
abeyance. Henceforth is there no longer a pre-
valence of conflicting interests ; one blood having
been mainly adhered to, we discover an identity
of form, feature, and habit in the family, whose
members consequently assimilate as readily and
harmoniously as do globules of quicksilver when
brought into contact. This fact was turned greatly
to the advantage of the original improvers of both
the long and short horns, who were, doubtlessly,
men of very accurate observation, and of strong
reasoning powers. It was enough, probably, for
them to learn that a similarity of feature and
complexion in our own species, involves pretty
much a similarity of disposition and tempera-
ment, to conceive the further idea that, by breed-
ing from animals thus allied in constitution, they
should be best enabled to preserve such constitu-
tion unimpaired, — and in no way could the alliance
be so well secured as by in-breeding. So well did
the scheme answer, that its propriety as a rule in
practice became established : and no less success-

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

23

fully, is there good reason to believe, the practice
to have been conducted in the human subject, as
well amongst the antediluvians as subsequently.
But though in a fleshly sense it might succeed, it
is equally clear that it must have unfitted man for
the more exalted duties assigned to him by his
Maker, and that, for wise and beneficent pur-
poses, therefore, it was proscribed in the Mosaic
dispensation. Still do we sometimes witness in-
termarriages, in contempt of the divine law,
amongst those who are near akin ; and not unfre-
quently do we observe the contractors of such
affinity doomed to sustain the penalty attached to
mental or bodily infirmity in their immediate
descendants. The subject I heard first intro-
duced by the late Dr. John Armstrong, who,
when alluding to the physical defects of human-
ity, contended that they were more commonly
induced by intermarriage on the part of those of
kindred blood than by any other cause. 1 have
since most carefully marked the issue of every
alliance of this character that has fallen to my
notice ; and though I have often observed im-
munity from congenital ailments, it has been my
lot to discover many instances of less fortunate
result. To enumerate them would be to encum-
ber the reader with a bare multiplication of

24

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

facts ; and as the names of the parties implicated
could not with propriety he included, I shall con-
fine myself to one case by way of illustration.
Many years ago, I attended in labour a married
woman of this town, who, on recovery, asked if I
could suggest a remedy for a complication of ills
occurring to two sons of the respective ages of
seven, and nine, years. They were possessed of
common intelligence ; but the senses, as they are
termed, were constitutionally blunted. Their
vision was imperfect, and the margin of their eye-
lids habitually sore. They were deaf, and conse-
quently unable to speak : taking them all in all,
they were the most pitiful anomalies I had seen.
It occurred to me that they might, possibly, be
the offspring of cousins ; and, on asking whether
the husband and wife were related, except by
marriage, they looked intently at each other for
an instant, when the former exclaimed, “ Oh ! he
means your first husband.” They were the pro-
duce of a matrimonial conjunction with a male
relative.

It will be remarked by all who have attended to
this occasional infraction of Nature’s laws, that its
explanation is involved in very considerable obscu-
rity. The case is somewhat analogous to that of the
descendants of the Scottish cow and Durham bull,

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

25

when allowed to procreate, except that there is not
usually so much consentaneousness of feeling and
action. There we have an issue from remote va-
rieties,—but reared alike, and enjoying precisely
the same advantages in respect of locality : the
struggle for supremacy in the next generation
would therefore seem to be equal ; but as it is
always easier, in the natural constitution of things,
to negative a good purpose than to accomplish
one, when even unassailed by opposition, the vic-
tory is most commonly gained by the less meri-
torious of the two rival powers. In the instance
of cousins, it is most probable that they do not
equally partake of the blood from which they have
been each derived. Their parents on that side,
unless they shall have been twins, may have differed
in character — consequently there is no uniformity
of action in the secret springs of reproduction :
the interests are too many, and too variously
blended to admit of it ; and, as an ill-directed
agency in physics is usually attended with dis-
ruption somewhere, so we have in their progeny
deterioration to a greater or less extent. A fixed-
ness of character on both sides, whether in favour
of the common blood from which they shall have
proceeded, or otherwise, least of all endangers
their union. Precedence is then more readily

26

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

maintained, or yielded to the opposite party, and
less risk of violence incurred to the issue.*

Perhaps the most familiar illustration of female
ascendency, in a copulative sense, is that which,
in the human subject, a lymphatic temperament
affords. People of this class are known by a gene-
ral paleness and softness of skin, by a rotundity
of form and feature, by their disposition to obesity,
and by the colour of their hair, which is mostly
flaxen, red, or auburn. They commonly possess
little sensibility, having no care to sympathize
with others in affliction, or to participate with
them in pleasure. Selfishness is their prominent
characteristic ; and however hearty may seem their
professions of friendship, the wary receive them
with caution. They are easy of access ; but the

* He who regards the proceedings of our legislative assemblies,
will hardly fail to be reminded here, of an act passed a few years
since (or rather a restoration of one, grown obsolete), prohibitory
of marriage on the part of a man with a sister of his deceased wife.
Such interdiction is professedly based on that portion of the old
canonical law, which declares “ Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister,
to vex her , to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time.”
— Lev. xviii. 18. But what authority this passage affords for so un-
righteous an interference with the liberty of the subject as that com-
plained of, I have never been able to divine. The mutual incentives to
marriage, where death has removed the only legitimate obstacle to a
union, have their origin, most commonly, in the best feelings of our
nature. The rite is perfectly agreeable to the ordinances of God him-
self ; and that enactment which forbids it is framed in injustice — is a
blot upon our statute book — and alike discreditable to all who were
concerned in its adoption.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

27

female portion reciprocating but faintly the atten-
tions bestowed upon them by our own sex, it
rarely happens that they obtain in marriage a truly
independent-minded man. A wife so constituted
seldom neglects to consult her own ease and in-
dulgence ; and the apathy she betrays in her
general dealings with society, is either exemplified
in coition, or she becomes a party to the contract
for her own express gratification. The husband,
on the contrary, is generally one of nervous excita-
bility, fond of dispensing favours to the other sex,
and who, impressed with an idea that there is
something more to be won by attention than he
has yet merited, presses his suit with the tender-
ness of one actually on preferment. He considers
it a matter of proud distinction to be suffered to
caress her; and with the enthusiasm, therefore, of
a devotee, does he engage in the pleasure of venery.
In accordance with the doctrine I maintain, the
physical character of the offspring, in such case,
is determined by the mother, whilst the nervous
attributes, involving temper, disposition, mental
capacity, &c., are inherited from the father, in
proportion to the extent to which they shall have
been lavished on his wife. We then witness the
curious anomaly of a lymphatic subject, imbued
with the ardour of a highly nervous principle.

28

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

many instances of which, occurring to persons
distinguished for intellectual endowments and li-
centiousness, might here be adduced.

So discordant an admixture of elements would,
however, seem to be at variance with the inten-
tions of Nature, whose efforts we shall presently
see directed to a restoration of the balance thus
lost in her operations, — for it rarely occurs that
persons of this class are faithfully represented in
their progeny. The animus of the male parent
prevails over the medium through which it is
distributed ; and the next generation, unless over-
ruled by a contending power, discovers a more
slender form, with the spirit of the grandfather.
And thus do we once more arrive at an exposition
of the secret of “ breeding back,” as it is termed.
Spirit will prevail over matter ; and it is because
the produce of the Scottish cow and Durham
bull, though exhibiting the frame of the latter,
possess the nervous principle of the former, that
they develope the characteristics of their dam if
allowed to propagate. The splendid calf begotten
of Will Honeycomb, and resembling him so
nearly in general structure, presented some local
features, as the eye and feet, precisely correspond-
ing to those of her dam ; and so nearly allied to
her in disposition and habit was she, that a little

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

29

tremulous motion of the muscles of the thigh, on
being relaxed, whenever the weight of the body,
whilst standing, was thrown off one hind extremity
upon another, was observed with equal exactness
in them both.

It has been attempted by pathologists to recon-
cile scrofula with certain habits of body, which
they have laboured to describe by reference to
feature, hair, complexion, &c. ; and it is amusing
to see that by such time as the most accurate of
them have concluded the catalogue, they have
embraced every temperament that words can well
express. This they have felt compelled to do, v
in as much as the disease has been detected in those
persons whose contour would, a priori , have
seemed to claim for them an exemption. A man,
for example, of huge chest, and betraying other
indications of hardiness, has died of true pulmonary
consumption — a disease essentially scrofulous in
its nature, and which has most likely been thus
incurred : his father has been a man of fine struc-
ture and constitution,— his mother of delicately
interesting, though of scrofulous character— at-
tached to her husband in the best sense that
distinguishes a woman, and yielding, therefore,
in her admiration of his person, the plastic office
unto him, at the same time that she has infused.

30

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

by virtue of such exercise, her own radical dispo-
sition, with all its concomitant advantages and
ills, into the offspring.

Independently of the direct authority which
observation affords for the establishment of this
doctrine, collateral evidence is not wanting to
justify its adoption. We know that mental im-
pressions received by a female, even subsequently
to conception, from remarkable objects occurring
unexpectedly to the sight or touch, inflict, not
unfrequently, corresponding and indelible evi-
dence of such impressions on the foetus, whilst at
the same time we negatively prove that, in the
mother’s keeping, its native character is preserved
uninjured. A friend of mine had, some time ago,
a sow of highly nervous temperament, on whose
back, as she one day lay asleep, when somewhat
advanced in-pig, he suddenly placed a child. She
started up in great fright ; and, in the next litter,
was one pig denuded of hair across its back, and
partly down its sides, though otherwise well
covered, as were all the rest of the family.
Jacob’s device for obtaining cattle “ ringstreaked,
speckled, and spotted,” is known to every reader of
sacred history ; and a fact recorded by Mr. Bos-
well, in an Essay on the Breeding ol Live Stock,
and quoted by the editor of the popular treatise on

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

31

cattle, as published under the superintendence of
the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,
so well illustrates the question before me, that I
cannot forbear to transcribe it. A gentleman in
Angus had a cow in “ season, while pasturing on
a field which was bounded by that of one of his
neighbours, out of which an ox jumped, and went
with the cow, until she was brought home to the
bull. The ox was white, with black spots, and
horned.” The owner of the cow “ had not a horned
beast in his possession, nor one with any white on
it ; nevertheless, the produce of the following
spring was a black and white calf, with horns.”
It is obvious that she had become enamoured of
the ox which had accompanied her awhile, and
though ultimately impregnated by a black bull,
she retained so vivid a recollection of her former
associate, as to involve her issue in a resemblance
of him. But that very operation of the sentient
principle which brought about this result would
pervade the tiny embryo so thoroughly, as to com-
municate to it the intestine characteristics of its
dam; andthebull through whose agency conception
was effected, would have virtually no more part nor
lot in the scheme than would be discoverable in
some unimportant local peculiarity. On the same
authority it is stated that, upon a farm where pure

32

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

black doddies were bred, but along with which an
Ayrshire cow (red and white) was kept for some
time, there appeared three red and white calves
in one season, and two in the following, when the
proprietor, to break the charm which had been
unfortunately introduced, disposed of the Ayrshire
beast, and adhered inviolably afterwards to black
animals, down even to pigs and fowls.

Referring again to sexual commerce on the part
of a lymphatic female and a man of nervous exci-
tability, I would just observe that, should repro-
ductive intercourse between the parties be ill-
timed, as when the husband executes his function
without his accustomed zest, the produce is found
to inherit a proportionable degree of inactivity ;
and, having commonly a huge frame to command,
with so small an amount of nervous power, it
rarely happens that such individual attains to
more distinction in society than that which ap-
plies to mere animal existence.

A narrative I would now subjoin, as related to
me a short time since by one of the principals in
the drama, on whom I was then in attendance, in
which two persons of the respective habits I have
been treating were concerned. It well exempli-
fies the general truths I have been attempting to
enforce, inasmuch as there is scarcely a link

the sexes considered. 33

broken in the chain of evidence by which the case
is supported. A gentleman, combining with much
intelligence a considerable share of sensibility,
was accustomed to visit an establishment in which
resided a maid servant of prepossessing exterior,
for whom he conceived a strong attachment.
Once only did he gain an opportunity of confer-
ring with her in private ; and then his solicitations
were met by so decided a remonstrance, that it
seemed doubtful whether the influence of fascina-
tion could extend to her. At length she failed to
preserve due self-possession, and whilst “ whis-
pering she would ne’er consent — consented,” at
the same instant bewailing her irresolution in a
profusion of tears. However it may suit the in-
terests of poetry, it is wholly irreconcilable with
philosophy to suppose that a concession, thus pro-
cured, is to be received in evidence of love for the
individual to whom it is rendered. But if testi-
mony more conclusive than that which induction
supplies be required in this case, it is abundantly
discoverable in the subsequent history of the par-
ties. The girl proved to be with child ; and
though the gentleman to whom the charge of
paternity applied, entertained a doubt, for some
time, concerning the truth of the imputation, yet
did he place her, at his own cost, under the guar-

3

34

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

dianship of a creditable family, with whom she
has already remained a year beyond the period of
her delivery. Nevertheless, I am assured, not
only by her patron, whose unsupported assertion
I should cautiously admit, but by the people in
whose house the girl resides, that, with a view to
guard against the possibility of danger, she has,
throughout her stay with them, refused to hold
any communication with him, except in the pre-
sence of a third person. Now let it be borne in
mind that this girl’s mother is of a bilious habit,
and subject, together with two sisters yet living,
to biliary concretions (gall-stones). The girl
herself presents external indications of a lym-
phatic temperament — an exact similitude of her
father ; but so strongly does she partake of the
constitutional bias of her mother, that on several
occasions I have known her jaundiced from the
mechanical interruption to the passage of bile,
incurred by the lodgment of gall-stones. And
mark how this innate principle of the mother pre-
vailed in conception ! The girl had no fondness
for her paramour, — selfishness, for the most part,
induced her, after all, to yield to his importunities :
whereas he loved her most tenderly, and conceded
the right which she claimed to model the foetus,
by reason of her abstract passion. The child (a

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

35

female) was consequently born with eyes like
those of its mother, but conveying, in every other
lineament, a miniature representation of its grand-
mother. No feature identified it with the puta-
tive father, save that of its nails which dissipated
at once all doubts that had been previously in-
dulged respecting its descent.

Conformably to the doctrine I hold, this child
should assume the constitutional habits of its
father, — and that in some degree it does so, is
already demonstrable ; but his contributive ser-
vices, it must be remembered, like those of the
hull to which the xlngus cow stood, after having
been waited upon by a black and white ox, were,
in a great measure, negatived by the internal con-
flict to which the girl became a prey at the instant
of conception — and, as the sequel proves, to so
fearful an extent did the law of sympathy involve
the rudiments of the foetus in the grief incurred
at that momentous period, that these two persons,
both of whom are highly regarded in their respec-
tive spheres, for amiableness of disposition, stand
as the authors of one of the most miserable
wretches that ever took on the form of humanity.
Though in the enjoyment of rude health, it cries
almost unceasingly ; and an umbilical hernia, con-
sequent thereon, has already, in defiance of every

36

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

effort of art, attained to such magnitude, that I
shall not wonder if, in a few years hence, as in
the instance of the late Horne Took, it carry the
chief bulk of the chylopoietic viscera without the
abdominal cavity.

Were it possible to note the circumstances
under which impregnation occurs in the human
subject, much of the inconsistency, made charge-
able on nature, would admit of satisfactory expla-
nation. Passions essentially animal are, of ne-
cessity, cultivated in a mutual embrace of the
sexes ; and they are so variously developed in dif-
ferent individuals, and in the same individual at
different seasons, that uniformity of result cannot
possibly be obtained in successive acts of repro-
duction. Hence, the moral and physical variable-
ness observable in families proceeding from a like
source. Amongst the unreflecting it often creates
surprise, that children of seemingly religious pa-
rents should be with difficulty reclaimable from
the follies and extravagance of youth. To say
nothing of the frequent assumption of Christian-
ity, as a matter of worldly policy, and the conse-
quent irreconcilableness in the profession and
practice of such people, it is to be kept in view
that religion, in its true sense, is an acquired
grace , and that, however admirably it may be

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

37

suited to the regulation of our conduct in refer-
ence to God and to our neighbour, there are
seasons when the best portion of mankind lose
sight of its obligations, — and at none more pal-
pably than in the matrimonial intercourse of the
sexes. Devotion, whether in an arbitrary or
strictly righteous signification, is incompatible
with sensual indulgences. The former is veri-
fied whenever love, in its purest sense, disposes a
man to address a virtuous woman. Deference to
her expressed or implied opinion, and watchful-
ness over her for good, take the place of fleshly
considerations : it is only when equality and iden-
tity of interests are established on marriage, that
he feels her to be accessible to him in a grosser
capacity. The latter is demonstrable in the lives
of those who, whether attached to monastic insti-
tutions, or otherwise, are distinguished by a one-
ness of purpose in their worship of the Everlast-
ing Father : they preserve a course of rigid
celibacy, that no interruption may occur to their
intimate communion with God. All spiritual
association, therefore, in its noblest construction,
is suspended during the period of sexual corre-
spondence, and the natural character indulged ;
and when to the fact that prudent men seek such
gratification only when impelled by the salutary

38

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

dictates of nature, and consequently incur a lia-
bility to beget a robust offspring, is added the
'persecution too often employed in the persons of
their children, whilst young, to enforce an observ-
ance of religious ordinances, the cause of insub-
ordination amongst them is pretty clearly made
out. To dwell on the probability that, in many
cases, the parties are f‘ unequally yoked,” and that
a moral taint may be thus inflicted on the pro-
geny, or to entertain the evils arising from unfor-
tunate communications at school and elsewhere,
would be to extend my observations beyond the
limits assigned to them in this place. I would,
however, remark that whilst faculties of an objec-
tionable character are engendered under circum-
stances favourable to the moral interests of society,
and transmitted from parents to children, how
justly is the crime of illicit intercourse to be
deprecated, since it calls into exercise some of the
worst passions of which we are susceptible. The
nervous vigour that prompts to its indulgence,
and confers, not unfrequently, upon bastards a
prowess for which, in every age of the world, they
have been remarkable, entails upon them also a
recklessness of disposition inimical to usefulness,
in the solemn and more important duties of civil
life. So generally has the fact been recognized.

the sexes considered.

39

that it was anticipated, even in the alliance of
Abraham with Agar ; and perhaps no better evi-
dence can be had of the divine origin ol the
Pentateuch, or of the truth of the principles
which I am desirous to convey, than is furnished
in the history of Ishmael and his descendants.
Whilst yet a lad, he was banished from the land
of his father for filial disobedience ; and, when
having wandered, with his mother, into the wilder-
ness of Besr-Sheba, the prediction that he should
be “a wild man,” and that ‘‘his hand should be
against every man, and every man’s hand against
him,” was literally fulfilled in him and his pos-
terity. For, though “ many potentates amongst
the Abyssinians, Persians, Egyptians, and Turks,
have endeavoured to subjugate the wandering or
wild Arabs, whose possessions may be said to
extend from Aleppo to the Arabian sea, and from
Egypt to the Persian gulf, — a tract of land not
less than 1800 miles in length by 900 in breadth,
yet have they been ultimately unsuccessful.”
Having cultivated close affinities, like the other
descendants of Abraham in the line of Isaac, they
are the only inhabitants of the earth, besides the
Jews, that have existed as a distinct people from
the beginning ; and the original habits of their
founder having acquired an inveteracy, by reason

40

the relative influence of

of such 'practice, it is easy to conceive that the
various tribes of which they consist, will ever be
found difficult of foreign subjection, and of moral
culture.* A consciousness of the danger of con-
liding offices of trust to the keeping of an illegiti-
mate product, led the ancient Israelites to refuse
them all participation in civil privileges, even down
to the tenth generation ; and it is not improbable
that an intuitive knowledge of the worthlessness

* The specific institutions of Nature for maintaining in perpetuity
the characteristics of such animals as would otherwise suffer from
domestic interference, cau hardly be contemplated without reference
to the wisdom and goodness of Him, at whose instance they were esta-
blished. The requisite irritability of cats, for example, is guaranteed
in the uproar theypreserve during the act of copulation ; and the seem-
ing affright in which the tame female rabbit invariably runs, pursued
by the buck, before yielding to his importunity, secures to her young
a like property, in no less degree than is shared by those which are
born of wild parents, — as proved in their jerking, involuntary efforts
to escape, if disturbed, when even a day or two old, and by other mani-
festations of impatience, till lulled into quietude by persevering fami-
liarity. The Arabs, who are a shrewd race, I suspect to have been
long aware of the influence, on the offspring, of impressions received
by parents, about the period of reproductive intercourse, and to have
derived no little advantage from such knowledge, in the breeding of
their celebrated horses. I know not whether the experiment has been
adopted in our racing establishments, but it is worthy of trial, when a
mare is ascertained to be in season, to canter her briskly, say half,
or three quarters, of a mile, to the place where she knows the stallion to
be in readiness to cover her. A foal so obtained, I am disposed to
think, would, caeleris puribus, possess a fleetness and emulation far
exceeding such attributes in one — engendered “ between sleep and
wake.” The principle was urged by Columella, in its application to
the stallion (Lib. 6, cap. xxxvii.); but, for reasons which cannot
h*re be conveniently discussed, it most properly applies to the mare.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

41

of this class provokes the contempt with which
they are almost invariably treated. Every man
of reflection, however, must learn that the issue
of an unlawful connexion presents a peculiar claim
to the exercise of sympathy ; and whilst the diffi-
culty experienced in adapting them to the more
dignified purposes of life shall continue to be a
subject of complaint, it should incite both sexes
to a maintenance of self-government, at variance
with the cause of so frequent and unhappy a
result.

Corresponding to the lymphatic temperament in
the human subject, may be noticed, now and then,
in almost every variety of cattle, a figure combin-
ing neatness with a singular disposition to fatten.
The particular indications of such disposition con-
sist in a bright placid eye, a somewhat rotund, but
smaller, chest than belongs to those which are
equally remarkable for muscularity, — a thin, soft,
unctuous skin, and a close covering of fine, glossy,
silk-like, hair. If pastured on moderately rich
land, that yields not a very succulent herbage, an
animal of this kind quickly grows fat, but seldom
answers the purposes of the dairy. Of a truth
“ self-preservation,” with her, “ is the first law in
nature,” and nothing short of treatment that shall
impose a general laxity of fibre, can make her

42

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

available to any other interest than that of the
glazier. In keeping with such constitutional self-
ishness, a beast of this class not uncommonly fails
to bleed, 01, in the event of conception, she fur-
nishes a product more nearly approaching to her
own likeness than to that of the bull to which she
has been affianced. But as no instruction can be
so well conveyed as in its immediate application to
practice, I will illustrate this part of my subject
with the history of an animal that was long in the
possession of the late John Wright, of Lenton,
Esq. When passing through his land about six
years ago, I was arrested by the singularly elegant
appearance of a red cow ; and, being desirous to
know her origin, I sought an interview with the
ground bailiff (Rouse), who told me that, when
three years old, she was bought, along with another
of like age, and of nearly equal quality, of Miss
Evans, of Beeston, for 30/. She had bred several
calves, most of which were females — red, and in-
heriting her native properties in rich perfection.
Two of these descendants, a three-year-old heifer,
and a two-year-old, were shown to me. The former
was exceedingly symmetrical and fat, and, accord-
ing to the testimony of my informant, had been
repeatedly, but fruitlessly, bulled. Tradition
ascribed to the dam a distant connexion with Mr.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

43

Wilkinson’s cattle ; but as evidence to that effect
appeared, by no means, to be satisfactory, I could
only conclude tbe alliance to have been of very
remote date. Mr. Wright having no predilection
for good stock, she had been always put, in com-
mon with other cattle upon the farm, to a bull of
mean birth ; yet under such disadvantage had she
bred the heifers to which allusion has been made.
At this stage of the detail, I may as well remark
that the oldest heifer, continuing to disappoint all
hope of impregnation, was sold to a butcher on
the 7th March, 1837, when four years old, for 38/.
Feeling interested in the character of one which,
without any valuable adjunct, had thus distin-
guished herself as a parent, and being assured
that the sole management of the farm was in-
trusted to Rouse, I offered him 30/. for this cow,
when ten years old, in low condition, and worth,
at most, but 18/. in a market. The man, however,
knew his master to be rich, and was pleased to
conduct affairs rather in compliance with the dic-
tates of caprice than with a view to considerations
of profit, and so declined my offer. I next sub-
mitted that he should introduce her and the
younger heifer, not yet in calf, to Mr. Wilkinson’s
favourite bull, and, whether male or female, 1
would give for the produce of each, at birth, five

44

the relative influence of

guineas. To this he would not agree ; but, thinking
it might be well to speculate on my proposition,
he put one to Will Honeycomb, and another to
Frank, as he was called, and waited the result.
The cow brought twins (male and female), one of
which (the female) died at birth, or immediately
after ; the other I was offered on the terms origi-
nally proposed : I refused it, though it bore a
close resemblance to its dam in colour, shape, and
quality. It was eventually disposed of to one of
his kindred in Leicestershire, in whose service it
has been employed nearly three years. I am told
that, as a bull, he has always handled well, but, like
his dam, has never made much flesh. The daughter
produced a bull calf, radically defective, but the
farmer thought otherwise : et it was well timbered,”
he said, and “spawny;”* and being desirous to
make these properties available to the interest of
his friends, he sold it to one of Mr. Wright’s
tenants, a highly respectable farmer in the vale of

* He who has been accustomed to hear the word “ spawny’’ used
in reference to young animals, without troubling himself about the
propriety of its application, knows well the sense intended to be con-
veyed. A “ spawny” animal is one whose aggregate length and height
far exceed the proportions of its trunk, and is commonly regarded by
those who enjoy not the faculty of observation in an enviable degree,
as “ prom isitig to grow into a good one." Should it be “well-timbered”
withal, and equally well fed, it may be expected to carry as much flesh
as will enable it conveniently to sustain the office of locomotion.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

45

Bel voir, who kept it nearly two years, and then
killed it in disgust. Once more I proposed to
stipulate with Rouse for the produce of both
mother and daughter, but, failing in my negoti-
ation, I neglected to visit the farm. Intelligence,
however, reached me that the cow had slunk her
calf, and been sold in Nottingham market for 13/.
The heifer, in due time, bred a cow calf, which was
kept upon the estate. Again she calved, and
soon after died — the carcase realizing 20/. to one
of our Nottingham butchers.

In what manner those who contend for an ab-
solute and unconditional control of the sire in
the breeding of stock, will meet the difficulty in-
volved in the consideration of this red cow and
her offspring, I know not : to my mind the case
admits of very easy solution. She entertained just
as much physical love for the bulls to whose
gratification she contributed, as does a handsome
voluptuous woman for a man who, in the absence
of personal attractions, commands neither wealth,
rank, nor mental accomplishments. Governed by
the influence of a generative passion, the cow
would stand alike to the vigorous and emasculated;
but whilst one might have possibly enkindled in
her affections a generous recognition, the other

46

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

would be received with comparative indifference.*
Let him who doubts the justifiableness of sucli
analogy, mark the identity of feeling in man and
brutes, where moral refinement softens not the
heart. Let him witness the seeming cordiality
with which a member of each sex, from out the
lowliest rank of civilization, will conduct a tete-
a-tete, till startled by a rival lover, — and when the
first suitor shall have been soundly pommeled,
view the fair subject of contention “pair off” with
the hero in all the majesty of brutal pride; — and
then turn to a party of domestic fowls, absorbed
in an affray between the male partner of their joys,
and a spirited intruder. A few minutes decide
the fate of their old associate: he is beaten ; and
one short valedictory blessing terminates their
acquaintance with him. The adage that “ none
but the brave deserve the fair ” belongs not ex-
clusively to any particular section of the animal

* An objection may be taken to this argument, since the surviving
calf of twins, begotten of a first-rate bull , appears to have inherited bis
dam's general character. The fact of his having done so tends
but to justify the portraiture I have drawn of animals of the lymphatic
class. The cow’s native habit triumphed over the charm of individual
attractiveness on the part of the hull ; and, without considering the
general argument at all disturbed, I am bound to confess that the allure-
ment employed in this instance was insufficient to accomplish the
purpose for which it was designed.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

47

kingdom : it is of universal adoption, though in-
fluencing its votaries in proportion to the extent
in which sensuality shall prevail. Hence it is not
uncommon for a female, as a sow for instance,
whose fondness of the boar is proverbial, when in
despair of being requited for her visit, to attempt
what she would delight to see another member of
his sex accomplish — an infliction of bodily chas-
tisement. If the male conquer, as most frequently
happens, a two-fold object is secured — the sow re-
gards him with admiration, and the nervous ex-
citement engendered in the struggle, prompts him
to the service which he had hesitated to perform,
and impregnation follows. It would be equally
absurd to argue that a boar, under such circum-
stances, would beget a good litter, as to insist that
the sire of Mr. Wright’s heifers conferred upon
them the properties for which they were esteemed.
He felt, on being introduced to the cow, as would
an ill-conditioned man, if invited to a fleshly cove-
nant with a female to whom he had not thought of
aspiring, — a languishing, deferential regard. Had
he been less enamoured of her charms, the remote
consequences of his employment might have been
averted. But unluckily the cow interested him
enough to inherit for her offspring a participation in
his constitutional infirmity, — and this disposition

48

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

predominating in the heifer, when, in due time,
she was presented to the bull, gave promise of
that which was realized in the next generation— a
" spawny” and “ well-timbered” calf.

Another, and by far the most prolific source
of female ascendency in the propagation of our
species, since it applies to individuals of every
temperament and condition in society, is to be
found in the pitiful motives by which too many
are influenced in cultivating a matrimonial alliance.
When in rural simplicity we lived, it was ac-
counted a privilege by man to labour for the sup-
port of a virtuous woman : but modern refinement
as it is called, has effected a singular change in
the feelings and disposition of my countrymen —
so much so, that one might almost venture to offer
a reward for the discovery of a young gentleman,
whose sensibility is sufficiently blunted to admit
of his smoking cigars, and drinking brandy and
water, that does not think he is entitled to a main-
tenance at the hands of that lady on whom he
shall condescend to bestow himself in marriage.
And being free to speculate on this principle,
attachments are feigned, affections won, promises
broken, and hopes blighted, till at length the day
of retribution comes, and when the perpetrator of
such outrage thinks to participate largely in the

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

49

enjoyment of connubial sweets, he learns that the
happiness of his fair elect has been compromised
— and that

“ Life hath no more to bring
To her but mockeries of the past alone.”

Yet having sealed each other’s destiny on terms
irrevocably secure, all other considerations are
usually suffered to merge in the one absorbing
question — by what means a creditable relationship
to the world is best to be maintained. The en-
gagement, whatever it be, soon diverts the mind
of him on whom its fulfilment principally devolves,
from contemplations of a domestic and painful
character. But neither time, nor changing cir-
cumstances, can dissever the association by which
his wife is kept inthralled in the interest of another.
Though “ absent in the flesh,” remembrance will,
in wanton mood, restore the lost embrace ; and
instead of yielding to the requirements of her
husband in a spirit of pure and unmingled regard
for his person, she assumes an air of abstract
voluptuousness; and, if she bear children, stamps
upon them her own individual impress, leaving
him to whom they are in some measure indebted
for existence, to confer, by way of supplement,
just so much of his own peculiar habits and liabili-

4

50

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

ties as shall correspond to the amount of affection
entertained for her at the instant of copulation.

Nor is this evil in a trifling degree aggravated,
by the gregarious character necessarily imposed
on the growing population of the country. Females
inherit a greater abundance of that animal con-
stituent (fat) whose chemical base is intimately
allied to the smoke we disengage in the burning
of coal than do men ; and by the same law which
enables pigs to thrust their heads into straw, and
breathe the carbon thrown off from their own lungs,
in the process of respiration, and get the fatter
for it, are they enabled to bear a residence in a
crowded city, with less personal suffering than is
sustained by ourselves. This fact will partly ac-
count for the numerical preponderance of females
over males in densely peopled districts. But a
further explanation is to be arrived at by reference
to the general habits of men in these localities, as
affecting their private correspondence with the
opposite sex. Contrary to the usages of rural
society, the inhabitants of large towns are required,
for the most part, to conduct their business in ill-
ventilated, unhealthy apartments, and at the same
time to bring into exercise a considerable share
of intellectual acuteness. A depressing effect,
proportionable to the extent to which the consti-

TIIE SEXES CONSIDERED.

51

tution is thus taxed, necessarily follows ; and to
meet such exigency, recourse is had to stimulating
fluids, and artificial treatment, of whatever kind,
promises to recruit the declining strength. Hence
a state of nervous excitement, to which the animal
system holds no just relation, is being almost per-
petually maintained, and which discovers itself,
most of all, in impotent attempts to gratify a
fleshly inclination. Where the primary cause of
mischief alone prevails, as the conducting a mer-
cantile or other active employment which shall
involve incessant bustle and anxiety, and that too,
under circumstances of atmospheric noisomeness,
the consequences are felt, though in a less humili-
ating degree, in a reproductive effort. An irrita-
bility disproportioned to physical aptitude com-
monly incites such men to sexual negotiations
which, if not inefficiently performed, require to be
aided by all the artifices that a voluptuous imagi-
nation can suggest. And in resorting to the use
of pitiful expedients, I need hardly remark that,
of a verity, they resign all pretensions to manliness
in the sight of those on whom their caresses are
lavished. Women can only be charmed by men,
so long as the latter preserve the dignity of their
sex : when they cease to do that, as in the instance
of the emasculated subjects in question, they are
permitted to retain the privilege of copulation, as

52

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

it were, by sufferance, and the female chiefly sub-
scribes to the establishment of the foetal character.
This alternative realizes a majority of females in
the issue ; and it becomes a matter of consideration
with senators and divines, whether the returns of
the late census, which develope a fearful increase
of females over males, is not to be regarded as an
indication of decline in the moral and physical
constitution of Englishmen.

In those counties which include large manufac-
turing towns and cities, as Middlesex, Lancaster,
Somerset, Gloucester, Surrey, Warwick, etc.,
where a corrupt atmosphere and dissipation ra-
vage the male classes, a vast preponderance of
females is discovered. On the other hand, the
counties of Derby, Essex, Hereford, Salop, West-
morland, Wiltshire, etc., which embrace smaller
towns, and whose male population are required to
work too laboriously for bread to admit the prac-
ticability of excesses, the masculine character is
better sustained, and we have, consequently, a
bare majority of females : whilst Lincoln, Mon-
mouth, Rutland, and Stafford, whose male popu-
lation are more generally distinguished for hardi-
ness, exhibit a balance in favour of that gender.
I am aware that it may be contended that this
showing only supports the position with which l
started — that women bear a confined unhealthy

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

53

atmosphere better than men — a fact which,, when
taken in connection with their more temperate
habits, would make it appear that a want of cor-
respondence in numbers is simply referable to
longer-livedness on their part. But whatever
weight may be attached to this argument, I am
convinced that where sensitiveness (which may
be either hereditary or acquired, and in the latter
sense it is pretty sure to be found as the concomi-
tant of physical prostration) exceeds, whether in
man or brutes, that of the female to which they
are applied, a preponderance of female offspring is
the result. My authority for adopting this opi-
nion is strengthened, in no inconsiderable degree,
by collateral evidence. The first-born of parents,
in a conjugal state, is most commonly a girl,
resembling, in its lineaments and general contour,
the person of its mother, or some one to whom she
is closely allied in blood. Now, it is well known
to those who are conversant with human actions,
and the feelings by which they are governed, that,
as a rule, a man entertains a more cordial regard
for the object of his choice, at the period of
marriage, than she does for him. Having exer-
cised his virile faculty already, he can anticipate
the pleasure in reserve for him ; but she, on whom
the modesty of her sex has imposed restraint, can

54

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

form, as yet, no definite idea of the sensations
experienced in coition. Unless she be one whom
no man of cultivated taste would select, timidity
will predominate over every other passion ; and
for some time after their intercourse shall have
begun, the enjoyment will be confined almost
exclusively to himself. When the customs of a
married life shall have made her somewhat fami-
liar with indulgence, she will fear to betray emo-
tion, lest suspicion of native indelicacy should
arise in the mind of her husband ; and if, whilst
studiously observing a selfish gratification (for I
know not how otherwise to designate it), and
before the glow of conjugal tenderness shall have
declined in the husband, impregnation supervene,
the child will, most likely, be feminine, and though
partaking of the external characteristics I have
mentioned, it will be strongly imbued with the
spirit and hereditary liabilities of its father. The
first ebullition of passionate love over, each party
takes on the manner I have endeavoured to recon-
cile with the several forms of individual feeling
and habit.

It is sometimes remarked, though I know not
exactly on what data, that a healthy pair who
should choose the city of London as a place of
permanent abode, and there engage in the work

TIIE SEXES CONSIDERED.

55

of procreation, with an understanding that their
children should comply with similar terms, would
be unrepresented in blood, after two or three
generations. I can readily believe that this would
commonly happen ; for admitting the theory 1
hold to be correct, that, in such locality, the
mother do, for the most part, command the physi-
cal character, with the certainty of a vitiating
influence from the father — this influence, consist-
ing, mainly, of his nervous faculty, would be
inadequate to the preservation of its associate
clay, and premature death would occur to the
issue : or, in the event of longer life, hereditary
decline would extinguish the family after the lapse
of a few more years.

Oft as precedence is taken of the husband,
under circumstances to which I have just referred,
it is no less true that to him is frequently conceded
the exercise of his just prerogative. We then
witness in the offspring what may be paralleled on
most badly conducted farms, a delicacy of frame
that threatens disqualification for the purpose to
which it is to be applied. Nor is it material
whether the father present, in his person, a spare
form, as induced by anxiety and other debilitating

causes,— or the bloatedness of intemperance, if

his irritability incite him to outrage physical capa-

56

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

city, tlie seminal fluid will be emitted before it
shall have received animal maturity, and the pro*
duct will inherit a worthlessness of figure, with
such modification of the sentient principle as the
female parent shall have been able to impart. And
thus is it that the conceit of little, ill-contrived,
waspish, subjects is to be explained. Here I may
prepare to encounter some demur from all rigid
sticklers for reliance on the old doctrine that
“like will beget like but, with a promise that
the argument shall be resumed hereafter, I con-
jure them to look at the progeny of the lustiest
innkeepers they can find, and then say with how
much truth their favourite dogma unconditionally
applies. I should have little difficulty in furnish-
ing a volume of practical refutation.

For corroborative evidence of the fact that nerv-
ous irritability must not predominate, in excess,
over the animal system, for whose government it
is intended, or a lean spare issue will be the con-
sequence, I refer to the ordinary class of males in
the possession of British farmers. In them a con-
tracted chest forbids the requisite purification of
the blood, whilst circulating through the lungs ;
and it is returned again to other structures, in
combination with more or less of that deadening
property which it is the object of Nature to dis-

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

57

engage in the act of breathing. This being the
case, a train of phenomena discoverable in all
animals during sleep, when respiration is being
slowly conducted, almost uniformly prevails ; i. e.
the secretions participate in the unhealthy cha-
racter of the blood, from which they are eliminated,
and are with so much difficulty sustained, that
the standard of health may be said never to be
arrived at. Hence, if undisturbed by exciting-
causes, such animals appear languid and drooping ;
but if associated with females of their own species,
they are constantly being prompted to attempt
what a defective constitution can ill afford to per-
form. One of the best schools for verifying
this remark is a park or other inclosure, appro-
priated to the reception of store cattle, amongst
which a few bulls are turned. Lord Rancliffe’s
seat at Bunny affords a convenient illustration.
There have I often seen during the months of
summer, two flat-sided, worthless, bulls, each with
the penis protruding, for hours together, in pur-
suit of females, till the mechanical irritation occa-
sioned by the presence of flies, and fruitless efforts
to copulate, has reduced them to a condition alike
disgusting and pitiful to contemplate. To say
nothing of the waste of body incurred through
want of full regular meals, rest, and deliberate

58

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

rumination, the vital principle is so fast consumed,
in such an instance, by indulgence in physical
love, that the general system, though greatly
attenuated, and requiring, therefore, a correspond-
ingly diminished succour, fails to enjoy its rightful
superintendence, and the seminal fluid, at best, is
endowed with a bare reproductive property.* My
personal acquaintance with many who have grazed
sturks in Bunny park, has given me an opportunity
of noticing the shape and quality of stock, begot-

* To those who are unaccustomed to reflect on the causes affecting
animal existence, this explanation may be rendered more intelligible
by remarking that whatever engrosses the mind, in any of the endless
modes in which it is exercised, to a vast extent, deprives the body, in
a corresponding ratio, of its energies. Hence are they who habitually
“ look on a woman to lust after her,” though evading the sin of prac-
tical adultery, exposed, in common with poets, philosophers, and
scholars, to premature infirmity and decay. Hysterical, and even
yet more formidable, nervous affections, frequently owe their rise to
libidinous associations of thought, in persons of both sexes, where no
actual vice stains the character. And of course the more suddenly and
violently these operations of the mind are called up, the more disas-
trous are the results : thus excessive emotion, whether arising from
joy, grief, or dread, induces immediate weakness, and has been known,
in people of very excitable disposition, instantaneously to absorb,
as does electricity (lightning), so much nervous power, as to leave the
heart unprovided with a stimulus to contraction — in popular language,
to drive the life out. When nervous efforts, to which an individual is
unadapted, are indulged consentaneously with physical exercise, as in
coition, it occasionally happens that paralysis, or apoplexy, imme-
diately supervenes on emission. I have known several such cases soon
after the parties have retired to rest. Death, under like circumstances,
has sometimes occurred to the buck rabbit, the stag, and other animals
of highly salacious character. Mr. Wilkinson, of Lenton, related to me
an instance in a stallion a short time since.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

59

ten of his Lordship’s bulls : worse it would be
difficult to find within the range of pretended
cultivation.

The parks of our nobility not unfrequently
contribute another example of the ill effects of
extreme nervous irritability, in the degeneracy of
hares. When allowed to multiply within pre-
scribed grounds till each other’s privileges are
invaded, the bucks are kept in such a constant
state of fretfulness as to tell very prejudicially on
their young. It is not, therefore, when hares fail
to reach eight or nine pounds in weight, that the
land on which they are bred is insufficient to rear
them, but that the irritability of the male class is
out of proportion to their animal developement.

A still more satisfactory illustration is to be
found amongst the poultry of our farm yards.
When, in the early part of spring, the male fowl
blooms with freshness and beauty — dropping his
wing, and prating to his little auditory all the day
long, — inviting them, ever and anon, to some
newly discovered feast — then asserting with
“ shrill clarion” the indisputableness of his domi-
nion— the nervous and animal powers are blended
in harmonious conjunction. Chickens obtained
from him under such advantages, burst from their
shells in happy chirping mood ; and though in the

60

the relative influence of

variable month of April this occur, they proceed
to maturity with unabating vigour. In May his
flesh is gone : still does he tread the hens, but
with what less effect the following chicks attest.
Some, probably, will not survive the process of
incubation ; and those which do will be feeble
and unthrifty — uttering oft a plaintive tone, and
stepping with awkward gait, till released, by acci-
dent, from trouble, or, in a few months after,
by the design of their owner. Common prejudice
ascribes this defect in later hatches, to an abridg-
ment of their summer ; but having bred an im-
mense number of fowls, and marked throughout
successive broods, a correspondence of the chicks,
at birth, with the gradual decline of the male bird,
I am able to speak with confidence on the sub-
ject.

Perhaps one of the finest illustrations of the
theory I am advocating, is that which the English
race horse affords. His nervous vigour so far
exceeds the amount required to keep in healthful
exercise the living body, that without the least
detriment to the natural functions, he can afford
to expend a vast superfluity in running. This
would, ci priori, warrant an assumption that he
would beget a proportionably vigorous offspring.
And so he does, in a nervous sense : but his figure

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

61

by no means answers to that which we require in
an animal intended for human sustenance . Even
muscularity, which constitutes his proudest fea-
ture, is, in a majority of instances, mainly acquired
by the training to which he is subjected. The
chest is not large enough to admit of his being
generally and plentifully covered with flesh. To
correct this fault it is necessary to moderate his
irritability, which would be best done by impos-
ing a little higher condition, together with corre-
sponding, but not distressing labour, on such as
are applied to the purposes of breeding. Instead
of the restless colt which now, too often, appears
with a loin like that of a donkey, we should have
a product after the form of Mr. Rounthwaite’s
Governess,* Mr. Batson's Plenipotentiary, and

* I have often desired to learn what character Mr. Rounthwaite’s
Governess sustained, in the capacity of brood mare. I am no sports-
man, as every one will believe when I say that I never caught a fish,
shot a bird or other animal, or bet a shilling on a coming event. But
I well remember witnessing what I considered to be an extraordinary
performance on the part of this mare at the Nottingham meeting of
1826. She first ran for the Macaroni stakes, two miles and a half,
carrying 11 st. 13 lb., against Mr. Charlton’s brown colt Bestwood,
and won easily. In half an hour afterwards, she contended against
Mr. Platel's ch. f. Conviction, and Mr. Trench’s b. g., by Ambo, for
the King’s plate, then a cruel race of four miles — heats, carrying
list. 71b., and although the weather was excessively hot (Aug. 3),
she seemed, by no means, distressed, after winning the first and second
heats. Her custom, it would appear, was to take the lead and keep
it; for she never suffered her competitors to approach her — and
I could not discover that her rider inflicted punishment in any form.

62

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

Mr. Houldsworth’s Vanish; and all that would
be demanded of the trainer, to preserve their
adaptation to the course, would be to enforce
exercise in proportion to the activity with which
the purposes of digestion should be answered.

Similar treatment would correct the form, and,
by lessening irritability, render more tractable
our Alderney cattle. Their fretfulness was ori-
ginally induced by the impoverished condition in
which they are kept upon the islands, whence
they are imported, and it has long since be-
come inveterate : so that when promoted to the
generous fare of our best rural establishments,
they are found difficult of management. All who
are intrusted with the care of Alderney bulls,
concur in their report, that after the first six or
eight months of the animal’s life shall have passed
away, an irritability supervenes, for which no
remedy can be found. His Grace the Duke of
Portland has long been in the habit of cultivating
this variety ; and when inspecting his herd, at
Welbeck, a few years ago, I was assured by the

She proceeded from Nottingham to V ork, where, in eight days after
her former achievements, she ran for the King’s plate, four miles,
heats — beating easily Mr. Haworth’s gr. m. by Comus, out of Mora,
and Lord Kelburne’s ch. f. Purity, by Octavian. She combined
nervous and physical requisites, in greater perfection than any other
mare T have seen.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

G3

bailiff in attendance, that he had never known a
quiet bull. On looking at two, over a low door,
which I was pleased to find a sufficient barrier
to more intimate communication, my ears were
stunned with the bellowing they set up. How-
ever desirable it may seem to bring them into
subjection, a serious obstacle, I fear, applies to
any attempt to improve their temper by augment-
ing the bulk of their carcase — since every step
we should take in the attainment of that object,
would be one lost to the interests of the dairy.

Having said thus much on the results of repro-
ductive intercourse, where nervous irritability
transcends physical aptitude, I will hasten to a
consideration of the subject, as it occurs, where
an opposite predominance obtains.

That a contrast is to be found, amongst mem-
bers of our own species, no less remarkable than
in the instance afforded by the blood-horse and
one of coarser variety, will be admitted by all who
observe the manners of a well-bred gentleman, as
distinguished from those of unpretending sim-
plicity. And without affecting to deny the in-
fluence of education, in exalting the character, it
is contended that no effort of art could advance to
equal distinction, individuals selected from each
of the two circles. An absorption of the best

64

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

faculties in manual labour, leaves those who are
doomed to live by such exercise, in too prostrate
a condition, to allow of their participating in the
common gaieties of life, or the pleasure of venery,
under circumstances however inviting, with that
zest which is characteristic of extreme cultivation.
The entire animal functions may be preserved in
their native integrity, and furnish indications of
health which they who “ sit in high places” might
envy ; but after all we recognize, in this form of
existence, an insusceptibility to impressions that
would hardly seem to comport with beings who
are destined, hereafter, to take on the intelligence
of angels. One unvarying round of daily toil,
alternating only with the whisperings of instinct,
marks their career, and reduces them, on each
returning eve, to the condition portrayed by Gray
in his inimitable elegy :

The ploughman homewavd plods his weary way.

Copulation, on the part of such men, is conducted
with little more than regard to mechanical usage —
so that for want of the requisite incitement to
commerce, the semen, though healthy in character,
fails to communicate that powerfully vital impulse
which is inherited in the event of a rapturous
embrace. The germ takes on a reproductive

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

65

action, and provided that the mother’s condition be
favourable to its developement, a bulky offspring
is eventually produced ; but all the processes of
foetal growth betray an economy of purpose that
can only be reconciled with deficiency of momen-
tum in the first instance. Bone, for example, which
is the meanest of all animal constituents, is largely
bestowed, and involves its possessor, in the ab-
sence of due nervous activity, in that unseemli-
ness of gait, for which people in the lower ranks
of life are remarkably conspicuous.*

Such also may be said of the old-fashioned
breed of cart-horses ; but were they, or the men
who drive them, promoted from the severer forms
of labour, that hold the best faculties in bondage,
to comparatively light, exhilirating, duties, their
descendants would present, after the lapse of a
few generations, both nervous and physical attri-
butes but distantly resembling their own.

It cannot have escaped the notice of practical
men that, though originating in a cause remote

* The force with which this rationale applies to a race of men,
said, by Mr. O’Connell, to be the “ finest peasantry in the world,” will
be seen on glancing, for a moment, at the moral and physical con-
dition of the Irish labourer. Subdued in spirit by servitude, low diet,
and priestly domination, he never, but when excited by whiskey, or
its equivalent in some form, attains to that elasticity of limb which
bespeaks a capacity for pleasure : hence the rudeness of his structure, as
exemplified particularly in respect of bone.

G6

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

from that of hard labour, bulls and other male
animals, whose form and quality it is desirable to
perpetuate, are occasionally to be met with, either
wholly devoid of sexual appetency, or partaking
of the faculty in so trifling a degree, as to be of
little worth to their owners. The cause is most
commonly referable to over-feeding of the parent
stock. In them, as in all animals that enjoy not
a great amount of nervous irritability, there is an
obvious tendency to fatten : but rarely do they
carry much flesh. Independently of their in-
efficiency as stock-getters, they, and their pos-
terity, are particularly liable to disease for that
modicum of vital principle, which scarcely allows

* It is here worthy of remark, how greatly an adherence to general
principles will serve us, in the investigation of science. The nervous
lassitude of our rural population, embracing as well the industrious
farmer as his servant, is a subject abounding with interest, alike to the
physician and the physiologist: for having to contend with the vicis-
situdes of climate, with the constant demand for concessions on the
part of decaying manufactures, and with those direct emissaries of the
devil, who deal out destruction by fire, such individuals are peculiarly
liable to some distressing form of mental association, in which ner-
vousness, according to the popular acceptation of the term, consists.
Thus farmers are observed to be habitually croaking: it is either too
hot or too cold, too wet or too dry, for their operations to be advan-
tageously conducted ; and were it not for the salutary influence of
pure air and exercise, a vast majority of this useful class of men would
be thoroughly hypochondriacal. And so are the dispensations of this
life equalized : every condition, along with pleasure, engenders cor-
roding pain ; and that which I sometimes think would make me the
happiest man in the world, might worry me with its endless cares.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

(J 7

the expenditure required, to carry out the scheme
of reproduction, soon fails to preserve its own
system in health, under the assaults to which it is
necessarily exposed. A red bull of this class,
bred by Mr. Whittaker, I believe, and sold at a
high price to the Marquis of Exeter, subsequently
fell into the hands of Mr. Walker, of Eastwood.
He was always more intent on filling his belly
than on answering to the invitation of cows : an
hour would be sometimes spent in coaxing him
to his work; and not unfrequently was he led
away, unable to comply with the demand upon
his services. His brisket, which was very de-
pending, was alleged by the herdsman, in the sim-
plicity of his heart, to incur so much difficulty in
being carried over a cow’s back, as to discourage
him in the attempt. He never got a truly good
calf, whilst in Mr. Walker’s possession ; and at
length taking on some ailment that rendered him
worthless in every capacity, he was sold, for a few
pounds, to one of the numerous candidates for
such a commodity, with which a town like Not-
tingham always abounds.

A friend of mine bought an in-calf heifer at
Mr. Maynard's sale, which, in due time, gave
birth to a bull calf, from whose services he ex-
pected to derive much profit. I was not so san-

TIIE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

08

guine about the issue — for his dam, though of
unexceptionable quality, betrayed a slight dispo-
sition to a defect, more frequently seen in pigs
and tame rabbits, than in any other class of do-
mestic animals, and which conveys to one’s mind
an impression, that a belt has encircled the chest,
and impeded its growth, whilst all other parts of
the body have been suffered to advance uninter-
ruptedly.* When a few months old, the infirmity

* To explain the cause of this anomaly has puzzled me exceedingly.
The fact that rest is essential to fattening, and that this deformity is
found only in those animals which are greatly disposed to fatten,
would make it appear that their ancestors have, whilst earning a repu-
tation for obesity, indulged much in a love of quiescence — that the
lungs not having, therefore, been so fully inflated, as in the case of
more irritable subjects, their investing parietes have conformed only
to the requirements exacted from them ; at the same time that nature
has enforced her demand, that, however unequally distributed, the
customary weight of carcase should be attained to. In awhile the
error has become inveterate ; and though exercise may have been im-
posed on their posterity, with a view to its correction, at the usual
period of invasion, a depression in the spine has been perceived,
immediately behind the shoulders, which has daily appeared more
palpable, till at last the body has seemed to be compounded of fore
and hind parts that would have well corresponded, but for a thoracic
constriction that has spoiled the effect. Every pig I have known to
he the subject of such malformation, has been derived from the stock
of some gentleman who has long been reputed for the excellence if
his breed. From out many instances, I may name that of four uncut,
well-bred, male pigs, lately bought by Mr. Edge, of Strelley, for the
purpose of being employed as boars, but which were all proscribed on
account of this fault.

I have thought it advisable to let the preceding note stand ; but
since writing it, I have devoted much time to the management of a
litter of pigs, for the first three months of their life, with a view to

T1IE SEXES CONSIDERED.

69

began to develope itself; and by such time as he
had reached maturity, he was as misshapen a

ascertain, if possible, tlie immediate cause of the derangement in
question. They were begotten of a thick-bodied, short-legged, mus-
cular boar, whose sire was equally good, but in whose family, on the
side of the female parent, there exists a predisposition to this evil —
out of a sow of extraordinary worth, which I happened to find in the
possession of a man who, being little aware of her intrinsic value, was
readily prevailed upon to part with her. So profusely was she covered
with bristles, that, but for her brightness of skin, and lightness of
bone, she would have been accounted coarse. Her courage was such
that, whilst in my hands, few men dared to approach her; and this
property, associated as it was, with unusual capaciousness of chest,
conferred upon her, what it ever will , a vast amount of flesh. Thus
constituted, I had little hesitation in predicting that she would com-
mand the physical character of the offspring ; and the anticipation was
further justified by the circumstance of the boar, to which she was put,
having had a greater number of female visitors, for some days pre-
viously, than was compatible with a maintenance of his native vigour.
She produced thirteen pigs, after her own fashion, one of which died
at birth — and two she subsequently lay upon. For though an excel-
lent nurse, she could not always dispose of herself to the advantage of
her young — her weight being computed at twenty-five stones, indepen-
dently of offal, at the time of farrowing. And it is worthy of mention
that, of this weight, she lost not a stone in suckling ten pigs, with
almost unexampled liberality, for the space of nine weeks — a circum-
stance I have never before known to occur, under any treatment, and
which can only be explained, by reference to that uncompromising
nervous faculty which, in addition to other services, promoted the
most perfect digestion of all she ate. Her offspring, though indi-
vidually small at birth, grew remarkably fast, as do generally those
which are descended from vigorous parents ; and at eight weeks old I
could have sold them for a sovereign each. But I wished to learn
whether I could superinduce, by errors in diet, such a disordered state
of the general health, as should impair the integrity of their figure.
They had hitherto been fed judiciously; hut now their appetites were
sated with redundant meals of rich and inappropriate food. The vital
power was thus unfairly taxed ; and soon, instead of warring with
each other, as they had previously done, they slunk, with tumid bellies

70

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

brute as any I have seen in the possession of a
distinguished breeder. Still was his quality good.
The cellular membrane (which butchers inflate in
the dead calf, to give a seeming plumpness to
their veal, and which furnishes a nidus for the
deposition of fat) was every where so abundant
as to impart to the hand, when passed along his
sides, a sensation like that which results from the
handling of blubber. But that was nearly all,

and uplifted loins, into their bed. Uneasiness forbidding an extension
of their limbs, a posture, common to the kangaroo and rabbit, was
assumed : they crouched upon their haunches, and bewailed, some-
times, in piteous tones, their sad engorgement. A penalty attached
to indigestion, in awhile, obtunded their desire for food; and whether
standing at the trough, or, in disgust, retiring, there was manifested
an instinctive effort to relax the coverings of the belly. Suspecting
sub-acute or chronic inflammation of the viscera, I purposely killed
one, when numerous contractions of the small, and some, too, of the
large, intestines, consequent on inflammation, were unveiled. The
hardiest of the litter suffered most from intestinal mischief : those
which inclined to premature obesity, gave evidence of scrofula-
The flesh they once enjoyed, became, in part, absorbed, and morbid
fatness followed. Increasing pallor marked the surface; and that
portion of the spine which, in rude health, extends a kindly arch
along the chest, fell in, and necessarily restricted, in their play, the
vital organs. Thus was a latent disposition to disease provoked to
active exercise : for though in form and constitution, all the family
submitted to experiment were good, no sooner were they, by the
means employed on many a farm, to expedite the growth of favourite
animals, reduced to that condition which belonged to the more deli-
cate of their ancestors, than the disease with which such weakness was
associated, supervened. I dare not, in a note, already much too long,
pursue the subject further ; and will, therefore, leave these observa-
tions to subserve, as best they may, the individual application of my
readers.

the sexes considered.

71

beyond common integument, that covered his
ribs ; whilst his flank was considered, as well by
his OAvner as myself, to be the heaviest we had
known— so partially was his carcase clothed. His
habit accorded more nearly with that of a cow
than of a bull : he had, therefore, not long fulfilled
the obligations of his sex, before chronic visceral
disease arose ; and the case proving hopeless, he
was eventually destroyed.

These two examples of defective vigour I
adduce, for the sake of showing the desirableness
of keeping in mind the characteristic distinction
of the sexes. Extreme fatness belongs not pro-
perly to the masculine gender. Men of that class
are rarely endowed with the power to serve them-
selves in emergency, — nay, they are hardly fitted
for the discharge of ordinary duties. If they
attempt to prosecute an idea, oblivion soon its
respite brings : under bodily labour they perspire
and flag most pitifully ; and not unfrequently,
Avhilst the consummation of venereal intercourse
is yet in prospective, are they tranquilly absorbed
in sleep. And the law which applies to them is
of universal prevalence. A disposition to secrete
fat rather than flesh, implies weakness, in the first
instance : for the highest point to be gained in
assimilation, particularly with herbivorous animals.

72

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

whose food contains none of that chemical consti-
tuent (nitrogen) with which muscle abounds, is the
conversion of aliment into flesh ; and those which
fall short of an ability to do that well, can make
fat, in as much as a conspicuous chemical element
of such product (carbon) exists abundantly in
vegetable matter.* And when any animal, origi-
nally, somewhat faulty, becomes loaded with fat, the
nervous system is exercised in so high a degree, to
preserve vitality, that no extraneous effort can,

* The argument still further prosecuted, will show why horses are
disposed to grow flesh, out of all proportion to fat, as compared with
cattle, sheep, and pigs. Their irritability, exceeding that of the other
animals I have named, prompts them to more vigorous exercise: that
induces a full and perfect respiration, which, next to food, is the most
valuable agent in the maintenance of irritability; since it not only
liberates the carbon acquired by the blood, in its circulation through-
out the system, and on the retention of which, stupor, and a corre-
sponding tendency to fatness would he incurred ; but it charges the
blood with an atmospheric principle, consisting mainly of nitrogen
(a property intimately identified with flesh), and fits it the better for
depositing muscular corpuscles. In the present state of physiological
science, the functions of respiration and cutaneous imbibition are but
imperfectly understood; but of their availableness to the purpose of
nutrition, we need require no better proof than is furnished in the
uniformly rubicund, muscular, character of butchers. To birds we
may also apply the same reasoning. Their mobility is owing to the
excess in which nervous irritability prevails. They have a rapid cir-
culation, and require a large pulmonary apparatus to purify the blood
as it flows: hence they are provided with lungs capacious in compari-
son of the entire animal bulk ; and so admirably does this conjoint
dispensation serve the interest of the feathered tribes, that, whilst it
affords them the utmost facilities for converting grain into flesh, in
the ordinary process of digestion, when food is plentiful, it enables
them to endure the multiplied ills inflicted bv the prevalence ol wintry
storms.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

73

in safety, be indulged. So surely as it is imposed,
as in the harass to which human subjects of this
class are occasionally subjected, paralysis, apo-
plexy, or some formidable disease, is the conse-
quence. Thus do we learn why bulls of the
character I have been describing, and even those
of still greater robustness, when pampered, are
slow to serve cows, and beget a feeble offspring at
best. Unlike the bloated publican, who nerves
himself to the task by artificial means, the bull
has only his native energies, sustained as they are
by natural food,* air, and exercise, to depend on :

* The subject of feeding is one of such vast importance to the farmer
and breeder, that I cannot forbear to indulge once more in a few
passing remarks. Food is tbe natural stimulus to the stomach, and is
provided by Nature, not simply to gratify the cravings of hunger, but
to repair, in the ultimate process of digestion, the waste to which
animal bodies are subjected, in the maintenance of vitality. Instinc-
tively do those classes which come not under the control of man, as
does man himself where civilization is unknown, seek the kind of
aliment to which they are expressly adapted by the Great Author of
their being ; and no appropriation of them to domestic purposes can
be profitably conducted which is not based on an attentive considera-
tion of their constitutional peculiarities and habits. Thus cattle
delight exceedingly to graze on old established pastures : and observa-
tion, directed to the fact, is not long in determining that the passion
owes its rise to the healthful variety in which the natural grasses are
intermingled in such fields, and to the consequent facility afforded for
the gratification of individual taste. The calf, which has scarcely yet
been practised iff the art of assimilating vegetable matter, lingers
awhile o’er each inviting plant, and crops the fairest; whilst those of
more ripened form tear off' the rampant blade, and season the meal
with spices drawn from acrid sources near. The most available of

74

TIIE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

a greater error can, therefore, scarcely be com-
mitted (and it is one into which men are very apt

these cordial resources are the several species of ranunculus (crow-
foot, or butter-cup, vulgarly), and the leaves of the earth, or pig-nut
(bunium bulbocustanum). In spring, when the grasses are extremely
succulent, these aromatics possess a pungency little short of the mus-
tard of commerce ; hut as they advance to maturity, they lose this
property, and, by drying, it is entirely dissipated. The design to be
fulfilled in these mutations is clearly discoverable, and is worthy alone
of Him whose are “ the cattle on a thousand hills.” The tendency of
succulent vegetables, that partake not of an aromatic principle, to
fermentation, when exposed to a heat like that which they encounter
in the living stomach, is so great, that, before the work of rumination
can he conducted, there is an evolution of gas which defies its further
progress. Stimulants possess not only the power to suspend fermenta-
tion for some time, but to quicken the stomach in the discharge of its
common duty. And of this herbivorous animals are so well aware,
that they will consume just so much crow-foot as is necessary to
obtain for them an efficient digestion. They commonly eat most
before retiring to rest at night, and, as if to throw off the lassitude
engendered by repose, when rising to renew the task of providing for
the day. To me it has often afforded interest, to watch their opera-
tions at such times. If a scarcity of the plant occur where a beast is
feeding, she soon repairs to another spot; and if she happen to seize
more than is wanted to impart the required flavour, by a dexterous
manoeuvre she conducts that which is dispensable to an angle of the
mouth, and thence lets it fall. As vegetation ripens, its watery par-
ticles give place to fibrous matter: the probability of fermentation,
therefore, is diminished ; and, of course, less condiment is needed for
protection. Hence the several families of the ranunculus are losing
their virulence at that period ; and by such time as grass has been con-
verted into hay, they have taken on the character of bland, nutritive,
products, that may be eaten without intermixture with other herbage.
We learn, then, in the school of Nature, that, in providing those sub-
stitutes for the natural grasses, which improved husbandry enjoins, as
well with a view to the interest of the soil, as to that of the stock
which subsist thereon, we ought to sow conjointly with clover, dills,
&c., the seed of crow-foot, or of some plant equally stimulating. For
want of this precaution, the effects of young clover on cattlearc often

75

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

*

to fall), than to select a male, because he has a
thin, soft, skin, adorned with fine, silk-like hair,

very distressing, though not more so than would result from the use of
spring grass, without the generous intervention I have alluded to.
Unfortunately, the mischief occasioned by a liberal employment of in-
sipid, juicy, vegetables is not confined to the stomach and its assistant
viscera: the nervous system, and, consequently, the entire animal
economy, sustains a shock, and that to so great an extent, that it is
no uncommon occurrence to find originally vigorous males emascu-
lated by the debilitating action of such food ; and, as though in anti-
cipation of injury, 1 have seen, on one farm, five bulls stand empty-
bellied, at the close of day, having each a manger well furnished with
clover, on being denied any longer a feast of cut grass. An apology
for the absence of aroma, in the substance of turnips, is found in the
biting qualities of their rind ; so that an inflation of the rumen, in a
beast, otherwise healthy, that is being fed upon turnips, is seldom to
be heard of ; whilst those to which a daily allowance of potatoes is
awarded, are commonly made sufferers from that cause. Twice has
this disaster befallen a cow of my own, from the employment of pota-
toes, beyond the extent to which they had been prescribed; and once
I nearly lost a valuable calf, at six months old, by giving it about a
quartern measure full, with a view to their aperient operation on the
bowels. Flatulent colic ensued, which was with difficulty relieved by
aromatics, anodynes, and a temporary clothing of flannel.

Unless they be sparingly administered, potatoes, when even boiled,
will purge young pigs excessively ; and may do more harm, by that
means, in a few hours, than well advised treatment can atone for, in
as many days. Perhaps the best mode of obviating their laxative ten-
dency, when given to pigs in a cooked form, is to combine them, as
custom sanctions, with some warm farinaceous matter, derived from
grain, as barley flour, with the addition of as much salt as is required
to impart an agreeable flavour. Without some corrective, the pro-
priety of lavishing potatoes on pigs may be very gravely questioned.
They are not a root on which these animals subsist, in a state of native
independency ; nor have they the properties in common with those
vegetables for which pigs have the greatest relish, as earth-nuts, clies-
nuts, acorns, fcc. These products have all a sweetish, sub-acrid taste,
and possess more or less astringency — a circumstance admirably adapt-
ing them to the constitutional demands of the aniinal, which are at

76

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

*

and is well provided with fat upon his hips and
rump. For since it is undeniable that the basis of

variance with relaxants generally. I have long suspected the sow's
milk to be slightly astringent: it conveys such impression toiny own
taste; and the remarkably constipated condition of the healthiest
sucking pigs, would still further appear to warrant the supposition.
My argument that potatoes, in the abstract, are not well suited to the
temperament of pigs, rests not merely on the little affinity they bear to
those articles which the animal prefers to live on: it gains consider-
able strength from the manner in which raw, unwashed, potatoes are
treated by pigs. If they be thrown down to one accustomed to such
food, and their size admit of being received into the mouth entire, he
takes up each in turn, and rolls it lightly over his tongue, by which
means any little cakes of dirt that may be found adhering, are dislodged
and ejected by tbe mouth; at the same time that this action excites
an immediate and profuse flow of saliva, with which the chief of the
remaining dirt is literally washed off. The potatoe is then consigned to
the grinders ; and much of its juice having been first allowed to escape,
the remainder is swallowed along with the body of the fruit. Now
why this instinctive elaboration, before committing to the stomach,
what, as an article of food, is almost universally thought to be appli-
cable to him? Not the cleanly habits of the animal, which forbid an
intermixture of siliceous matter with his ingesta. The presence of
grit would seem to be essential to a healthy action of his stomach and
bowels; and it is often eagerly sought, in the form of coal, cinders,
sand-stone, &c. : but the combined influence of a cold, watery, vapid
root, and its encircling earth, is more than he can profitably entertain ;
and with a tact, therefore, which would appear to denote a glimmer-
ing of reason, does he reject all that is truly superfluous. This seeming
distaste for unsavory food, which is borne out by the greater avidity
with which a pig will eat apples, lettuce, and the pods of green peas
than those of broad, and French, beans, or even cabbage, should suggest
to our minds, particularly when taken in connection with the imper-
meable character of its skin, the impolicy of administering its food in
a very diluted form. But I must conclude this article: already has
the interest attached to the subject led me to trespass on the patience
of my readers further than I had contemplated in the outset, and
enough has surely been said to prove that, if we are to excel in the
management of inferior animals, we must closely study the constitu-
tional peculiarities and habits of those we engage to treat.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

77

animal usefulness consists in a possession of due
nervous irritability, the breeder’s interest obviously
lies in the choice of such as combine this attribute
with a beautiful arrangement of bodily structure ;
and not once, out of twenty instances, will he find
the features I have recently enumerated, in con-
nection with extreme muscularity and good
courage.

The inertness which I have shown to be con-
stitutional in males, whose disposition to obesity
is in excess, supervenes on even the most vigo-
rous, if applied to the purposes of procreation,
beyond the period allotted by Nature, for an effi-
cient discharge of that function. To compute, by
time, when males of any species should be with-
drawn from service, would be impossible ; since
those which are entitled to rank in the first class,
will differ materially in their powers of endurance,
under like treatment. And when to this original
difference, is added that which individual manage-
ment involves, the difficulty of proscribing an
animal, in justice, on the score of years, will be
obvious enough. Indefinitely, it may be said that
the close of usefulness in a good bull, ranges
between the seventh and tenth years of his age, —
and, in a boar, between the third and fifth. But

78

the relative influence of

the only correct mode of settling the question, is
by reference to the manner and appearance of the
animal employed. If he be one of high, and just,
pretensions — say, a bull, and have been suffered,
as most assuredly he ought, from his birth up-
wards, to carry as much condition as is compatible
with activity and cheerfulness, he will be found
about the fourth or fifth year, probably sooner,
disposed to fatten more than formerly : where
little beyond flesh has been felt aforetime, fat is
now discoverable. In those of very high courage,
that are somewhat difficult of control, this period
will be protracted yet further ; and about the
sixth or seventh year, a degree of ripeness, unob-
served before, will arise. It now behoves his
owner, provided that he still wish to retain him for
procreation, to notice in what mood he entertains
the other sex. If he look with comparative indif-
ference on a cow in season, and refuse, for some
time, to answer the call of his attendant, the vital
principle is being consumed as fast as it is engen-
dered, in the maintenance of his carcase, and none
can be expended in propagation, without endan-
gering the issue.

The case is not unfrequently paralleled in those
of our own species, — as when a man of good con-

THE SEXI-S CONSID EKED.

79

stitution, at fifty, grows lazy and fat. The intel-
ligence he once possessed begins to desert him ;
and all other faculties, dependent on nervous irri-
tability, in like manner become blunted— until his
energies proving insufficient to command a health-
ful state of mere animal existence, visceral disease
makes inroads on his frame, or one of the more
frightful forms of nervous affliction removes him
from the living. And instances are not wanting
in the class of animals to which my observations
more immediately refer, to make the parallel com-
plete. The celebrated bull Shakspeare, of the
long horns, is reported to have fallen a prey to
paralysis, when ten years old ; and Earl Spencer’s
bull Firby, rendered deservedly famous by the
notice he has received in the Society’s popular
treatise on Cattle, was the subject of incipient
paralysis, at about the same age, when I saw him
at Wiseton a few years ago.

To guard against a seizure of this kind, in the
subject before us, the most valuable agents in the
preservation of nervous irritability should be had
recourse to. Daily exercise, proportioned to his
strength, away from home, so that his attention
may be directed to fresh objects, should be en-
forced ; and a diet, somewhat more stimulating
but less nutritive, than that to which he has

80

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

been accustomed, should be chosen. If, under
such treatment, his bowels remain torpid, and his
dung preserve an immoderate consistency, the
proprietor may rest assured that his symptoms
augur badly. He is yet too enervated to admit
of being advantageously employed ; and along with
an occasional purgative, the best of which, in his
case, is croton oil, bleeding may be instituted, pro-
vided that the jugular vein can be got at. Should
these means succeed in restoring the tone of the
system, he may be introduced afresh to cows,
taking care to premise that they are shown to him
in a situation remote from that in which his inter-
views have been previously conducted ; so that,
if possible, a new and more pleasurable train of
association may be established. But should the
lethargy continue, in spite of all efforts at redemp-
tion, it were better that he be consigned to the
butcher, than that additional pains be taken to
bolster up a declining constitution. For I care
not what may be his appearance : he may look as
he did when younger ; yet will his stock inherit
more bone than formerly, and be otherwise devoid
of beauty. In the season of earlier growth, when
the work of animal deposition, absorption, and
rearrangement is fast progressing, the institution
of a generative faculty is withheld : but the model-

the sexes considered.

81

ling and perfecting of the system having been, for
the most part, accomplished, the flame of venereal
passion begins, and continues to burn with ardour
proportioned to individual temperament, and the
force of exciting causes, till fleshly incentives lose
their charm, and infirmities announce that the
proudest characteristic of the sex is fading. Indeed
all nature attests that to life belongs a constant
succession of changes, involving either physical
developement or decline ; and it is unreasonable
to expect from an individual, when the tide of
vigour is receding, those services which were once
efficiently bestowed.

I know, from extensive dealings with agricul-
turists, that, on this point, I shall be found to
differ from many supposed authorities. It will
be expected, therefore, that I shall support my
opinion with proof. I will do so. A very dis-
tinguished breeder of my acquaintance purchased
at Mr. Mason’s sale, a three-year-old roan bull, of
singularly fortunate shape and quality, which, on
account of his rare merit as a stock-getter, he
kept upon his farm six years.* When contem-

' I have here, unfortunately, to content! more with individual
prejudice than with the difficulties attachable to my subject. If I
publish the name of my friend, in connection with the following
detail, I shall offend him : and whichever way I turn, an objection is

6

82

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

plating his destruction, I put to him a light-fleshed
cow, of mild, languishing, countenance — just such
a beast as might be expected to impose on the
bull an ample share of generative responsibility
And that this was, indeed, her custom, is proved
by the fact, that four calves which she bred, whilst
in my possession, were all males, and partook
mainly of the character of their sires. On the
occasion I allude to, much difficulty was expe-
rienced in coaxing the old bull (for he was very
heavy withal) to fulfil the office assigned to him.
Eventually this was accomplished ; and in 282
days the cow produced a big, clumsy, ill-shaped,
bull calf. To rear him I knew would be to incur
a very serious cost, in the heart of a manufac-
turing town, where all landed commodities fetch
an exorbitant price. Besides, I had engaged, in
addition to the first charge of two guineas for
bulling, to pay five more, in the event of a male
issue that should be appropriated to masculine

raised to the announcement of facts that can, by possibility, be con-
strued to the disadvantage of those who are personally interested in
them. It is this dread of fair discussion that has tended, more than
any other cause, to check the diffusion of practical knowledge. I re-
gret its prevalence; but having no intention to abuse the privileges 1
have long enjoyed on the farm of the gentleman in question, I must
beg the reader’s acceptance of this, and a few subsequent, illustrations,
in the disguised form which I feel compelled reluctantly to adopt.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

83

purposes. As experiment, however, was my
object, I considered that the money I should thus
lay out would be well applied, and undertook
therefore, my task in good spirit. From the period
of his birth (November) to the ensuing May, he
was confined in a shed with his dam, and allowed,
so soon as his wants impelled him, to take all the
milk she secreted; and in the exercise of that
function she had few rivals. They were then,
for three months, both turned into a rich field of
an acre and a half, where no intrusion on their re-
tirement occurred, save that which arose from a
morning and evening visit, paid to them by my-
self, with as much regularity as opportunity would
allow. The calf was now weaned ; and at the end
of fifteen months, he was introduced to a few
cows. Shortly afterwards I castrated him ; and
having grazed him during part of the following
summer, in Wilford pasture (a piece of rich feed-
ing land, provided with a stream of good water),
along with eleven cows, I submitted him to
slaughter.

It may excite surprise that I should have re-
sorted to this alternative, instead of keeping him
entire, or selling him in that state for the benefit
of another, after incurring so much expense in the
first instance. My reason for so doing was founded
on a belief that he would be no valuable acquisition

84

THE relative influence of

to a purchaser, though preferable to scores I have
seen in the hands of English farmers. I reared
him not from any fanciful or misconceived notion
ol his importance, but because the contemplation
of his figure and history tended to establish many
views I had entertained on the subject of breeding.
His faults, which were obvious at birth, “grew
with his growth,” and afforded a memorable proof,
in addition to many others I could adduce, of the
impracticability of maturing a good beast from an
originally defective calf.* His issue, again, gave

* This observation applies no less to a calf of high-sounding pedi-
gree than to one of professedly mean birth. Function is an inherent
and essential attribute of structure; and, in health, one stands to the
other, in the relation of effect to cause. A defective form, then,
whether generally or locally considered, involves, in the abstract, a
correspondingly defective action ; and though that subtle agent which
we recognize when speaking in terms of “nervous,’’ or “vital in-
fluence,” “spirit,” “pluck,” “mettle,” &c., may serve to give effi-
ciency to what would otherwise be reckoned wholly, or, in part, of
little worth, it never can invest a faulty animal base with much flesh
or fat, or correct errors arising from local imperfections of structure.
Practised dealers, in conducting their purchases of stock, are always
found to hear ample testimony to the truth of this remark ; and to
tell one of them, when offering a cow, or a horse, of contracted chest,
for sale, that it will acquire robustness, on being introduced to “ good
keep;” or that a habit of “cutting,” in the latter, has been contracted
by bad shoeing, is to incur the certainty of being laughed at. It is
only when engaged, in selling that he adopts those views. The policy of
such men affords a remarkable contrast with that of another class,
who, without any well-digested ideas of structure, deem every animal
of great value that is reputed to be of good descent. I remember

seeing a young bull in the possession of Mr. W , of L , in this

county, when that gentleman was attempting, a few years since, to
cultivate short-horned cattle, that was much admired by many; and

the sexes considered.

85

authority for much that has fallen from me in con-
demnation of bulls which, though once good,

being asked ray opinion of his merit, I referred to his general want of
room in the chest, as indicated in the precipitate descent of the ribs,
and indented figure of the plates, which allowed the elbows to
retire, and the shoulder points (humero-seapular articulation) cor-
respondingly to protrude, in support of an intimation that he could
never carry a great quantity of flesh, and could, therefore, con-
tribute little to the reputation of a breeder. So soon as he could
brave the shock inflicted by this unexpected announcement, the man
in charge of him begged to submit that, though my theory might
deservedly apply to cattle of meaner origin, it could have no weight
in respect to the one in question, whose dam had been purchased at a
very considerable sum, purely on account of her exemption from in-
termixture with base blood. Besides, added he, with the characteristic
simplicity of inexperience, the imperfections to which you allude will
be no longer discoverable, when the bull shall have attained mature
growth. At present he is young, and, possibly, wanting in the girth ;
but see him again in a twelvemonth, when he shall have had some good
keep, and you will hardly know him. The practical authority will
here discover that this poor fellow echoed the story told, in extenua-
tion of a bad form, by every novice, whose observation has not taught
him that a calf, at any period of its age, under a generous diet, pre-
sents an accurate miniature representation of the full-grown beast, —
that the proportions manifested in early life advance pretty uniformly
with each other throughout the successive stages of developenient ;
and that, consequently, what appears to be a trifling defect at first,
assumes ultimately a much more objectionable character. The owner
of the bull to which I have just adverted, refused to take 50 guineas
for him, when a few weeks old, of a gentleman then .about to engage
in alike pursuit, though intrinsically worth no more than 11. when
1 saw him at the age of six months. A ginger-col oui’ed bull calf, about
a fortnight old, without one good property, I remarked, at the same
time, to be worthless, except for the amount of veal it might furnish,
and advised its being set apart for that purpose. “Oh!” I was
answered, “it would not do to dispose of the breed in that manner;
in colour this calf resembled the famous bull ‘ Hubback,’ and if well
reared, he might possibly beget as good stock.” To all “ pure blood”
advocates I would say — “ pedigree” deserves only to be regarded so
long as the “ unities" are well maintained.

86

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

shall have become venerable by time ; for they
were all “ weedy,” and had they been otherwise,
they must have owed their merit, remotely, to his
sire, since his dam was of mean extraction ; and
every cow to which her son was put was equally
so, being the property of poor milk-men of the
town. Lastly, I would observe, that the sexual
privation inflicted on this young bull, enabled me
to determine why the operation should be per-
formed before the generative faculty is attained
to. When, afterwards, he was allowed to roam
promiscuously with cows, his custom was to com-
panion one awhile, and mourn with her, in silent
converse, the ills that had been perpetrated on
him.

Her sympathies enkindled did but serve
To swell his anguish ; for whilst favoured thus,

Associate joys would vividly recur,

And, prompting weak and impotent desires,

Provoke the stern repulse —

Unless proud Nature should, in fitful mood.

Have fired the heart with keen erotic glow, —

As when the genial showers profusely fall,

And rise like incense o’er the fertile mead :

Then would his suit be rapturously embraced —

And if not unremittingly pursued,

Insatiate lust would goad him to the task,

Till forced into submission, or compelled
To seek repose beneath the distant shade
Of friendly hawthorn. Thither would lie steal,

Preferring to beguile the tedious hours
In moody solitude, than stand the brunt

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

87

Of unrequited love. Constrained by want,

At length to move abroad, his loitering step
Marked first the bounding fence, on which he browsed :
Then daring, softly, to approach the herd,

Me joined in their repast. Sometimes, at once,

And less involving coyness of demean,

Would friendship be restored. A common foe,
Announced in latrant tone, or piercing dart
Of swift-winged oestrus,* would soon reconcile

* Few eusas'ements afford so much solid instruction as that which
seeks to determine, by reference to the instinctive operations of ani-
mals, the purposes they are designed to answer in the boundless eco-
nomy of Nature. Every class is appointed to the discharge of a
specific function, or otherwise contributes, to the promotion of man’s
interest, without exception, even, to the countless tribes of insects,
that load with atomic life the vernal air. Yet not unfrequently does
it happen, as in the instance of the gad-fly (oestrus bovis), that com-
plaint is made of those to which we are largely indebted. By such
time as this little animal emerges from its chrysalis, in the form of a
fly, the grasses have, for the most part, ripened, and the cattle thereon
are thriving with a rapidity that endangers health. Their stomachs
being quickly filled with available food, repose is sought : but now
alights the female oestrus on the back of one, which throws the whole
herd into confusion, and away they start in the vain hope of escape
from their assailant. All this while does their troublesome visitor
proceed from one beast to another, piercing them where best she can
avoid the lashing of their tails, and depositing, in each puncture, the
germ of a future insect: and thus is congestion obviated, which, in
the most plethoric of these animals, would be pretty sure to super-
vene on habitual quietude. The season passes over ; and the gad-fly,
having executed its mission, dies on the field where, in transport, it
has lived. Winter comes ; and the risk of repletion having declined,
“ the lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,” exposed, in no wise, to
foreign aggression. But on the approach of spring, the embryon
insects, which have hitherto been nurtured with little or no inconve-
nience, advance rapidly in growth, occasioning uneasiness, and afford-
ing indications of their seat in noduli, disposed along the sufferers’
backs. Presently the cattle arc turned to grass, when a vast acces-

88

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

The angry pair (as will a neighbouring fire,

That threatens to invade our peaceful home,

Bring those in friendly contact who, for years,

Have been estranged), and blend, in common cause,
The startled herd, to fly, or to defend
Themselves from harm. Or haply, whilst in dudgeon
He remained, the season for refreshment
Would arrive, when, following in the rear
Of those whom Nature summoned to the feast,

Might he be seen, intent (as oft is man,

In draughts less pure) on finding from all ills
A sweet release. Another treaty formed

sion of nervous vigour propels the blood universally to the surface,
and stimulates every organ to redundant secretion. In so far as the
viscera are concerned, this additional labour is commonly well sus-
tained. The part most endangered is the cellular, or sub-cutaneous
tissue (on the comparative amount of which we determine the capacity
of an animal for fattening), and for this reason: it is but scantily
endowed with nervous sensibility ; and, when urged, in common with
other structures, to excessive action, the balance between secretion
and absorption is soon lost, and an accumulation of serum follows.
In other words, inflammation — precisely similar to that which we wit-
ness in lymphatic subjects of our own species, when addicted to irre-
gularities, is the consequence. But now comes into view the remedy
provided by nature in this case. The larvae are all deriving support
from the cellular tissue, independently of the irritation they individually
establish ; and by thus serving as diverticula for the exuberant animal
juices, they preserve the subjects of local inconvenience from consti-
tutional injury r A conviction of the benefit attached to this bounti-
ful institution led men, no doubt, originally, to introduce a seton in
the dew-lap, on turning out, to spring grass, cattle that were free
from warbles ; and the custom has been very judiciously perpetuated
down to our own time. Through non-observance of it, I once lost
an excellent calf, and should have lost also a cow, but for the
timely employment of free incisions, after the manner advised by
Mr. Lawrence, in erysipelas of the human subject, I would just add
— it is on the same principle that medical men practise counter-irrita-
tion, in form of seton, issue, &c., both in a curative, and preventive,

sense.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

89

Was but the harbinger of future woe:

And thus one constant, ever varying, round
Of pain and pleasure, robbed him of the flesh
He once enjoyed, and made him barely meet
For human food.*

In a few days after the bull, whose history I
have just given, had been conceived, a public sale
of short-horns, the property of Major Bower, of
Welliam, in Yorkshire, took place. The circum-
stance of this gentleman being known to have
started with cattle derived immediately from
Charles Colling’s stock, together with the exten-
sive publicity given to the intended sale, secured
an attendance of many distinguished breeders and
admirers of short-horns. They had, however, the
mortification to learn that the animals submitted
to competition were, by no means, worthy of
their predecessors, or of the representation made
of them, by advertisement and circular. The

* An apology is, perhaps, due, for having related in verse what,
some may think, would have been far better told in prose. I assure
all who shall demur that, if I could have met their wishes, I should
have been glad to do so. For two days I attempted a simple prosaic
narrative, but always sunk beneath the subject ; and was at length
compelled, in my desire to avoid vulgarity, to adopt a more lofty
style. And now 1 am disposed to believe that several passages,
involving extreme delicacy of sentiment, would have been more ap-
propriately given in a like manner. The only objection I can discover
to such a course is— that the work might have been rendered some-
what less generally intelligible than in its present form.

90

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

principal buyers consisted of gentlemen about to
embark in the practice of breeding ; amongst
whom was one from the neighbourhood of Not-
tingham, who, having possessed himself of nine or
ten cows and heifers, at prices, varying, I believe,
from eleven to thirty guineas each, returned home
with a determination to purchase the best short-
horn bull he could procure. Regardless of age,
he bought the animal to which my cow had just
before been introduced — already slow to cover, as
previously intimated ; and now rendered still more
inert by change of residence and custody. Occa-
sionally it was found necessary to send for his
former attendant, before a cow could be served ;
whereupon his proprietor resolved to reduce his
weight, then amounting to 164 stones. This was
accordingly done, to the extent of about 20 stones,
without effecting any material change in the bull’s
disposition. Indeed the work of deterioration,
which had been for some time past in progress,
was thus well nigh consummated. He was no
longer what he had been, either in physical bulk
or in spirit ; and though not absolutely " power-
less his kind to gender,” how was he to communi-
cate to his posterity properties which, in himself,
had fallen into decay? Animal bodies are all
resolvable into elementary particles, whose indi-

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

91

vidual bulk preserve a just ratio to the texture
they compose, and the magnitude of the system
with which they are identified.* Thus, the ulti-
mate corpuscles of muscular fibre (which consist
of the red globules of the blood, under some slight
modification) vary with the size and condition of
the subject, and the application of the members to
which they respectively contribute. They are
bolder in the larger class of animals than in

* Throughout nature it is observable that the component particles
of matter are minute and dense, in proportion to the scarcity with
which they are dispensed — and vice versa. In so far as animal organi-
zation is concerned, such arrangement is productive of immeasurable
advantages. The faculty of prehension, for instance, demands a
lightness and mobility of the members exercised, along with a power
of resistance equal to that employed in their direction. These requi-
sites we enjoy in the construction of our hands and feet — associating
as they do, by means of ligament, a numerous phalanx of small bones,
to which are distributed, apparently delicate, but powerful, tendons,
equivalent to the task imposed on them by the flexor and extensor
muscles, whose interests they subserve. In the membranous expan-
sion, moreover, by which the muscles are kept in situ, during their
most vigorous contraction, the principle is exemplified ; as also in the
greater hardness of small, than of correspondingly large, bones. The
skin enveloping the extremities of cattle is another illustration. It
is thinner below the knee than on the neck — but is far less permeable
to moisture; though yielding more readily to the knife, for the reason
that moderately hard substances are more easily acted upon than are
those of spongy character. In the vegetable kingdom the same law
obtains. Trees that are of rapid growth, as willows and pines, are of
looser texture than such as are slowly matured. The stunted hedge-
row oak is harder than that which grows in fellowship with others.
The mineral kingdom furnishes additional examples. Iron, which is
plentifully discoverable, is more porous than silver, silver than gold,
gold than platina.

92

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

smaller ol the same species, as, by the same law,
they are bolder in one part of an animal than in
another. Hence the preference due to a Scottish
bullock over our boasted short-horn, and to South-
down mutton over that of Lincolnshire ; as also to
a sirloin of beef over the neck or shoulder of the
same beast. And as by primitive constituents, so
by ostensible products. The semen is a type of the
entire system ; and I doubt not, if that which was
secreted by this bull had been subjected to mi-
croscopical investigation, both before and after
his loss of flesh was sustained, it would have been
found to differ considerably in character. And so
exactly did the result of reproductive exercise
comport with the description I am giving of his
infirmity, that, though reputed, in his earlier
days, to have begotten some of the finest stock in
the kingdom, he did not get, when put to ordi-
nary cows, one truly good calf, during the two
years this gentleman kept him. The speculation
failing, he was sold by auction, along with all that
had descended from him, whilst on this estate, and
shortly afterwards died.

Less fortunately for Mr. than for the inte-

rest of science, his place was supplied by another
hull (I}*********), equally antiquated, and which, at
no period of life, had possessed the constitution of

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

93

the former. He was hired for twelve months, at a
considerable cost ; and as he was well known to
many breeders of the North, and greatly approved
by some, it may not be amiss to state, in this place,
the ground of my objection to him. He was
extravagantly large; and, like most huge animals,
wanted symmetry. His skin was soft and thin ;
and his hair excessively fine and silky in appear-
ance. Of cellular membrane he had a profusion ;
but of flesh he had no more than was needed to
conduct so large a frame through the mechanical
duties attached to his position on the farm. Origi-
nally he had more : though I contend that his mus-
cularity never could have entitled him to rank with
those of the first class — his habit inclining rather
to a secretion of fat than lean. The high price
at which he was let, together with the sum for
which he was sold, at the conclusion of his engage-
ment with Mr. , would, I am aware, hardly

seem to justify the opinion I am giving. But
such considerations weigh lightly with me, when
opposed to the authority of physiological truth.
There is too great a leaning on the part of breeders
to animals in which fat superabounds ; and I have
known them often to indulge their prejudice, at
a greater outlay than has been commensurate with
either their own or the public interest. Whether

94

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

the attenuated form in which this bull was im-
ported to was the result of natural decline,

or of human contrivance, I know not : but con-
scious of the disappointment that his introduction
would occasion, I endeavoured, in so far as pru-
dence would allow, to dissuade this gentleman from
using him. My efforts, however, were unavailing :
having engaged the animal’s services, he deter-
mined on submitting them to trial ; and ill indeed
did the experiment reward him. The vital prin-
ciple was so sparingly bestowed, that few calves
survived their birth many hours ; and those which
lived yet longer, had little to recommend them to
notice.* This last, and signal, failure induced

Mr. to relinquish a pursuit, in which he had

profitlessly embarked several thousand pounds.
For it is worthy of remark that, during the few

* The reader will perceive how well this result justifies the caution
given by Virgil in the following passage, which, though having im-
mediate reference to the stallion, is no less applicable to the bull :

Frigidus in Venerein senior, frustraque laborem
Ingratuin trahit: et, si quando ad prselia venturn est,

Ut quondam in stipulis magnus sine viribus ignis,

Jncassum furit. Georg, iii. 97.

For when his blood no youthful spirits move,

He languishes and labours in his love.

And when the sprightly seed should swiftly come,

Dribbling he drudges, and defrauds the womb.

In vain he burns like hasty stubble fires ;

And in himself his former self requires. Dryden.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

95

years he was thus unsuccessfully occupied, he
made very extensive purchases of cows, at prices,
varying from those at which he started to 220
guineas, each, some of which were put to this
bull : but, as though by common consent, they
imposed on him the entire procreative responsi-
bility; and he discharged his function in the
manner I have just set forth. Here, then, is the
evidence on which I establish my objection to the
use of bulls whose constitutional energies are on
the wane.

I have intimated above, that extravagantly large
animals are rarely symmetrical ; and having pre-
viously maintained that functional integrity pre-
vails only in a degree corresponding to that of
structure, whether viewed in a general or local
sense, it follows that very large males are not the
best adapted to purposes of procreation. To prove
it, I must invite attention to the fact, that the
nervous principle which pervades and governs
animal bodies, is active in proportion to the supply
originally conferred, and the extent of exercise
which it is called upon to endure. If, then, two
bulls inherit, each, a like quantum of nervous
vigour, and one attain to a much larger size than
another, the larger will preserve an habitual slug-
gishness, and the smaller an habitual activity.

96

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

The superintending power which; in one instance,
is barely sufficient to keep every faculty in health,
is, in the other, more than enough for the accom-
plishment of the same end. By imposing on this
subtle agent an additional burthen, as by fatten-
ing him, or exacting from him an unreasonable
amount of labour, the spirit of the little bull may
be reduced to the standard of its fellow. But
under similar treatment, he will command a more
healthful condition of body, and be better fitted
to engage in extraneous efforts.* An unusually

*Thus is it that we account for the fact that a man, weighing 16
stones, however hardy he may be, rarely contends successfully in the
prize-ring against one that is somewhat lighter, — that the heavy
Lincolnshire dray-horse moves with more sluggishness than does the
Suffolk punch, — that the ordinary roadster steps more slowly than the
Welsh poney, — and that even a race horse of the largest class strides
with less frequency than one of moderate size. There is so much
more nervous energy required, to enable the larger animal to direct
its extremities, under the mechanical disadvantages incurred, — so much
more, again, needed, to qualify the heart for propelling its blood to
the extreme surface, and to conduct, in due order, the entire economy',
that, were it possible for such animal, under pressing necessity, to
maintain the quick action of the smaller (their constitutional vigour
being alike), the heart, or some important viscus, would lose its
stimulus to exertion, and the sufferer, probably, fall dead in the
struggle. The force of this construction will appear the more obvious
after further illustration. I will suppose, therefore, a long, and a
short-legged horse, of like spirit, and having, relatively, the same
volume of chest, to be worked together. In performing his part, the
long-legged animal will expend so much more vital principle than
his companion, that, provided their labour be severe, he will scarcely
be able to reserve enough, to command a healthful exercise of the
natural functions. Under circumstances but little affecting the vigour

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

97

large bull, then, we commonly observe to fall short
of the condition which even the figure of his trunk

of the short-legged horse, he will quite fail to do so. An urgent
demand on his services will deprive the stomach, in common with
other organs, of its tone; and, until the various causes which contri-
bute to the invigoration of the system shall have engendered a fresh
supply, he will refuse his food, as we ourselves are accustomed to do,
when the physical powers have been taxed in too high a degree. In
general he will eat more than his associate; for the greater “ wear
and tear ” incurred by him, will demand of digestion a corresponding
repair; but owing to nervous insufficiency on the part of the viscera
concerned in this process, a considerable portion of his food will pass
through the bowels in an unassimilated form. So that whilst imposing
on his owner a greater expense than the short-legged horse, he will
appear in much the worse condition. A few years ago, a gentleman
of Nottingham gave 40 1. for what he thought to he a promising two-
year-old, half-bred, colt, which he kept unemployed till four years
old ; and finding him then to exceed sixteen hands, he deemed it
advisable to take him to work. He now soon discovered his mistake.
The horse could not travel five miles without fatigue, though con-
suming an almost incredible quantity of corn. He was therefore sent
to livery for disposal ; and none of “ the trade’’ approving him, a
purchaser was found at the sum of 16 1. in the person of a bleacher,
who employs him to draw a van in the neighbourhood. Experienced
dealers are well aware of the danger of a half-bred hackney growing
too big. “ A nice horse that will make in a year or two,” may some-
times he heard to proceed from one to another. “ Aye,” — is not

uncommonly the reply; “ I should like him if he does not grow into too
much, of a horse.'' There is a vast deal implied in that short colloquy :
but I am again exceeding the bounds usually prescribed to an illus-
trative note. I may, however, be permitted to add that, if followed
out in principle, the question I have ventured thus lightly to treat,
would he found to involve many interesting considerations in relation
to our own species. There are few localities inhabited by man, that
do not furnish some pitiful instances of physical delicacy, as indicated
in extravagant length and slenderness of limb. My attention was, in
early life, greatly diverted from other and more appropriate studies,
by a curious specimen that occurred in one of two brothers, who
journeyed with me daily to school, about three miles distant from the

7'

98

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

would seem to promise, for want of more nervous
energy to sustain the system, under the physical

village in which we lived. He was a hungry-looking, long-jointed, lad,
the very counterpart of “ Noah Claypole.” Nor did his looks deceive
the most speculative observer; for he could eat as never lad did beside
him. His mother was an indulgent creature: having provided a
commodious receptacle for food, made after the fashion of a domestic
clothes basket, but not quite so large, her next pleasure was to fill it,
whensoever its interior bespoke a necessity for her doing so, which
was once in twenty-four hours. The prevailing repast consisted of a
“ boiling” of potatoes, interspersed with fragments of bacon, which
the youths preferred to convey by means of a stick, to which their
basket, with its contents, was suspended. It was always matter of
complaint with him whose consumption exceeded not that of other
boys, that he should be compelled to carry half the provision ; and he
would endeavour, occasionally, to shove the basket handle beyond the
notch which, by parental authority, had been indented on the middle of
the rod. If foiled in the attempt, his next contrivance was to get in
advance of the starveling, and importune him to come up with the load
— a request which the latter always avowed the utmost willingness to
comply with, on condition that he be first allowed the privilege of trans-
lating it to his own stomach. An insatiable appetite, however, belongs
not to all of this class : and though bodily infirmity be their’s, it is com-
monly atoned for by the success with which they prosecute intellectual
labours. Engendered not intemperately — but when neither animal
nor nervous faculties immoderately prevail, they inherit a disposition
that fits them for calmly and patiently investigating whatever they
undertake to acquire. In imagination they rarely shine ; but for
research, and legitimate induction, they are pre-eminently distin-
guished. Men, so constituted and exercised, look with comparative in-
difference on women. The tide of love, in them, flows not in impetuous
streams : it faintly issues — and, in many a pair, blights the fond hope
of marriage. To the same cause is the frequent extinction of the blood
of men to be referred, whose nervous excitability far transcends that
of the class to which I have just alluded. Their energies are wholly,
or for the most part, absorbed by their favourite study; and they dis-
regard the opposite sex entirely, or, at best, are able to infuse but a
trifling amount of vigour into their offspring. Bacon, Locke, Newton,
Pope, Swift, Hume, Gibbon, Cowper, Gray, Walpole, Bolingbroke,

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

99

disabilities attached to it. And exactly in keeping
with this outward demonstration of weakness, is
his inability to mature a healthful quality of
semen. Of necessity, therefore, when taking pre-
cedence of the female in copulation, will his huge,
spare, and ill-governed form be communicated to
the offspring. In the event of his deferring to the
female, an inheritance of his disposition, in some
wise, will be likely to reproduce his figure in the
next generation, as is continually being witnessed
amongst ourselves. A child, answering almost
exclusively to the personal character of one parent,
marries ; and the latent spirit of the unseen
parent claims a restoration of his features in the
grandchild. There are few exceptions to the rule
which forbids the employment of very large males.

Whilst entertaining this question, it deserves to
be considered how far relative disproportion of
one sex to another, can be adopted with safety or
advantage to the breeder. It so happens that
established authorities are directly at variance on
the point. Mr. Cline, whether dealing with a
perpetuation of the species, by crossing one

Addison, Johnson, Burke, and Davy, were all childless: few of them
married. The grand-daughters of Shakspeare and Milton were the
last of their respective line ; and Sir Walter Scott, though he left four
children, is now nearly unrepresented in blood.

100

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

variety with another, or by the more general
custom of pairing animals of a like variety, main-
tains that success, in an eminent degree, has only
occurred “ in those instances in which the females
were larger than in the usual proportion of females
to males and hence urges a regard to that prin-
ciple, as the most secure basis on which the ope-
rations of the breeder can be conducted. The
reason he assigns in support of the practice is,
“ that the size of the foetus is generally in propor-
tion to that of the male parent ; and therefore,
when the female parent is disproportionately
small ” (that is, when she holds the common rela-
tion to the male, in size, which we observe in
Nature) “ the quantity of nourishment is deficient,
and her offspring has all the disproportions of a
starveling.” Admitting, for a moment, the cor-
rectness of Mr. Cline’s opinion, “that the size of
the foetus is generally in proportion to that of the
male parent,” it follows that its ultimate bulk must
be regulated by the same law. If, then, we try
to reverse the common order of things, and start
with an unusually large cow, and a smart little
bull, the produce, according to his showing,
though well nourished throughout the period of
utero-gestation, will be limited in size at birth,
and in its ultimate growth, by the influence of the

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

101

sire. Supposing such produce to be a cow calf,
we may presume that it will not attain to his size,
and that, therefore, it will be somewhat less than
the female parent. To carryout Mr. Cline’s prin-
ciple, she should be put to a bull still smaller than
her sire ; and thus we shall have a gradual declen-
sion in bulk, till, in a few generations, what might
originally have been the largest variety of its
species, will be scarcely seen to rival even sheep
and pigs.

Earl Spencer, after dwelling on the qualifica-
tions essential to the constitution of the best
class of males, adverts to the doctrine maintained
by Mr. Cline, from which, however, he dissents,
and for reasons which experience of no ordinary
kind enables him to give. His lordship prefers
to breed from large females ; but observes that, if
he do breed from one which he thinks too small,
he puts to her the largest male of good shape
that he possesses. And in proof of the success
resulting from such practice, he adduces an in-
stance of a Smithfield prize ox, derived from his
largest bull, in conjunction with a cow, so small,
that he culled her after having bred that one calf.
“ My opinion, then,” concludes his lordship, “ the
result of my own practical experience, is, that if
a man considers the female animals which he

102

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

possesses to be smaller than he wishes, he may
safely put them to a male of large size, provided
he is well-bred, of good quality, and well-shaped.”
Now if these two authorities are to be received
in a sense precisely comporting with the language
employed by them, it is obvious that one of them
is in error. Whilst as yet the subject of breeding
had been little benefited by the contributions of
science, it was customary to include, amongst
animals of a large and good class, those whose
length and height greatly exceed the requirements
of width ; and to account but small others which
should comprise the same bulk, under a different
mode of arrangement. Even now, with many,
does Virgil’s authority, in so far, obtain :

Turn longo nullus lateri modus;

and had Mr. Cline’s views on the relative merits
of big and little bulls been less strenuously en-
forced, I should have thought that by the latter
was intended to be understood compact males —
big ones in little room. But the pertinacity with
which he adheres to his fanciful dogma, will
justify no other conclusion than that he adopted
little males in principle. His theory had refer-
ence, unquestionably, to the ease with which they
may be preserved in rude health : yet the aigu-

the sexes considered.

103

ment by which we thus establish the preference
due to them, in a procreative sense, over those
of a larger class, where food is scarce or of mean
quality, tends with equal force to prove that a
little cow, of good figure and constitution, may
provide abundant nourishment, throughout the
term of utero-gestation, for a calf, begotten of a
large bull. It tends, also, further to prove the
unsuitableness of little animals, in general, to land
of better quality than is required to keep them in
good store condition, whilst engaged in the capa-
city of breeding. For if, under the disadvantages
attachable to scantiness of fare, they can maintain
themselves in health, they must, of necessity, grow
fat, when more liberally treated. Knowing this
full well, I am at a loss to conceive why Mr. Cline
should have insisted on the unconditional employ-
ment of little nudes. His zeal in the discounte-
nance of extravagantly large ones, must have led
him into an opposite error.

Est modus in rebus ; sunt certi denique fines,

Quos ultra, citraque nequit consistere rectum.

It is too much to say that “ the size of the foetus
is generally in proportion to that of the male
parent.” Its figure may be that of the male, or
female parent, or of both, as they shall happen

104

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

to have been affected towards each other in the
reproductive passion : but the task of conducting
the maintenance of the foetus, in utero, being ex-
clusively that of the female, to her it must stand
indebted for the progress it shall make whilst en-
trusted to her guardianship. And so far from the
power of the female to supply her off-pring with
nourishment being in proportion to her size, and
to the power of nourishing herself from the excel-
lence of her constitution, as taught by Mr. Cline,
the reverse of this order of things, most com-
monly, obtains. The high-conditioned short-horn
cow does not produce so heavy a calf, at birth, as
the light-fleshed milking beast, whatever may be
the character of the bull to which they shall re-
spectively be put. The size of the new-born
Alderney calf, again, is often truly astonishing,
when viewed in relation to the insignificant source
whence it has proceeded ; and infants born of
spare, but active, mothers far outweigh the chief
of those which lie concealed, throughout the foetal
term, in misappropriate stores of flesh and fat.
Results thus differing from those which an a
priori argument might anticipate, are attributable
to a law in the animal economy, which holds the
constitution, when absorbed in its own nurture,
comparatively irresponsible to other claims. rlo

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

105

such influence may be ascribed the characteristic
selfishness of males ; for in proportion as they
lustier grow than those whom they caress, do they
revere themselves ; and only, when o’erflowing
with desire, betray the tender passion. So females,
too, of masculine exterior, indulge but little sym-
pathy with males. Their swelling forms engross
their whole concern ; and if they procreate, it is
from sensuality alone. Hence do they claim the
right to mould the embryo as they will ; and
having “ formed and fashioned” it, in strict com-
pliance with this law, they dole out nutriment so
tardily, that when gestation ends, the foetus seems
to have been abortively thrown off.

A recognition of this law is essential to a cor-
rect estimate of the operations of Nature ; for
only by reference to its authority can we recon-
cile the incompatibility of conflicting interests.
The human female, whilst suckling, ceases to
menstruate — the inferior animal, commonly, to
entertain the male : and both, when loaded with
condition, fail in the secretion of milk. With
little trouble might I greatly swell the list of
parallel instances, to prove that, in conformity
with this principle, devotedness to one particular
function, of necessity, involves the prejudice of
others.

106

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

A practical adoption of Mr. Cline’s scheme
is most properly observed when a farmer is re-
moving from good to worse land. If he apply
not himself to a reduction of the size of his cattle,
under such circumstances, agreeably to the dic-
tates of science. Nature will effect the change for
him, in a manner less suited to his interest. Left
wholly to her charge, the morbid laxity induced
by insufficient nutriment, disqualifies the system
for elaborating as before, the festal rudiments.
Strong branches grow not on distempered trunks :
and those which now spring from the suffering
herd, will represent their weakness in themselves.
This, however, may be obviated by the timely
introduction of a little bull. But not more advan-
tageous is it to prefer him here, than to exchange
him for a larger, if once more proceeding from a
mean to better land. He who should take a
hardy little race, adapted best to poor and hilly
districts, down to creditable pasturage like that at
Wiseton, would soon find their carcases augment
beyond his wish. But not to dwell on that ob-
jection, it deserves to be considered that, for
other reasons, are they out of place, where those
of larger frame, and no less estimable quality will
flourish. On every hand it is agreed that big
pood animals are more desirable than small and

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

107

good ; ancl since no further trouble is incurred in
rearing great than small, the practice recom-
mended by Earl Spencer, to conjoin with little
cows, if such there be, a large and well-bred bull,
is perfectly consistent with the rule I would sug-
gest. No matter which their offspring may resem-
ble : each being good, must surely good engender.
And should it happen that they blend harmo-
niously in love, still no less worthy such embrace
will be their offspring found.

A few words by w'ay of induction, and I have
done. To enter on a lengthened inquiry into the
theory of generation would, I fear, be to perplex
the reader with a multiplicity of conflicting
statements and opinions from which little profit
could be derived. The subject is confessedly one
of the most intricate within the range of physio-
logy ; and I would not formally introduce it, but
for the sake of rendering more intelligible some
of the principles which I have already been at-
tempting to establish. Long as the work of
reproduction has been maintained amongst man-
kind, it has not until lately been determined to
the satisfaction of those whom it most concerns,
whether it be essential to impregnation, that the
semen ot the male and the rudiments of the
female, be brought into actual contact. Many

108

the relative influence of

distinguished authorities have contended, because
they could not discover semen in the cavity of the
womb immediately after copulation, that it never
enters that organ, and that conception must,
therefore, be the result of a seminal aura or
breath; whilst others of no less reputation have
declared that they could not only detect semen
within the womb, but along the Fallopian tubes,
which furnish a communication between the upper
and lateral part of the womb, on either side, and
the ovaries, from which the foetal germ is elimi-
nated. Hence have they insisted on the indispen-
sableness of an admixture of the generative secre-
tions to ensure conception. Not unfrequently,
however, have the converts to this doctrine
doubted its correctness. The rigid contraction
of the uterine aperture in the unimpregnated
state, and the difficulty of proving it to be other-
wise at the moment of seminal emission, together
with the many well-attested instances of impreg-
nation having occurred, where the male fluid has
been supposed to have passed no farther than the
vulva, are circumstances that have contributed in
no small degree to disturb their confidence. Thus
hesitating to adopt even their own hypothesis un-
reservedly, they have tinctured, in like manner,
subsidiary streams of information ; and those

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

109

whom we have been taught to regard as credit-
able authorities, are observed, on one page, to
insist on the necessity of a close embrace of the
sexes, and on another to dilate upon the super-
fluousness of the practice. It is hardly too much
to say that neither ancient nor modern literature
embodies a flner contribution to physiology than
do the verses in which Virgil expresses his rea-
sons for enjoining a spare diet and full work in
the case of mares that are destined for breeding :

Hoc faciunt nimio ne luxu obtusior usus
Sit genitali arvo, et sulcos oblimet inertes :

Sed rapiat sitiens Venerem, interiusque recondat.

Georg, iii. 135.

Lest genital inaptitude o’erpower

The native wish, — and mock the fruitless hour :

By art, induce them gladly to embrace
The pleasing earnest of a future race.*

Yet soon are we diverted from this maxim by a
grave assurance, that so susceptible are mares of
venereal excitement, as to have been known to
conceive without intercourse with the other sex
— an assertion which he qualifies, I admit, by
limiting the outrage to one of false conception ;
and it is not difficult to discover that what he

* I am compelled to beg the reader’s acceptance of this rendering.
Sotheby has evidently declined to give the sense of the author, and
Dryden is extravagantly verbose and obscene.

110

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

intended to be construed as such, was nothing
more than the mucus which occasionally escapes
from mares, during the prevalence of extreme
generative ardour,* Nevertheless the entire pas-
sage went forth, subject to whatever application
individual caprice or ingenuity might devise : and
too soon was it observable that the luxuriances of
poetry had been confined not to the legitimate
muse ; for Columella f and Yarro,^: advancing on
the authority of Virgil, boldly declared that, in
Spain, mares had frequently been known to con-
ceive and rear an offspring without masculine
agency, but which were usually short-lived. Pliny
too, with proverbial credulity, says it happens in
Lusitania, near the city of Lisbon and the river
Tagus, that mares, facing the west wind, conceive
and bring forth a living animal, of remarkable
fleetness ; but which survives not the third year.§
Fanciful as may appear to have been the specu-
lations of these writers, they can scarcely be said
to exceed those which, under the speciousness
of science, have been promulgated in compara-
tively modern times. Our illustrious country-

* Georg, iii. 269. t Lib. vi. ca. 27. t Lib. ii. 1.

§ Constat in Lusitania circa Olisiponem oppidum et Taguin amnein
equas Favonio flante observas animalem concipcre spiritum, idque
partum fieri, et gigni pcrnicissimuin ita : sed triennium vitie non
excedere. Lib. viii. 47.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

Ill

man, Harvey, contended that the foetus was con-
stituted of the female rudiments alone— a dogma
warmly supported, as well, by Swammerdam ;
whilst Leeuwenhoeck, Hartsocher, and others,
took up an opposite position, and argued that it
was derived entirely from the male.

But I am already wandering from the path I
had set out for myself; and will, therefore, retrace
my steps in search of more available information.
Dr. Blundell, a man whose genius and profes-
sional occupation admirably adapted him to the
inquiry, instituted a series of experiments some
years ago, with a view to decide the long agitated
question, whether conception could occur, with-
out an immediate contact of the male semen with
the female rudiments. Rabbits were selected
for the purpose of demonstration, on account of
the disposition and capaciousness of their genital
organs. The vagina of the doe, it should be pre-
mised, when full grown, is about three inches
long. The wombs, in common with those of most
omniparous animals, are two tubular organs of
about the same length, when unimpregnated, and
which communicate with the vagina by two dis-
tinct orifices, so completely independent of each
other, that one may be removed with little or no
injury to its fellow. The first set of experiments

11 2

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

consisted in opening the bellies of several does,
and dividing, transversely, one of the wombs, in
each animal, at its juncture with the vagina.
Notwithstanding the violence necessarily inflicted,
most of them recovered, and eventually took the
buck : but the lower or vaginal extremity of the
severed wombs so effectually closed, as to forbid
all seminal ingress. At different periods of utero-
gestation, the animals were destroyed, when they
were found to have conceived on the uninter-
rupted, but not on the opposite, side. He next
cut off the communication of both wombs with
the vagina, by dividing the latter so high as to
admit of subsequent intercourse with the male.
All those which survived the operation, retained
their sexual appetency, and were repeatedly put
to the buck : yet none of them conceived. In
both series of experiments, the ovaries, on either
side, were highly excited by coition, as were also
the Fallopian tubes. Graafian vesicles, as they
are termed, were matured — their contents escaped
— and evidence of the fact, in the establishment
of little yellow bodies (corpora lutea), was dis-
tinctly traceable. The consequence of this de-
scent of the female rudiments through the Fal-
lopian tubes, into such of the wombs as were
inaccessible to the semen, was an accumulation

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

113

of fluid in them, proportioned to the vehemence
of feminine desire, and the gratification afforded
by interviews with the male. These circum-
stances were considered by Dr. Blundell, as in-
deed they deserved to be, in the light of abortive
efforts of generation. To satisfy himself and
others that the animals were not incapacitated for
breeding by local violence and debility, conse-
quent on the operations to which they were sub-
mitted, the doctor divided the vagina of two
young does, and left the parts in apposition, that
reunion might occur. This was soon effected,
and, on being put to the male, they were both
impregnated. He then, in several instances, ope-
rated on the wombs themselves, by making two,
and sometimes three, transverse cuts nearly
through, leaving only so much of their substance
entire as to afford a reasonable hope of an ad-
herence of the contiguous edges. Many subjects
of this experiment died ; but “ the very first doe
which recovered, produced no less than nine
foetuses from her first intercourse with the male.
Indeed so complete was the action of the uterus ,
that there was not one of the little masses of
rudimental matter which it failed to mature ; and
it was found, on a careful comparison of the
wombs with the ovaries, that the number of

8

114

the relative influence of

foetuses and corporea lutea was the same.” These
experiments are valuable, inasmuch as they prove,
by diiect and irrefragable evidence, that a com-
mixture of the male semen and female rudiments
is indispensable to impregnation:

Semper eniin partus duplici de semine constat.

“ For both must join, or nought can e’er ensue.”

Such was the doctrine maintained by Epicurus
and his followers ; and it is not a little humiliating
to find, after all the labour that has been devoted
to the cultivation of this department, that we are
scarcely in advance of the philosophy of genera-
tion, as taught in the “ school of the garden” two
thousand years ago.

Admitting the fact involved in Dr. Blundell’s
experiments to have been satisfactorily established,
it becomes a question of no inconsiderable interest,
by what means the semen arrives at its destination.
That under circumstances most favourable to its
transmission, it is somewhat sparingly enter-
tained by the womb, few will pretend to deny.
Nor is it necessary to prove more than that, how-
ever limited the supply, it does reach the womb ;
since it has long been agreed amongst physiologists
that this fluid, in almost any divisible form, is
enough for the accomplishment of its purpose.

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

115

Against the argument that, during the height of
venereal orgasm, the semen is ejaculated with suf-
ficient force to explain the circumstance, applies
this objection — -that the relative position of the
sexes is not always favourable to its reception ; so
that unless we could believe the uterus to be en-
dowed with a larger share of prehension than the
most sanguine advocate of its peculiar life (vita
propria) would feel himself at liberty to avow, it
would be difficult, in this stage of the inquiry,
to resolve the question. To an inherent property
of the vagina itself, analogous to the peristaltic
motion of the intestines, must we look for colla-
teral aid — a property greatly concerned, whether
in the higher or lower orders of animals, in com-
mitting the semen to its impassioned recipient.
And it is worthy, also, of remark, that reproduc-
tive intercourse, in the human subject (and I am
equally certain that a like result occurs in brutes),
is always accompanied with more or less feminine
prostration, in some instances amounting pretty
nearly to syncope. At that moment is it that the
uterus imbibes the vital stream.* And since it is

* The effect of general relaxation on the previously rigid uterus
is often strikingly exemplified in labour. The stomach, sympathizing
with the womb, takes on nausea, and vomiting ensues. This dimi-
nishes fibrous irritability, and the “ consummation devoutly to be
wished ’ soon arrives. Hence the trite saying that sick labours are
safe. Ordinarily they are so.

116

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OP

certain that faintness induces increased activity
in the peristaltic motion of the intestines, it is
perfectly allowable to suppose that an approxima-
tion to that state, in the pleasurable exercise of
venery, may encourage the vaginal attribute of
which I have spoken, together with that of the
uterus itself.

Impressions thus eminently characteristic of
the sex, are realized in a degree precisely corre-
sponding to that in which feminine delicacy pre-
vails. A refined sensibility — the usual accom-
paniment of slenderness and gracefulness of figure,
participates most exquisitely in such enjoyment :
and these are the subjects who, in the event of
their marrying the object of their choice, bear
children principally after the image of the sire.
The more largely the nervous system is engrossed
in the government of animal matter, the less sus-
ceptible is the individual of true feminine emotion:
hence do those of a portly form care little for
sexual commerce. If they possess an exuberance
of nervous vigour, still do they not share the
kindly feelings that belong to women of a differ-
ent cast. Their character is then one of masculine
enterprise ; and but for their mammary develope-
ment and voice, we should be inclined to think
them men. A constitutional rigidity of fibre, of
which the uterine system equally partakes, defies

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

117

all efforts at impregnation, unless previously sub-
dued by physical labour and a relaxing diet. Then
will the womb its pleasing task essay.* And with
such treatment , I feel bound to confess they are
the most valuable of all instruments in the per-
petuation of their species. To deny that would
be to reject the universal testimony of nature.
But let me not here be misunderstood. I am
speaking of robust, muscular, females that enjoy
a sufficient amount of nervous power to keep
themselves in good health and spirits. I have
already shown that they look not on the other sex

* A question here very naturally arises — why females ofabandoned
character, who answer not, physically, to the class I have been de-
scribing, fail to conceive? It is thus to be accounted for; during the
early part of their wretched career, they suffer from constant appi-e-
hension of the evils resulting from impropriety ; the first and chief of
which is — impregnation. Fear so fully usurps the seat of that passion
which presides under the blissful security of marriage, as to preclude
the possibility of conception. By and bye, another train of thought
and action is established. She who has anxiously been waiting the fulfil-
ment of some pledge, offered perhaps, impiously in the sight of heaven,
as the condition on which her virtue was to be resigned, finds herself
betrayed by her associate ; and yielding to the incitement of maddening
revenge, she plunges into the very sink of pollution. And now no
longer cherishing the hope of mutual love, she loathes the form she
clasps, and thus sterility preserves. Sometimes it happens that such
women terminate a course of profligacy in marriage, and become the
parents of families. I recognize them occasionally in my professional
rounds; and am convinced that the barrenness of prostitutes is attri-
butable, not so much to physical defect of the ovaries or Fallopian
tubes, as to that moral depravity, which is irreconcilable with affec-
tion for any individual object.

118

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

as do the general class of females — that selfish-
ness incites them to the soft embrace — and that,
not only do their offspring, for the most part, in-
herit their constitutional properties, but that the
prevailing sex is their own. A nicer adaptation
of the nervous to the animal system than is ob-
servable in males of corresponding character (for
it is notorious that females, cceteris paribus, pre-
serve greater temperateness of feeling and action
than do those of the opposite sex), would seem to
fit them most admirably for purposes of procrea-
tion, when they can be made available. My
memory serves me with many instances that
might be quoted by way of illustration, if the
usages of society would admit of their introduc-
tion. One I will give from the history of my own
family. My great-grandmother, in the line of my
father, was a woman of this class, inheriting a
huge and beautiful frame, with a proportionable
amount of vital energy. Few men equalled her
in physical strength ; and tradition affirms that,
when once insulted by the way, she seized the
offender, and carrying him to a neighbouring
river, threw him headlong in, at the imminent
peril of his life. Her husband was an active man,
but by no means comparable with her in natural
endowments. Their sons partook of the mother s

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

119

habit; and being derived from an indigent source,
it was their lot to be employed as agricultural
labourers. In this vocation they toiled indus-
triously, lived contentedly, ate the “ bread of
carefulness,” and died in a good old age — one,
from whom I have the honour to have descended,
numbering seventy, another ninety -four, and the
last ninety-seven years. The succeeding gene-
ration was, perhaps, equally distinguished for
native vigour ; but one member appropriating his
faculties to intellectual pursuits, ascended into a
higher sphere of duty. His children may be said,
with few exceptions, to maintain the nervous cha-
racter of their ancestors, — some excelling in rude
strength — others in mental exercises. And though
the writer of this article has no pretensions to
rank with either division, he can boast of a brother
who, without any scholastic advantages beyond
those in common, acquired a reputation at the
University of Edinburgh, which has no parallel
in the medical history of that institution. He ob-
tained the first presidency, as it is termed, of every
distinguished society accessible to students, —
wrote nine prize essays on literary and scien-
tific subjects (most of them involving original
discoveries in physiology), and when receiving
the University gold medal, on his graduation, at

120

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

the hands of the “ Principal,” was told that his
thesis was considered by the Senate to be “ not
only superior to any given in that season, but to
any ever presented to the faculty.” Thus do we
see the physical advantages attachable to this form
of parentage, and the applicability of those who
share in it, even to exalted purposes, under suit-
able culture. Our legislative assemblies are not
without examples of a like kind, in the persons of
some prominent members.

Amongst breeders it is a subject of much com-
plaint, that good as the generality of their cow
calves are, there rarely appears a first-rate bull.
To obtain such, reference must be made to the
nervous and muscular female — the acknowledged
leader of the herd, or one after her disposition.
If dependence be placed on a mild, benignant,
dam, disappointment will most likely ensue. She
seldom breeds a valuable bull: the former seldom
fails. The mother of “ Clarion,” both of whose
portraits are given in the treatise, published under
the superintendence of the Society for the Diffu-
sion of Useful Knowledge, appeared to me, by the
loftiness of her bearing, as she walked along, on
my visit to Wiseton in the autumn of 1835, to be
a beast of the class to which I now allude. And
if my recollection serve me, she was the parent

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

121

of “ William” or “ Wiseton,” bulls that were held,
at that time, in high esteem by Earl Spencer.
Mr. Wilkinson’s late Hebe was a cow of this de-
scription ; and whilst in his possession, she bred
two excellent bulls. And an animal he bought out
of Durham some years ago (Will Honeycomb),
which I believe to be the best I have ever seen of
any variety, is indebted for his distinction to a
dam of similar character. Virgil, therefore,
though somewhat unfortunate in detail, was cor-
rect in principle, when advising a selection of
masculine females, as security for a vigorous
offspring. The original passage, for its classical
beauty, together with the spirited translation of
Sotheby, I will subjoin :

Seu quis, Olimpiacae miratus praemia palmae,

Pascit equos, seu quis fortes ad aratra juvencos;

Corpora praecipuh matrum legat. Optima torvse
Forma bovis, cui turpe caput, cui plurima cervix,

Et crurum tenus a mento palearia pendent.

Tumlongo nullus lateri modus: omnia magna:

Pes etiain, et camuris hirtae sub cornibus aures.

Nec inihi displiceat maculis insignis et albo:

Aut juga detrectans, interdumque aspera cornu,

Et faciem tauro proprior: quseque ardua tota,

Et gradiens imtl verrit vestigia caudft.

Georg, iii. 49.

Who for th’ Olympian palm the courser rears,

Or breeds, to bear the yoke, resistless steers,

With prescient care the destined mother trace,

And formed like her expect the promised race.

122

the relative influence of

If her large front and neck vast strength denote ;

If on her knee the pendulous dewlap float ;

If curling horns their crescent inward bend,

And bristly hairs beneath the ear defend ;

If lengthening flanks to boundless measure spread ;
If broad her foot, and bold her bull-like head ;

If snowy spots her mottled body stain,

And her indignant brow the yoke disdain.

With tail wide sweeping, as she stalks, the dews ;
Thus, lofty, large, and long, the mother choose.

Resuming the more immediate subject of gene-
ration, it remains for me now, in as popular a form
as delicacy will permit, to contemplate the pro-
gressive evolution of the foetus. In the absence
of precise information on this head, we should be
at no loss to conceive the probability that, with
products designed by Nature to constitute the
basis of animal developement, there would be
identified a considerable degree of vitality. Both
the semen and female rudiments have been pre-
sumed to abound with organic molecules ; and
microscopical research having confirmed the pro-
priety of such belief in respect of the former, there
can be little reason to doubt (since the ovaries,
from which the female rudiments proceed, hold
the same relation to the female as do the testicles
to the opposite sex) that a like vital property be-
longs also to the latter. To ordinary observation,
neither of them affords any indication of the pre-

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

123

sence of animal life : but at an early period of
utero-gestation, it is found that what had pre-
viously existed in the form of insensate matter has
undergone a very sensible change. A rudimental
heart, incited to action by inherent irritability, is
now discoverable ; and scarcely has pulsation com-
menced before the stimulus, by which it is main-
tained, finds a repertory in the growth of the brain
and spinal cord. The most essential process in
the animal economy — that of circulation, having
been thus instituted, fresh accessions of matter
soon follow, first in the neighbourhood of the
heart, and radiating thence, as it were, to the
extremities. For the trunk, it is to be remem-
bered, acquires a somewhat definite character,
before the limbs, which pullulate from it like
radicles from the parent seed, begin to appear.
These operations proceed with a rapidity pro-
portioned to the length of time occupied in the
entire work of utero-gestation, and are, there-
fore, longer delayed in the human subject than
in most inferior animals. But it never can be too
strongly impressed on the minds of those who take
an interest in the breeding of cattle, that the
growth of parts most remote from the parent organ
(the heart) is conducted with freedom, in the in-
verse ratio to the bulk of the animal base. So that

124

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

it the germ be large, as where reproduction occurs
between a pair, one of which, at least, is of full
habit (in conformity with a law already explained,
and whose dominion involves even the nascent
embryo), the formative efforts of Nature are too
intently occupied, in the first instance, to be easily
diverted by consecutive claims. Hence are the
extremities of large bodied animals shorter than
those of a slender figure, and vice versa. This
must have been Mr. Cline’s view when contending
that, by his method of crossing a large female with
a small male, “ the lungs and heart become pro-
portionately larger, in consequence of a pecu-
liarity in the circulation of the foetus, which causes
a larger proportion of the blood, under such cir-
cumstances, to be distributed to the lungs than to
the other parts of the body ; and as the shape and
size of the chest depend upon that of the lungs,
hence arises the remarkably large chest which is
produced,” &c.

According to Lucretius, it would seem that
some of the principles illustrated in the preceding
pages constituted part of the Epicurean system
of philosophy. The chief of them will be found
in a passage which I will here transcribe, for the
sake of showing in what respect such doctrine
differs from my own :

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

125

Et conmiscendo quom semine forte virili
Femina vim vicit subittl vi, conripuitque ;

Turn similes matrum materno semine fiunt :

Ut patribus patrio: sed, quos utriusque figures
Esse vides juxtirn, miscenteis volta parentum,

Corpore de patrio ac materno sanguine crescunt,
Semina quom, Veneris stimulis excita per artus,

Obvia conflixit conspirans mutuus ardor;

Et neque utrum superavit eoruin, nee superatum est.

Fit quoque, ut interdum similes exsistere avorum
Possint, et referant proavorum seepe figuras ;
Propterea, quia multa modis primordia multis
Mixta suo celant in corpore ssepe parentes,

Quse patribus patres tradunt a stirpe profecta.
inde Venus variii producit sorte figuras;

Majorumque refert voltus, vocesque, comasque :
Quandoquidem nibilo minus hsec de semine certo
Fiunt, quam facies, et corpora, membraque, nobis.

Et muliebre oritur patrio de semine seclum ;
Maternoque mares exsistunt corpore cretei.

Semper enim partus duplici de semine constat :

Atque utri simile est inagis id, quodquomque creatur,
Ejus babet plus parte sequa, quod cernere possis,

Sive virum suboles, sive est muliebris origo.

De Rer. Nat. iv. 1202.

If, when the male his genial tide protrudes,

The panting female deep her breath retract,
Transported most, the race produced will, then,

From female stores prove female, if reversed,

From stores paternal, male. But when the form
Blends both its parents’ features, it ascends
From equal powers of each ; the warm embrace
Rousing alike, through each conflicting frame,

The seeds of latent life, in scale, so nice,

That neither conquers, nor to conquest yields.

Oft view we, too, the living lines portrayed
Of ancestors remote; for various seeds,

126

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

Commingled various, through the parent frame
Lurk, which from race to race preserve entire
The form, the features of th’ anterior stock.

Diversely such the power creative blends ;

Whence oft the voice revives, the hair, the hue,

The full complexionof the race deceased:

For these as sure from seeds defined ascend
As e’en the face, the body, or the limbs.

Then, too, though male the foetus, female stores
Aid the production ; while, if female formed,

The tide paternal mixes in the make ;

For both must join, or nought can e’er ensue.

But obvious this, that where the semblance more
Inclines to either, the prevailing sex
Chief lent the seeds of life, and reared complete
The virgin embryo, or incipient man. Good.

Unfortunately, one fundamental error — that of
failing to recognize the difference between abso-
lute and relative pleasure, pervades this system.
If, in reproductive intercourse, says Lucretius,
the female be

Transported most, the race produced will, then,

From female stores prove female, if reversed,

From stores paternal, male.

Now it cannot, for a moment, be doubted, that
a preponderance of bliss is the inheritance of those
individuals who, whether male or female, possess
the greatest share of sensibility. And yet they
are seldom personally represented in the next
succeeding generation. In character and consti-
tutional predisposition, they are intimately iden-

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

127

tified with their offspring ; but not commonly in
physical arrangement, except in so far as some
local resemblance, of comparative unimportance,
is concerned. Having naturally a high tone of
moral feeling, they are rarely induced to marry
other than those whom they tenderly regard.
And then the most exquisite delight is theirs —
not simply because they are exalted to a partici-
pation in pleasures which the lawr of celibacy had,
till now, proscribed ; but because their enjoyment
involves the embrace of objects whom they cherish
beyond every earthly consideration besides. That
which affords them inexpressible felicity, under
these circumstances, would be a source of insur-
mountable grief, if conducted with any but their
chosen lovers ; in evidence of which, we have the
affecting story of Lucretia, kinswoman of the
Roman poet and philosopher, before us. Yet do
I repeat that, notwithstanding the rapture implied
in such devotedness, people of this class are seldom
recognized in the persons of their children.
Various are the suggestions that arise, in attempt-
ing an immediate explanation of the fact. We
may suppose that, as sensibility tends to impair
nervous efficiency, precedence (in a work con-
fessedly requiring an exercise of vital energy)
naturally and necessarily devolves on the party

128

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

whom it shall least incapacitate. But this is to
admit that the ruling parent is, in a general sense,
the more hardy and efficient instrument of the
two; whilst observation tells us that many a
seeming nerveless woman, whose form consumes
so fast the feeble life allotted her, that not a
thought has she, save how she best may gratify
her soul, conceives a numerous family in her own
likeness, and that too, when justly charging their
paternity on one of incomparably greater vigour.
So oft, again, conjoined with sprightly women,
are men of dull and churlish disposition seen,
whom love can scarcely rouse to charitable inter-
course ; and yet whose children, “ true to Nature’s
die,” their veritable form and features blend.
Another theory, and one more reconcilable with
truth, is to maintain that love, which, in its purest
form, subdues whatever heart it reaches, binds its
votary to defer, no less in reproductive , than in
social , intercourse ; and that as, obviously, in
outward things, the purport of such deference is
to assign dominion to another, so in the subtler
exercise of love, a corresponding tendency pre-
vails. Whatever may be the rationale adopted,
of this I am convinced, that in proportion to the
intensity of regard entertained by a woman for her
husband, is the prevalence of his likeness in the

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

129

offspring — unless he happen to requite her love
by an equal amount of tenderness. Then do their
children happily combine the physical character-
istics of them both: and what is of infinitely greater
moment, as well in reference to time as to eternity,
they constitute, in a moral sense, the best of all
that is human. I have known people, in some
instances, to marry, where the only incentive
to union has obviously been a mutual attachment.*
A few of the parties have had but crude ideas of the
Christian dispensation : yet in every case where im-
pregnation has followed, have their children been
distinguished for their virtues. Would that all
who plead a special interest in Christianity were
actuated by motives equally creditable; — we should
not so commonly as now be heard to exclaim, on
observing the outrages committed by the descend-
ants of avowedly religious parents, how strange !
that they who have had continually before them a
good example, in the persons of both father and

* Let me not here be supposed to include all the poor senseless,
dissipated, beings who may he thought, by careless observers, to
marry from virtuous motives, because the imputation of avarice cannot
apply to them. The inducements to marriage are probably as various
as the modifications of which our passions are susceptible; and there
is too much reason to fear that, if the secrets of all hearts could be
explored, a very inconsiderable portion of the community, in any
grade of life, would be found to engage in this “holy estate” from
pure and reciprocal affection.

9

130

THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF

mother, should be found thus insensible to the
requirements of morality ; whilst the children of
those, again, who have scarcely seemed to recog-
nize the doctrine of future rewards and punish-
ments, should occasionally be seen to adorn what-
ever rank they move in.

If, for the sake of additional argument, we pur-
sue the history of a highly sensitive female, through
a long series of unrelenting abuse, incurred not
unfrequently in marriage, until the source whence
it proceeds is looked upon with comparative in-
difference ; or mark the widow of a man who,
even in death, retains her heart in thraldom,
affianced, from motives of expediency, to another,
we shall find that, though participating but faintly
in joys that once enraptured her, the children she
may now conceive will be more immediately iden-
tified with her in person, than those she pre-
viously had borne. Hence do I maintain that it
is only by reference to the generative passion, in
a relative sense, that we can predetermine the
physical and moral qualifications of the issue of
any pair. Does pure and unrequited love incline
the heart of one towards another ? Then will the
personal character of the latter be discoverable in
their children, with just so much of human sym-
pathy as shall have been engendered by the affec-

THE SEXES CONSIDERED.

131

tionate disposition of the former. Do they regard
each other with mutual tenderness ? Then will
the physical and moral attributes of both be
shared in the constitution of all that humanity can
desire. Are they led by animal instinct alone to
propagate their kind ? Again is the form and
figure of each parent viewed in the rising stock :
but, in a moral sense, I hold that they who are
thus conceived, stand little better than as anti-
types of hell ! I will not deny the power of the
gospel to redeem them : nevertheless do I believe
that, as ordinarily administered, it seldom does.
Having no greater amount of sensibility than the
beast that perishes, they are, for the most part,
inaccessible to its influence. No blush extends
its mantling grace to them, — no tear illumes the
portals of the soul, — the smile of infancy, the
pride of youth, the joylessness of age, educe no
sympathies, — alike despised and dreaded do they
live, and steeped in self-creating agony they die.

Qualified in a sense which the preceding reflec-
tions suggest, the doctrine of Lucretius is recon-
cilable with that which multiplied observation has
led me to entertain. If it be insisted that, when
the female is <c transported most,” by virtue of her
greater regard for the object of her embrace than
is conceived by him for her, “ the race produced

132 THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF THE SEXES.

will, then, from female stores, prove female or,
taking up another and yet more defensible posi-
tion of the author, inasmuch as it contends not,
necessarily, for a reproduction of the sex, along
with that of like form and features— I would say,
if it be insisted that, when the female is “ trans-
ported most,” by reason of her greater affection
for the opposite party than is shared by her in
return, the physical character of the offspring is,
for the most part, that of the mother, the argu-
ment is negatived by induction, whether in refer-
ence to man or brute. But if it be alleged that,
when the female participates most in abstract
pleasure, the product resembles her,— and vice
versa, the theory comports with the universal
testimony of nature : and in that sense I heartily
concur with Lucretius in his summary of the
Epicurean doctrine.

Printed by C. Adi,ard, Bartholomew Close.

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