the brother of Alexander von Humboldt lays before his readers. One not uninteresting consideration to ourselves is, that the task we have undertaken puts us in the position of reviewing a review, for no small part of the collection now lying on our table consists of contributions to periodical works. We shall therefore not lose sight of this fact in the remarks which we are about to lay before our readers. Nor will the comparison which we shall attempt to draw between English and continental periodical literature be, we trust, devoid of interest. And now having said thus much, let us address ourselves to our task. We will commence then with the disquisition on the male and female forms, which is at once eloquent and philosophical. Not long ago a work fell into our hands, by the Rev. G. D. Haughton, entitled "An Essay on Sex in the World to come," and we there found many very interesting speculations, much akin to those of Von Humboldt. Nor did we see any other objection to the book-(for the topic was treated with all the delicacy it required)-than a want of sufficient excogitation. This is not the case with the essay before us: Von Humboldt had evidently thought profoundly on the subject he investigates, and the lover of the fine arts will find this portion of the work highly useful. There was probably never a greater mistake made by a clever man than that committed by Pope, when he said "A perfect woman's but a softer man." It was confounding "feminine" with effeminate, and overlooking the fact that the female intellect differs from the male not in degree, but in kind. Nor is it making a much greater progress in philosophy to suppose, with Lady Morgan (whose words we dare not quote), that the mental character of woman is formed by her physical character. There is an essential generical intellectual difference between the sexes; the soul is male and female; nor will any philosophizing which stops short of this admission clear up the difficulties in which this most interesting subject is enveloped. If we believe the distinction to which we allude to be essentially spiritual and eternal, and only accidentally physical, we shall look to the spirit for the traces of its development, and regard the outward form merely as the index of that which works within. Doubtless the Author of all good has so far blended all fitnesses in his creation that we shall ever find some correspondence between that which our bodily eyes behold and that archetype in the divine mind, which only the devout student, and even he but dimly, can perceive. To consider this question then in any philosophical light, we must regard the distinction of sex to be internal, spiritual and perpetual; not merely external and physical; and we shall then see humanity but imperfectly represented by either of them alone: and thus too we get rid of the discussion as to the superiority of one sex over the other, by showing that it cannot be entered upon at all. The words of inspiration, "In the image of God created he him, male and female created he them," are but little understood by those who would restrict the divine image to that holiness which ought to be common to the two sexes. The parents of the human race were themselves also its model, each one requiring the other to constitute the perfection of humanity; so that in the paradisaic perfection of the male character and of the female character consisted the image of God. It was a human perfection divided into two distinct parts, possessing in the abstract nothing in common, and in its most favourable subsequent types but little, save the principle of love towards God, and towards the complement of earthly excellence as developed in the other sex. Even the most simple feelings and the most uncompounded mental operations subsist under a different phase in the mind of a man and in that of a woman, if indeed they be not things having indeed a resemblance, but no identity. Benevolence itself would require a different description in the two cases: nor can the ambition of such sovereigns as Elizabeth or Catherine II. be fairly compared with that of any king or emperor. It is in this very difference-in the fact that each can supply what the other needs that the attachment between the sexes is founded; and in proportion as the characteristic differences are obliterated, in the same proportion does such attachment decline, or rather disappear. To talk of the moral difference would be a work of supererogation. Every poet(and this subject is not the only one in which poetry and truth are identical)every poet we say, from the earliest period till the latest, has taken delight in expatiating on the delicacy and tenderness of the female character-has compared it, with regard to the "sterner stuff" of which men are made, to the ivy that twines round the tower, or to the vine clinging to the stately oak; and universal nature has made the same feeling (for it is a feeling and not generally a conviction) prominent even in the very affectations which prevail both in man and in woman; the latter will affect a of finding a person who may be taken as a shrinking timidity even when it forms no type of the sex to which he or she belongs. part of her individual character; and men It is highly probable that since the first pawho are cowards at heart will be boister- rents of our race there never was a speci ous, and "speak prave 'orts at the pridge," men of pure (that is to say unmixed) manfrom an intuitive perception that to do hood, or pure womanhood; no one person otherwise would be a departing and a de- in whom the character, either moral or generating from the proper type of their character. All this is acknowledged freely enough, and many elegant things have been spoken concerning the duty of man to afford protection, and of woman to afford consola mental, did not in some way or other swerve towards the type of the opposite sex, losing in one respect what it gained in another. We must therefore call imagination to our aid, and we may possibly then find in her realms some fictitious character, whom we tion, by persons who yet perceive no generic may treat as artists treat a lay figure. Von difference between the two characters. Let Humboldt refers to the Greek divinities, not us therefore go on-(we are not going the heroes of Homer and Ovid, but the away from Von Humboldt)- to show that the mental character differs as much as the moral. And here we shall be met with the names of eminent women, and requested to point out the difference between the learning of Madame Dacier and that of M. Sanadon-between the mathematics of Mrs. Somerville and those of Professor Whewell-between the politics of Miss Martineau and those of Mr. Malthus; but we would remind the inquirer that it is perfectly possible to arrive at the same conclusion by different premises. Two locomotive engines, one moved by steam, the other by air, may be placed on parallel rails, and though they may arrive at the terminus at the identical moment, yet it cannot be denied that they have been moved by a differing application of a different principle. The knowledge therefore of the same facts proves nothing as to their having been attained by means of the same process : the loftier conceptions of the sculptors. In them, as revealed by a Phidias or a Praxiteles, he contends that we may find the types of a perfectly unmixed male or female character. "In the circle of the goddesses we first meet with the ideal of womanhood, in the daughter of Dione; the comparatively small stature, which gathers together every personal attraction-the voluptuous fullness of growth-the moist and expressive eye-the passionate and half-open mouth-the reliance rather on maidenly bashfulness than on the strength of defiance, all announce a creature who grounds her power on her very weakness. Whatsoever approaches her circle breathes of love and enjoyment, and her very glance is one of affectionate invitation. It was a large and comprehensive idea which the Greeks embodied in their Venus, the power which produces and which streams through all living beings. For the representation of this idea could they choose no better symbol than the ideal of pure womanhood-the loveliest of all reproductive creatures, and no fitter moment than that when the first and as yet unconscious sigh of passion escapes from the bosom." fields that are green to the eye of a Wordsworth would assuredly bear no other hue to that of an Edgeworth or a Hemans; the books that they read and the conclusions to which they came, if the one were rightly understood and the other rightly drawn, would be understood in the same sense and drawn to the same meaning; but (we speak now of classes, not of individuals) it would which gives it somewhat of a moral, and But this, however lovely and however unmixed be the character which it symbolizes, is yet by no means the most elevated point of view in which we may place the female character. It is true that there is an individuality about the Hellenic Venus be by a somewhat different process. Often, somewhat of an intellectual nature; but too, the shades of difference will be so mi- that which is chiefly sought to be displayed nute, that the student will have to be re- is the personification of female gentlenessminded that the strongest resemblance may the softness of unmingled womanhoodsubsist without identity of species. Often uninfluenced by circumstances-unfettered again will he be perplexed by an approxi- by reflexion, but existing in its most commation of the character in individuals to- plete unrestraint. Here then is the priwards the type of the other sex, so that mary idea among the Greeks of the female what may be fairly predicated concerning character, perfect and mature, yet bound the individual man, or the individual wo- by no ties; these as yet have not given it man, would be very incorrect, if applied to their modifications, and we find it therefore the male or female character in the abstract. marked by what the French elegantly and The difficulties therefore which beset the appropriately call "abandon;" it specuinquirer may be resolved into one, viz., that lates, but it is upon itself-it enjoys its newly awakened feelings, and appears in a similate it with a more ripened age by the kind of dreamy delight to attempt to analyze fiction of Endymion-the incident suited them-the eyes are cast down with a most not the individual, and the fable loses in its attractive reserve, and we have the perfec- consistency without gaining in interest. tion of female beauty physically considered. "Now that which speaks so plainly and unmistakably," says Von Humboldt, "in the goddess of love, rests yet latent and folded up as it were in the form of Diana. Decked with all the charms of her sex, she renounces the empire of love and occupies herself only with manly pursuits. In these respects she resembles Minerva, but the character of the two goddesses is essentially different. In the awful daughter of Zeus the force of wisdom has annihilated all womanly weakness-this is shown by the calm, reflective, philosophic eye. Diana is earnestly engaged about the objects of her desire. She has only renounced one desire for another desire. Womanhood is to her nothing strange. Nay, she exhibits nothing masculine. As yet in her entire freedom is she unknown to herself. Again, Thus then we look on the Artemis of the Athenian sculptor as the personification of a period of female life, interesting only as containing within itself the germs of a lovelier and more perfect condition-but the Venus is a type of the whole woman, soul and body, seen indeed in her least elevated point of view, and with none of the loftier faculties called into play, but possessing nevertheless within herself all the prerequisites of the most exquisitely beautiful and attractive character. When to the loveliness portrayed in the personification of female physical beauty are added the case of responsibility, and the majesty of authority-then the latent energies are brought out, and we see the force and depth of the she is not the representative of her sex, but only character which previously we noticed only of a particular age, the tenderness of even the in its calm and undeveloped repose; to the earliest passion requires for its development the undiminished gentleness of the previous calm in-flowing of thoughts which reflect upon condition, is superadded the dignity of the themselves." existing one, and that which before won But previous to this the emotions are, as it from us our love, now demands our reverwere, thrown forward, and rest upon exter-ence. This was the prevailing idea sought nal and distant objects. to be expressed in the figure of the Greek Hera-the Juno of the Romans. "Comparing," says Von Humboldt, "the loveliness of Aphrodite with the dignity of Hera we perceive womanhood transferred to a grander and wider sphere; in the latter it not only exhibits itself in every line and feature, not merely in the moment of passion or affection, but it is interwoven throughout with the active and It must at the same time be observed, responsible life." that in many individuals this period passes Here the mythologists have given a strange so swiftly away that it is scarcely to be no- loose to their imagination, and have (as they ticed at all; while in others it is long often did) taken the individual, not the speenough to become the subject of remark. cies for their model. Anger, jealousy, vinIt is precisely this period of development that the sculptors of ancient Greece sought to personify in the daughter of Latona. "The charm of womanhood radiates not from her in melting beauty, but is as yet hidden and folded up within itself. The outward form has more both of strength and activity than that of Venus, and the whole expression both of figure and countenance indicates that the soul is not sinking back into and resting upon its own hidden and deified imaginations, but is reaching out to and attempting to grasp the objects of external nature." This idea certainly did prevail, and not only among sculptors but among poets also, and so unattractive was the yet immature character thus depicted, that they (the poets) attempted, and attempted in vain, to as dictiveness, the love of power, proneness the goddess of love, through a passion-breathing For as in the ideal of the sculptor the di- | far as the visible is a type of the invisible, vine nature was but a perfected humanity, the external of the internal, so the androgyindulgence, a pure but most beautiful in- topics, and shall therefore add only a so every attribute of manhood or womanhood had but the process of enlargement and purification to undergo in order to become, in the Hellenic mind, divine. In this light then should we look at the remaining monuments of Greek genius, not so much as mere works of art, but as models of the ideal, as personifications of humanity under various phases, but refined and etherealized and, if we may venture to use such a term, purified from earthliness. We will accompany our author for a while in his examination of the gods of the Greek Pantheon, and then, before turning to another of the multifarious topics treated of in these two volumes, we will make a few observations on the philosophy of what we have said. "As the characteristic of greater loveliness than the mere human figure seems to imply, indicates without further trouble the female sex, so in like manner must manhood be visible by the outward indications of its internal and spiritual nature; there is however this remarkable distinction between the two cases, that the latter is less easily perceived when present, than it is missed when absent." We see at once and at the first glance that the connection between the physical and spiritual is less visible, is more subtle. "There are indeed the tokens of a different character interwoven with what we behold, in the presence of greater strength, more constant activity, harder firmer muscles, and smaller masses. Not that therefore the male figure and its spiritual counterpart exist in a softened and adorned shape in the female-or that the former is a nearer approach to an ideal pure humanity, but simply that the conditions of manhood require a more perfect independence, a greater power and freedom of action, than consistent are required by or are with those of womanhood; the very beauty of the female figure, consisting as it does in roundness of muscle and softness of outline, necessarily causes a preponderance of volume over power, and directly this proportion is infringed, the beauty and the distinctive character are lost together; the figure becomes first awkward, then androgynous. In the male figure, on the other hand, volume, and therefore softness of outline, is postponed to muscular strength, and the violation of this proportion also has a similar effect to that which we have just noticed in the corresponding case. Now, so nous figure must be not a mingling of the male and female characters, but a deprivation of the real types of each it is not only unnatural but portentous, and this of itself ought to be sufficient to show us the utter and entire difference of those two natures which it attempts to unite. "Even the very manner," rightly observes Von Humboldt, " in which power is manifested is not indifferent, for it is one thing to be nour ished into fullness and another to be exercised into strength; the former case as it exhibits less of the distinctive character so is it lower in the scale of existence: this is exhibited in the Greek Bacchus." And it is not unworthy of notice that he represents the might, not of will or mind, but of nature as contradistinguished from will, i. e. of matter; he is therefore destitute of the power which characterizes Zeus or Apollo-not entirely destitute of power-but only of that power which results from the exercise of the trained will; he is also, while he possesses the softness of woman, devoid of her gentleness and attractiveness. The remarks of Von Humboldt which touch on this subject are full of a profound philosophy, evincing a most thorough knowledge not merely of human nature, but of metaphysics in its noblest and most universal sense. Speaking of the Greek Bacchus he says : "Like Venus he signifies a power of nature, and is therefore like her more closely linked with mortality than the higher divinities, but exactly for the reason that she is a type of pure womanhood, so does he indicate a deviation from pure manhood and as far as any man allows himself to be ruled by the power represented by Bacchus (not wine, be it remembered, but the collected might of sensual inclinations,) so far does he degenerate from his sex and destiny. It is true that this is also the case with woman, but while, by giving way to impulses, the most beautiful features of her character may be sometimes extinguished, yet in her case the bounds within which she may do so are larger, and it is her peculiar duty in a lofty sense to give way to her impulses, while it is that of a man to offer up his to the sterner duties of his sex." This will be more easily understood when we recollect our author's theory as to the Greek Venus; that she represents all the softer emotions, in their normal state, untrammelled by any tie; and practically too it will be exemplified by the difference between the maternal and pater nal affection-the one all tenderness and stinct of nature-the unconscious but pervading power of an irresistible impulse;the other a shape or phase indeed of love, but mingled with care, and sometimes also with sternness-listening to the voice of reason even when counselling harsh things -growing up by habitude, and made up of forethought and pride, and responsibility, and general benevolence. But we must proceed. We have seen but one of the gods, and there are a whole pantheon awaiting us. Let us next contemplate manhood in its simplest form-that form in which there is but little beyond enormous strength and the absence of all that is feminine. Turn we to the Farnese Hercules. "Wearied with his exertions, he rests, supported on the weapons of his might. Giants and monsters has he slain, but not with the power of a god, who by the word of his lips, and the wave of his hand, would annihilate his opponents, but he has laid them low by the energies of a mortal, and won the victory by the sweat of his brow. "But when Hercules had elevated himself to heaven, and forgot in the joys of his divinity this troublesome earthly life, a somewhat less hard and angular form is attributed to him; and by this means the character is preserved, and the beauty, as applied to the man, united to that which belongs to the species." In other words the individual is generalized, and at the same time etherealized. A higher step in the same scale is afforded us by the union of conscious intellectual power with determined energy, when this last also is made attractive by gracefulness. Let the bounds which confine the mental and physical capacities of men be removed, let the higher virtues be active, and the personification of such a state will be found in the Apollo. Von Humboldt rightly observes that few remarks on the intellectual difference to which we have before adverted, and which we have all along borne in mind. We have said that the soul is male and female, and we have asserted that the feelings and mental operations which we call by the same names are nevertheless in the case of different sexes-different things. A simile may here help us a little, and render the brief remarks which follow more easily intelligible. The component parts of fat or tallow, are stearine and elaine-different things having nevertheless a great resemblance. Stearine is greasyso is elaine, and rather more so. Stearine may be burned by itself, and will give a brilliant light-so may elaine; neither is there any remarkable difference between their compositions. Now we by no means intend that benevolence, for we must take an instance, resembles elaine or stearine, still less that it resembles the one when exercised by a man, and the other when exercised by a woman; but we do mean that some difference-probably greater than exists between the two substances named-will be found to obtain between the feeling or sentiment called benevolence in the two cases referred to. In the one case it has more of impulse-more of nature; in the other more of obligation-more of principle. The impulses are followed in the one instance because they are good, and it is not intended that they should be resisted. The colder and sterner nature of man requires something to stimulate his benevolence, and he finds this in the sense of duty. This is one instance of the truth of Von Humboldt's maxim, that woman has usually to follow her impulses, man to combat his but for the very reason that this difference obtains, a greater degree of moral strength is bestowed upon man, a more determined energy, so that the duties and the strength may be commensurate. Turn again from the moral to the mental condition, and we shall find another singular coincidence with the same theory. Women are said, in common parlance, "to jump to a conclusion." If we ask German metaphysicians what is the highest faculty of the mind, they will reply, or at least the best of them will reply, "the pure reason," and in this they are perfectly right. But what is this pure reason - not ratiocination-not causality-but the intuitive perception of truth, which varies in different minds, and which does, we are firmly persuaded, form the great distinction between man and the inferior animals. It is a difference not in degree, but in kind; and pre |