[4] KARL PEARSON denies this. See _The Chances of Death_, Vol. I, p.
256. London, 1897.

[5] C.W. SALEEBY, in _Woman and Womanhood_, p. 54, New York, Mitchell
Kennerley, 1911, maintains that woman is biologically more variable than
man, and that woman's less variable activity is due to her training.

All these statements are summed up by saying that not only in women, but
in most female animals of the higher orders, life is more anabolic than
in males. They tend to more static conditions; they collect, organize,
conserve; they are patient and stable; they move about less; they more
easily lay on adipose tissue. Compared with the female, the male animal
is katabolic; he is active, impulsive, destructive, skilful, creative,
intense, spasmodic, violent. Such a generalization as this must not be
pushed too far in its applications to our daily life; but as a statement
of basal differences it seems justified by ordinary observation as well
as by scientific tests.[6]

[6] PATRICK GEDDES and ARTHUR THOMPSON, in _The Evolution of Sex_, D.
Appleton & Co., 1889, first advanced this position.

Meantime, it is probably true that the female, as mother of the race, is
more important biologically than the male, since she both furnishes germ
plasm and nourishes the newly conceived life. The latest studies, along
lines laid down by Mendel, seem to indicate that the female brings to
the new creation both male and female attributes, while the male brings
only male qualities. Thus when either sex sinks into insignificance, as
sometimes happens in lower forms of life, it is generally the male which
exists merely for purposes of reproduction.[7]