of its being, but the whole. The life of man is indeed always
a complex fact, made up of widely different forms and spheres
of existence; but it is always nevertheless, in the midst of all
these, a single undivided unity within itself, bound together and
ruled throughout by the presence of a common principle or law.
The life of the body is ever in strict union with the life of the
soul, and this, on the other hand, stands wedded again to that.
continually, as its own proper self under an outward material
form. No less intimate and necessary, in the next place, is the
connection that holds between the individual natural con-
stitution, thus inward and outward, and the proper person-
ality of the subject to whom it belongs. It lies in the very
conception of personality, it is true, being as it is the life of
the spirit, in the form of intelligence and will, that it should not
be ruled blindly by the force of mere nature, as comprehended
in the individual organization. It is a principle and fountain of
action for itself, and is required to act back upon the natural life
with such independent force, as may serve to mould and fashion
this continually more and more into its own image. But still,
this original and independent action, however free it may be in
its own nature, can never escape from the particular organiza-
tion in which it has its basis, and which it is called to fill with
its presence. In other words, the inmost life of man, his per-
sonal spirit, though absolutely universal in its own character, is
made to individualize itself by union with the inferior part of
his nature, while at the same time it seeks to lift this into its own
sphere. Reason and will accordingly are not the same thing
exactly in all men. Personality is conditioned and complexion-
ed, all the world over, by the individual physical nature, somat-
ic and psychic, out of which, and by means of which, it comes
to its historical development. It is not possible then of course,
that it should not participate in the force of a distinction so broad
and deep as that which is involved in the idea of sex. It results
necessarily from the organic unity of every single life as a whole,
that the order which thus severs the human world into the two
grand sections of male and female, should extend to the most
spiritual part of our nature as well as to that which is simply
corporeal. There is a sex of the mind or soul, just as there is
a sex of the body, an inward difference of structure in the one
case, including the whole economy of the spirit, fancy and feel-
ing, thought and volition, as broadly marked and strikingly sig-
nificant, to say the least, as any outward difference of structure
which may show itself in the other.

It is altogether preposterous, to think of resolving this differ

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ence into the influence of education or mere social position; as though nothing more were needed to convert men into women, or women into men, so far as character and spirit are concerned, than simply to make them change places for a time in the order of society, confining the male sex to the employments of the nursery and the kitchen, and throwing open to the female sex the active walks of business, politics and trade. The difference as we may all easily see, is original and constitutional, and in this view co-extensive in full with the entire range of our common life. It shows itself even in the character of the infant, as soon as it begins to discover any signs of character whatever. The tastes and tendencies of the boyish nature are peculiar to it as such, from the first hour of its activity in the nursery, clearly distinguishing it from the nature of the girl. The distinction reigns through all the sports of childhood, and accompanies the entire subsequent development of the spirit onward and upward to mature age. It prevails in full force over the whole broad range of middle life, imparting to it its highest interest and value in a moral view. Finally it ceases not with the decay of bodily vigor and beauty induced by old age itself, but reaches forward still, with a radiant light that grows only more mellow as it is less tinged with the coloring of sense, far down into the vale of years; covering thus in truth the universal tract of our existence, from the mystery of the womb to the still more impenetrable and solemn mystery of the grave.

Nor can the distinction possibly terminate here. It has been made a question indeed, whether the difference of sex extends to the other world; and it is characteristic of the Hegelian way of thinking in particular, that it allows but little room for any such supposition, having the tendency always to merge the individual in the general, and to make men mere passing exemplifi cations of humanity. But this view overthrows in the end the doctrine of a future state altogether; since without the distinctions of individual nature, as something continued over from the present life, there can be no sense of personal identity, no true resurrection, or other-world consciousness, in any form. It lies in the very conception of our being as we have here described it, that its individual distinctions should reach throughout the whole man in a permanent and enduring way. Personality cannot be evolved at all, except in such union with a particular natural organization, as to have wrought into it from first to last the same particularity, as a necessary part of its own constitution. It is one of the great merits of Schleiermacher again, to have perceived and asserted, with proper force, the claims of the indi

vidual over against the authority of the universal and absolute, as a permanent element in the constitution of man. The question before us then, according to this view, is already answered. The multiplication of the race will not extend, it is true, over into the other world, and with this must come to an end also the present significance of the sexual relation as concerned in that object; our whole present physical state indeed being but the transient process, by which our being is destined to emerge hereafter into a higher order of existence. In that higher state, we are told, they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but resemble in this respect the angels in heaven. The family constitution, in its strict sense, though it be the basis of all morality in its process of revelation, belongs only to the present order of things, and will not be continued in the complete kingdom of God. But we may not suppose that the vast and mighty distinction in our nature, out of which this radical constitution now springs, will come to an end in the same way. Entering as it does into the life of the entire person, it cannot be overthrown by the simple elevation of our mortal individuality into the undying sphere of the spirit. On the contrary it may be expected rather to appear now under its most purely ethical, and for that reason its highest also and richest form. In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female, as there is also neither Jew nor Greek; not however by the full obliteration of all such differences, but only through their free harmonious comprehension in a form of consciousness that is deeper than their opposition, and able thus to reconcile them in an organic way. It is on the back ground of such universal unity precisely, that the differences stand out after all in the clearest delineation which their nature admits. 'There will be races and nationalities and temperaments, strongly marked, in heaven, no doubt, as we find them here in course of sanctification upon the earth. And so there will be, not in the flesh but in the spirit, the difference of sex there too. Humanity made forever complete in the new creation will comprise in itself still, as the deep ground-tone of its universal organic harmony, the two great forms of existence in which it was comprehended at the beginning, when God created man, we are told, male and female after his own image. In this view, it involves no extravagance to extend the idea of sex even to the angels themselves, although they neither marry nor are given in marriage.

We are now prepared to notice more particularly, though of course still only in the most general way, the constitutional character of the two sexes in a comparative view. The case requires

of course, as already intimated, a glance at the simply physical side of our nature, in the first place, and then at its moral or spiritual side, in which only the first comes finally to its full human significance and force. So intimately interwoven however, are these two spheres of existence, that no full view can be had of one apart from the other, and it is only in their union at last that we are enabled to complete properly the comparison we have

in hand.

The physical difference of the sexes, is not limited by any means, in the first place, to any particular organs and functions of our simply corporeal structure, but extends to the body as a whole. This is in no sense a mechanical composition merely of various parts outwardly fitted together, but a living whole pervaded throughout with the presence of a common principle and constitution. It is not possible accordingly, that a peculiarity so broad and deep as that of sex should appear as something adventitious and accidental only, in some particular parts of the general organization, without affecting the rest. It must impress itself, more or less clearly, upon the whole. This we find accordingly to be the case in fact. Both anatomically and phy siologically considered, the whole body is made to participate in the sexual character. Man and woman are so completely differ ent in their whole organization, that as it has been remarked no single part of the one could be properly substituted for the cor responding part of the other. Bones and mucles, the turn of the limbs, general height and bulk, the conformation of the head and breast, the show of the skin, the expression of the face, the tones of the voice, the bearing and carriage of the person, all are comprehended in the same universal distinction. So also in the case of the several great systems of which life is composed; the action of liver, lungs and brain, is subjected to corresponding modification. In man the arterial and cerebral systems prevail; in woman, the venous and ganglionic; creating a preponderance of irritability in the first case, and in the second a similar preponderance of sensibility, conditioning thus throughout their different capabilities and tendencies, and indicating with sure necessity the different spheres in which they are appointed to move. In the next place with the purely corporeal or somatic difference now stated, corresponds also the inward or psychical region of what must still be denominated our physical nature. This includes the whole natural consciousness, the product directly of our animal organization as such, which the true spirit within us is required to raise into its own native sphere of freedom, that it may become the vesture, subsequently, of its own

life. Such consciousness from the start is not the same thing in man that it is found to be in woman. Sensation and perception, feeling and affection, appetite and tendency, inclination and desire, are all modified by the power of sex. The whole inward and outward nature, harmoniously constructed in each case within itself, is comprehended in the same distinction, and carried always in the same direction. Man is characterized by superior strength and activity, while woman is more delicately tender and passive. Thought predominates in man, in woman taste and feeling. All goes to indicate that man is formed to exercise authority and protection, and to wrestle both physically and spiritually with the surrounding world; while woman is led by her whole nature rather, to cultivate a spirit of submission and dependence, and finds her proper sphere in the retirement of the house and family. We are in this way, however, conducted over to a still higher apprehension of the difference under consideration. It is only as nature passes upwards, as its constitution here requires it to do, into the sphere of the spirit, that the full sense and force of the distinction, thus sublimated by the ethical process, is brought finally into full view.

In this character, the difference is no longer natural simply, but in the fullest sense moral. Personality unites in itself the presence of a spiritual universal life, which is strictly and truly the fountain of its own activity in the form of intelligence and will, and a material organization as the necessary medium and basis of its revelation. In this relation, the spirit, while it must remain always the centre of the whole person with power to assert its own proper primacy, is notwithstanding capable of being acted upon and influenced in various measures by the power of nature, as brought to bear upon it through the organism of the body. In proportion, at the same time, to the independence it may be urged and enabled to assert in its own sphere, will be the strength and force of the personality thus brought into view. Now it results from the whole peculiarity of her organization, as already described, and so of course lies also in the proper purpose and destiny of her sex, that woman should possess less of this independence than man. Her life springs more immediately and directly from nature, even under its true ethical form. There is a specific difference, in this view, between the personality of the sexes, taking up into itself and completing the sense of all differences in a lower sphere. It resolves itself ultimately, we may say, into this, that the universal side of our common humanity prevails in man, and its individual side in woman. Self consciousness in man runs readily into the general form of

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