_
"He said, 'Woman's sphere is the hearth and the home: to impair her
delicacy is to take the bloom from the peach: she could not qualify for
medicine without mastering anatomy and surgery--branches that must unsex
her. Providence, intending her to be man's helpmate, not his rival, had
given her a body unfit for war or hard labor, and a brain four ounces
lighter than a man's, and unable to cope with long study and practical
science. In short, she was too good, and too stupid, for medicine.'
"It was eloquent, but it was _'a priori_ reasoning, and conjecture
_versus_ evidence: yet the applause it met with showed one how happy is
the orator 'qui hurle avec les loups.' Taking the scientific preacher's
whole theory in theology and science, woman was high enough in creation
to be the mother of God, but not high enough to be a sawbones.
"Well, a professor of _belles-lettres_ rose on our side, not with a rival
theory, but with facts. He was a pupil of Lord Bacon, and a man of the
nineteenth century; so he objected to _'a priori_ reasoning on a matter
of experience. To settle the question of capacity he gave a long list of
women who had been famous in science.
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