Man and woman : a study of human secondary and tertiary sexual characters / by Havelock Ellis.

  • Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939.
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Man and woman : a study of human secondary and tertiary sexual characters / by Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    277/484 (page 267)
    Delaunay 1 argued with much ingenuity that motor evolu¬ tion is from the centripetal to the centrifugal; that centri¬ petal movements of abduction and of pronation predominate among species and individuals little advanced in evolution, and among these he includes quadrupeds, apes, the lower human races, women, children, and unintelligent persons ; while centrifugal movements of abduction and supination predominate among the higher human races, in men and in intelligent persons. Corkscrews, etc., are worked from left to right; so are watches, though formerly from right to left; and writing, which was formerly, and still often is among children, from right to left, is now from left to right. (It appears to be a fact in harmony with Delaunay’s argu¬ ment that mirror-writing, from right to left, is found more frequently in girls than in boys.) “ Women,” he remarks, “ preferably execute centripetal movements. Thus they give taps or slaps with the palm of the hand, men with the back. According to my observation, men make circum¬ ferential movements like the hands of a watch, women in the opposite direction. Again, all women’s garments, from chemise to mantle, button from right to left, while men’s garments button from left to right. When a woman puts on a man’s coat, she buttons it with the left hand, with a centripetal movement.” It may be added that, apart from evolutionary progress, the characteristically masculine atti¬ tude of aggression is centrifugal, the characteristically feminine attitude of defence centripetal; compare, for instance, the poses of the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus de Medici. Thus, alike in strength and in rapidity and precision of movement, women seem inferior to men. This is a conclu¬ sion in harmony with the practical experience of life. It is perhaps also in harmony with the results of those investi¬ gators who have found that, as in the blood of women, so also in their muscles there is more water than in those of men.2 To a large extent it is certainly a matter of differ- 1 Les Mouvements centrip^tes et centrifuges,” Revue Scientifique, December 25th, 1880. 2 Arch, per VAntrop., VI, 173.