WOMAN AND WOMANHOOD ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BY DR. C. W. SALEEBY WOMAN AND WOMANHOODHEALTH, STRENGTH AND HAPPINESSTHE CYCLE OF LIFEEVOLUTION: THE MASTER KEYWORRY: THE DISEASE OF THE AGETHE CONQUEST OF CANCER: A PLAN OF CAMPAIGNPARENTHOOD AND RACE CULTURE ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WOMAN AND WOMANHOOD A SEARCH FOR PRINCIPLES byC. W. SALEEBYM. D. , F. R. S. E. , Ch. B. , F. Z. S. Fellow of the Obstetrical Society of Edinburgh and formerlyResident Physician Edinburgh Maternity Hospital;Vice-President Divorce Law Reform Union; Member of theRoyal Institution and of Council of the Sociological Society. MITCHELL KENNERLEYNEW YORK AND LONDONMCMXI ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1911 byMitchell Kennerley Press of J. J. Little & Ives Co. East Twenty-fourth StreetNew York ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS PAGE I. FIRST PRINCIPLES 1 II. THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME 34 III. THE PURPOSE OF WOMANHOOD 52 IV. THE LAW OF CONSERVATION 64 V. THE DETERMINATION OF SEX 72 VI. MENDELISM AND WOMANHOOD 81 VII. BEFORE WOMANHOOD 92 VIII. THE PHYSICAL TRAINING OF GIRLS 99 IX. THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 128 X. THE PRICE OF PRUDERY 132 XI. EDUCATION FOR MOTHERHOOD 151 XII. THE MATERNAL INSTINCT 163 XIII. CHOOSING THE FATHERS OF THE FUTURE 193 XIV. THE MARRIAGE AGE FOR GIRLS 197 XV. THE FIRST NECESSITY 219 XVI. ON CHOOSING A HUSBAND 234 XVII. THE CONDITIONS OF MARRIAGE 258 XVIII. THE CONDITIONS OF DIVORCE 291 XIX. THE RIGHTS OF MOTHERS 296 XX. WOMEN AND ECONOMICS 327 XXI. THE CHIEF ENEMY OF WOMEN 348 XXII. CONCLUSION 386 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER I FIRST PRINCIPLES We are often and rightly reminded that woman is half the human race. Itis truer even than it appears. Not only is woman half of the presentgeneration, but present woman is half of all the generations of men andwomen to come. The argument of this book, which will be regarded asreactionary by many women called "advanced"--presumably as doctors saythat a case of consumption is "advanced"--involves nothing other thanadequate recognition of the importance of woman in the most important ofall matters. It is true that my primary concern has been to furnish, forthe individual woman and for those in charge of girlhood, a guide oflife based upon the known physiology of sex. But it is a poor guide oflife which considers only the transient individual, and poorest of allin this very case. If it were true that woman is merely the vessel and custodian of thefuture lives of men and women, entrusted to her ante-natal care by theirfathers, as many creeds have supposed, then indeed it would be aquestion of relatively small moment how the mothers of the future werechosen. Our ingenious devices for ensuring the supremacy of man lendcolour to this idea. We name children after their fathers, and the factthat they are also to some extent of the maternal stock is obscured. But when we ask to what extent they are also of maternal stock, we findthat there is a rigorous equality between the sexes in this matter. Itis a fact which has been ignored or inadequately recognized by everyfeminist and by every eugenist from Plato until the present time. Salient qualities, whether good or ill, are more commonly displayed bymen than by women. Great strength or physical courage or endurance, great ability or genius, together with a variety of abnormalities, aremuch more commonly found in men than in women, and the eugenic emphasishas therefore always been laid upon the choice of fathers rather than ofmothers. Not so long ago, the scion of a noble race must marry, not atall necessarily the daughter of another noble race, but rather any younghealthy woman who promised to be able to bear children easily and sucklethem long. But directly we observe, under the microscope, the facts ofdevelopment, we discover that each parent contributes an exactly equalshare to the making of the new individual, and all the ancient andmodern ideas of the superior value of well-selected fatherhood fall tothe ground. Woman is indeed half the race. In virtue of expectantmotherhood and her ante-natal nurture of us all, she might well claimto be more, but she is half at least. And thus it matters for the future at least as much how the mothers arechosen as how the fathers are. This remains true, notwithstanding thatthe differences between men, commending them for selection or rejection, seem so much more conspicuous and important than in the case of women. For, in the first place, the differences between women are much greaterthan appear when, for instance, we read history as history is at presentunderstood, or when we observe and compare the world and his wife. Uniformity or comparative uniformity of environment is a factor ofobvious importance in tending to repress the natural differences betweenwomen. Reverse the occupations and surroundings of the sexes, and itmight be found that men were "much of a muchness, " and women various andindividualized, to a surprising extent. But, even allowing for this, it is difficult to question that men asindividuals do differ, for good and for evil, more than women asindividuals. Such a malady as hæmophilia, for instance, sharplydistinguishes a certain number of men from the rest of their sex, whereas women, not subject to the disease, are not thus distinguished, as individuals. But the very case here cited serves to illustrate the fallacy ofstudying the individual as an individual only, and teaches that there isa second reason why the selection of women for motherhood is moreimportant than is so commonly supposed. In the matter of, for instance, hæmophilia, men appear sharply contrasted among themselves and women allsimilar. Yet the truth is that men and women differ equally in this veryrespect. Women do not suffer from hæmophilia, but they convey it. Justas definitely as one man is hæmophilic and another is not, so one womanwill convey hæmophilia and another will not. The abnormality is presentin her, but it is latent; or, as we shall see the Mendelians would say, "recessive" instead of "dominant. " Now I am well assured that if we could study not only the patencies butalso the latencies of individuals of both sexes, we should find thatthey vary equally. Women, as individuals, appear more similar than men, but as individuals conveying latent or "recessive" characters which willappear in their children, especially their male children, they are justas various as men are. The instance of hæmophilia is conclusive, for twowomen, each equally free from it, will respectively bear normal andhæmophilic children; but this is probably only one among many far moreimportant cases. I incline to believe that certain nervous qualities, many of great value to humanity, tend to be latent in women, just ashæmophilia does. Two women may appear very similar in mind and capacity, but one may come of a distinguished stock, and the other of anundistinguished. In the first woman, herself unremarkable, high abilitymay be latent, and her sons may demonstrate it. It is therefore everywhit as important that the daughters of able and distinguished stockshall marry as that the sons shall. It remains true even though thesons may themselves be obviously distinguished and the daughters maynot. The conclusion of this matter is that scientific inquiry completelydemonstrates the equal importance of the selection of fathers and ofmothers. If our modern knowledge of heredity is to be admitted at all, it follows that the choice of women for motherhood is of the utmostmoment for the future of mankind. Woman is half the race; and theleaders of the woman's movement must recognize the importance of theirsex in this fundamental question of eugenics. At present they do not doso; indeed, no one does. But the fact remains. As before all things aEugenist, and responsible, indeed, for that name, I cannot ignore it inthe following pages. There is not only to-day to think of, butto-morrow. The eugenics which ignores the natural differences betweenwomen as individuals, and their still greater natural differences aspotential parents, is only half eugenics; the leading women who in anyway countenance such measures as deprive the blood of the future of itsdue contribution from the best women of the present, are leading notonly one sex but the race as a whole to ruin. If women were not so important as Nature has made them, none of thiswould matter. To insist upon it is only to insist upon the importance ofthe sex. The remarkable fact, which seems to me to make this protest andthe forthcoming pages so necessary, is that the leading feminists do notrecognize the all-importance of their sex in this regard. They must beaccused of neglecting it and of not knowing how important they are. Theyconsider the present only, and not the composition of the future. Likethe rest of the world, I read their papers and manifestoes, theirspeeches and books, and have done so, and have subscribed to them, foryears; but no one can refer me to a single passage in any of these whereany feminist or suffragist, in Great Britain, at least, militant ornon-militant, has set forth the principle, beside which all others aretrivial, that _the best women must be the mothers of the future_. Yet this which is thus ignored matters so much that other things matteronly in so far as they affect it. As I have elsewhere maintained, theeugenic criterion is the first and last of every measure of reform orreaction that can be proposed or imagined. Will it make a better race?Will the consequence be that more of the better stocks, _of both sexes_, contribute to the composition of future generations? In other words, thevery first thing that the feminist movement must prove is that it iseugenic. If it be so, its claims are unchallengeable; if it be what maycontrariwise be called _dysgenic_, no arguments in its favour are of anyavail. Yet the present champions of the woman's cause are apparentlyunaware that this question exists. They do not know how important theirsex is. Thinkers in the past have known, and many critics in the present, thoughunaware of the eugenic idea, do perceive, that woman can scarcely bebetter employed than in the home. Herbert Spencer, notably, argued thatwe must not include, in the estimate of a nation's assets, thoseactivities of woman the development of which is incompatible withmotherhood. To-day, the natural differences between individuals of bothsexes, and the importance of their right selection for the transmissionof their characters to the future, are clearly before the minds of thosewho think at all on these subjects. On various occasions I have raisedthis issue between Feminism and Eugenics, suggesting that there arevarieties of feminism, making various demands for women which areutterly to be condemned because they not merely ignore eugenics, but areopposed to it, and would, if successful, be therefore ruinous to therace. Ignored though it be by the feminist leaders, this is the first ofquestions; and in so far as any clear opinion on it is emerging from thewelter of prejudices, that opinion is hitherto inimical to the feministclaims. Most notably is this the case in America, where the dysgenicconsequences of the _so-called_ higher education of women have beenclearly demonstrated. The mark of the following pages is that they assume the principle ofwhat we may call Eugenic Feminism, and that they endeavour to formulateits working-out. It is my business to acquaint myself with theliterature of both eugenics and feminism, and I know that hitherto theeugenists have inclined to oppose the claims of feminism, Sir FrancisGalton, for instance, having lent his name to the anti-suffrage side;whilst the feminists, one and all, so far as Anglo-Saxondom isconcerned--for Ellen Key must be excepted--are either unaware of themeaning of eugenics at all, or are up in arms at once when theeugenist--or at any rate this eugenist, who is a male person--mildlyinquires: But what about motherhood? and to what sort of women are yourelegating it by default? I claim, therefore, that there is immediate need for the presentation ofa case which is, from first to last, and at whatever cost, eugenic; butwhich also--or, rather, therefore--makes the highest claims on behalf ofwoman and womanhood, so that indeed, in striving to demonstrate the vastimportance of the woman question for the composition of the coming race, I may claim to be much more feminist than the feminists. The problem is not easily to be solved; otherwise we should not havepaired off into insane parties, as on my view we have done. Nor will thesolution please the feminists without reserve, whilst it will grosslyoffend that abnormal section of the feminists who are distinguished bybeing so much less than feminine, and who little realize what a poorsubstitute feminism is for feminity. There is possible no Eugenic Feminism which shall satisfy those whosesimple argument is that woman must have what she wants, just as manmust. I do not for a moment admit that either men or women or childrenof a smaller growth are entitled to everything they want. "The divineright of kings, " said Carlyle, "is the right to be kingly men"; and Iwould add that the divine right of women is the right to be queenlywomen. Until this present time, it was never yet alleged as a finalprinciple of justice that whatever people wanted they were entitled to, yet that is the simple feminist demand in a very large number of cases. It is a demand to be denied, whilst at the same time we grant the rightof every man and of every woman to opportunities for the bestdevelopment of the self; whatever that self may be--including even theaberrant and epicene self of those imperfectly constituted women whoseadherence to the woman's cause so seriously handicaps it. But it is one thing to say people should have what is best for them, andanother that whatever they want is best for them. If it is not best forthem it is not right, any more than if they were children asking formore green apples. Women have great needs of which they are at presentunjustly deprived; and they are fully entitled to ask for everythingwhich is needed for the satisfaction of those needs; but nothing is morecertain than that, at present, many of them do not know what they shouldask for. Not to know what is good for us is a common human failing; tohave it pointed out is always tiresome, and to have this pointed out towomen by any man is intolerable. But the question is not whether a manpoints it out, presuming to tell women what is good for them, butwhether in this matter he is right--in common with the overwhelmingmultitude of the dead of both sexes. As has been hinted, the issue is much more momentous than any could haverealized even so late as fifty years ago. It is only in our own timethat we are learning the measure of the natural differences betweenindividuals, it is only lately that we have come to see that racescannot rise by the transmission of acquired characters from parents tooffspring, since such transmission does not occur, and it is only withinthe last few years that the relative potency of heredity over education, of nature over nurture, has been demonstrated. Not one in thousandsknows how cogent this demonstration is, nor how absolutely conclusive isthe case for the eugenic principle in the light of our modern knowledge. At whatever cost, we see, who have ascertained the facts, that we mustbe eugenic. This argument was set forth in full in the predecessors of this book, which in its turn is devoted to the interests of women as individuals. But before we proceed, it is plainly necessary to answer the critic whomight urge that the separate questions of the individual and the racecannot be discussed in this mixed fashion. The argument may be that ifwe are to discuss the character and development and rights of women asindividuals, we must stick to our last. Any woman may question theeugenic criterion or say that it has nothing to do with her case. Sheclaims certain rights and has certain needs; she is not so sure, perhaps, about the facts of heredity, and in any case she is sure thatindividuals--such as herself, for instance--are ends in themselves. Sheneither desires to be sacrificed to the race, nor does she admit thatany individual should be so sacrificed. She is tired of hearing thatwomen must make sacrifices for the sake of the community and itsfuture; and the statement of this proposition in its new eugenic form, which asserts that, at all costs, the finest women must be mothers, andthe mothers must be the finest women, is no more satisfactory to herthan the crude creed of the Kaiser that children, cooking and church arethe proper concerns of women. She claims to be an individual, as much asany man is, as much as any individual of either sex whom we hope toproduce in the future by our eugenics, and she has the same personalclaim to be an end in and for herself as they will have whom we seek tocreate. Her sex has always been sacrificed to the present or to theimmediate needs of the future as represented by infancy and childhood;and there is no special attractiveness in the prospect of exchanging amilitary tyranny for a eugenic tyranny: "_plus ça change, plus c'est lamême chose. _" One cannot say whether this will be accepted as a fair statement of thewoman's case at the present time, but I have endeavoured to state itfairly and would reply to it that its claims are unquestionable and thatwe must grant unreservedly the equal right of every woman to the sameconsideration and recognition and opportunity as an individual, an endin and for herself, whatever the future may ask for, as we grant to men. But I seek to show in the following pages that, in reality, there is noantagonism between the claims of the future and the present, the raceand the individual. On philosophic analysis we must see that, indeed, noliving race could come into being, much less endure, in which theinterests of individuals as individuals, and the interest of the race, were opposed. If we imagine any such race we must imagine itsdisappearance in one generation, or in a few generations if the clash ofinterests were less than complete. Living Nature is not so fiendishlycontrived as has sometimes appeared to the casual eye. On the contrary, the natural rule which we see illustrated in all species, animal orvegetable, high or low, throughout the living world, is that theindividual is so constructed that his or her personal fulfilment of hisor her natural destiny as an individual, is precisely that which bestserves the race. Once we learn that individuals were all evolved byNature for the sake of the race, we shall understand why they have beenso evolved in their personal characteristics that in living their ownlives and fulfilling themselves they best fulfil Nature's remoterpurpose. To this universal and necessary law, without which life could notpersist anywhere in any of its forms, woman is no exception; and thereinis the reply to those who fear a statement in new terms of the oldproposition that women must give themselves up for the sake of thecommunity and its future. Here it is true that whosoever will give herlife shall save it. Women must indeed give themselves up for thecommunity and the future; and so must men. Since women differ from men, their sacrifice takes a somewhat different form, but in their case, asin men's, the right fulfilment of Nature's purpose is one with the rightfulfilment of their own destiny. There is no antinomy. On the contrary, the following pages are written in the belief and the fear that womenare threatening to injure themselves as individuals--and therefore therace, of course--just because they wrongly suppose that a monstrousantinomy exists where none could possibly exist. "No, " they say, "wehave endured this too long; henceforth we must be free to be ourselvesand live our own lives. " And then, forsooth, they proceed to try to beother than themselves and live other than the lives for which their realselves, in nine cases out of ten, were constructed. It works for a time, and even for life in the case of incomplete and aberrant women. For theothers, it often spells liberty and interest and heightenedconsciousness of self for some years; but the time comes when outragedNature exacts her vengeance, when middle age abbreviates the youth thatwas really misspent, and is itself as prematurely followed by a periodof decadence grateful neither to its victim nor to anyone else. Meanwhile the women who have chosen to be and to remain women realizethe promise of Wordsworth to the girl who preferred walks in the countryto algebra and symbolic logic:-- Thou, while thy babes around thee cling, Shalt show us how divine a thing A woman may be made. Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die, Nor leave thee, when grey hairs are nigh, A melancholy slave; But an old age serene and bright And lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to thy grave. Where is the woman, recognizable as such, who will question that thebrother of Dorothy Wordsworth was right? In the following pages, it is sought to show that, women beingconstructed by Nature, as individuals, for her racial ends, they bestrealize themselves, are happier and more beautiful, live longer and moreuseful lives, when they follow, as mothers or foster-mothers in the wideand scarcely metaphorical sense of that word, the career suggested inWordsworth's lovely lines. It remains to state the most valuable end which this book might possiblyachieve--an end which, by one means or another, must be achieved. It isthat the best women, those favoured by Nature in physique andintelligence, in character and their emotional nature, the women who areincreasingly to be found enlisted in the ranks of Feminism, and fightingthe great fight for the Women's Cause, shall be convinced by theunchangeable and beneficent facts of biology, seen in the bodies andminds of women, and shall direct their efforts accordingly; so that theyand those of their sisters who are of the same natural rank, instead ofincreasingly deserting the ranks of motherhood and leaving the blood ofinferior women to constitute half of all future generations, shall onthe contrary furnish an ever-increasing proportion of our wives andmothers, to the great gain of themselves, and of men, and of the future. For in some of its forms to-day the Woman's Cause is _not_ man's, northe future's, nor even, as I shall try to show, woman's. But a EugenicFeminism, for which I try to show the warrant in the study of woman'snature, would indeed be the cause of man, and should enlist the wholeheart and head of every man who has them to offer. For here is aprinciple which benefits men to the whole immeasurable extent involvedin decreeing that the best women must be the wives. "The best women forour wives!" is not a bad demand from men's point of view, and it isassuredly the best possible for the sake of the future. It is claimed, then, for the teaching of this book that, being basedupon the evident and unquestionable indications of Nature, it iscalculated to serve her end, which is the welfare of the race as awhole, including both sexes. No one will question that the position andhappiness and self-realization of women in the modern world would bevastly enhanced by the reforms for which I plead, though some men willnot think that game worth the candle. But I have argued that men alsowill profit; nor can there be any question as to the advantage forchildren. It is just because our scheme and our objects are natural thatthey require no support from and lend no warrant to that accursed spiritof sex-antagonism which many well-meaning women now display--doubtlessby a natural reflex, because it is the spirit of the worst meneverywhere. It is primarily men's desire for sex-dominance thatengenders a sex-resentment in women; but the spirit is lamentable, whatever its origin and wherever it be found. It is most lamentable inthe bully, the drunkard, the cad, the Mammonist, the satyr, who areeverywhere to be found opposing woman and her claims. There is novariety of male blackguardism and bestiality, of vileness andselfishness, of lust and greed, whose representatives' names should notbe added to those of the illustrious pro-consuls and elegant peeressesand their following who form Anti-Suffrage Societies. Before wecriticise sex-antagonism in women, let us be honest about it in men; andbefore we sneer at the type of women who most display it, let us realizefully the worthlessness of the types of men who display it. But if thisbe granted--and I have never heard it granted by the men who deploresex-antagonism as if only women displayed it--we must none the lessrecognize that this spirit injures both sexes, and that it isnecessarily false, since none can question that Nature devised the sexesfor mutual aid to her end. By this first principle sex-antagonism istherefore condemned. This book, written by a man in behalf ofwomanhood--and therefore in behalf of manhood and childhood--isconsistently opposed to all notions of sex-antagonism, or sex-dominance, male or female, or of competing claims between the sexes. Man and womanare complementary halves of the highest thing we know, and just as themen who seek to maintain male dominance are the enemies of mankind, sothe women who preach enmity to men, and refusal of wise and humanelegislation in their interests because men have framed it, are theenemies of womankind. At the beginning of the "Suffragette" movement inEngland, I had the pleasure of taking luncheon with the brilliant younglady whose name has been so prominent in this connection; and mylifelong enthusiasm for the "Vote" has been chastened ever since by therecollection of the resentment which she exhibited at every suggestionof or allusion to any legislation in favour of women--notably withreference to infant mortality and to alcoholism--whilst the suffrage waswithheld. Substitute "destroyed" or "reversed" for "chastened, " and youhave a more typical result in quite well-meaning men of sex-antagonismas many "advanced" women now display it. Further, this book may be regarded as an appeal to those women who areresponsible for forming the ideals of girls. The idea of womanhood hereset forth on natural grounds is not always represented in the idealswhich are now set before the youthful aspirant for work in the woman'scause. It is not argued that the principles of eugenics are to beexpounded to the beginner, nor that she is to be re-directed to thenursery. It is not necessarily argued, by any means, that marriage andmotherhood are to be set forth as the goal at which _every_ girl is toaim; such a woman as Miss Florence Nightingale was a Foster-Mother ofcountless thousands, and was only the greatest exemplar in our time of afunction which is essentially womanly, but does not involve marriage. Idesire nothing less than that girls should be taught that they mustmarry--any man better than none. I want no more men chosen forfatherhood than are fit for it, and if the standard is to be raised, selection must be more rigorous and exclusive, as it could not be ifevery girl were taught that, unmarried, she fails of her destiny. Thehigher the standard which, on eugenic principles, natural or acquired, women exact of the men they marry, the more certainly will many womenremain unmarried. But I believe that the principles here set forth are able to show us howsuch women may remain feminine, and may discharge characteristicallyfeminine functions in society, even though physical motherhood be deniedthem. The _racial_ importance of physical motherhood cannot beexaggerated, because it determines, as we have seen, not less than halfthe natural composition of future generations. But its _individual_importance can easily be over-estimated, and that is an error which Ihave specially sought to avoid in this book, which is certainly anattempt to call or recall women to motherhood. It is not as if physicalmotherhood were the whole of human motherhood. Racially, it is thesubstantial whole; individually, it is but a part of the whole, and asmaller fraction in our species than in any humbler form of life. Everyone knows maiden aunts who are better, more valuable, completermothers in every non-physical way than the actual mothers of theirnephews and nieces. This is woman's wonderful prerogative, that, invirtue of her _psyche_, she can realize herself, and serve others, onfeminine lines, and without a pang of regret or a hint anywhere offailure, even though she forego physical motherhood. This book, therefore, is a plea not only for Motherhood but forFoster-Motherhood--that is, Motherhood all-but-physical. In time to comethe great professions of nursing and teaching will more and more engageand satisfy the lives and the powers of Virgin-Mothers without number. Let no woman prove herself so ignorant or contemptuous of great thingsas to suggest that these are functions beneath the dignity of hercomplete womanhood. But many a young girl, passing from her finishing-school--which hasperhaps not quite succeeded, despite its best efforts, in finishing herwomanhood--and coming under the influence of some of our modernchampions of womanhood, might well be excused for throwing such a bookas this from her, scorning to admit the glorious conditions whichdeclare that woman is more for the Future than for the Present, and thatif the Future is to be safeguarded, or even to be, they must not betransgressed. I have watched young girls, wearing the beautiful colourswhich have been captured by one section of the suffrage movement, askingtheir way to headquarters for instructions as to procedure, and I havewondered whether, in twenty years, they will look back wholly withcontent at the consequences. Some time ago the illustrated papersprovided us with photographs of a person, originally female, "born to belove visible, " as Ruskin says, who had mastered jiu-jitsu forsuffragette purposes, and was to be seen throwing various hapless menabout a room. And only the day before I write, the papers have given usa realistic account of a demonstration by an ardent advocate of woman, the chief item of which was that, on the approach of a burly policemanto seize her, she--if the pronouns be not too definite in theirsex--fell upon her back and adroitly received the constabulary "wind"upon her upraised foot, thereby working much havoc. No one would assertthat the woman's movement is responsible for the production of suchpeople; no reasonable person would assert that their adherence condemnsit; but we are rightly entitled to be concerned lest the risinggeneration of womanhood be misled by such disgusting examples. Nothing will be said which militates for a moment against thepossibility that a woman may be womanly and yet in her later years, whenso many women combine their best health and vigour with experience andwisdom, might replace many hundredweight of male legislators upon thebenches of the House of Commons, to the immense advantage of the nation. If our present purpose were medical in the ordinary sense, the readerwould come to a chapter on the climacteric, dealing with the nervous andother risks and disabilities of that period, and notably including awarning as to the importance of attending promptly to certain localsymptoms which may possibly herald grave disease. An abundance of bookson such subjects is to be had, and my purpose is not to add to theirnumber. Yet the climacteric has a special interest for us because thespecial case of those women who have passed it is constantly ignored inour discussions of the woman question--which is not exclusivelyconcerned with the destiny of girls and the claims of feminineadolescence to the vote. The work of Lord Lister, and the advances ofobstetrics and gynecology, largely dependent thereon, are increasing thenaturally large number of women at these later ages--naturally largebecause women live longer than men. At this stage the whole case ischanged. The eugenic criterion no longer applies. But though the womanis past motherhood, she is still a woman, and by no means pastfoster-motherhood. Though her psychological characters are somewhatmodified, it is recorded by my old friend and teacher, Dr. Clouston, that never yet has he found the climacteric to damage a woman's naturallove for children: the maternal instinct will not be destroyed. See, then, what a valuable being we have here; none the less so because, ashas been said, she now begins to enjoy, in many cases, the best healthof her life. Whatever activities she adopts, there is now no question ofdepriving the race of her qualities: if they are good qualities, it isto be hoped they are already represented in members of the risinggeneration. The scope of womanhood is now extended. The principles to belaid down later still apply, but they are entirely compatible with, forinstance, the discharge of legislative functions. The nation does notyet value its old or elderly women aright. We use as a term of contemptthat which should be a term of respect. Savage peoples are wiser. Weneed the wisdom of our older women. It would be well for us to have Mrs. Fawcett and Mrs. Humphry Ward in Parliament. The distinguished lady whoapproves of woman's vote in municipal affairs, and fights hard for herson's candidature in Parliament, but objects to woman suffrage on theground that women should not interfere in politics, could doubtless finda good reason why women should sit in Parliament; and though she wouldscarcely be heeded on matters of political theory, her splendidchampionship of Vacation Schools and Play Centres would be moreeffective than ever in the House, and might instruct some of her male_confrères_ as to what politics really is. The prefatory point here made is, in a word, that the followingdoctrines are perhaps less reactionary than the ardent suffragette mightsuppose, compatible as they are with an earnest belief in the fitnessand the urgent desirability of women of later ages even as Members ofParliament. It may be added that, on this very point, there is aridiculous argument against woman suffrage--that it is the precursor ofa demand to enter Parliament, which would mean (it is assumed), womenbeing numerically in the majority, that the House would be filled withgirls of twenty-two and three. Men of a sort would be likelier thanwomen, it could be argued, to vote for such girls; but the wise of bothsexes might well vote for the elderly women whose existence is somehowforgotten in this connection. No chapter will be found devoted to the question of the vote. Theomission is not due to reasons of space, nor to my ever having heard agood argument against the vote--even the argument that women do not wantit. That women did not want the vote would only show--if it were thecase--how much they needed it. Nor is the omission due to anylukewarmness in a cause for which I am constantly speaking and writing. My faith in the justice and political expediency of woman suffrage hassurvived the worst follies, in speech and deed, of its injudiciousadvocates: I would as soon allow the vagaries of Mrs. Carrie Nation tomake me an advocate of free whiskey. Causes must be judged by theirmerits, not by their worst advocates, or where are the chances ofreligion or patriotism or decency? The omission is due to the belief that votes for women or anybody elseare far less important than their advocates or their opponents assume. The biologist cannot escape the habit of thinking of political mattersin vital terms; and if these lead him to regard such questions as thevote with an interest which is only secondary and conditional, it is byno means certain that the verdict of history would not justify him. Thepresent concentration of feminism in England upon the vote, sometimesinvolving the refusal of a good end--such as wise legislation--becauseit was not attained by the means they desire, and arousing all manner ofenmity between the sexes, may be an unhappy necessity so long as menrefuse to grant what they will assuredly grant before long. But now, andthen, the vital matters are the nature of womanhood; the extent of ourcompliance with Nature's laws in the care of girlhood, whether or notwomen share in making the transitory laws of man; and the extent towhich womanhood discharges its great functions of dedicating andpreparing its best for the mothers, and choosing and preparing the bestof men for the fathers, of the future. The vote, or any other thing, isgood or bad in so far as it serves or hurts these great and everlastingneeds. I believe in the vote because I believe it will be eugenic, willreform the conditions of marriage and divorce in the eugenic sense, andwill serve the cause of what I have elsewhere called "preventiveeugenics, " which strives to protect healthy stocks from the "racialpoisons, " such as venereal disease, alcohol, and, in a relativelyinfinitesimal degree, lead. These are ends good and necessary inthemselves, whether attained by a special dispensation from on high, orby decree of an earthly autocrat or a democracy of either sex or both. For these ends we must work, and for all the means whereby to attainthem; but never for the means in despite of the ends. This first chapter is perhaps unduly long, but it is necessary to statemy eugenic faith, since there is neither room nor need for me toreiterate the principles of eugenics in later chapters, and since it wasnecessary to show that, though this book is written in the interests ofindividual womanhood, it is consistent with the principles of the divinecause of race-culture, to which, for me, all others are subordinate, andby which, I know, all others will in the last resort be judged. * * * * * The whole teaching of this book, from social generalizations to thedetails of the wise management of girlhood, is based upon a single andsimple principle, often referred to and always assumed in formerwritings from this pen, and in public speaking from many and variousplatforms. If this principle be invalid, the whole of the practice whichis sought to be based upon it falls to the ground; but if it be valid, it is of supreme importance as the sole foundation upon which can beerected any structure of truth regarding woman and womanhood. Our firstconcern, therefore, must be to state this principle, and the evidencetherefor. This will occupy not a small space: and the remainder will beamply filled with the details of its application to woman as girl andmother and grandmother, as wife and widow, as individual and citizen. Woman is Nature's supreme organ of the future, and it is as such thatshe will here be regarded. The purpose of adding yet another to the manybooks on various aspects of womanhood is to propound and, if possible, establish this conception of womanhood, and to find in it anever-failing guide to the right living of the individual life, aninfallible criterion of right and wrong in all proposals for the futureof womanhood, whether economic, political, educational, whetherregarding marriage or divorce, or any other subject that concernswomanhood. A principle for which so much is claimed demands cleardefinition and inexpugnable foundation in the "solid ground of Nature. "Cogent in some measure though the argument would be, we must appeal inthe first place neither to the poets, nor to our own naturally implantedpreferences in womanhood, nor to any teaching that claims extra-naturalauthority. Our first question must be--Do Nature and Life, the facts andlaws of the continuance and maintenance of living creatures, lendcountenance to this idea; can it be translated from general terms, essentially poetic and therefore suspect by many, into precise, hard, scientific language; is it a fact, like the atomic weight of oxygen orthe laws of motion, that woman is Nature's supreme instrument of thefuture? If the answer to these questions be affirmative, the evidence ofthe poets, of our own preferences, of religions ancient and modern, isof merely secondary concern as corroborative, and as serving curiosityto observe how far the teachings of passionless science have beendivined or denied by past ages and by other modes of perception andinquiry. Therefore this is to be in its basis none other than abiological treatise; for the laws of reproduction, the newly gainedknowledge regarding the nature of sex, and the facts of physiology, afford the evidence of the essentially biological truth which has beenso often expressed by the present writer in the quasi-poetic termsalready set forth. Let us, then, first remind ourselves how theindividual, whether male or female, is to be looked upon in the light ofthe work of Weismann in especial, and how this great truth, discoveredby modern biology and especially by the students of heredity, affectsour understanding of the difference between man and woman. Setting forththese earlier pages in the year of the Darwin centenary, and the jubileeof the "Origin of Species, " a writer would have some courage whoproposed to discuss man and woman as if they were unique, rather thanthe highest and latest examples of male and female: their nature to berightly understood only by due study of their ancestral forms, ancientand modern. The biological problem of sex is our concern, and we mayhave to traverse many past ages of "æonian evolution, " and even toconsider certain quite humble organisms, before we rightly see woman asan evolutionary product of the laws of life. But, first, as to the individual, of whatever sex. Observing thefamiliar facts of our own lives and of the higher forms of life, bothanimal and vegetable, with which we are acquainted, we must naturally atfirst incline to regard as worse than paradoxical the modern biologicalconcept of the individual as existing for the race, of the body asmerely a transient host or trustee of the immortal germ-plasm. Sincelife has its worth and value only in individuals, and since, therefore, the race exists for the production of individuals, in any sense that wehuman beings, at any rate, can accept, we must be reasonable inexpressing the apparently contrary but not less true view that theindividual exists for the race. After all, that does not mean thatindividuals exist and are worth Nature's while merely in order to seethe germ-plasm on its way. To say that the individual exists for therace is to say that he, and, as we shall see, pre-eminently she, existfor future individuals; and that is not a destiny to be despised of any. Let us attempt to state simply but accurately what biologists mean inregarding the individual as primarily the host and servant of somethingcalled the germ-plasm. When the processes of development and of reproduction are closelyscrutinized, we find evidence which, together with the conclusions basedthereon, was first effectively stated by August Weismann, of Freiburg, in his famous little book, "The Germ-Plasm. "[1] The marvellous cellsfrom which new individuals are formed must no longer be regarded, at anyrate in the higher animals and plants, as formerly parts of the parentindividuals. On the contrary, we have to accept, at least in general andas substantially revealing to us the true nature of the individual, thedoctrine of the "continuity of the germ-plasm, " which teaches that therace proper is a potentially immortal sequence of living germ-cells, from which at intervals there are developed bodies or individuals, thebusiness and _raison d'être_ of which, whatever such individuals asourselves may come to suppose, is primarily to provide a shelter for thegerm-plasm, and nourishment and air, until such time as it shall produceanother individual for itself, to serve the same function. This isanother way of saying what will often be said in the followingpages--that the individual is meant by Nature to be a parent. We shall later see that this great truth by no means involves thecondemnation of spinsterhood, but since it determines not only thephysiology, but also the psychology, of the individual, and especiallyof woman, it will guide us to a right appreciation of the dangers andthe right direction of spinsterhood, and the means whereby it may bemade a blessing to self and to others. This must be said lest the readershould be deterred by the unquestionably true assertion that theindividual is meant by Nature to be a parent, and has no excuse forexistence in Nature's eyes except as a parent. If we are to regard thebody as a trustee of the germ-plasm, it is evident that the body whichcarries the germ-plasm with itself to the grave--the "immortality of thegerm-plasm" being only conditional and at the mercy of the acts ofindividuals--has stultified Nature's end; and it will be a seriousconcern of ours in the present work to show how, amongst human beings, at any rate, this stultification may be averted, many childless personsof both sexes having served the race for evermore in the highest degree. We must ask in what directions especially may woman, most profitably forherself or for others, seek to express herself apart from motherhood. Itwill appear, if our leading principle be valid, that it affords us asure guide in the welter of controversy and baseless assertion of everykind, in which this vastly important question is at present involved. This conception of the individual as something meant to be a parent willnot be questioned by anyone who will do himself or herself the justiceto look at it soberly and reverently, without a trace of that tendencyto levity or to something worse which here invariably betrays the vulgarmind, whether in a princess or a prostitute. For it needs littlereflection to perceive that the most familiar facts of our experienceand observation never fail to confirm the doctrine based by Weismannupon the revelations of the microscope when applied to the developmentalprocesses of certain simple animal and vegetable forms. The doctrinethat the individual body was evolved by the forces of life, acted on anddirected by natural selection, as guardian and transmitter of thegerm-plasm, assumes a less paradoxical character when we perceive withwhat unfailing art Nature has constructed and devised the body and themind for their function. We flatter ourselves hugely if we suppose thateven our most enjoyable and apparently most personal attributes andappetites were designed by Nature for us. Not at all. It is the race forwhich she is concerned. It is not the individual as individual, but theindividual as potential parent, that is her concern, nor does shehesitate to leave very much to the mercy of time and chance theindividual from whom the possibility of parenthood has passed away, orthe individual in whom it has never appeared. Our appetites for food anddrink, well devised by Nature to be pleasant in their satisfaction--lestotherwise we should fail to satisfy them and a possible parent should belost to her purposes--are immediately rendered of no account when therestirs within us, whether in its crude or transmuted forms, the appetitefor the exercise of which these others, and we ourselves, exist, sincein Nature's eyes and scheme we are but vessels of the future. In laterchapters we shall have much occasion, because of their great practicalimportance in the conduct of woman's life from girlhood onwards, todiscuss the physiological and psychological facts which demonstrateoverwhelmingly the truth of the view that the individual was evolved byNature for the care of the germ-plasm, or, in other words, was and isconstructed primarily and ultimately for parenthood. Nor is this argument, as I see it and will present it, invalidated inany degree by the case of such individuals as the sterile worker-bee;any more than the argument, rightly considered, is invalidated by anyinstance of a worthy, valuable, happy life, eminently a success in thehighest and in the lower senses, lived amongst mankind by a non-parentof either sex. On the contrary, it is in such cases as that of theworker-bee that we find the warrant--in apparent contradiction--for ournotion of the meaning of the individual, and also the key to the problemplaced before us amongst ourselves by the case of inevitablespinsterhood. Here, it must be granted, is an individual of a very highand definite and individually complete type, no accident or sport, but, in fact, essential for the type and continuance of the species to whichshe belongs, and yet, though highly individualized and worthy torepresent individuality at its best and highest, the worker-bee, so farfrom being designed for parenthood, is sterile, and her distinctivecharacters and utilities are conditional upon her sterility. But when wecome to ask what are her distinctive characters and utilities we findthat they are all designed for the future of the race. She is, in fact, the ideal foster-mother, made for that service, complete in herincompleteness, satisfied with the vicarious fulfilment of the whole ofmotherhood except its merely physical part. The doctrine, therefore, that the individual is designed by Nature for parenthood, theindividual being primarily devised for the race, finds no exception, but rather a striking and immensely significant illustration in the caseof the worker-bee, nor will it find itself in difficulties with the caseof any forms of individual, however sterile, that can be quoted fromeither the animal or the vegetable world. Natural selection, of whichthe continuance of the race is the first and never neglected concern, invariably sees to it that no individuals are allowed to be produced byany species unless they have survival-value, a phrase which alwaysmeans, in the upshot, value for the survival of the race--whether asparents, or foster-parents, protectors of the parents, feeders or slavesthereof. Our primary purpose throughout being practical, it isimpossible to devote unlimited time and space to proceeding formallythrough the known forms of life in order to marshal all the proofs or atithe of them, that all individuals are invented and tolerated by Naturefor parenthood or its service. We shall in due course consider the peculiar significance of thisproposition for the case of woman--a significance so radical for ourpresent argument, even to its _minutiæ_ of practical living, that itcannot be too early or too thoroughly insisted upon. But before weproceed to the special case of woman it is well that we should clearlyperceive as a general guiding truth, which will never fail us, either ininterpretation, prediction, or instruction, the unfailing gaze ofNature, as manifested in the world of life, towards the future. There isno truth more significant for our interpretation of the meaning of theUniverse, or at least of our planetary life: there is none more relevantto the fate of empires, and therefore to the interests of theenlightened patriot: there is none more worthy to be taken to heart bythe individual of either sex and of any age, adolescent or centenarian, as the secret of life's happiness, endurance, and worth. It may bepermitted, then, briefly to survey the main truths, and, therefore, themain teachings of the past, as they may be read by those who seek in thefacts of life the key to its meaning and its use. CHAPTER II THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME When we survey the past of the earth as science has revealed it to us, we gain some conceptions which will help us in our judgments as to whatthis phenomenon of human life may signify in the future. We areaccustomed to look upon the earth as aged, but these terms are onlyrelative; and if we compare our own planet with its neighbours in thesolar system, we shall have good reason to suppose that, though the pastof the earth is very prolonged, its future will probably be far more so. As for life--and we must think not only of human life, but of life as aplanetary phenomenon--that is necessarily much more recent than theformation even of the earth's crust, the existence of water in theliquid state being necessary for life in any of its forms. And humanlife itself, though the extent of its past duration is seen to begreater the more deeply we study the records, is yet a relatively recentthing. The utmost, it appears, that we can assign to our past would beperhaps six million years, taking our species back to mid-Miocene times. Doubtless this is a mighty age as compared with the few thousand yearsallotted to us in bygone chronologies; but, looked at _sub specieæternitatis_, and with an eye which is prepared to look forward also, and especially with relation to what we know and can predict regardingthe sun, these past six million years may reasonably be held to compriseonly the infantine period of man's life. It is very true that on such estimates as those of Lord Kelvin, andaccording to what astronomers and geologists believed not more thantwelve or even eight years ago, regarding the secular cooling of earthand sun--that, according to these, the time is by no means "unendinglong, " and we may foresee, not so remotely, the end of the solar heatand light of which we are the beneficiaries. But the discovery of radiumand the phenomena of radio-activity have profoundly modified theseestimates, justifying, indeed, the acumen of Lord Kelvin, who alwaysleft the way open for reconsideration should a new source of heat andenergy in general be discovered. We know now that, to consider the earthfirst, its crust is not self-cooling, or at any rate not self-coolingonly, for it is certainly self-heating. There is an almost embarrassingamount of radium in the earth's crust, so far as we have examined it; aquantity, that is to say, so great that if the same proportion weremaintained at deeper levels as at those which we can investigate, theearth would have to be far hotter than it is. Similar reasoning appliesto the sun. Definite, immediate proof of the presence of radium there isnot forthcoming yet, but that presence is far more than probable, especially since the existence of solar uranium, the known ancestor ofradium, has been demonstrated. The reckonings of Helmholtz and others, based upon the supposition that the solar energy is entirely derivedfrom its gravitational contraction, must be superseded. It would requirebut a very small proportion of radium in the solar constitution toaccount for all the energy which the centre of our system produces; and, as we have already seen, the earth is to no small extent its ownsun--its own source of heat. The prospect thus opened out by modernphysical inquiry supports more strongly than ever the conviction thatthe life of this world to come will be very prolonged. It is true thatthere is always the possibility of accident. Encountering another globe, our sun would doubtless produce so much heat as to incinerate allplanetary life. But the excessive remoteness of the sun from the nearestfixed star suggests that the constitution of the stellar universe issuch that an accident of this kind is extremely improbable. As forcomets, the earth's atmosphere has already encountered a comet, evenduring the brief period of astronomical observation. This thick overcoatof ours protects us from the danger of such chances. What, then, is the record? We are told that the belief in progress is amalady of youth, which experience and the riper mind will dissipate. Some such argument from the lips of the disillusioned or thedisidealized has been possible, perhaps, with some measure ofprobability, until within our own times. They must now forever holdtheir peace. We know as surely as we know the elementary phenomena ofphysics or chemistry, that the record of life upon our planet, thoughnot only a record of progress by any means, has nevertheless includedthat to which the name of progress cannot be denied in any possibledefinition of the word. For myself, I understand by progress _theemergence of mind, and its increasing dominance over matter_. Suchcategories are, no doubt, unphilosophical in the ultimate sense, butthey are proximately convenient and significant. Now, if progress bethus defined, we can see for ourselves that life has truly advanced, notmerely in terms of anatomical or physiological--_i. E. _ mechanical orchemical--complexity, but in terms of mind. The facts of nutrition teachus that the first life upon the earth was vegetable; and though thevegetable world displays great complexity, and that which, on somedefinitions, would be called progress, yet we cannot say that there isany more mind, any greater differentiation or development of sentience, in the oak than in the alga. When we turn, however, to the animalworld--which is parasitic, indeed, upon the vegetable world--we findthat in what we may call the main line of ascent there has been, alongwith increasing anatomical complexity, the far greater emergence ofmind. In its earliest manifestations, sentience, consciousness, thepsychical in general, and the capacity for it, must be regarded merelyas phenomena of the physical organism; the capacity to feel, as no morethan a property of the living body; and such mind as there is exists forthe body. But, as we may see it, there has been a gradual but infinitelyreal turning of the tables, so that, even in a dog, as the lover of thatdog would grant, the loss of limbs and tail, or, indeed, of any portionof the body not necessary to life, does not mean the loss of theessential dog--not the loss of that which the lover of the dog loves. Already, that which is not to be seen or handled has become the morereal. In ourselves, it is a capital truth, which asceticism, old or new, perverted or sane, has always recognized, that the mind is the man, andmust be master, and the body the servant. Yet, historically, thiscreature, who by the self means not the body, but, as he thinks, itsinhabitant, is historically and lineally developed--is also, indeed, developed as an individual--from an organism in which anything to becalled psychical is but an apparently accidental attribute, to bediscerned only on close examination. This emergence of mind is progress;and this, notwithstanding the sneers of those who do not love the wordor the light, has occurred. Its history is written indelibly in therocks. And, as we shall argue, this is the supreme lesson ofevolution--that progress is possible, because progress has occurred. Assuredly we should never use this word "progress" without remindingourselves of the cardinal distinction that exists between two forms thatit may manifest. There is a progress which consists in and depends uponan advance in the constitution of the living individual; and, so far aswe are more mental and less physical than the men who have left us suchrelics as the Neanderthal skull, in so far we exemplify this kind ofprogress. But, on the other hand, we can claim progress as compared witheven the Greeks in some respects, though there is no evidence whateverthat, so far as the individual is concerned, there is any natural, inherent, organic progress. But we know more. Our school-boys know morethan Aristotle. We stand upon Greek shoulders. This is traditionalprogress--something outside the germ-plasm; a thing dependent upon ourgreat human faculty of speech. That, surely, is why the word infantine was rightly used in our firstparagraph. For we may ask why, if man be millions of years old, anyrecord of progress should be a matter of only a few thousandyears--perhaps not more than fifteen or twenty. The answer, I believe, is that traditional progress depends upon the possibility of tradition. Now speech, apart from writing, involves the possibility of traditionfrom generation to generation, and I am very sure that "Man beforespeech" is a myth; the more we learn of the anthropoid apes the surer wemay be of that. But, after all, the possibilities of progress dependentupon aural memory are sadly limited; not only because it is easy toforget, but because it is also conspicuously easy to distort, as afamiliar round-game testifies. The greatest of all the epochs in humanhistory was that which saw the genesis of written speech. I believe thathundreds of thousands, nay millions, of preceding years weresubstantially sterile just because the educational acquirements ofindividuals could be transmitted to their children neither in thegerm-plasm (for we know such transmission to be impossible), nor outsidethe germ-plasm, by means of writing. The invention of written languageaccounts, then, we may suppose, for the otherwise incomprehensibledisparity between the blank record of long ages, and the greatachievement of recent history--an achievement none the less striking ifwe remember that the historical epoch includes a thousand years ofdarkness. Thus, as was said at the Royal Institution in 1907, whendiscussing the nature of progress, we may argue in a new sense that thehistorians have made history: it is the possibility of recording thathas given us something to record. Now, it is in terms of this latter kind of progress that our duty to thepast, as we conceive it, may be defined. And in its terms also must wedefine the grounds of our veneration for the past. None of us inventedlanguage, spoken or written; nor yet numbers, nor the wheel, nor muchelse. We see further than our ancestors because we stand upon theirshoulders, and, as Coleridge hinted, this may be so even though we bedwarfs and they were giants. Some of us see this. How can we fail to doso? And the past becomes in our eyes a very real thing, to which we areso greatly indebted that we should even live for it. But there is agreat danger, dependent upon a great error, here. Let us consider whatis our right attitude towards the past. We are its children and itsheirs. We are infinitely indebted to it. We must love and venerate thatwhich was lovable and venerable in it. But are we to live for it? If we could imagine ourselves coming from afar and contemplating thesequence of universal phenomena now for the first time, we shouldrealize that the past, though real, because it was once real, is yet afleeting aspect of change, and, in a very real sense also, _is_ not. Nor, indeed, _is_ the future; but it will be. We cannot alter, we cannotbenefit, we cannot serve the past, because it is not and will not be. Our besetting tendency as individuals is to live for our own pasts, moreespecially as we grow old; to become retrospective, to cease to lookforward, even to dedicate what remains to us of life to the service ofwhat is not at all. In this respect, as in so many others, we are lesswise than children. We will not let the dead bury its dead. This is alsothe tendency of all institutions. Even if there were founded anInstitute of the Future, dedicated to the life of this world to come, after only one generation its administrators would be consulting theinterests of the past, turning to the service of the name and the memoryof their founder, though it was for the future that he lived. Throughoutall our social institutions we can perceive this same worship of what nolonger is at the cost of the most real of all real things, which is thelife of the generation that is and the generations that are to be. Everywhere the price for this idolatry is exacted. The perpetual imageof it is Lot's wife, who, looking backwards upon that from which she hadescaped, was turned into a pillar of salt. Nature may or may not have apurpose, and exhibit designs for that purpose; she may or may not, inphilosophical language, be teleological. Man is and must beteleological. We must live for the morrow, for what will be, whether asindividuals or as a nation, or our ways are the ways of death. This islooked upon as a human failing--that man never is, but always to beblest; that man is never satisfied, that he will not rest content withpresent achievement. Well, it is stated of our first cousin, once removed, the orang-outang, that in the adult state he is aroused only for the snatching of food, and then "relapses into repose. " His reach does not exceed his grasp, and one need not preach contentment to him. But we, the latest andhighest products of the struggle for existence, we are strugglers byconstitution; and when we relapse into repose we degenerate. Only oncondition of living for the morrow can we remain human. Put a sound limbon crutches and you paralyze it; wear smoked glasses and your eyesbecome intolerant of light, or wear glasses that make the muscle ofaccommodation superfluous and it atrophies; take pepsin and hydrochloricacid and the stomach will become incapable of producing them; cease tochew and your teeth decay; let the newspaper prepare your mental food asthe cook cuts up your physical food, and you will become incapable ofthought--that is, of mental mastication and digestion. It is above allthings imperative to strive, to have a goal, to seek it on our own legs, to cry for the moon rather than for nothing at all. And Nature teachesus unequivocally that our purpose is ever onward-- To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until we die. It is to go, and not to get, that is the glory. To be content is to haveno ideal beyond the real; we were better dead and nourishing grass. Itis part of the whole structure of life, as we can read it, whether inthe animal or in the vegetable world, but pre-eminently in ourselves, that the very body of the individual is constructed as for purpose; naymore, as for the purposes of the future. Every little baby girl that isborn into the world bears upon her soft surface signs and portents--notmerely promise, but the promise of provision--for the life of the worldto come. At her very birth she teaches us that she is not created forself alone, but for what will be. Running through the whole body--andthis the more markedly the higher the type of life--we find organs, tissues, functions, co-ordinations existing not for the present, but forthe life of the world to come. When, some day, the social organism is asrightly constructed as the body of any woman, or even, in some measure, of any man, when it is similarly dedicated to the real future, and asresolutely turned away from any worship of what no longer is, thenheaven will be nearer to earth. It is quite clear that the supreme choice for any individual orinstitution or nation is between unborn to-morrow and dead yesterday. Noone who concerns himself in the current political controversies, as, forinstance, that thing of unspeakable shame which is called the "educationquestion, " will doubt that the present and the future are constantlybeing sacrificed to the past. It may be that the spirit of a trust isbeing grossly violated; but, rather than infringe the letter of it, thelife of to-day and to-morrow must suffer: thus do the worshippers ofdead yesterday--the most lethal idol before which fond humanity everprostrated itself. If it be our duty to do--not "as though to breathe were life"--and ifnature indicates the future as that which we are to serve, what evidencehave we, or what likelihood, that such service is worth our while? Ofcourse, such a question as this may be answered in some such terms asthose of the further question, What has posterity done for us? And it isinteresting, perhaps, to consider that, so far as we can judge theattitude of our ancestors towards ourselves, their chief interest in usseems to have been as to what we should think of them--"What willposterity say?" They left their records, as we leave our records, forposterity to discover. With singular lack of judgment, as I think, webury examples of our newspapers for posterity to discover: these areamongst the things which I should rather not have posterity discover. But this is no right outlook upon the future. It is not a question ofwhat posterity can do for us. Posterity is here within us. The life ofthe world to come is in our keeping. We carry it about with us in allour goings and comings. It is at the mercy of what we eat and drink, atthe mercy of the diseases we contract. Its fate is involved when we fallin love with each other, or out of love with each other; it is weourselves. Just as the father who perhaps is losing his own hair maylike to see how pleasantly his children's hair is growing, and findsconsolation therein; just as, indeed, all the hopes of the parentbecome gradually transferred from self to that further self, thosefurther selves, which his children are, so we are to look upon thefuture as our continuing self. To ask, What has posterity done for us?should be looked upon as if one should say, What have my children donefor me? The parallel is indeed a very close one: and it is pointed outby the fine sentence from Herbert Spencer, which should be known to allof us--"A transfigured sentiment of parenthood regards with solicitudenot child and grandchild only, but the generations to comehereafter--fathers of the future, creating and providing for theirremote children. " We may grant that there is no money in posterity. The germ-plasm hasinfinite possibilities; but, so long as it remains germ-plasm, it canwrite no cheques in our favour. If you serve the present, the presentwill pay; posterity does not pay. If you write a "Merry Widow, " thepresent will pay; if you write an "Unfinished Symphony, " you will bedust ere it is performed. If you create that which will last forever, but which makes no appeal to the transient tastes of the moment, you maystarve and die and rot, because the future, for which you work, cannotreward you. Life is so constructed that only in our own day, and notalways now, is the mother--even Nature's own supreme organ of thefuture--rewarded for her maternal sacrifice. Nature does not troubleabout the fate of the present, because she is always pressing on andpressing on towards something more, higher, better. The present, theindividual, are but the organs of her purpose. We are to look uponourselves as ends in ourselves; but we are also means towards ends whichwe can only dimly conceive, but towards which we may rightly work, andthe service of which, though by no means freedom in the ordinary sense, is yet of that higher kind, that perfect freedom, which consists in thedevelopment of all the higher attributes of our nature. For it is in ournature to work and to feel and to live for the life that will be. That, as I say, is because living creatures are so constructed. Huxley said that if the present level of human life were to show norising in the future, he should welcome the kindly comet that shouldsweep the whole thing away. None of us is content with things as theyare. If we are, better were it for us to be nourishing the grass andserving the things that will be in that way, if we cannot in any other. What promise, then, have we that things as they will be are worthworking for? We live now in an age to which there has been revealed thefact of organic evolution. From the fire-mist, from the mud, from themerely brutal, there have been evolved--such is the worth of Nature'swomb--there have been evolved intelligence and love, sacrifice, ideals;splendours which no splendour to come can utterly dim. These things arein the power of Nature. This is what "dead matter" can mother. So muchthe worse for our contemptible conceptions of matter, and That of whichmatter is the manifestation. But if it be that from the slime, bynatural processes, there can grow a St. Francis, surely our dim notionsof the potencies of Nature must be exalted. The forces that haveerected us from the worm, are they necessarily exhausted or exhaustible?Who will dare to set limits to the promise of Nature's womb? I mean, ina word, that the history of evolution is a warrant for the idea that weourselves, even erected men and women, are but stages to what may behigher. We look with contempt upon the apes, but time must have beenwhen "simian" would have been as proud an adjective as "human" isto-day: and human may become superhuman. Many passages might be quoted to show that our expectation of futureprogress is well based, and I will content myself with a single excerptfrom the final page of the masterpiece of which all the civilized worldwas lately celebrating the jubilee. Says Darwin: "Hence we may look withsome confidence to a secure future of great length. And as naturalselection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporealand mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection. " The quotation will suffice to remind us that, if we are to serve thelife of the world to come in the surest way, we must become Eugenists, accepting and applying to human life Nature's great principle of theselection of worth for parenthood and the rejection of unworth. We mustmodify and adapt our conceptions of education thereto. We must makeparenthood the most responsible thing in life. We must teach thegirl--aye, and the boy too--that the body is holy, for it is the templeof life to come. We must perceive in our most imperious instinctsNature's care for the future, and must humanize and sanctify them byconscious recognition of their purpose, and by provident co-operationwith Nature towards her supreme end. We could spare from education, perhaps, those fictions concerning the past which are sometimes calledhistory, were they replaced by a knowledge of our own nature andconstitution as instruments of the future. Let us grant even, for the argument, that nothing more is possible thanmankind has yet achieved. There remains the hope that that which humannature at its best has been capable of may be realized by human natureat large. In their great moments the great men have seen this. That lastsentence is, indeed, a paraphrase from a remark at the end of HerbertSpencer's "Ethics. " Ruskin--to choose the polar antithesis of theSpencerian mind--declares that "there are no known limits to thenobleness of person or mind which the human creature may attain if wewisely attend to the laws of its birth and training. " Wordsworth askswhether Nature throws any bars across the hope that what one is millionsmay be. Take it, then, that nothing more is conceivable in the way ofmathematics than a Newton, or of drama than an Æschylus or aShakespeare, or of sacrifice than a Christ. These, then, are types ofwhat will be. They demonstrate what human nature is capable of. What oneis, why may not millions be? Here is an ideal to work for. Here issomething real to worship, to dedicate a life to. It is not merely thatwe can make smoother the paths of future generations--which GeorgeMeredith declared to be the great purpose and duty of our lives--butthat, as Ruskin suggests in the foregoing quotation, we may raise theinherent quality of those future generations, so that they can maketheir own ways smooth and straight and high. It is our business, Irepeat, to conceive of parenthood as the most responsible and sacredthing in life. True, it now follows, according to physiological law, upon the satisfaction of certain tendencies of our nature, which inthemselves may be gratified, and even worthily gratified, withoutreference to anything but the present; yet these tendencies, commonlyreviled and regarded with contempt--at least overt contempt--exist, likemost of our attributes, for the life of the world to come. And that inwhich they may result, the bringing of new human life into the world, isthe most tremendous, as it is the most mysterious, of our possibilities. The laws of life are such that at any given moment the entire future isabsolutely at the mercy of the present. The laws of life, indeed; onemight have said the law of universal causation. But so it is. There isno conceivable limit to our responsibility. We act for the moment, weact for self; but there will be no end to the consequences. When thestuff of which our bodies are made has passed through a thousand cycles, the consequences of our brief moments will still be felt. Thisdependence of the future upon the present in the world of life is analmost unrealizable thing. Life could not have persisted upon suchconditions had not Nature from the first, and increasingly up to our ownday (for it is the human infant that is the most helpless, and thelongest helpless), had not Nature, I say, persistently constructed theindividual, in all his or her attributes, as a being whose warrant andpurpose lay yet beyond. We are organs of the race, whether we will orno. We are made for the future, whether we will, whether we care, or no. We are only obeying Nature, and therefore in a position to command her, in dedicating ourselves and our purposes, our customs, our socialstructures, to the life of the world to come. We shall be there. Ourpurposes and hopes, the flesh and blood of many of us, will be there. Posterity will be what we make it, as we, alas! are what our ancestorshave made us. To this increasing purpose there will come, I suppose, an end--aninscrutable end. Yearly the evidence makes it more probable that in asister world we are gazing upon the splendid efforts of purposeful, intelligent, co-ordinated life to battle against planetary conditionswhich threaten it with death by thirst. How long intelligence hasexisted upon Mars, if intelligence there be, no one can say; nor yetwhat its future will be. It would seem probable that our own fate mustbe similar, but it is far removed. And though the Whole may seem wanton, purposeless, stupid, we are very little folk; we see very dimly; we seeonly what we have the capacity to see; and there are more things inheaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the wisest ofus. So also there are many events in the womb of time which will bedelivered. We are the shapers, the creators, the parents of thoseevents. The still, small voice of the unborn declares ourresponsibility. There may be no reward. What does reward mean? Whorewards the sun, or the rain, or the oak, or the tigress? But there isthe doing of one's work in the world, the serving of the highest andmost real purpose that may be revealed to us. That is to be oneself, tofulfil one's destiny, to be a part of the universe, and worthy to besuch a part. And though it be even unworthy for us to suggest that atleast posterity will be grateful to us, such a thought may perhapsconsole us a little. At any rate, to those who worship and live for thepast, we may offer this alternative: let them work for what will be. Perhaps the reward will be as real as any that the worship of what isnot can offer. And, reward or no reward, it is something to have anideal, something to believe that earth may become heavenly, and that, insome real sense which we can dimly perceive, we may be part--must bepart, indeed--of that great day which is in our keeping, and which it isour privilege to have some share in shaping. Thus we may repeat, andthrill to repeat, with new meaning, the old but still living words, _Expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi sæculi_--"I look forthe resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. " CHAPTER III THE PURPOSE OF WOMANHOOD In due course we shall have to discuss the little that is yet known andto discuss the much that is asserted by both sides, for this or thatend, regarding the differences between men and women. By this we mean, of course, the natural as distinguished from the nurturaldifferences--to use the antithetic terms so usefully adapted by SirFrancis Galton from Shakespeare. Our task, we shall soon discover, isnot an easy one: because it is rarely easy to disentangle the effects ofnature from those of nurture, all the phenomena, physical and psychical, of all living creatures being not the sum but the product of these twofactors. The sharp allotment of this or that feature to nature or tonurture alone is therefore always wholly wrong: and the nice estimationof the relative importance of the natural as compared with the nurturalfactors must necessarily be difficult, especially for the case ofmankind, where critical observation, on a large scale, and with duecontrol, of the effects of environment upon natural potentialities isstill lacking. But here, at least, we may unhesitatingly declare and insist upon, andshall hereafter invariably argue from, _the_ one indisputable andall-important distinction between man and woman. We must not commit theerror of regarding this distinction as qualitative so much asquantitative: by which is meant that it really is neither more nor lessthan a difference in the proportions of two kinds of vital expenditure. Nor must we commit the still graver error of asserting, withoutqualification, that such and such, and that only, is the ideal ofwomanhood, and that all women who do not conform to this type aremorbid, or, at least, abnormal. It takes all sorts to make a world, wemust remember. Further, the more we learn, especially thanks to themodern experimental study of heredity, regarding the constitution of theindividual of either sex, the more we perceive how immensely complex andhow infinitely variable that constitution is. Nay more, the evidenceregarding both the higher animals and the higher plants inclines us tothe view, not unsupported by the belief of ages, that woman is even morecomplex in constitution than man, and therefore no less liable to varywithin wide limits. On what one may term organic analysis, comparable tothe chemist's analysis of a compound, woman may be found to be morecomplex, composed of even more numerous and more various elementaryatoms, so to say, than man. And if these new observations upon the nature of femaleness were notenough to warn the writer who should rashly propose, after the fashionof the unwise, who on every hand lay down the law on this matter, tostate once and for all exactly what, and what only, every woman shouldbe, we find that another long-held belief as to the relative variety ofmen and women has lately been found baseless. It was long held, and isstill generally believed--in consequence of that universal confusionbetween the effects of nature and of nurture to which we have alreadyreferred--that women are less variable than men, that they vary withinmuch narrower limits, and that the bias towards the typical, or mean, oraverage, is markedly greater in the case of women than of men. A vastamount of idle evidence is quoted in favour of a proposition which seemsto have some _a priori_ plausibility. It is said--of course, without anyallusion to nurture, education, environment, opportunity--that suchextreme variations as we call genius are much commoner amongst men thanwomen: and then that the male sex also furnishes an undue proportion ofthe insane--as if there were no unequal incidence of alcohol andsyphilis, the great factors of insanity, upon the two sexes. Nevertheless, observant members of either sex will either contradict oneanother on this point according to their particular opportunities, orwill, on further inquiry, agree that women vary surely no less generallythan men, at any rate within considerable limits, whatever may be thefacts of colossal genius. Indeed, we begin to perceive that differencesin external appearance, which no one supposes to be less general amongwomen than among men, merely reflect internal differences; and that, asour faces differ, so do ourselves, every individual of either sex being, in fact, not merely a peculiar variety, but the solitary example of thatvariety--in short, unique. The analysis of the individual now being madeby experimental biology lends abundant support to this view of thehigher forms of life--the more abundant, the higher the form. So vast, as yet quite incalculably vast, is the number of factors of theindividual, and such are the laws of their transmission in thegerm-cells, that the mere mathematical chances of a second identicalthrow, so to speak, resulting in a second individual like any other, arepractically infinitely small. The greater physiological complexity ofwoman, as compared with man, lends especial force to the argument in hercase. The remarkable phenomena of "identical twins, " who alone of humanbeings are substantially identical, lend great support to thisproposition of the uniqueness of every individual: for we find that thisunexampled identity depends upon the fact that the single cell fromwhich every individual is developed, having divided into two, was atthat stage actually separated into two independent cells, thus producingtwo complete individuals of absolutely identical germinal constitution. In no other case can this be asserted; and thus this unique identityconfirms the doctrine that otherwise all individuals are indeed unique. It is necessary to state this point clearly in the forefront of ourargument, both lest the reader should suppose that some foolish ideal offeminine uniformity is to be argued for, and also in the interests ofthe argument as it proceeds, lest we should be ourselves tempted toforget the inevitable necessity--and, as will appear, the eminentdesirability--of feminine, no less than of masculine, variety. Nevertheless, there remains the fact that, in the variety which isnormally included within the female sex, there is yet a certaincharacter, or combination of characters, upon which, indeed, distinctivefemaleness depends. It may in due course be our business to discuss thesubordinate and relatively trivial differences between the sexes, whether native or acquired; but we shall encounter nothing of any momentcompared with the distinction now to be insisted upon. One may well suggest that insistence is necessary, for never, it may besupposed, in the history of civilization was there so widespread or soeffective a tendency to declare that, in point of fact, there are nodifferences between men and women except that, as Plato declared, womanis in all respects simply a weaker and inferior kind of man. Greatwriter though Plato was, what he did not know of biology was eminentlyworth knowing, and his teaching regarding womanhood and the conditionsof motherhood in the ideal city is more fantastically and ludicrouslyabsurd than anything that can be quoted, I verily believe, from anywriter of equal eminence. If, indeed, the teaching of Plato werecorrect, there would be no purpose in this book. If a girl ispractically a boy, we are right in bringing up our girls to be boys. Ifa woman is only a weaker and inferior kind of man, thosewomen--themselves, as a rule, the nearest approach to any evidence forthis view--who deny the weakness and inferiority and insist upon theidentity, are justified. Their error and that of their supporters istwofold. In the first place, they err because, being themselves, as we shallafterwards have reason to see, of an aberrant type, they judge women andwomanhood by themselves, and especially by their abnormal psychologicaltendencies--notably the tendency to look upon motherhood much as thelower type of man looks upon fatherhood. It requires closer and moreintimate study of this type than we can spare space for--more, even, than the state of our knowledge yet permits--in order to demonstrate howabsurd is the claim of women thus peculiarly constituted to speak fortheir sex as a whole. But, secondly, those women and men who assert the doctrine of theidentity of the sexes are led to err, not because it can really behidden from the most casual observer that there is a profounddistinction between the sexes, apart from the case of the defeminizedwoman--but because, by a surprising fallacy, they confuse the doctrineof sex-equality with that of sex-identity; or, rather, they believe thatonly by demonstrating the doctrine that the sexes are substantiallyidentical, can they make good their plea that the sexes should beregarded as equal. The fallacy is evident, and would not need to detainus but for the fact that, as has been said, the whole tendency of thetime is towards accepting it--the recent biological proof of thefundamental and absolute difference between the sexes being unknown asyet to the laity. Yet surely, even were the facts less salient, or evenwere they other than they are, it is a pitiable failure of logic tosuppose, as is daily supposed, that in order to prove woman man's equalone must prove her to be really identical in all essentials, given, ofcourse, equal conditions. Controversialists on both sides, and even someof the first rank, are content to accept this absurd position. The one party seeks to prove that woman is man's equal because RosaBonheur and Lady Butler have painted, Sappho and George Eliot havewritten, and so forth; in other words, that woman is man's equal becauseshe can do what he can do: any capacities of hers which he does notshare being tacitly regarded as beside the point or insubstantial. The other party has little difficulty in showing that, in point of fact, men do things admittedly worth doing of which women are on the wholeincapable; and then triumphantly, but with logic of the order which thisparty would probably call "feminine, " it is assumed that woman is notman's equal because she cannot do the things he does. That she doesthings vastly better and infinitely more important which he cannot do atall, is not a point to be considered; the baseless basis of the wholesilly controversy being the exquisite assumption, to which the women'sparty have the folly to assent, that only the things which are common insome degree to both sexes shall be taken into account, and thosepeculiar to one shall be ignored. It is my most solemn conviction that the cause of woman, which is thecause of man, and the cause of the unborn, is by nothing more gravelyand unnecessarily prejudiced and delayed than by this doctrine ofsex-identity. It might serve some turn for a time, as many anothererror has done, were it not so palpably and egregiously false. Advocatedas it is mainly by either masculine women or unmanly men, its advocates, though in their own persons offering some sort of evidence for it, areof a kind which is highly repugnant to less abnormal individuals of bothsexes. Hosts of women of the highest type, who are doing the silent workof the world, which is nothing less than the creation of the life of theworld to come, are not merely dissuaded from any support of the women'scause by the spectacle of these palpably aberrant and unfeminine women, but are further dissuaded by the profound conviction arising out oftheir woman's nature, that the doctrine of sex-identity is absurd. Manyof them would rather accept their existing status of social inferiority, with its thousand disabilities and injustices, than have anything to dowith women who preach "Rouse yourselves, women, and be men!" and whothemselves illustrate only too fearsomely the consequences of thisdoctrine. Certainly not less disastrous, as a consequence of this most unfortunateerror of fact and of logic, is the alienation from the woman's cause ofnot a few men whose support is exceptionally worth having. There are menwho desire nothing in the world so much as the exaltation of womanhood, and who would devote their lives to this cause, but would vastly ratherhave things as they are than aid the movement of "Woman inTransition"--if it be transition from womanhood to something which iscertainly not womanhood and at best a very poor parody of manhood exceptin cases almost infinitely rare. I have in my mind a case of awell-known writer, a man of the highest type in every respect, wellworth enlisting in the army that fights for womanhood to-day, whoseorganic repugnance to the defeminized woman is so intense, and whoseperception of the distinctive characters of real womanhood and of theirsupreme excellence is so acute that, so far from aiding the cause of, for instance, woman's suffrage, he is one of its most bitter andunremitting enemies. There must be many such--to whom the doctrine ofsex-identity, involving the repudiation of the excellences, distinctiveand precious, of women, is an offence which they can never forgive. One may be permitted a little longer to delay the discussion of thedistinctive purpose and character of womanhood, because the foregoinghas already stated in outline the teaching which biology and physiologyso abundantly warrant. For here we must briefly refer to the work of avery remarkable woman, scarcely known at all to the reading public, either in Great Britain or in America, and never alluded to by thefeminist leaders in those countries, though her works are very widelyknown on the Continent of Europe, and, with the whole weight ofbiological fact behind them, are bound to become more widely known andmore effective as the years go on. I refer to the Swedish writer, EllenKey, one of whose works, though by no means her best, has at last beentranslated into English. All her books are translated into German fromthe Swedish, and are very widely read and deeply influential indetermining the course of the woman's movement in Germany. At thisearly stage in our argument I earnestly commend the reader of any age orsex to study Ellen Key's "Century of the Child. " It is necessary andright to draw particular attention to the teaching of this woman sinceit is urgently needed in Anglo-Saxon countries at this very time, andalmost wholly unknown, but for this minor work of hers and an occasionalallusion--as in an article contributed by Dr. Havelock Ellis to the_Fortnightly Review_ some few years ago. Especial importance attaches tosuch teaching as hers when it proceeds from a woman whose fidelity tothe highest interests, even to the unchallenged autonomy, of her sexcannot be questioned, attested as it is by a lifetime of splendid work. The present controversy in Great Britain would be profoundly modified inits course and in its character if either party were aware of EllenKey's work. The most questionable doctrines of the English feministswould be already abandoned by themselves if either the wisest amongthem, or their opponents, were able to cite the evidence of this greatSwedish feminist, who is certainly at this moment the most powerful andthe wisest living protagonist of her sex. From a single chapter of thebook, to which it may be hoped that the reader will refer, there may bequoted a few sentences which will suffice to indicate the reasons whyEllen Key dissociated herself some ten years ago from the generalfeminist movement, and will also serve as an introduction from thepractical and instinctive point of view to the scientific argumentregarding the nature and purpose of womanhood, which must next concernus. Hear Ellen Key:-- "Doing away with an unjust paragraph in a law which concerns woman, turning a hundred women into a field of work where only ten were occupied before, giving one woman work where formerly not one was employed--these are the mile-stones in the line of progress of the woman's rights movement. It is a line pursued without consideration of feminine capacities, nature and environment. "The exclamation of a woman's rights champion when another woman had become a butcher, 'Go thou and do likewise, ' and an American young lady working as an executioner, are, in this connection, characteristic phenomena. "In our programme of civilization, we must start out with the conviction that motherhood is something essential to the nature of woman, and the way in which she carries out this profession is of value for society. On this basis we must alter the conditions which more and more are robbing woman of the happiness of motherhood and are robbing children of the care of a mother. "I am in favour of real freedom for woman; that is, I wish her to follow her own nature, whether she be an exceptional or an ordinary woman ... I recognize fully the right of the feminine individual to go her own way, to choose her own fortune or misfortune. I have always spoken of women collectively and of society collectively. "From this general, not from the individual, standpoint, I am trying to convince women that vengeance is being exacted on the individual, on the race, when woman gradually destroys the deepest vital source of her physical and psychical being, the power of motherhood. "But present-day woman is not adapted to motherhood; she will only be fitted for it when she has trained herself for motherhood and man is trained for fatherhood. Then man and woman can begin together to bring up the new generation out of which some day society will be formed. In it the completed man--the superman--will be bathed in that sunshine whose distant rays but colour the horizon of to-day. " CHAPTER IV THE LAW OF CONSERVATION Students of the physical sciences discovered in the nineteenth century auniversal law of Nature, always believed by the wisest since the time ofThales, but never before proven, which is now commonly known as the lawof the conservation of energy. When we say to a child, "You cannot eatyour cake and have it, " we are expressing the law of the conservation ofmatter, which is really a more or less accurate part-expression of thelaw of the conservation of energy. The law that from nothing nothing ismade--and further, though here this concerns us less, that nothing isever destroyed--is the only firm foundation for any work or any theorywhether in science or philosophy. The chemist who otherwise bases hisaccount of a reaction is wrong; the sociologist who denies it Naturewill deny. It was the sure foundation upon which Herbert Spencer erectedthe philosophy of evolution; and every page of this book depends uponthe certainty that this law applies to woman and to womanhood as it doesto the rest of the universe. Further, it may be shown that certain lessuniversal but most important generalizations made by two or threebiologists are indeed special cases of the universal law. There is, first, the law of Herbert Spencer, which states that for everyindividual there is an inevitable issue between the demands ofparenthood and the demands of self; and there is, secondly, the law ofProfessors Geddes and Thomson, which asserts that this issue speciallyconcerns the female as compared with the male sex, the distinguishingcharacter of femaleness being that in it a higher proportion of thevital energy is expended upon or conserved for the future and therefore, necessarily, a smaller proportion for the purposes of the individual. Itis of service to one's thinking, perhaps, to regard Geddes and Thomson'slaw as a special case of Spencer's, and Spencer's as a special case ofthe law of the conservation of energy. First, then, somewhat of detailregarding the law of balance between expenditure on the self andexpenditure upon the race; and then to the all-important application ofthis to the case of womanhood--for upon this application the whole ofthe subsequent argument depends. When he set forth, with great daring, to write the "Principles ofBiology, " Spencer was already at an advantage compared with the acceptedwriters upon the subject, not merely because of his stupendousintellectual endowment, but also because the idea of the conservation ofenergy was a permanent guiding factor in all his thought. Thus it was, one supposes, that this bold young amateur, for he was little more, perceived in the light of the evolutionary idea of which he was one ofthe original promulgators, a simple truth which had been unperceived byall previous writers upon biology, from Aristotle onwards. It is in thelast section of his book that Spencer propounds his "law ofmultiplication, " depending upon what he calls the "antagonism betweenindividuation and genesis. " As I have observed elsewhere, the wordantagonism is perhaps too harsh, and may certainly be misleading, for itmay induce us to suppose that there is no possible reconciliation of theclaims and demands of the race and the individual, the future and thepresent. I believe most devoutly that there is such a reconciliation, asindeed Spencer himself pointed out, and a central thesis of this book isindeed that in the right expression of motherhood or foster-motherhood, woman may and increasingly will achieve the highest, happiest, andrichest self-development. Thus one may be inclined to abandon the wordantagonism, and to say merely that there is a necessary inverse ratiobetween "individuation" and "genesis, " to use the original Spencerianterms. This principle has immense consequences--most notably that aslife ascends the birth-rate falls, more of the vital energy being usedfor the enrichment and development of the individual life, and less formere physical parenthood. We shall argue that, in the case of mankind, and pre-eminently in the case of woman, this enrichment and developmentof the individual life is best and most surely attained by parenthood orfoster-parenthood, made self-conscious and provident, and magnificentlytransmuted by its extension and amplification upon the psychical planein the education of children and, indeed, the care and ennoblement ofhuman life in all its stages. This law of Spencer's has been discussed at length by the present writerin a previous volume, [2] and we may therefore now proceed to its notableillustration in the case of womanhood and the female sex in general, asmade by Geddes and Thomson now more than twenty years ago. It issurprising that the distinguished authors do not seem to have recognizedthat their law is a special case of Spencer's; but one of them grantedthis relation in a discussion upon the present writer's first eugeniclecture to the Sociological Society. [3] We must therefore now briefly but adequately consider the argument ofthe remarkable book published by the Scottish biologists in 1889, andpresented in a new edition in 1900. The latter date is of interest, because it coincides with the re-discovery of the work of Mendel, published in 1865, to which we must afterwards more than once refer; andthe work of the Mendelians during the subsequent decade verysubstantially modifies much of the authors' teaching upon thedetermination of sex, and the intimate nature of the physiologicaldifferences between the sexes. We have learnt more about the nature ofsex in the decade or so since the publication of the new edition of the"Evolution of Sex" than in all preceding time. Such, at least, is thewell-grounded opinion of all who have acquainted themselves with thework of the Mendelians, as we shall see: and therefore that book is byno means commended to the reader's attention as the last word upon thesubject. The rather would one particularly direct him to the followingprophetic and admirable passage in the preface of 1900:-- "Our hope is that the growing strength of the still young school of experimental evolutionists may before many years yield results which will involve not merely a revision, but a recasting of our book. " --a passage which may well content the authors to-day, when itsfulfilment is so signal. Yet assuredly the main thesis of the volume stands, and profoundlyconcerns every student of womanhood in any of its aspects. It willcontinue to stand when the brilliant foolishness of such writers as poorWeininger, the author of that evidently insane product "Sex andCharacter, " is rightly estimated as interesting to the student of mentalpathology alone. There has lately been a kind of epidemic citation fromWeininger, whose book is obviously rich in characters that make itattractive to the ignorant and the many; and it is high time that weshould concern ourselves less with the product of a suicidal andmuch-to-be-pitied boy, and more with the sober and scientific work forwhich daily verification is always at hand. We cannot do better than have before us at the outset the authors'statement of their main proposition, in the preface to the new editionof their work:-- "In all living creatures there are two great lines of variation, primarily determined by the very nature of protoplasmic change (metabolism); for the ratio of the constructive (anabolic) changes to the disruptive (katabolic) ones, that is of income to outlay, of gains to losses, is a variable one. In one sex, the female, the balance of debtor and creditor is the more favourable one; the anabolic processes tend to preponderate, and this profit may be at first devoted to growth, but later towards offspring, of which she hence can afford to bear the larger share. To put it more precisely, the life-ratio of anabolic to katabolic changes, A/K, in the female is normally greater than the corresponding life-ratio, a/k, in the male. This for us, is the fundamental, the physiological, the constitutional difference between the sexes; and it becomes expressed from the very outset in the contrast between their essential reproductive elements, and may be traced on into the more superficial sexual characters. " A little further on (p. 17), the authors say:-- "Without multiplying instances, a review of the animal kingdom, or a perusal of Darwin's pages, will amply confirm the conclusion that on an average the females incline to passivity, the males to activity. In higher animals, it is true that the contrast shows itself rather in many little ways than in any one striking difference of habit, but even in the human species the difference is recognized. Every one will admit that strenuous spasmodic bursts of activity characterize men, especially in youth, and among the less civilized races; while patient continuance, with less violent expenditure of energy, is as generally associated with the work of women. " We must shortly proceed to study the origin and determination of sex, and more especially of femaleness, in the individual, and here we shallbe entirely concerned with the new knowledge commonly called Mendelism, to which there is no allusion in our authors' pages. Meanwhile it mustbe insisted that the reader who will either read their pages for asurvey of the evidence in detail, or who will for a moment consider theevident necessities imposed by the facts of parenthood, cannot possiblyfail to satisfy himself that the main contention, as stated in theforegoing quotations, is correct. A further point of the greatestimportance to us requires to be made. It is that, owing to profound but intelligible causes, the contrastwhich necessarily obtains between the sexes in respect of their vitalexpenditure is most marked in the case of our own species. It is one ofthe conditions of progress that the young of the higher species makemore demands upon their mothers than do the young of humbler forms. Inother words, progress in the world of life has always leant upon andbeen conditioned by motherhood. Thus, as one has so frequently assertedin reference to the modern campaign against infant mortality, the youngof the human species are nurtured within the sacred person--the_therefore_ sacred person--of the mother for a longer period inproportion to the body weight than in the case of any other species; andthe natural period of maternal feeding is also the longest known. On theother hand, the physical demands made by parenthood upon the male sexare no greater in our case than in that of lower forms; though upon thepsychical plane the great fact of increasing paternal care in the rightline of progress may never be forgotten. But thus it follows that thelaw of conservation, asserting that what is spent for self cannot bekept for the race, and that if the demands of the future are to be metthe present must be subordinated, not merely applies to woman, butapplies to her in unique degree. There are grounds, also, for believingthat what is demonstrably and obviously true on the physical plane hasits counterpart in the psychical plane; and that, if woman is to remaindistinctively woman in mind, character, and temperament, and if, justbecause she remains or becomes what she was meant to be, she is to findher greatest happiness, she must orient her life towards Life Orient, towards the future and the life of this world to come. Some suchdoctrines may help us at a later stage to decide whether it be betterthat a woman should become a mother or a soldier, a nurse or anexecutioner. CHAPTER V THE DETERMINATION OF SEX We must regard life as essentially female, since there is no choice butto look upon living forms which have no sex as female, and since we knowthat in many of the lower forms of life there is possible what is calledparthenogenesis or virgin-birth. It has, indeed, been ingeniously arguedby a distinguished American writer, Professor Lester Ward, [4] that themale sex is to be looked upon as an afterthought, an ancillarycontrivance, devised primarily for the advantages of having a secondsex--whatever those advantages may exactly be; and secondarily, onewould add, becoming useful in adding fatherhood to motherhood upon thepsychical plane of post-natal care and education as well. But whatever was the historical or evolutionary origin of sex, we mayhere be excused for attaching more importance--for it is of greatpractical consequence--to the origin or determination of sex in theindividual. At what stage and under what influences did the child thatis born a girl become female? To what extent can we control thedetermination of sex? Why are the numbers of the sexes approximately soequal? What determines the curious disproportions observed in manyfamilies, which may be composed only of girls or only of boys; and, asis asserted, also observed after wars and epidemics or during sieges, when an abnormally high proportion of boys is said to be born? These aresome of the deeply interesting questions which men have always attemptedto answer--with the beginnings of substantial success during the presentcentury at last. In general it is true that, the more we learn of the characters andhistories of living beings, the more importance we attach to nature orbirth and the less to nurture or environment, vastly important thoughthe latter be. Thus to the student of heredity nothing could well seemmore improbable, at any rate amongst the higher animals, than thatcharacters so profound as those of sex should be determined by nurture. He simply cannot but believe that the sex of the individual is as inbornas his backbone, and as incapable of being created by varying conditionsof nurture. The causation of sex is therefore really a problem inheredity; and we may most confidently assert, in the first place, thatthe sex of every human being is already determined at the moment ofconception when, indeed, the new individual is created: determined thenby the nature and constitution of the living cells--or of one ofthem--which combine to form the new being. Subsequent attempts to affectthe sex, as by means of the mother's diet and the like, are palpablyhopeless from the outset and always will be. This is by no means to saythat conditions affecting the mother--as, for instance, thesemi-starvation of a prolonged siege--may not affect the construction ofthe germ-cells which she houses, and which are constantly being formedwithin her from the mother germ-cells, as they are called. But any givenfinal germ-cell, such as will combine with another from an individual ofthe opposite sex to form a new being, is already determined, once forall, to be of one sex or the other. We naturally ask, then, how the twoparents are concerned in this matter; and the first remarkable answerreturned by the Mendelian workers during the last three or four years isthat it is the mother who determines the sex of her children in the caseof all the higher animals. Her contribution to the new being is calledthe ovum, and it is believed that ova are of two kinds, or, we are quiteright in saying, of two sexes. Those who are now working at these problems experimentally, actuallyseeing what happens in given cases, and whom we may for convenience callMendelians after the master who gave them their method and their key, have latterly obtained results the main tenour of which must be statedhere, as they indicate the lines of a portion of the succeedingargument. The task was to attack experimentally the determination ofsex--a fascinating problem for which so many solutions that failed tohold water have been found, but hitherto no others. In finding theanswer to it, as they appear certainly to have done so far as the higheranimals are concerned, the Mendelians are also beginning to ascertain, as we shall see, certain basal facts as to the composition orconstitution of the individual; and to us, who wish to know exactlywhat a woman is, and what she is as distinguished from a man, thisdiscovery is of the most vital importance. The experimental facts arenot yet numerous, and if they were not consonant with facts of otherorders, it would be rash to proceed; but it will be evident, in thesequel, that common experience is well in accord with the experimentalevidence. It appears that, amongst at any rate the higher animals, the sex ofoffspring is determined by the nature of the mother's contribution. Thecell derived from the father is always male--as goes without saying, wemight add, if we knew little of the subject. But the ovum, the cellderived from the mother, may carry either femaleness or maleness. Whenan ovum bearing maleness meets the invariably maleness-bearing sperm, the resultant individual is a male, of course, and he is male allthrough. But when an ovum bearing femaleness meets a sperm, theresulting individual is female, femaleness being a Mendelian "dominant"to maleness; if both be present, femaleness appears. The female, however, is not female all through as the male is male all through. Sofar as sex is concerned, he is made of maleness _plus_ maleness; but sheis made of femaleness _plus_ maleness. In Mendelian language the male ishomozygous, so-called "pure" as regards this character. But the femaleis heterozygous, "impure" in the sense that her femaleness depends uponthe dominance of the factor for femaleness over the factor for maleness, which also is present in her. In the Mendelian terminology, she is aninstance of impure dominance. The observed practical equality in thenumbers of the two sexes is in exact accord with this interpretation ofthe facts, this proportion being the expected and observed one in manyother cases which doubtless depend upon parallel conditions of thereproductive cells. Surely there is great enlightenment here: for the discovery of thefactors determining sex is a very small affair compared with thesuggestive inference as to the constitution of womanhood. Let us compareman and woman on the basis of this assumption. In the man there is nothing but maleness. This is not to deny that hemay possess the protective instinct and the tender emotion which is itscorrelate, even though these were undoubtedly feminine in origin. But itis to deny that any injury to, or arrested development of, the male canreveal in him characters distinctively female. He may fail to become aman and may remain a boy; or, having been a man, he may perhaps return, under certain conditions, to a more youthful state; but he will never, can never, display anything distinctive of the woman. Not such, however, must be the woman's case. If anything shouldinterfere with the development and dominance of the femaleness factor inher, there is not another "dose" of femaleness, so to speak, to fallback upon; but a dose of maleness. We may be right in thus seeking toexplain certain familiar phenomena, observed in women under variousconditions--as, for instance, the growth of hair upon the face inelderly women, the assumption of a masculine voice and aspect, and soforth. Such facts are frequently to be observed after the climacteric or"change of life, " which probably denotes the termination of thedominance of the femaleness factor. They are also to be observed as aconsequence of operations much more commonly and irresponsibly performeda few years ago than now, which abruptly deprived the organism of theinternal secretion through which, as we may surmise, the femalenessfactor in the germ makes its presence effective. If these propositions are valid, they are certainly important. Ourattitude towards them will depend upon our estimates of the worth ofdistinctive womanhood. We may regard it as a loss to society that whatmight have been a woman should become only a sort of man of rather lessthan average efficiency. Or we may hail with delight the possibilitythat, after all, we may be able, by judicious education, to make men ofour daughters. But, whatever our estimates, certainly it is of greatinterest to inquire how far and in what directions education may affectthe development of what was given in the germ. We cannot yet answer thisquestion. In a thousand matters it is all-important to know in whatdegree education can control nature, but until we know what the natureof the individual is we cannot decide. Professor Bateson has clearlyshown that we shall be able duly to estimate environment only whenMendelian analysis has gone much further, and has instructed us indetail as to the nature of the material upon which environment is toact. For instance, there is the well-established fact that women who haveundergone "higher education" show a low marriage-rate, and produce veryfew children. However considered, the fact is of great importance. Butthe right interpretation of it is not certain. There are women of a typeapproaching the masculine, who are evidently so by nature. Is it thesewomen, already predestined for something other than distinctivewomanhood, that offer themselves for "higher education"? In other words, is there a selective process at work, the results of which in choosing acertain type of woman we attribute to the education undergone? If weanswer this question wrongly, and act upon our erroneous interpretation, we shall certainly do grave injury to individuals and society. Thus, we might roundly condemn the higher education of women _in toto_, and hold up the "domestic woman" as the sole type to which every womancan and must be made to conform. Or, on the other hand, we may arguethat it is well to provide suitable opportunities of self-developmentfor those women whose nature practically unfits them for the ordinarycareer of a woman. I do not think that any one who has had opportunities of first-handobservation will question the presence in university and collegeclass-rooms of girls of the anomalous type. Each generation produces acertain number of such. Probably no education will alter their nature inany radical or effective way. On every ground, personal and social, wemust be right in providing for them, as for their brothers, all theopportunities they may desire. But I am convinced that their relativenumber is not large. The great majority of those girls who are nowadays subjected to what wecall "higher education" are of the normal type; and this is none theless true because the proportion of the anomalous is doubtless higherhere than in the feminine community at large. The ordinary observationof those teachers who year by year see young girls at the beginning oftheir higher education will certainly confirm the statement that by farthe greater number of them are of the ordinary feminine type. If this beso, the necessary inference is that education _has_ a potent influence, and that it must be held accountable for the observed facts of lateryears, whether those facts please or displease us. The human being is the most adaptable--that is to say, educable--of allliving creatures. This is true of women as well as men. The response ofgirls to ideas, ideals, suggestion, the spirit of the group, is anunquestioned thing. Further, there are basal facts of physiology, ultimately dependent on the law of the conservation of energy, and thecircumstance that you cannot eat your cake and have it, which workhand-in-hand, on their own effective plane, with the psychologicalinfluences already referred to. All physiology and psychology lead us toexpect those results of "higher education" upon its subjects or victimswhich, in fact, we find, and which, in the main, are indeed its resultsand not dependent upon the exceptional natures of those subjected to it. The more general higher education becomes, and the less selection isexercised upon the candidates for it, the more evident, I believe, willit appear that woman responds in high degree to the total circumstancesof her life; and that if we do not like the fruits of our labour it iswe indeed that are to blame. CHAPTER VI MENDELISM AND WOMANHOOD We are accustomed to think of Mendelism as simply a theory of heredity, by which term we should properly understand the relation between livinggenerations. Now Mendelism is certainly this, but I believe that it isvastly more. Already the claim has been made, though not, perhaps, inadequate measure, by the Mendelians, and I am convinced that their titleto it will be upheld. Mendelism has already effected a reallyepoch-making advance in our knowledge of heredity--the relations betweenparents and offspring; but we shall learn ere long that it has yet moreto teach us regarding the very constitution of living beings. As modernchemistry can analyse a highly complex molecule into its constituentelementary atoms, so the Mendelians promise ere long to enable us toeffect an _organic analysis_ of living creatures. For many decades pasttheory has perceived that, in the germ-cells whence we and the higheranimals and plants are developed, there must exist--somewhereintermediate between the chemical molecule and the vital unit, the cellitself--units which Herbert Spencer, the first and greatest of theirstudents, called physiological or constitutional units. Since his daythey have been re-discovered--or rather re-named--by a host of students, including Haeckel, Weismann, and many of scarcely less distinction. TheMendelian "factors, " as I maintain must be clear to any student of theidea, are Spencer's physiological units. Of course neither Spencer norany one else, until the re-discovery of Mendel's work, had any notion atall of the remarkable fashion in which these units are treated in theprocess whereby germ-cells are prepared for their great destiny. Therule, as we now know, is that one germ-cell contains any given unit, while another does not. The process of cell-division, whereby thegerm-cells or gametes[5] are made, is called gameto-genesis. Somewherein its course there occurs the capital fact discovered by Mendel andcalled by him segregation. A cell divides into two--which are the finalgametes. One of these will definitely contain the Mendelian factor, andthe other will be as definitely without it. Definite consequences followin the constitution of the offspring; and such is the Mendeliancontribution to heredity. But we must see that these inquiries cannot befar pursued without telling us vastly more than we ever knew before ofnot only the relation between individuals of successive generations, butthe very structure of the individuals themselves. It is by the study ofheredity that we shall learn to understand the individual. For instance, experimental breeding of the fowl reveals the existence of the broodinginstinct as a definite unit, which enters, or does not enter, into thecomposition of the individual, and which is quite distinct from thecapacity to produce eggs. Here is a definite distinction suggested, forthe case of the fowl, between two really distinct things which, forseveral years past, I have called respectively physical and psychicalmotherhood. The analysis will doubtless go far further, but already thefacts of experiment help us to realize the composition of the individualmother--for instance, the number of possible variants, and thenon-necessity of a connection between the capacity to produce childrenand the parental instinct upon which the care of them depends, andwithout which entire and perfect motherhood cannot be. The Mendelians are teaching us, too, that their "factors, " the units ofwhich we are made, are often intertangled or mutually repellent. Ifsuch-and-such goes into the germ-cell, so must something else; or if theone, then never the other. There may thus be naturally determinedconditions of entire womanhood; just as one may be externally a woman, yet lack certain of the fractional constituents which are necessary forthe perfect being. Complete womanhood, like genius--rarer though notmore valuable--depends upon the co-existence of _many_ factors, some ofwhich may be coupled and segregated together in gameto-genesis, whileothers may be quite independent, only chance determining the throw ofthem. And the question of incompatibility or mutual repulsion of factorsis of the gravest concern; as, for instance, if it were the case--andthe illustration is perhaps none too far-fetched--that the factor forthe brooding instinct and the factor for intellect can scarcely beallotted together to a single cell. This question of compatibilities is illustrated very strikingly by thecase of the worker-bee. There is as yet no purely Mendelianinterpretation of this case, Mendel's own laborious work upon heredityin bees having been entirely lost, and practically nothing having beendone since. Yet, as will be evident, the main argument of Geddes andThomson leads us to a similar interpretation of this case in terms ofcompatibility. The worker-bee is an individual of a most remarkable and admirable kind, from whom mankind have yet a thousand truths to learn. She isdistinguished primarily by the rare and high development of her nervousapparatus. In terms of brain and mind, using these words in a generalsense, the worker-bee is almost the paragon of animals. The ancientssupposed that the queen-bee was indeed the queen and ruler of the hive. Here, they thought, was the organizing genius, the forethought, theexquisite skill in little things and great, upon which the welfare ofthe hive and the future of the race depend. But, in point of fact, thequeen-bee is a fool. Her brain and mind are of the humblest order. Shenever organizes anything, and does not rule even herself, but does whatshe is told. She is entirely specialized for motherhood; but thethinking, and the determination of the conditions of her motherhood, arein the hands of other females, also highly specialized, and certainlythe least selfish of living things--_yet themselves sterile, incapableof motherhood_. Observe, further, that these wonderful workers, so highly endowed interms of brain, are amongst the children of the queen, herself a fool;and that it was the conditions of nourishment, the conditions ofenvironment or education, which determined whether the young creaturesshould develop into queens or workers, fertile fools or sterile wits. Wehave here an absolute demonstration that environment or nurture candetermine the production of these two antithetic and radically opposedtypes of femaleness. Now, amongst the bees, this high degree of specialization works verywell. How old bee-societies are we cannot say. We do know, at any rate, that bees are invertebrate animals, and therefore of immeasurableantiquity compared with man. No one can for a moment question theeminent success of the bee-hive; and that success depends upon theextreme specialization of the female, so as in effect to create a thirdsex. Further, we know that nurture alone accounts for this remarkablesplitting of one sex into two contrasted varieties. I have little doubt that a process which is, at the very least, analogous, is possible amongst ourselves; nay more, that such a processis already afoot. In Japan they have actually been talking of adeliberate differentiation between workers and breeders; suchdifferentiation, though indeliberate, is to be seen to-day in all highlycivilized communities. Is it likely to be as good for us as for thebee-hive? And, granted its value as a social structure, is it, eventhen, to be worth while? No one can answer these questions, though I venture to believe that itis something to ask them. So far as the last is concerned, we must notadmit the smallest infringement of the supreme principles that everyhuman being is an end in himself or herself, and that the worth of asociety is to be found in the worth and happiness of the individuals whocompose it. Can we, as human beings, regard a human society as admirable because itis successful, stable, numerous? The question is a fundamental one, for it matters at what we aim. As itbecomes increasingly possible for man to realize his ideals, it becomesincreasingly important that they shall be right ones; and there is arisk to-day that the growth of knowledge shall be too rapid for wisdomto keep pace with. We are reaching towards, and will soon attain in verylarge and effective measure, nothing less than a _control of life_, present and to come. It may well be that a remodelling of human societyupon the lines of the bee-hive is feasible. It was his study of beesthat made a Socialist of Professor Forel, certainly one of the greatestof living thinkers; and his assumption is that in the bee-hive we havean example largely worthy of imitation. But he would be the first toadmit that, as the ordinary Socialist has yet to learn, the nature ofthe society is ultimately determined by the nature of the individualscomposing it. It follows that the bee-society can be completely, or, atall events substantially, imitated only by remodelling human nature onthe lines of the individual bee. This is very far from impossible; thereis a plethora of human drones already, and we see the emergence of thesterile female worker. But is such a change--or any change at all ofthat kind--to be desired? _The Terms of Specialization. _--It surely cannot be denied that theremay be a grave antagonism between the interests of the society and thoseof the individual. It is a question of the terms of specialization ordifferentiation. In the study of the individual organism and its historywe discern specialization of the cell as a capital fact. Organicevolution has largely depended upon what Milne-Edwards called the"physiological division of labour. " In so far as organic evolution hasbeen progressive, it has entirely coincided with this process ofcell-differentiation. That is the clear lesson which the student ofprogress learns from the study of living Nature. Let him hold hard bythis truth, and by it let him judge that other specialization whichhuman society presents. For this primary and physiological division of labour has its analoguein a much later thing, the division of labour in human society, uponwhich, indeed, the possibility of what we call human society depends. And it is plain that the time has come when we must determine the pricethat may rightly be paid for this specialization. Assuredly it is not tobe had for nothing. Dr. Minot considers that death, as a biologicalfact, is the price paid for cell-differentiation. Now surely the deathof individuality is the price paid for such specialization as that ofthe workman who spends his life supervising the machine which effects asingle process in the making of a pin, and has never even seen anyother but that stage in the process of making that one among all the"number of things" of which the world is full. Here, as in a thousandother cases, it has cost a man to make an expert. How far we are entitled to go we shall determine only when we know whatit is that we want to attain. If we desire an efficient, durable, numerous society, there are probablyno limits whatever that we need observe in the process ofspecialization. Pins are cheaper for the sacrifice of the individual intheir making. In general, the professional must do better than theamateur; the lover of chamber music knows that a Joachim or BrusselsQuartet is not to be found everywhere. Specialization we must have forprogress, or even for the maintenance of what the past has achieved forus; but we shall pay the right price only by remembering the principlethat all progress in the world of life has depended oncell-differentiation. If we prejudice that we are prejudicing progress. Now nothing can be more evident than that, in some of ourspecializations of the individual for the sake of society, we are_opposing_ that specialization within the individual which, it has beenlaid down, we must never sacrifice. And so we reach the basal principleto which the preceding argument has been guiding us. It is that thespecialization of the individual for the sake of society may rightlyproceed to any point short of reversing or aborting the process ofdifferentiation within himself. Every individual is an end in himself;there are no other ends for society; and that society is the best whichbest provides for the most complete development and self-expression ofthe individuals composing it. But how, then, is the division of labour necessary for society to beeffected, the reader may ask? The answer is that the human species, likeall others, displays what biologists call variation--men and womennaturally differ within limits so wide that, when we consider the caseof genius, we must call them incalculable, illimitable. The differenceof our faces or our voices is a mere symbol of differences no lessuniversal but vastly more important. It is these differences, inreality, that are the cause of the development of human society and ofthat division of labour upon which it depends. In providing for the bestdevelopment of all these various individuals we at the same time providefor the division of labour that we need; nor can we in any other fashionprovide so well. Thus we shall attain a society which, if less certainlystable than that of the bees, is what that is not--progressive, and notmerely static; and a society which is worth while, justified by thelives and minds of the individuals composing it. We are not, then, to make a factitious differentiation of set purpose inthe interests of society and to the detriment of individuals. We are notto take a being in whom Nature has differentiated a thousand parts, and, in effect, reduce him, in the interests of others, to one or twoconstituents and powers, thus nullifying the evolutionary course. But weshall frame a society such as the past never witnessed, and we shallachieve a rate of progress equally without parallel, by consistentlyregarding society as existing for the individual, and not the individualfor society, and by thus realizing to the full his characteristic powers_for himself and for society_. In so far as all this is true it is true of woman. It has long beenasserted that woman is less variable than man; but the certainty of thatstatement has lately lost its edge. It is probably untrue. There is noreal reason to suppose that woman is less complex or less variable thanman. She has the same title as he has to those conditions in which herparticular characters, whatever they be, shall find their most completeand fruitful development. There is no more a single ideal type of womanthan there is a single ideal type of man. It takes all sorts even tomake a sex. It has been in the past, and always must be, a piece ofgross presumption on man's part to say to woman, "Thus shalt thou be, and no other. " Whom Nature has made different, man has no business tomake or even to desire similar. The world wants all the powers of allthe individuals of either sex. On the other hand, no good can come ofthe attempt to distort the development of those powers or to seekconformity to any type. Much of the evil of the past has arisen from thelimitation of woman to practically one profession. Even should it beincomparably the best, in general, it is by no means necessarily thebest, or even good at all, for every individual. Men are to be heardsaying, "A woman ought to be a wife and mother. " It is, perhaps, themain argument of this book that, for most women, this is the sphere inwhich their characteristic potencies will find best and most usefulexpression both for self and others; but that is very different fromsaying that every woman ought to be a mother, or that no woman ought tobe a surgeon. We may prefer the maternal to the surgical type, and theremay be good reason for our preference; but the surgeon may be veryuseful, and, useful or not, the question is not one of ought. Thoughtfulpeople should know better than to make this constant confusion betweenwhat ought to be and what is. Let us hold to our ideals, let us by allmeans have our scale of values; but the first question in such a case asthis is as to what _is_. In point of fact all women are not of the sametype; and our expression of what ought to be is none other than thepassing of a censure upon Nature for her deeds. We may know better thanshe, or, as has happened, we may know worse. VII BEFORE WOMANHOOD We have seen that the sex of the individual is already determined asearly as any other of his or her characters, though the realization ofthe potentialities of that sex may be much modified by nurture, as inthe contrasted cases of the queen bee and the worker bee. Children, then, are already of one sex or other, and though our business in thepresent volume is not childhood of either sex, a few points are worthnoting before we take up the consideration of the individual at theperiod when the distinctive characteristics of sex make their effectiveappearance. Despite the abundance of the material and the opportunities forobservation, we are at present without decisive evidence as to thedistinctiveness of sex in any effective way during childhood. Here, aselsewhere, we have to guard ourselves against the influences of nurturein the widest sense of the word; as when, to take an extreme case, wedistinguish between the boy and the girl because the hair of the one iscut and of the other is not. The natural, as distinguished from thenurtural, distinctions at this period are probably much fewer than issupposed. It is asserted--to take physical characters first--that thegirl of ten gives out in breathing considerably less carbonic acid thanher brother of the same age, thus foreshadowing the difference betweenthe sexes which is recognized in later years. If this fact be criticallyestablished it is of very great interest, showing that the sexdistinction effectively makes its presence felt in the most essentialprocesses of the body. But we should require to be satisfied that theobservations were sufficiently numerous, and were made under absolutelyequal conditions, and with due allowance for difference in body-weight. They would be the more credible if it were also shown that the number ofthe red blood corpuscles were smaller in girls than in boys in parallelwith the difference between the sexes in later years. Children of both sexes have fewer red blood corpuscles in a givenquantity of blood and a smaller proportion of the red colouring matter, or hæmoglobin, than adults. Women have very definitely fewer red bloodcorpuscles than men, and a smaller proportion of hæmoglobin, and theirblood is more watery. According to one authority this difference in thehæmoglobin can be observed from the ages of eleven to fifty, but notbefore. The specific gravity of the blood is found to be the same inboth sexes before the fifteenth year. Thereafter, that of the boy'sblood rises, and between seventeen and forty-five is definitely higherthan in women of the corresponding age. It thus seems quite clear that, as we should expect, these differences in the blood, which arecertainly, as Dr. Havelock Ellis says, fundamental, make theirappearance definitely at puberty--a fact which supports the view thatfundamental differences of practical importance between the two sexesbefore that age are not to be found. Careful comparative study of thepulse of children is hitherto somewhat inconclusive, though it is wellknown that the pulse is more rapid in women than in men. On the other hand, it seems clear as regards respiration that as earlyas the age of twelve there are definite differences between the sexes. Several thousands of American school children were examined, and betweenthe ages of six and nineteen the boys were throughout superior in lungcapacity. The girls had almost reached their maximum capacity at the ageof twelve, and thereafter the difference, till then slight, rapidlyincreased. [6] It appears that from eight to fifteen years of age a boyburns more carbon than a girl, the difference, however, being not great. But at puberty the boy proceeds to consume very nearly twice as muchcarbon per hour as his sister. Perhaps the matter need not be pursued further. It is sufficient for usto recognize that puberty is really the critical time, and that in theconsideration of womanhood we may, on the whole, be justified in lookingupon the problem of the girl before that age as almost identical withher brother's. Yet we must be reasonably cautious, since our knowledgeis small, and there is some by no means negligible evidence offundamental physiological differences between the sexes before puberty, relatively slight though these may be. Therefore, though on the wholewe need make few distinctions between the girl and her brother, andthough we are doubtless wrong in the magnitude of the practicaldistinctions which we have often made hitherto, yet we must rememberthat these are going to be different beings, and that the mainprinciples which determine our nurture of womanhood may be recalled whenwe are doubtful as to practice in the care of the girl child. Physiological distinctions, we have seen, probably exist during theseearly years, but are of less importance than we sometimes have attachedto them, and of no importance at all compared with what is to come. Psychological distinctions, we may believe, are still more dubious. Forinstance, it is generally believed that the parental instinct showsitself much more markedly in girls than in boys, and the commonlyobserved history of the liking for dolls is quoted in this connection. As this instinct bears so profoundly upon the later life of theindividual, and as we may reasonably suppose the child to be the motherof the woman as well as the father of the man, the matter is worthlooking at a little further. But, in the first place, it has been asserted that the doll instinct hasreally nothing whatever to do with the parental instinct in either sex. Psychologists, whom one suspects of being bachelors, tell us that whatwe really observe here is the instinct of acquisition: it really doesnot matter what we give the child, though it so happens that we verycommonly present it with dolls; it is the lust of possession that wesatisfy, and in point of fact one thing will satisfy it as well asanother. The evidence against this view is quite overwhelming. We might quote theuniversal distribution of dolls in place and in time as revealed byanthropology. Wherever there is mankind there are dolls, whether inMayfair or in Whitechapel, Japan, the South Sea Islands, Ancient Egyptor Mexico. Further, there is the observed behaviour of the child, opportunities for which have presumably been denied to the psychologistswhose opinion has been quoted. The only objection to the theory that thechild will be content with the possession of anything else as well as ofa doll is the circumstance that the child is not so content, but asksfor a doll for choice, and will lavish upon any doll, howeverdiagrammatic, an amount of love and care which no other toy will everobtain. Further, if the child has opportunities for playing with a realbaby, it will be perfectly evident, even to the bachelor psychologist, that the doll was the vicarious substitute for the real thing. But now, what as to the comparative strength of this instinct in the twosexes? Here we must not be deceived by the effects of nurture, environment, or education. Though finding, as we do, that the little boyenjoys playing with his dolls as his sister does, we refrain from buyingdolls for him, and may indeed, underestimating the importance of humanfatherhood, declare that dolls are beneath the dignity of a boy thoughgood enough for his sister. He, destined rather for the business ofdestroying life, so much more glorious than saving it, must learn toplay with soldiers. In this fashion we at least deprive ourselves ofany opportunity of critically comparing the strength and the history ofthe instinct in the two sexes. There is good reason to suppose that the distinction between thepsychology of the boy and that of the girl in these early years is verysmall. If boys are not discouraged they will play with dolls for choice, just as their sisters do, and may be just as charming with youngerbrothers or sisters. Nor is it by any means certain that this misleadingof ourselves is the worst consequence of the common practice. It ispossible that we lose opportunities for the inculcation of ideals whichare of the highest value to the individual and the race. I am remindedof the true story of a small boy, well brought up, who, being jeered atin the street by bigger boys because he was carrying a doll, turned uponhis critics with the admirable retort--slightly wanting in charity, letus hope, but none the less pertinent--"None of you will ever be a goodfather. " Thus, on the whole, one is inclined to suppose that the generalresemblance in facial appearance, bodily contour, and interests which weobserve in children of the two sexes, indicates that deeper distinctionsare latent rather than active. This is much more than an academicquestion, for if our subject in the present volume were the care ofchildhood, it is plain that we should have to base upon our answer tothis question our treatment of boy and girl respectively. Probably weare on the whole correct in instituting no deep distinction of any kindin the nurture, either physical or mental, of children during theirearly years. Nor can there be any doubt, at least so far, as to therightness of educating them together, and allowing them to compete, inso far as we allow competition at all, freely both in work and in games. However this may be, there comes at an age which varies somewhat indifferent races and individuals, a period critical to both sexes, inwhich the factors of sex differentiation, hitherto more or less latent, begin conspicuously to assert themselves. Here, plainly, is the dawn ofwomanhood, and here, in our consideration of woman the individual, wemust make a start. If we recall the tentative Mendelian analysis alreadyreferred to, we may suppose that the "factor" for womanhood begins toassert itself, at any rate in effective degree, at this period ofpuberty, when a girl becomes a woman; and that its most effective reignis over at the much later crisis which we call the change of life orclimacteric. In other words, though sex is determined from the first, and though certain of its distinctive characters remain to the end, wemay say that our study of womanhood is practically concerned with theyears between twelve or thirteen, and forty-five or fifty. Before thisperiod, as we have suggested, the distinction between the sexes is of nopractical importance so far as _regimen_ and education are concerned. After this period also it is probable that the difference between thetwo sexes is diminished, and would be still more evidently diminishedwere it not for the effects which different experience has permanentlywrought in the memory. We begin our practical study, then, of woman theindividual, with the young girl at the age of puberty; and we mustconcern ourselves first with the care of her body. VIII THE PHYSICAL TRAINING OF GIRLS We shall certainly not reach right conclusions about the physicaltraining of girls unless we rightly understand what physical trainingdoes and does not effect, and what we desire it should effect. Thisapplies to all education--that our aim be defined, that we shall know"what it is we are after, " and it applies pre-eminently to theeducation, both physical and mental, of girls. Now it will be granted, in the first place, that by physicaltraining--whether in the form of gymnastics or games or what not--wedesire to produce a healthier and more perfectly developed body. Somewill add a stronger body, but as this term has two meanings constantlyconfused, it really contains the crux of the question. Stronger may meanstronger in the sense of resistance to disease or fatigue or strain ofany kind, or it may mean stronger in the sense of the capacity toperform feats of strength. It being commonly assumed that vitality andmuscularity are identical, this distinction is, on that assumption, merely academic and trivial. But as muscularity and vitality are notidentical, and have indeed very little to do with each other, and asmuscularity may even in certain conditions prejudice vitality, thedistinction is not academic but all-important. I freely assert that itis substantially ignored by those who concern themselves with physicaltraining, whether of boys or girls or recruits, all the world over. Though a woman is naturally less muscular than a man, her vitality ishigher. This seems to be a general truth of all female organisms. Theevidence is of many orders. Thus, to begin with, women live longer, onthe average, than men do. In the light of our modern knowledge ofalcohol, however, we cannot regard this fact by itself as conclusive, since the average age attained by men is undoubtedly considerablylowered by alcohol, and of course to a much greater extent than obtainsin the case of women. But women recover better from poisoning, such asoccurs in infectious disease, and they are far more tolerant of loss ofblood, as indeed they have to be. The same applies to loss of sleep orfood, and to injurious influences generally. These indisputable proofsof superior vitality co-exist with much inferior muscularity, and areconclusive on the point. If men would make observations among themselvesand think for a moment, they would soon perceive how foolish they are increditing the assumptions of the strong men who so successfully persuadethe public that the great thing is for a man to have big muscles. Men, muscular by nature, and still more so by nurture, are often in point offact really weak compared with much less muscular men who, though theycannot put forth so much mechanical energy at a given moment, can yetendure fifty times the fatigue or stress or poisoning of any order. From the point of view of any sound physiology there is no comparison atall between the absurd strong man and the slight Marathon runner ofsmall muscles but splendid vitality. If we are to test vitality inmuscular terms at all--that in itself being a quite indefensibleassumption--we must do so in terms of endurance, and not in terms ofhorse power or ass power, at any given moment. If, then, vitality be our aim in physical training, and not muscularityas such, nor in any degree except in so far as it serves vitality, it isplain that we shall to some extent reconsider our methods. Pre-eminently will this apply to the girl. Just because she is nowbecoming a woman, her vital energies are in no small degree pledged forspecial purposes of the highest importance, from which we cannotpossibly divert them if we desire that she shall indeed become a woman. Thus, though muscular exercise of any kind is certainly not to becondemned, we must be cautious; for, in the first place, muscularexercise is no end in itself; in the second, the production of bigmuscles by exercise is no end in itself; and in the third place, allmuscular exercise is expenditure of energy in those outward directionswhich are not characteristic of womanhood, and which must always besubordinated to those interests that are. At this period of which we are speaking there are constructions of themost important kind going on in the girl's body, compared with which theconstruction of additional muscular tissue is of much less than noimportance. These building-up processes are, we know, characteristic ofthe woman. Their right inception is a matter of the greatest importance. They involve the actual accumulation of food material and the buildingup of it into gland cells and other highly organized tissues upon whichcomplete womanhood depends. These all-important concerns are prejudicedby excessive external expenditure, and thus the care necessary for theboy at puberty is a thousandfold more necessary for the girl, though theobvious changes in her appearance and her voice may be much less marked. Greater and more costly constructions are afoot in her case than herbrother's, grossly though these facts are at present ignored in what weare pleased to call education, both physical and mental. If we are to decide what kinds of physical exercise will be mostdesirable, we must come to some conclusion as to what is the object ofour labours, it being granted that muscular activity and the making ofbig muscles are not ends in themselves. The answer to this question isto be found in what I have elsewhere called the new asceticism. In tracing the history of animal progress, we find that it coincideswith and has consisted in the emergence of the psychical and itspredominance over the physical. The history of progress is the historyof the evolving nervous system. Muscles are the servants of the nervoussystem. In man progress has reached its highest phase in that thenervous system, which at first was merely a servant of the body, hasbecome the essential thing, so that the brain is the man. The oldasceticism was at least right in regarding the soul as all-important, though it was utterly wrong in considering the interests of soul andbody to be entirely antagonistic, and in teaching that for the elevationof the soul we must outrage, mutilate, and deny the body. The newasceticism accepts the first principle of the old, but bases itspractice on a truer conception of the relations between mind and body. The greater part of the body is composed of muscles, and it is withmuscles that physical training is concerned. On our principles, then, any system of physical training worth a straw must have primaryreference to the brain, since the body, including the muscles, is onlythe servant of the ego or self which resides in the brain. For thisreason, if for no other, the development of muscle as an end in itselfis beneath human dignity; the value of a muscle lies not in its size orstrength, but in its capacity to be a useful and skilful agent of thebrain. The exceptions to this rule are furnished by precisely those muscleswhich the usual forms of physical training and gymnastics ignore andsubordinate to the development of the muscles of the limbs. It doesmatter very much that man or woman shall have the heart, which is themost important muscle in the body, and the muscles of respiration ingood order. These muscles are directly necessary for life, and aretherefore servants of the brain, even though they are not in anyappreciable degree the direct agents of its purposes. Any kind ofphysical exercise then which, while developing the muscles of the arm, for instance, throws undue strain upon the heart or involves thefixation of the chest for a considerable period--as occurs in variousfeats of strength, whether with weights or upon bars or the like--is_ipso facto_ to be condemned. It is now recognized that in the trainingof soldiers much harm is often done in this way to the essentialmuscles, while others, more conspicuous but of relatively no importance, are being developed. But before we consider in detail what kinds of exercise and with whataccompaniment may be permitted for the muscles of the limbs, it is wellthat we should agree upon some method of deciding as to the quantity ofsuch exercise. We cannot go by such measures as hours per week, forindividuals vary. We must find some criterion which will guide us foreach individual. The pendulum has swung in this regard from one extremeto another. Both extremes were adopted and permitted because in ourguidance of girlhood we ignored facts of physiology, and, notably, because educators had not a clear conception of what it was that theydesired to attain. By the consent of all who have given any attention tothe subject, the great educational reformer of the nineteenth centurywas Herbert Spencer, and not the least of his services was hisliberation of girls from the extraordinary _regimen_ of fifty years ago. There needs no excuse for a long quotation from the volume in which, just short of half a century ago, Herbert Spencer discussed this matter. Thereafter we may observe how the pendulum has swung to the otherextreme:-- "To the importance of bodily exercise most people are in some degree awake. Perhaps less needs saying on this requisite of physical education than on most others; at any rate, in so far as boys are concerned. Public schools and private schools alike furnish tolerably adequate play-grounds; and there is usually a fair share of time for out-door games, and a recognition of them as needful. In this, if in no other direction, it seems admitted that the promptings of boyish instinct may advantageously be followed; and, indeed, in the modern practice of breaking the prolonged morning's and afternoon's lessons by a few minutes' open-air recreation, we see an increasing tendency to conform school-regulations to the bodily sensations of the pupils. Here, then, little need be said in the way of expostulation or suggestion. "But we have been obliged to qualify this admission by inserting the clause in so far as boys are concerned. Unfortunately, the fact is quite otherwise with girls. It chances, somewhat strangely, that we have daily opportunity of drawing a comparison. We have both a boys' school and a girls' school within view; and the contrast between them is remarkable. In the one case nearly the whole of a large garden is turned into an open, gravelled space, affording ample scope for games, and supplied with poles and horizontal bars for gymnastic exercises. Every day before breakfast, again towards eleven o'clock, again at mid-day, again in the afternoon, and once more after school is over, the neighbourhood is awakened by a chorus of shouts and laughter as the boys rush out to play; and for as long as they remain, both eyes and ears give proof that they are absorbed in that enjoyable activity which makes the pulse bound and ensures the healthful activity of every organ. How unlike is the picture offered by the Establishment for Young Ladies! Until the fact was pointed out, we actually did not know that we had a girls' school as close to us as the school for boys. The garden, equally large with the other, affords no sign whatever of any provision for juvenile recreation; but is entirely laid out with prim grass-plots, gravel-walks, shrubs, and flowers, after the usual suburban style. During five months we have not once had our attention drawn to the premises by a shout or a laugh. Occasionally girls may be observed sauntering along the paths with their lesson-books in their hands, or else walking arm-in-arm. Once, indeed, we saw one chase another round the garden; but, with this exception, nothing like vigorous exertion has been visible. "Why this astonishing difference? Is it that the constitution of a girl differs so entirely from that of a boy as not to need these active exercises? Is it that a girl has none of the promptings to vociferous play by which boys are impelled? Or is it that, while in boys these promptings are to be regarded as stimuli to a bodily activity without which there cannot be adequate development, to their sisters Nature has given them for no purpose whatever--unless it be for the vexation of schoolmistresses? Perhaps, however, we mistake the aim of those who train the gentler sex. We have a vague suspicion that to produce a robust physique is thought undesirable; that rude health and abundant vigour are considered somewhat plebeian; that a certain delicacy, a strength not competent to more than a mile or two's walk, an appetite fastidious and easily satisfied, joined with that timidity which commonly accompanies feebleness, are held more lady-like. We do not expect that any would distinctly avow this; but we fancy the governess-mind is haunted by an ideal young lady bearing not a little resemblance to this type. If so, it must be admitted that the established system is admirably calculated to realize this ideal. But to suppose that such is the ideal of the opposite sex is a profound mistake. That men are not commonly drawn towards masculine women is doubtless true. That such relative weakness as asks the protection of superior strength is an element of attraction we quite admit. But the difference thus responded to by the feelings of men is the natural, pre-established difference, which will assert itself without artificial appliances. And when, by artificial appliances, the degree of this difference is increased, it becomes an element of repulsion rather than of attraction. "'Then girls should be allowed to run wild--to become as rude as boys, and grow up into romps and hoydens!' exclaims some defender of the proprieties. This, we presume, is the ever-present dread of schoolmistresses. It appears, on inquiry, that at Establishments for Young Ladies noisy play like that daily indulged in by boys is a punishable offence; and we infer that it is forbidden, lest unladylike habits should be formed. The fear is quite groundless, however. For if the sportive activity allowed to boys does not prevent them from growing up into gentlemen, why should a like sportive activity prevent girls from growing up into ladies? Rough as may have been their play-ground frolics, youths who have left school do not indulge in leap-frog in the street, or marbles in the drawing-room. Abandoning their jackets, they abandon at the same time boyish games, and display an anxiety--often a ludicrous anxiety--to avoid whatever is not manly. If now, on arriving at the due age, this feeling of masculine dignity puts so efficient a restraint on the sports of boyhood, will not the feeling of feminine modesty, gradually strengthening as maturity is approached, put an efficient restraint on the like sports of girlhood? Have not women even a greater regard for appearances than men? and will there not consequently arise in them even a stronger check to whatever is rough or boisterous? How absurd is the supposition that the womanly instincts would not assert themselves but for the rigorous discipline of schoolmistresses! "In this, as in other cases, to remedy the evils of one artificiality, another artificiality has been introduced. The natural, spontaneous exercise having been forbidden, and the bad consequences of no exercise having become conspicuous, there has been adopted a system of factitious exercise--gymnastics. That this is better than nothing we admit, but that it is an adequate substitute for play we deny. " The pendulum has indeed swung across from those days to these of thehockey-girl, not to mention the girl who throws a cricket-ball and bowlsvery creditably overhand. There can be no doubt that this state ofthings is vastly better than that was, yet, as one has endeavoured toinsist, this also has its risks. Apart from the question as to theparticular game or form of exercise, we must be guided in each case bythe first signs of anything approaching undue strain. We must look outfor lack of energy, for a lessening of joy in the exercise and ofspontaneous desire therefor. Fatigue that interferes with appetite, digestion, or sleep is utterly to be condemned. _The Specific Criterion. _--Such criteria apply, of course, equally toeither sex, though it is more important to be on the look-out for themin the case of the developing girl. But in her case there is anothercriterion, which is of special importance, because it concerns not onlyher development as an individual, but her development as a woman. Thatcriterion is furnished us by the menstrual function. It may safely besaid that that exercise is excessive and must be immediately curtailedwhich leads to the diminution of this function, much more to itsdisappearance. I would, indeed, urge this as a test of the highestimportance, always applicable to whatever circumstances. Defect in thisrespect should never be looked upon lightly; it may, indeed, be aconservative process, as in cases of anæmia, but the cause whichproduces such an effect is always to be combated. _The Kinds of Exercise. _--Given, then, this most important test as tothe quantity of exercise of whatever kind--a test which indeed appliesno less to mental exercise--we may pass on to consider the kinds ofexercise best suited for the girl, it being premised that any one ofthem, however good in itself and in moderation, is capable of beingpursued to excess, and that the danger of this is specially noticeablein the case of the girl, because, as we have seen, the effects of excessare more serious in her case, and also because girls are very apt totake things up with immense keenness, and sometimes, in even greaterdegree than their brothers, to devote themselves too much to thecompetitive aspect of things. The girl should certainly be content toplay a game for the joy of it, and be scarcely less happy to lose thanto win if her side has played the game and made a good fight of it. Thecompetitive element is excessive in almost all sports to-day, and it isespecially to be deplored in the games of girls, who are so liable tooverstrain and so apt to take trifles to heart. In what has been already said and in the end of our quotation fromHerbert Spencer, it will be evident that purposeful games rather thanexercises are to be commended. There is indeed no comparison for amoment possible between Nature's method of exercise, which is obtainedthrough play, and the ridiculous and empty parodies of it which meninvent. The truth is that Nature is aiming at one thing, and man atanother. Man's aim, for reasons already exploded, is the acquirement ofstrength; Nature's is the acquirement of skill. It is really nervousdevelopment that Nature is interested in when she appears to bepersuading the young thing to exercise its muscles. Man notices only themuscular contractions involved, thinks he can improve upon Nature, andinvents absurdities like dumb-bells. It is the nervous system by which we human beings live. Our voluntarymuscles are agents of the will, agents of purpose; and while strength isa trifle, skill is always everything. We know now that it is impossibleto carry out any human purpose by the contraction of one muscle or evenone group of muscles. Even when we merely bend the arm we are doingthings with the muscles which extend it, and when we raise it sidewayswe are modifying the whole trunk in order to preserve the balance. Wehave only to watch the clumsiness of an infant or a small child torealize how much skill the nervous system has to acquire. This skill maybe mainly expressed as co-ordination, the balanced use of many musclesfor a purpose and, as a rule, their co-ordinated use with one of thesenses, more especially vision, but also touch and hearing. This is the first of the physiological reasons why games and play of allsorts are so incomparably superior to the use of dumb-bells anddevelopers, where movement and increase of muscular strength are madeends in themselves; whereas in play we are making relations with theoutside world, responding to stimuli, educating our nerve muscularapparatus as an instrument of human purpose. It is in part true to suppose that the play of children expresses anoverflow of superfluous energy, but a still deeper and much moreimportant conception of play is that which recognizes in it Nature'smethod of nervous development, the attainment of control andco-ordination, the capacity of quick and accurate response tocircumstances and obedience to the will. Compare, for instance, the girlwho has played games, avoiding danger as she crosses the road, withanother whose youth has been made dreary by dumb-bells. It may freely belaid down, then, that systems of physical training are good inproportion as they approximate to play, and bad in proportion as theydepart from it; and, further, that the very best of them ever devised isworthless in comparison with a good game. This evidently does not referto, say, special exercises for a curved back. However, systems of physical training we shall still have with us for along time to come, and perhaps the mere difficulty of finding room forgames makes them necessary, though it may be noted in passing that thelast touch of absurdity is accorded to our frequent preference forexercises over games when we conduct the exercises in foul air andprefer them to games in the open air. If exercises we are to have, thenthey must at least be modelled so as to come as near as possible to playin the two essentials. The first of these has already beenmentioned--the preference of skill to strength as an object. The second, though less obvious, is no less important. What is the mostpalpable fact of the child's play? It is enjoyment. We have done forever with the elegant morality which grown-up people, very particularabout their own meals, used to impose upon children, and which was basedupon the idea that everything which a child enjoys is therefore bad forit. We are learning the elements of the physiology of joy. We find thatpleasure and boredom have distinct effects upon the body and the mind, notably in the matter of fatigue. Careful study of fatigue in schoolchildren has shown that the hour devoted to physical exercise of thedreary kind under a strict disciplinarian may, instead of being arecreation, actually induce more fatigue than an hour of mathematics. If, then, we cannot allow the girl to play, but must give her some kindof formal exercise, we must at least make it as enjoyable as possible. There are Continental systems of gymnastics which do not believe in theuse of music because, forsooth, they find that the music diminishes thedisciplinary effect! Such an argument dismisses those who adduce it fromthe category of those entitled to have anything to do with young people. They should devote themselves to training the rhinoceros, thesemartinets; the human spirit is not for their mauling. In point of factone of the redeeming features of physical training is the use of music, which goes far to supply the pleasure that accrues from the naturalexercise of games, and greatly reduces the fatigue of which the risk isotherwise by no means inconsiderable. We leave this subject, then, forthe nonce, having arrived at the conclusion that the objects ofphysical training are skill and pleasure rather than strength anddiscipline; that the system is best which is nearest to play; and thatthe use of music is specially to be commended. But, as we have said, artificial physical training at its best is not tobe compared with the real thing; more especially if, as is usually thecase, the real thing has the advantage of being practised in pure air. We must ask ourselves, then, what sort of games are suitable for girls, and to what extent, if at all, mixed games are desirable. We must firstremind ourselves of the proviso that any game may be played to excess, whether physical excess or mental excess, the risk of both of thesebeing involved when the competitive element is made too conspicuous. Ifthis risk be avoided there is no objection, perhaps, to even such avigorous game as hockey in moderation for girls. The present writer hasobserved mixed hockey for many years, and finds it impossible to believethat the game should be condemned for girls, but he has always seen itunder conditions where the game was simply played for the fun of thething, and that makes a great difference. It is certainly open to argument whether, in such a game as hockey, itis not better, on the whole, that girls shall play by themselves, but, as has been urged elsewhere, there is a good deal to be said for themeeting of the sexes elsewhere than in the artificial conditions of theball-room, since these mixed games widen the field of choice formarriage and provide far more natural and desirable conditions underwhich the choice may be made. There can be no question that an epoch hasbeen created by the freedom of the modern girl to play games, and toenjoy the movements of a ball, as her brother does. The very fact of herpleasure in games indicates, to those who do not believe that the bodyis constructed on essentially vicious principles, that they must be goodfor her. The mere exercise is the least of the good they do. The openair counts for more, as does the development of skill, and the girl'sopportunity of sharing in that moral education which all good gamesinvolve and which there is no need to insist upon here. Amongst the manythings alleged against woman as natural defects by those who have neverfor a moment troubled to distinguish between nature and nurture, are anincapacity to combine with her sisters, petty dishonour in small things, a blindness to the meaning of "playing the game. " It is similarlyalleged by such persons against the lower classes that they also do notknow how to "play the game, " and do not understand the spirit of truesportsmanship, preferring to win anyhow rather than not at all. Butthose who conduct the Children's Vacation Schools in London--thatremarkable arrangement by which children are damaged in school time andeducated in holidays--are aware that in a short time children of anyclass can be taught to "play the game, " if only they can be made to seeit from that point of view. So also women can learn to combine, to beunselfish, to avoid petty deceits even in games, to obey a captain andto accept the umpire's decision, when they are taught, as we all haveto be taught, that that is playing the game. These immense virtues of the new departure must by no means be forgottenin the course of the reaction which is bound to occur, and is indeednecessary, against the contemporary practice of trying to demonstratethat boys and girls are substantially identical. He who pleads for thegolden mean is always abused by extremists of both parties, but isalways justified in the long run, and this is a case where the goldenmean is eminently desirable, being indeed vital, which is much more thangolden. Safety is to be found in our recognition of elementaryphysiological principles, assuming from the first that though it is notdifficult to turn a girl into something like a boy, it is not desirable;and especially in attending carefully, in the case of each individual, to the indications furnished by that characteristic physiologicalfunction, interference with which necessarily imperils womanhood. The organism is a whole; it reacts not only to physical strain but tomental strain. There are parts of the world, including a country no lessdistinguished as a pioneer of education than Scotland, where seriousmental strain is now being imposed upon girls at this very period of thedawn of womanhood, when strain of any kind is especially to be deplored. Utterly ignoring the facts of physiology, the laws and approximate datesof human development, official regulations demand that at just such agesas thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen large numbers of girls--and pickedgirls--shall devote themselves to the strain of preparing for variousexaminations, upon which much depends. Worry combines to work itseffects with those of excessive mental application, excessive use of theeyes at short distances, and defective open-air amusement. The wholeexamination system is of course to be condemned, but most especiallywhen its details are so devised as to press thus hardly upon girlhood atthis critical and most to be protected period. Many years ago HerbertSpencer protested that we must acquaint ourselves with the laws of life, since these underlie all the activities of living beings. The time isnow at hand when we shall discover that education is a problem inapplied biology, and that the so-called educator, whether he worksdestruction from some Board of Education or elsewhere, who knows andcares nothing about the laws of the life of the being with whom hedeals, is simply an ignorant and dangerous quack. What has been said about the reaction against excess in the physicaleducation of girls applies very forcibly to excess in their mentaleducation. We are undoubtedly coming upon a period when more and morewill be heard of the injurious consequences of such ill-timedpreparation for stupid examinations as has been referred to; and therewill be not a few to sigh for the return to the bad old days which acertain type of mind always calls good. Here, again, we must find thegolden mean, recognizing that the danger lies in excess, and especiallyin ill-timed excess. We shall further discover that if we desire a girlto become a woman, and not an indescribable, we must provide for her akind of higher education which shall take into account the object atwhich we aim. It will be found that there are womanly concerns, ofprofound importance to a girl and therefore to an empire, which demandno less of the highest mental and moral qualities than any of thesubjects in a man's curriculum, and the pursuit of which in reason doesnot compromise womanhood, but only ratifies and empowers it. _Muscles worth Developing. _--When men and women are carefully compared, it is found that women, muscularly weaker as a whole, are most notablyso as regards the arms, the muscles of respiration, and the muscles ofthe back. The muscles of the legs, and especially of the thighs, arerelatively stronger. In these facts we can find some practical guidance. The muscles of all the limbs may be left comparatively out of account;whether naturally weak or naturally strong they are of subordinateimportance. On the other hand, it is always worth while to cultivate themuscles of respiration, as it is always worth while to keep the heart ingood order. Again, the weakness of the muscles of the back, and moreespecially in the case of the growing girl, is not a thing to beaccepted as readily as the weakness of the biceps and the forearmmuscles. Various observers find a proportion of between 85 per cent. And90 per cent. Of those suffering from lateral curvature of the spine tobe girls, the great majority of these cases occurring between the agesof ten and fifteen. Everywhere it is our duty to prevent such cases, andeverywhere physical training will find only too abundant opportunitiesfor endeavouring to correct them. It may be doubted perhaps whether wemay rightly follow Havelock Ellis in attributing woman's liability tobackache to the relative weakness of the muscles of the back, for weknow how often this symptom depends upon not muscular but internalcauses peculiar to woman. On the other hand, we may certainly followHavelock Ellis when he says, regarding this lateral curvature of thespine, from which so many girls and women suffer: "There can be no doubtthat defective muscular development of the back, occurring at the age ofmaximum development, and due to the conventional restraints on exercisesinvolving the body, and also to the use of stays, which hamper thefreedom of such movements, is here a factor of very great importance. "We shall not here concern ourselves with the details of practice, butthe principle is to be laid down that perhaps second only in importanceto the right development of the heart and the muscles of respiration isthat of the muscles of the back. Always, however, we are apt to judge by the obvious and to value itunduly. Nature makes the biceps and the muscles of the forearm naturallythe weakest in woman compared with man, but it is just the bending ofthe elbow that makes a good show on a horizontal bar or rope; and so wedevote too much time to the training of these muscles in our girls, withthe results which make such creditable exhibitions at the end of thesession, while we forget the muscles of the back, the right developmentof which is far more valuable, but does not lend itself to display. In this connection it is to be added last, but not least, that specialimportance attaches in woman to those muscles which one may perhaps callthe muscles of motherhood. It is common experience amongst physicians tofind the appropriate muscularity defective at childbirth in women themuscles of whose limbs may have been very highly developed. Thus Dr. Havelock Ellis, amongst other evidence, quotes that of a physician, whosays: "In regard to this interesting and suggestive question, it doesseem a fact that women who exercise all their muscles persistently meetwith increased difficulties in parturition. It would certainly seem thatexcessive development of the muscular system is unfavourable tomaternity. I hear from instructors in physical training, both in theUnited States and in England, of excessively tedious and painfulconfinements among their fellows--two or three cases in each instanceonly, but this within the knowledge of a single individual among hisfriends. I have also several such reports from the circus--perhapsexceptions. I look upon this as a not impossible result of muscularexertion in women, the development of muscle, muscular attachments, andbony frame leading to approximation to the male. " In his lectures ten years ago, the distinguished obstetrician, SirHalliday Croom, now professor of Midwifery in the University ofEdinburgh, used to criticise cycling on this score, not as regards itsdevelopment of the muscles of the lower limbs, but as tending towardslocal rigidity unfavourable to childbirth. It may be doubted, perhaps, whether longer and wider experience of cycling by women warrants thiscriticism, but it is probably worth noting. On the other hand, while exercise of certain muscles may interfereobscurely or mechanically with motherhood, we are to remember that themuscles of the abdomen are indeed the accessory muscles of motherhood, and therefore specially to be considered. According to Mosso of Turin, it is only in modern times that civilized woman shows the comparativeweakness of these muscles which is indeed commonly to be found. There isverily no sign of it in the Venus of Milo, as any one can see. Thatstatue represents very highly developed abdominal muscles in a womanless notably muscular elsewhere. The muscles lie near the skin, thedisposition of fat being very small, yet the woman is distinctivelymaternal in type, and every kind of æsthetic praise that may be showeredupon the statue may be supplemented by the encomiums of the physiologistand the worshipper of motherhood. It is highly desirable that, inphysical training to-day, attention should be paid to the development ofthe abdominal muscles. Holding the abdomen together by means of a corsetmay serve its own purpose, but does less than nothing in the crisis ofmotherhood. The corset indeed conduces to the atrophy of the mostimportant of all the voluntary muscles for the most important crisis ofa woman's life. "Some of the slower Spanish dances" are commended forthe development of the abdominal muscles, but one would rather recommendswimming, the abandonment of the corset, and, if the gymnasium is to beused, some of the various exercises which serve these muscles, howeverlittle they may serve to exploit the apparatus of the gymnasium whenvisitors are invited. There is no occasion in the present volume to discuss in detail any suchthing as a course of physical exercises, but it is a pleasure, and, forthe English reader, a convenience to direct attention to the Syllabus ofPhysical Exercises for Public Elementary Schools, issued by the EnglishBoard of Education in 1909. [7] After nearly forty years of folly, thedawn is breaking in our schools. It is evident that the Board ofEducation has followed the best medical advice. Indeed, now that medicalknowledge is actually represented upon the Board, and represented as itis, there is no need to go far. The principles which have been laid downin previous pages are abundantly recognized in this admirable syllabus. The exercises recommended for the nation's children are based upon theSwedish system of educational gymnastics. But it is fortunatelyrecognized that that system requires modification, since "freedom ofmovement and a certain degree of exhilaration are essentials of all truephysical education. Hence it has been thought well not only to modifysome of the usual Swedish combinations in order to make the work lessexacting, but to introduce games and dancing steps into many of thelessons. " "The Board desire that all lessons in physical exercises inpublic elementary schools should be thoroughly enjoyed by the children. ""Enjoyment is one of the most necessary factors in nearly everythingwhich concerns the welfare of the body, and if exercise is distastefuland wearisome, its physical as well as its mental value is greatlydiminished. " An interesting paragraph on music recognizes its value inavoiding fatigue, but underestimates, perhaps, the desirability ofincluding music for use at later years as well as for infant classes. The syllabus contains admirably illustrated exercises in detail. Theyare earnestly to be commended to the reader who is responsible forgirlhood, and notably to those who are interested in the formation andconducting of girls' clubs. The syllabus is excellent in the attentionpaid to games, in the commendation of skipping and of dancing. Thefollowing quotation well illustrates the spirit of wisdom which is atlast beginning to illuminate our national education:--"The value ofintroducing dancing steps into any scheme of physical training as anadditional exercise especially for girls, or even in some cases forboys, is becoming widely recognized. Dancing, if properly taught, is oneof the most useful means of promoting a graceful carriage, with free, easy movements, and is far more suited to girls than many of theexercises and games borrowed from boys. As in other balance exercises, the nervous system acquires a more perfect control of the muscles, andin this way a further development of various brain centres is broughtabout.... Dancing steps add very greatly to the interest and recreativeeffect of the lesson, the movements are less methodical and exact, andare more natural; if suitably chosen they appeal strongly to theimagination, and act as a decided mental and physical stimulus, andexhilarate in a wholesome manner both body and mind. " Plainly, our educators have begun to be educated since 1870. Of course, there is dancing and dancing. The real thing bears the samerelation to dancing as it is understood in Mayfair, as the music ofSchubert does to that of Sousa. The ideal dancing for girls is such asthat illustrated by the children trained by Miss Isadora Duncan. Some ofthese girls were seen for a short time at the Duke of York's Theatre inLondon not long ago, and the American reader, rightly proud of MissDuncan, should not require to be told what she has achieved. Just as weare learning the importance of games and play, so that a syllabus issuedby the Board of Education instructs one how to stand when "giving aback" at leap-frog, so also we shall learn again from Nature thatdancing of the natural and exquisite kind, never to be forgotten orconfused with imitations by any one who has seen Miss Duncan's children, must be recognized as a great educative measure--educative alike ofmind, body, ear, and eye, and better worth while for any girl of anyrank than volumes of fictitious history concocted by fools concerningknaves. _Girls' Clubs. _--Allusion has been made to girls' clubs, and one may befortunate enough to have some readers who may feel inclined to partakein the splendid work which may be done by this means. It requires highqualities and a certain amount of expert knowledge. Much of the lattercan be obtained from the little book recommended above. For the rest, itis worth while briefly to point out what the girls' club may effect, andwhy it is so much needed. It has been insisted that puberty is a critical age because it means thedawn of womanhood. It is critical in both sexes, not only for the bodybut also for the mind. It is now that the intellect awakes; it is nowthat the real formation of character begins. We often talk about spoiltchildren at three or four, but any kind of making or marring ofcharacter at such ages can be undone in a few weeks or less--that is, inso far as it is an effect of training and not of nature that we aredealing with. The real spoiling or making is at that birth of the adultwhich we call puberty. During adolescence the adult is being made, andeverything matters for ever. This is true of physique, of mind, and ofcharacter. The importance of this period is recognized by modernchurches in their rite of Confirmation, and it was recognized by ancientreligions, by Greeks and by Romans. Our national appreciation of it isexpressed by our devotion of vast amounts of money and labour to thechild, until the all-important epoch is reached, when we wash our handsof it. We educate away, for all we are worth, when what is mainlyrequired is plenty of good food and open air; and we have done with thematter when the age for real education arrives. In time to come ourneglect of adolescence in both sexes, more especially in girls, will bemarvelled at, and many of the evils from which we suffer will cease toexist because the fatal and costly economy of the practical man isdismissed as a delusion and a sham, and it is perceived that whether forthe saving of life or for the saving of money, adolescence must be caredfor. Meanwhile, it behoves private people who care about these things to dowhat they can. If they rightly influence but ten girls, it was wellworth doing. The girls' club is a very inexpensive mode of socialactivity. Practically the only substantial item of expenditure is thehire of a gymnasium, say for two evenings in a week. The girls' dressescan be made at home at quite a trivial cost. The primary attractionwould be the gymnasium. It must, of course, contain a piano, notnecessarily one on which Pachmann would play, but a piano nevertheless. There is also required a pianist, not necessarily a Pachmann. Two girlsare better than one to run such a club. They will not find it difficultto obtain material to work upon. They must acquire at a Polytechnic, orperhaps they have acquired themselves at school, some knowledge of howto conduct the work and play of the gymnasium. It will depend upon theconductors of the club how far its virtues extend. Much elementaryhygiene may be taught as well as practised, and if it confine itselfonly to matters of ventilation, clothing, care of the teeth and feet, itis abundantly worth while. It is often possible to get medical men orwomen to come and talk to the girls, and in the best of these clubsthere will be some more or less conscious and overt preparation in oneway and another for matters no less momentous alike for the individualand the race than marriage and motherhood. _Girls' Clothing. _--There is little good to be said about much of theclothing of girls and women. All clothing should of course be loose, ongrounds which have been fully gone into in the previous volume onpersonal hygiene. A woman's headgear is perhaps too often the onlyarticle of her dress which conforms to this rule. It is good that thestimulant effect of air, and air in motion, upon the skin should be aswidely extended as is compatible with sufficient warmth and decency. Thus most women wear far too many clothes, apart from the question oftightness. A woman handicaps herself seriously as compared with a man, in that, while she is much less muscular, her clothes are often so muchheavier. All this applies with great force to girls. The followingquotation from the syllabus referred to above is worth making:-- "_A Suitable Dress for Girls. _--A simple dress for girls suitable for taking physical exercises or games consists of a tunic, a jersey or blouse, and knickers. The tunic and knickers may be made of blue serge, and, if a blouse is worn, it should be made of some washing material. The tunic, which requires two widths of serge, may be gathered or, preferably, pleated into a small yoke with straps passing over the shoulders. The dress easily slips on over the head, and the shoulder straps are then fastened. It should be worn with a loose belt or girdle. In no case should any form of stiff corset be used. The knickers, with their detachable washing linen, should replace all petticoats. They should not be too ample, and should not be visible below the tunic. They are warmer than petticoats and allow greater freedom of movement. Any plain blouse may be worn with the tunic, or a woollen jersey may be substituted in cold weather. With regard to the cost of such a dress, serge may be procured for 1s. 6d. To 2s. Per yard. For the tunic some 2 to 2-1/2 yards are usually required, and for the knickers about 1-1/2 to 2 yards. It may be found possible in some schools to provide patterns, or to show girls how to make such articles for themselves. Such a dress, though primarily designed for physical exercises, is entirely suitable for ordinary school use. Though it is, of course, not practicable to introduce this dress into all Public Elementary Schools, or in the case of all girls, yet in many schools there are children whose parents are both willing and able to provide them with appropriate clothing. The adoption of a dress of this kind, which is at the same time useful and becoming, tends to encourage that love of neatness and simplicity which every teacher should endeavour to cultivate among the girls. And as it allows free scope for all movements of the body and limbs, it cannot fail to promote healthy physical development. " IX THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN In the last chapter brief reference was made to the effects of ill-timedmental strain. Our principles have already led us to the conclusion thatthere are special risks for girls involved in educational strain, andthat is, of course, equally true whatever the curriculum. But that beinggranted, it is necessary to draw very special attention to a newmovement in the higher education of women which is based upon theprinciple that a woman is not the same as a man; that she has specialinterests and duties which require no less knowledge and skill thanthose with which men are concerned. A tentative experiment in thisdirection has already, we are assured, altered the whole attitudetowards life of those girls who partook in it, and there is no questionthat we now see the beginning of a new epoch in the higher education ofwomen upon properly differentiated lines such as have been utterlyignored in the past. I refer to the "Special Courses for the HigherEducation of Women in Home Science and Household Economics, " which nowform part of the activities of the University of London at King'sCollege. "The main object of these courses, " we are told, "is toprovide a thoroughly scientific education in the principles underlyingthe whole organization of 'Home Life, ' the conduct of Institutions, andother spheres of civic and social work in which these principles areapplicable. " The lecturers are mainly highly qualified women, and thecourses are extremely thorough and comprehensive. The following are thesubjects which are dealt with: economics and ethics, psychology, biology, business matters, physiology, bacteriology, chemistry, domesticarts, sanitary science and hygiene, applied chemistry and physics. [8] It will be seen that there is no underrating here of the capacities ofwomen. The courses are not limited merely to cooking and washing, thoughthese are most carefully gone into. It is a far cry from them topsychology and ethics or "A Sketch of the Historical Development of theHousehold in England. " One can imagine the joy with which girls, largelynourished on the husks which constitute most of the educationalcurricula of boys, will turn to a series of lectures on ChildPsychology, that deal with the general course of mental development inthe child, with interest and attention, the processes of learning, mental fatigue and adolescence. The highest capacities of the mind inwomen are not ignored when we find included a course of which thespecial text-book is Spencer's "Data of Ethics. " One can imagine alsothat the course on the elements of general economics, with its study ofwealth and value and price, the laws of production and distribution, may bring into being a kind of housewife who, whether or not eligiblefor Parliament, would certainly be a much more desirable member thereofthan nine-tenths of the prosperous gentlemen who daily record theiropinions there upon matters they know not of. All who care at all forwomanhood or for England must rejoice in the beginnings of this revisedversion of higher education for women which, for once in a way, findsLondon a pioneer. We must have such courses all over the country. Everyfather who can afford it must give his girls the incalculable benefit ofsuch opportunities. The girl thus educated will glory in her womanhood, and will help to gain for it its right estimation and position in thestate. But it is to be pointed out that such courses as these, admirable thoughthey be, are yet not everything. The influence of our great nationaldeity, which is Mrs. Grundy, is apparent still. It is not specificallyrecognized that the highest destiny of a woman is motherhood, though insuch courses as this motherhood will doubtless be served directly andindirectly in many ways. There is, nevertheless, required somethingmore--something indeed no less than conscious, purposeful education forparenthood. The chief obstacle in the way of this ideal is Anglo-Saxonprudery, and, perhaps, the reader will not be persuaded that educationfor parenthood is our greatest educational need to-day, more especiallyfor girls, until he or she has been persuaded of the magnitude of thepreventable evils which flow from our present neglect of this matter. Inthe following chapter, therefore, one may point out what prudery costsus at present, and indeed, the reader may then be persuaded thateducation for parenthood, or, as it may be called, eugenic education, is, perhaps, the most important subject that can be discussed to-day inany book on womanhood. X THE PRICE OF PRUDERY Just after we had succeeded in getting the Notification of Births Actput upon the Statute Book, the present writer occupied himself invarious parts of the country in the efforts which were necessary topersuade local authorities to adopt the provisions of that Act. Addressing a meeting of the clergy of Islington, he endeavoured to traceback to the beginning the main cause of infant mortality, andendeavoured to show that that lay in the natural ignorance of the humanmother, about which more must later be said. In the discussion whichfollowed, an elderly clergyman insisted that the causes had not beentraced far enough back, maternal ignorance being itself permitted inconsequence of our national prudery. Ever since that day one has come to see more and more clearly that thecriticism was just. Maternal ignorance, as we shall see later, is anatural fact of human kind, and destroys infant life everywhere, thoughprudery be or be not a local phenomenon. But where vast organizationsexist for the remedying of ignorance, prudery indeed is responsible forthe neglect of ignorance on the most important of all subjects. Let itnot be supposed for a moment that in this protest one desires, even forthe highest ends, to impart such knowledge as would involve sullying thebloom of girlhood. It is not necessary to destroy the charm of innocencein order to remedy certain kinds of ignorance; nor are prudery andmodesty identical. Whatever prudery may be when analyzed, it seemsperfectly fair to charge it as the substantial cause of the ignorance inwhich the young generation grows up, as to matters which vitally concernits health and that of future generations. Let us now observe in briefthe price of prudery thus arraigned. There is, first, that large proportion of infant mortality which is dueto maternal ignorance, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter. Atpresent we may briefly remind ourselves that the nation has had theyoung mother at school for many years; much devotion and money have beenspent upon her. Yet it is necessary to pass an Act insuring, ifpossible, that when she is confronted with the great business of herlife--which is the care of a baby--within thirty-six hours the factshall be made known to some one who, racing for life against time, mayhaply reach her soon enough to remedy the ignorance which wouldotherwise very likely bury her baby. Prudery has decreed that while atschool she should learn nothing of such matters. For the matter of thatshe may even have attended a three-year course in science or technology, and be a miracle of information on the keeping of accounts, the testingof drains, and the principles of child psychology, but it has not beenthought suitable to discuss with her the care of a baby. How could anynice-minded teacher care to put such ideas into a girl's head? Neverhaving noticed a child with a doll, we have somehow failed to realizethat Nature, her Ancient Mother and ours, is not above putting into herhead, when she can scarcely toddle, the ideas at which we pretend toblush. Prudery on this topic, and with such consequences, is not muchless than blasphemy against life and the most splendid purposes towardswhich the individual, "but a wave of the wild sea, " can be consecrated. This question of the care of babies offers us much less excuse for itsneglect than do questions concerned with the circumstances antecedent tothe babies' appearance. Yet we are blameworthy, and disastrously so, here also. Prudery here insists that boys and girls shall be left tolearn anyhow. That is not what it says, but that is what it does. Itfeebly supposes not merely that ignorance and innocence are identical, but that, failing the parent, the doctor, the teacher, and theclergyman--and probably all these do fail--ignorance will remainignorant. There are others, however, who always lie in wait, whether byword of mouth or the printed word, and since youth will in any caselearn--except in the case of a few rare and pure souls--we have to askourselves whether we prefer that these matters shall be associated inits mind with the cad round the corner or the groom or the chauffeur whoinstructs the boy, the domestic servant who instructs the girl, and withall those notions of guilty secrecy and of misplaced levity which areentailed; or with the idea that it is right and wise to understandthese matters in due measure because their concerns are the greatest inhuman life. After puberty, and during early adolescence, when a certain amount ofknowledge has been acquired, we leave youth free to learn lies fromadvertisements, carefully calculated to foster the tendency tohypochondria, which is often associated with such matters. Of this, however, no more need now be said, since it scarcely concerns the girl. It is the ignorance conditioned by prudery that is responsible later onfor many criminal marriages; contracted, it may be, with the blindblessing of Church and State, which, however, the laws of heredity andinfection rudely ignore. Parents cannot bring themselves to inquire intomatters which profoundly concern the welfare of the daughter for whomthey propose to make what appears to be a good marriage. They desire, ofcourse, that her children shall be healthy and whole-minded; they do notdesire that marriage should be for her the beginning of disease, fromthe disastrous effects of which she may never recover. But these aredelicate matters, and prudery forbids that they should be inquired into;yet every father who permits his daughter to marry without havingsatisfied himself on these points is guilty, at the least, of gravedelinquency of duty, and may, in effect, be conniving at disasters anddesolations of which he will not live to see the end. Young people often grow fond of each other and become engaged, and then, if the engagement be prolonged--as all engagements ought to be, as ageneral rule--they may find that, after all, they do not wish to marry. Yet the girl's mother, an imprudent prude, may often in this and othercases do her utmost to bring the marriage about, not because she isconvinced that it means her daughter's highest welfare and happiness, but because prudery dictates that her daughter must marry the man withwhom she has been so frequently seen; hence very likely lifelongunhappiness, and worse. Society, from the highest to the lowest of its strata, is afflicted withcertain forms of understood and eminently preventable disease, aboutwhich not a word has been spoken in Parliament for twenty years, and anypublic mention of which by mouth or pen involves serious risk of variouskinds. Here it is perhaps not necessary for us to consider the case ofthe outcast, and of the diseases with which, poor creature, she is firstinfected, and which she then distributes into our homes. Our presentconcern is simply to point out that prudery, again, is largelyresponsible for the continuance of these evils at a time when we have somuch precise knowledge regarding their nature and the possibility oftheir prevention. Medical science cannot make distinctions between onedisease and another, nor between one sin and another, as prudery does. Prudery says that such and such is vice, that its consequences in theform of disease are the penalties imposed by its abominable god upon theguilty and the innocent, the living and the unborn alike, and thattherefore our ordinary attitude towards disease cannot here bemaintained. Physiological science, however, knowing what it knowsregarding food and alcohol, and air and exercise and diet, can readilydemonstrate that the gout from which Mrs. Grundy suffers is also apenalty for sin; none the less because it is not so hideouslydisproportionate, in its measure and in its incidence, to the gravity ofthe offence. These moral distinctions between one disease and anotherhave little or no meaning for medical science, and are more often thannot immoral. It would be none too easy to show that the medical profession in anycountry has yet used its tremendous power in this direction. Professions, of course, do not move as a whole, and we must not expectthe universal laws of institutions to find an exception here. But thoughthey do not move, they can be moved. It is when the public has beeneducated in the elements of these matters, and has been taught to seewhat the consequences of prudery are, that the necessary forces will bebrought into action. Meanwhile, what we call the social evil is almostentirely left to the efforts made in Rescue Homes and the like. Despitethe judgment of a popular novelist and playwright, it is much more thandoubtful whether Rescue Homes--the only method which Mrs. Grundy willtolerate--are the best way of dealing with this matter, even if thepeople who worked in them had the right kind of outlook upon the matter, and even if their numbers were indefinitely multiplied. Every one whohas devoted a moment's thought to the matter knows perfectly well thatthis is merely beginning at the end, and therefore all but futile. Imention the matter here to make the point that the one measure whichprudery permits--so that indeed it may even be mentioned upon our highlymoral stage, and passed by the censor, who would probably be hurriedinto eternity if M. Brieux's _Les Avariés_ were submitted to him, andwho found "Mrs. Warren's Profession" intolerable--is just the mostuseless, ill-devised, and literally preposterous with which thistremendous problem can be mocked. This leads us to another point. It is that the means of our education, other than the schools, are also prejudiced by prudery. Upon the stagethere is permitted almost any indecency of word, or innuendo, orgesture, or situation, provided only that the treatment be not serious. Almost anything is tolerable if it be frivolously dealt with, but sosoon as these intensely serious matters are dealt with seriously, prudery protests. The consequence is that a great educative influence, like the theatre, where a few playwrights like M. Brieux, and Mr. Bernard Shaw, and Mr. Granville Barker, and Mr. John Galsworthy, mighteffect the greatest things, is relegated by Mrs. Grundy to the playsproduced by Mr. George Edwardes and other earnest upholders of thecensorship. Publishers also, while accepting novels which would have staggered theRestoration Dramatists, can scarcely be found, even with great labour, for the publication of books dealing with the sex question from the mostresponsible medical or social standpoints. It is just because public opinion is so potent, and, like all otherpowers, so potent either for good or for evil, that its presentdisastrous workings are the more deplorable. It is not unimaginablethat prudery might undergo a sort of transmutation. As I have saidbefore, we might make a eugenist of Mrs. Grundy, so that she might be asmuch affronted by a criminal marriage as she is now by the spectacle ofa healthy and well-developed baby appearing unduly soon after itsparents' marriage. The power is there, and it means well, though it doesdisastrously ill. Public opinion ought to be decided upon these matters;it ought to be powerful and effective. We shall never come out into thedaylight until it is; we shall not be saved by laws, nor by medicalknowledge, nor by the admonitions of the Churches. Our salvation liesonly in a healthy public opinion, not less effective and not morewell-meaning than public opinion is at present, but informed where it isnow ignorant, and profoundly impressed with the importance of realitiesas it now is with the importance of appearances. So much having been said, what can one suggest in the direction ofremedy? First, surely it is something that we merely recognize the priceof prudery. Personally, I find that it has made all the difference to mycalculations to have had the thing pointed out by the clerical criticwhose eye these words may possibly meet. It is something to recognize inprudery an enemy that must be attacked, and to realize the measure ofits enmity. In the light of some little experience, perhaps a fewsuggestions may be made to those who would in any way join in thecampaign for the education and transmutation of public opinion on thesematters. First, we must compose ourselves with fundamental seriousness--withthat absolute gravity which imperils the publication of a book andentirely prohibits the production of a play on such matters. There issomething in human nature beyond my explaining which leads towardsjesting in these directions. An instinct, I know, is an instinct; ofwhich a main character is that its exercise shall be independent of anyknowledge as to its purpose. We eat because we like eating, rather thanbecause we have reckoned that so many calories are required for a bodyof such and such a weight, in such and such conditions of temperatureand pressure. It is not natural, so to say, just because man is in asense rather more than natural, that we should be provident and serious, self-conscious, and philosophic, in dealing with our fundamentalinstincts. But it is necessary, if we are to be human: and only in sofar as, "looking before and after, " we transcend the usual conditions ofinstinct, are we human at all. The special risk run by those who would deal with these mattersseriously--or rather one of the risks--is that they will be suspected, and may indeed be guilty, of a tendency to priggishness and cant. Youthis very likely not far wrong in suspecting those who would discuss thesematters, for youth has too often been told that they are of the earthearthy, that these are the low parts of our nature which we must learnto despise and trample on, and youth knows in its heart that whateverelse may or may not be cant, this certainly is. So any one who proposesto speak gravely on the subject is a suspect. Meetings confined to persons of one sex offer excellent opportunities. Much can be done, if the suspicion of cant be avoided, by men addressingthe meetings of men only which gather in many churches on Sundayafternoons, and which have a healthy interest in the life of this worldand of this world to come, as well as in matters less immediate. Itseems to me that women doctors ought to be able to do excellent work inaddressing meetings of girls and women, provided always that the speakerbe genuinely a woman, rightly aware of the supremacy of motherhood. Most of us know that it is possible to read a medical work on sex, sayin French, without any offence to the æsthetic sense, though atranslation into one's native tongue is scarcely tolerable. Thiscontrasted influence of different names for the same thing is another ofthose problems in the psychology of prudery which I do not undertake toanalyze, but which must be recognized by the practical enemy of prudery. It is unquestionably possible to address a mixed audience, large orsmall, of any social status, on these matters without offence and togood purpose. But certain terms must be avoided and synonyms usedinstead. There are at least three special cases, the recognition ofwhich may make the practical difference between shocking an audience andproducing the effect one desires. Reproduction is a good word from every point of view, but itsassociations are purely physiological, and it is better to employ a wordwhich renders the use of the other superfluous and which has a specialvirtue of its own. This is the term parenthood, a hybrid no doubt, butnot perhaps much the worse for that. One may notice a teacher ofzoology, say, accustomed to address medical students, offend an audienceby the use of the word reproduction, where parenthood would have servedhis turn. It has a more human sound--though there is some sub-humanparenthood which puts much of ours to shame--and the fact that it isless obviously physiological is a virtue, for human parenthood is onlyhalf physiological, being made of two complementary and equallyessential factors for its perfection--the one physical and the otherpsychical. Thus it is possible to speak of physical parenthood and ofpsychical parenthood, and thus not only to avoid the term reproduction, but to get better value out of its substitutes. One may be able to show, perhaps, that in the case of other synonyms also a hunt for a term thatshall save the face of prudery may be more than justified by therecovery of one which has a richer content. Terms are really very goodservants, if they are good terms and we retain our mastery of them. Letany one without any previous practice start to write or speak on "humanreproduction, " and on "human parenthood, physical and psychical, " and hewill find that, though naming often saves a lot of thinking, as GeorgeMeredith said, wise naming may be of great service to thought. In these matters there is to be faced the fact of pregnancy. Here, again, is a good word, as every one knows who has felt its force or thatof the corresponding adjective when judiciously used in themetaphorical sense. The present writer's rule, when speaking, is to usethese terms only in their metaphorical sense, and to employ another termfor the literal sense. I should be personally indebted to any reader whocan inform me as to the first employment of the admirable phrase, "theexpectant mother. " The name of its inventor should be remembered. In anyaudience whatever--perhaps almost including an audience of children, butcertainly in any adult audience, whether mixed or not, medical orfashionable, serious or sham serious--it is possible to speak withperfect freedom on many aspects of pregnancy, as for instance the use ofalcohol, exposure to lead poisoning, the due protection at such aperiod, by simply using the phrase "the expectant mother, " with all itspregnancy of beautiful suggestion. Here, again, our success depends uponrecognizing the psychical factor in that which to the vulgar eye ispurely physiological--not that there is anything vulgar about physiologyexcept to the vulgar eye. For myself, the phrase "the expectant mother" is much more than useful, though in speaking it has made all the difference scores of times. It isbeautiful because it suggests the ideal of every pregnancy--that theexpectant mother shall indeed _expect_, look forward to the life whichis to be. Her motto in the ideal world or even in the world at thefoundations of which we are painfully working, will be those words ofthe Nicene creed which the very term must recall to the mind--_Expectoresurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi sæculi_. Let any one who fancies that these pre-occupations with mere languageare trivial or misplaced here take the opportunity of addressing twodrawing-rooms under similar conditions, on some such subject as the careof pregnancy from the national point of view. Let him in the one casespeak of the pregnant woman, and so forth, and in the other of theexpectant mother. He will be singularly insensitive to his audience ifhe does not discover that sometimes a rose by any other name is somehowthe less a rose. The more fools we perhaps, but there it is, and in themost important of all contemporary propaganda, which is that of there-establishment of parenthood in that place of supreme honour which isits due, even such "literary" debates as these are not out of place. Sex is a great and wonderful thing. The further down we go in the scaleof life, whether animal or vegetable, the more do we perceive theimportance of the evolution of sex. The correctly formed adjective fromthis word is sexual, but the term is practically taboo with Mrs. Grundy. Only with caution and anxiety, indeed, may one venture before a layaudience to use Darwin's phrase, "sexual selection. " The fact is utterlyabsurd, but there it is. One of the devices for avoiding itsconsequences is the use of sex itself as an adjective, as when we speakof sex problems; but the special importance of this case is in regard tothe sexual instinct, or, if the term offends the reader, let us say thesex instinct. Here prudery is greatly concerned, and our silence hereinvolves much of the price of prudery. Now since the word sexual hasbecome sinister, we cannot speak to the growing boy or girl about thesexual instinct, but we may do much better. For what is this sexual instinct? True, it manifests itself inconnection with the fact of sex, but essentially that is only becausesex is a condition of human reproduction or parenthood. It is this withwhich the sexual instinct is really concerned, and perhaps we shallnever learn to look upon it rightly or deal with it rightly until weindeed perceive what the business of this instinct is, and regard assomewhat less than worthy of mankind any other attitude towards it. Ofcourse there are men who live to eat, yet the instincts concerned witheating exist not for the titillation of the palate but for thesustenance of life; and, likewise, though there are those who live togratify this instinct, it exists not for sensory gratification, but forthe life of this world to come. Can we not find a term which shallexpress this truth, shall be inoffensive and so doubly suitable for thepurposes of our cause? The term reproductive instinct is often employed. It is vastly superiorto sexual instinct, because it does refer to that for which the instinctexists; but it hints at reproduction, and though Mrs. Grundy cantolerate the idea of parenthood, reproduction she cannot away with. Wecannot speak of it as the parental instinct, because that term isalready in employment to express the best thing and the source of allother good things in us. Further, the sexual instinct and the parentalinstinct are quite distinct, and it would be disastrous to run thepossibility of confusing them--one the source of all the good, and theother the source of much of the evil, though the necessary condition ofall the good and evil, in the world. For some years past, in writing and speaking, I have employed andcounselled the employment of the term "the racial instinct. " This seemsto meet all the needs. It avoids the tabooed adjective, and if it failsto allude at all to the fact of sex, who needs reminding thereof? It isformed from the term race, which prudery permits, and it expresses onceand for all that for which the instinct exists--not the individual atall, but the race which is to come after him. Doubtless its satisfactionmay be satisfactory for him or her, but that does not testify toNature's interest in individuals, but rather to her skill in insuringthat her supreme concern shall not be ignored, even by those who leastconsciously concern themselves with it. These are perhaps the three most important instances of the verbal, orperhaps more than verbal, issues that arise in the fight with prudery. One has tried to show that they are not really in the nature ofconcessions to Mrs. Grundy, but that the terms commended are in point offact of more intrinsic worth than those to which she objects. Otherinstances will occur to the reader, especially if he or she becomes inany way a soldier in this war, whether publicly or as a parentinstructing children, or on any other of the many fields where the fightrages. It is not the purpose of the present chapter to deal with that whichmust be said, notwithstanding prudery, and in order that the price ofprudery shall no longer be paid. But one final principle may be laiddown which is indeed perhaps merely an expression of the spiritunderlying the foregoing remarks upon our terminology. It is that we areto fly our flag high. We may consult Mrs. Grundy's prejudices if we findthat in doing so we may directly serve our own thinking, and thereforeour cause. This is very different from any kind of apologizing to her. All such I utterly deplore. We must not begin by granting Mrs. Grundy'scase in any degree. Somewhere in that chaos of prejudices which shecalls her mind, she nourishes the notion, common to all the false formsof religion, ancient or modern, that there is something about sex andparenthood which is inherently base and unclean. The origin of thisnotion is of interest, and the anthropologists have devoted muchattention to it. It is to be found intermingled with a by no meanscontemptible hygiene in the Mosaic legislation, is to be traced in thebeliefs and customs of extant primitive peoples, and has formed andforms an element in most religions. But it is not really pertinent toour present discussion to weigh the good and evil consequences of thisbelief. Without following the modern fashion, prevalent in somesurprising quarters, of ecstatically exaggerating the practical value offalse beliefs in past and present times, we may admit that the cause ofmorality in the humblest sense of that term may sometimes have beenserved by the religious condemnation of all these matters as unclean, and of parenthood as, at the best, a second best. But for our own day and days yet unborn this notion of sex and itsconsequences as unclean or the worser part is to be condemned as notmerely a lie and a palpably blasphemous one, grossly irreligious on theface of it, but as a pernicious lie, and to be so recognized even bythose who most joyfully cherish evidence of the practical value of lies. Whatever may have been the case in the past or among present peoples inother states of culture than our own, no impartial person can questionthat during the Christian Era what may be called the Pauline or asceticattitude on this matter has been disastrous; and that if the presentforms of religion are not completely to outlive their usefulness, it ishigh time to restore mother and child worship to the honour which itheld in the religion of Ancient Egypt and in many another. If the motherand child worship which is to be found in the more modern religions, such as Christianity, is to be worth anything to the coming world itmust cease to have reference to one mother and one child only; it musthail every mother everywhere as a Madonna, and every child as in somemeasure deity incarnate. By no Church will such teaching be questionedto-day; but if it be granted the Churches must cease to uphold thoseconceptions of the superiority of celibacy and virginity which, besidesinvolving grossly materialistic conceptions of those states, arepalpably incompatible with that worship of parenthood to which theChurches must and shall now be made to return. All this will involve many a shock to prudery; to take only the instanceof what we call illegitimate motherhood, our eyes askance must learnthat there are other legitimacies and illegitimacies than those whichdepend upon the little laws of men, and that if our doctrine of theworth of parenthood be a right one it is our business in every such caseto say, "Here also, then, in so far as it lies in our power, we mustmake motherhood as good and perfect as may be. " These principles also will lead us to understand how differently, werewe wise, we should look upon the outward appearances of expectantmotherhood. In his masterpiece, Forel--of all living thinkers the mostvaluable--has a passage with which Mrs. Grundy may here be challenged. It is too simple to need translating from the author's own French:[9]-- "La fausse honte qu'out les femmes de laisser voir leur grossesse et tout ce qui a rapport à l'accouchement, les plaisanteries dont on use souvent à l'égard des femmes enceintes, sont un triste signe de la dégénérescence et même de la corruption de notre civilization raffinée. Les femmes enceintes ne devraient pas ce cacher, ni jamais avoir honte de porter un enfant dans leur ventre; elles devraient au contraire en être fières. Pareille fierté serait certes bien plus justifiée que celle des beaux officiers paradant sous leur uniforme. Les signes extérieurs de la formation de l'humanité font plus d'honneur à leurs porteurs que les symboles de sa destruction. Que les femmes s'imprègnent de plus en plus de cette profonde vérité! Elles cesseront alors de cacher leur grossesse et d'en avoir honte. Conscientes de la grandeur de leur tâche sexuelle et sociale, elles tiendront haut l'étendard de notre descendance, qui est celui de la véritable vie à venir de l'homme, tout en combattant pour l'émancipation de leur sexe. " This passage recalls one of Ruskin's, which is to be found in "Unto ThisLast":-- "Nearly all labour may be shortly divided into positive and negative labour--positive, that which produces life; negative, that which produces death; the most directly negative labour being murder, and the most directly positive the bearing and rearing of children; so that in the precise degree in which murder is hateful on the negative side of idleness, in that exact degree child-rearing is admirable, on the positive side of idleness. " Here is the right comment upon the swaggering display of the means ofdeath and the hiding as if shameful of the signs of life to come. Whathas Mrs. Grundy to say to this? Will she consider the propriety ofurging in future that it is murder and the means of murder, and theorganized forces of capital and politics making for murder, that mustnot be mentioned before children, and must be hidden as shameful fromthe eyes of men; and while a woman may still glory in her hair, according to that spiritual precept of St. Paul: "But if a woman havelong hair it is a glory to her; for her hair is given her for acovering, " perhaps she may be permitted even to glory in her motherhood, contemptible as such a notion would doubtless have seemed to the Apostleof the Gentiles. XI EDUCATION FOR MOTHERHOOD It is our first principle in this discussion that the individual existsfor parenthood, being a natural invention for that purpose and no other. It has been shown further that this is more pre-eminently true of womanthan of man, she being the more essential--if such a phrase can beused--for the continuance of the race. If these principles are validthey must indeed determine our course in the education of girls. Someincidental reference has already been made to this subject, but thematter must be more carefully gone into here. We have seen that thereare right and wrong ways of conducting the physical training of girls, according as whether we are aiming at muscularity or motherhood. We haveseen also that there is a thing called the higher education of women, apparently laudable and desirable in itself, which may yet havedisastrous consequences for the individual and the race. In a book devoted to womanhood, and written at the end of the firstdecade of the twentieth century, the reader might well expect that whatwe call the higher education of women would be a subject treated atgreat length and with great respect. Such a reader, turning to thechapter that professedly deals with the subject, might well be offendedby its brevity. It might be asked whether the writer was really aware ofthe importance of the subject--of its remarkable history, its extremelyrapid growth, and its conspicuous success (in proving that women can bemen if they please--but this is my comment, not the reader's). Nor canany one question that the so-called higher education of women is a verylarge and increasingly large fact in the history of womanhood during thelast half century in the countries which lead the world--whither it wereperhaps not too curious to consider. Further, this kind of educationdoes in fact achieve what it aims at. Women are capable of profiting bythe opportunities which it offers, as we say. This is itself a deeplyinteresting fact in natural history, refuting as it does the assertionsof those who declared and still declare that women are incapable of"higher education, " except in rare instances. It is important to knowthat women can become very good equivalents of men, if they please. Further, this higher education of women--and we may be content to acceptthe adjective without qualification, since it is after all only acomparative, and leaves us free to employ the superlative--may be andoften is of very real value in certain cases and because of certainlocal conditions, such as the great numerical inequality of the sexes innearly all civilized countries. It is valuable for that proportion ofwomen, whatever it be, who, through some throw of the physiologicaldice, seem to be without the distinctive factor for psychicalwomanhood, the existence of which one has tentatively ventured toassume. These individuals, like all others, are entitled to the fullestand freest development of their lives, and it is well that there shallbe open to them, as to the brothers they so closely resemble, opportunities for intellectual satisfaction and self-development. Therefore, surely, by far the most satisfactory function of highereducation for women is that which it discharges in reference to thesewomen. Their destiny being determined by their nature, and irrevocableby nurture, it is well that, though we cannot regard it as the highest, we should make the utmost of it by means of the appropriate education. Only because sometimes we must put up with second bests can we approveof higher education for women other than those of the anomaloussemi-feminine type to which we have referred. At present we must acceptit as an unfortunate necessity imposed upon us by economic conditions. So long as society is based economically, or rather uneconomically, uponthe disastrous principles which so constantly mean the sacrifice of thefuture to the present, so long, I suppose, will it be impossible thatevery fully feminine woman shall find a livelihood without somesacrifice of her womanhood. This is a subject to which we must return ina later chapter. Meanwhile it is referred to only because itsconsideration shows us some sort of excuse, if not warrant, for thehigher education of woman, even though in the process of thus endowingher with economic independence, we disendow her of her distinctivewomanhood, or at the very least imperil it; even though, more seriousstill, we deprive the race of her services as physical and psychicalmother. We have seen that there is just afoot a new tendency in the highereducation of women, and it is indeed a privilege to be able to doanything in the way of directing public attention to this new trend. Inreference thereto, it was hinted that though this newer form of highereducation for woman is a great advance upon the old, and is so justbecause it implies some recognition of woman's place in the world, yetfor one reason or another it falls short of what this present student ofwomanhood, at any rate, demands. As has been hinted further, probablythose responsible for the new trend are by no means unaware that, thoughtheir line is nearer to the right one, the direct line to the "happyisles" has not quite been taken. But great is Mrs. Grundy of theEnglish, and those who devised the new scheme--one is willing to hazardthe guess--had to be content with an approximation to what they knew tobe the ideal. That is why we devoted the last chapter to the question ofprudery, inserting that between a discussion of the "higher education"of women and the present discussion, which is concerned with the_highest education_ of women. Words are only symbols, but, like other symbols, they are capable ofassuming much empire over the mind. Man, indeed, as Stevenson said, lives principally by catchwords, and though woman, beside a cot, is lesslikely to be caught blowing bubbles and clutching at them, she also isin some degree at the mercy of words. The higher education of women isa good phrase. It appeals, just because of the fine word higher, tothose who wish women well, and to those who are not satisfied that womanshould remain for ever a domestic drudge. The phrase has had a long run, so to say, but I propose that henceforth we should set it to competewith another--the highest education of women. Whether this phrase willever gain the vogue of the other even a biased and admiring father maywell question. But if there is anything certain, having the whole weightof Nature behind it, and only the transient aberrations of men opposedthereto, it is that what I call the highest education of women will beand will remain the most central and capital of society's functions, when what is now called the higher education of women has gone itsappointed way with nine-tenths of all present-day education, and existsonly in the memory of historians who seek to interpret the fantasticvagaries of the bad old days. Perhaps it is well that we should begin by freeing the word educationfrom the incrustations of mortal nonsense that have very nearly obscuredits vitality altogether. Before we can educate for motherhood, we mustknow what education is, and what it is not. We must have a definition ofit and its object; in general as well as in this particular case, otherwise we shall certainly go wrong. Perhaps it may here be permittedto quote a paragraph from a lecture on "The Child and the State, " inwhich some few years ago I attempted to express the first principles ofthis matter:-- "Now, as a student of biology, I will venture to propose a definitionof education which is new, so far as I know, and which I hope andbelieve to be true and important. Comprehensively, so as to includeeverything that must be included, and yet without undue vagueness, Iwould define education as _the provision of an environment_. We mayamplify this proposition, and say that it is the provision of a fitenvironment for the young and foolish by the elderly and wise. It hasreally scarcely anything in the world to do with my trying to make youpay for the teaching to my children of dogmas which I believe, and youdeny. It neither begins nor ends with the three R's; and it does notisolate, from that whole which we call a human being, the one attributewhich may be defined as the intellectual faculty. It is the provision ofan environment, physical, mental, and moral, for the whole child, physical, mental, and moral. That is my _definition_ of education. Now, what are we to say of the _object_ of education? In providing theenvironment--from its mother's milk to moral maxims--for our child, whatdo we seek? Some may say, to make him a worthy citizen, to make him ableto support himself; some may say, to make him fit to bear arms for hisking and country; but I will give you the object of education as definedby the author of the most profound and wisest treatise which has everbeen written upon the subject--Plato, Locke, and Milton not forgotten. 'To prepare us for complete living, ' says Herbert Spencer, 'is thefunction which education has to discharge. ' The great thing needed forus to learn is how to live, how rightly to rule conduct in alldirections under all circumstances; and it is to that end that we mustdirect ourselves in providing an environment for the child. _Educationis the provision of an environment, the function of which is to preparefor complete living. _" Perhaps the only necessary qualification of the foregoing is that, though it refers specially to the child, yet the need of education doesnot end with childhood, becoming indeed pre-eminent when childhood ends. So we may apply what has been said in the case of the girl, and we shallfind it a sure guide to the highest education of women. First, education being the provision of an environment in the widestsense of that very wide word, always misused when it is used lesswidely, we must be sure that in our scheme we avoid the errors of pastor passing schemes which concern themselves only with some aspect of theenvironment, and so in effect prepare for something much less thancomplete living. It is not sufficient to provide an environment whichregards the girl as simply a muscular machine, as is the tendency, ifnot actually the case, in some of the "best" girls' schools to-day; itis not sufficient to provide an environment which looks upon the girl asmerely an intellectual machine, as in the higher education of women; itis not sufficient to provide an environment which looks upon the girl asa sideboard ornament, in Ruskin's phrase, such as was provided in theearlier Victorian days. In all these cases we are providing only part ofthe environment, and providing it in excess. None of them, therefore, satisfies our definition of education, which conceives of environmentas the sum-total of all the influences to which the whole organism issubjected--influences dietetic, dogmatic, material, maternal, and allother. [10] Who will question that, according to this conception of education, sucha thing as the higher education of women must be condemned asinadequate? No more than a man is woman a mere intellect incarnate. Heremotional nature is all-important; it is indeed the highest thing in theUniverse so far as we know. The scheme of education which ignores itsexistence, and much more than fails to provide the best environment forit, is condemnable. But the scheme of education which derides anddespises the emotional nature of woman, looking upon it as a weaknessand seeking to suppress it, is damnable, and has led to thedamnation--or loss, if the reader prefers the English term--of this mostprecious of all precious things in countless cases. The only right education of women must be that which rightly providesthe whole environment. The simpler our conception of woman, the more weunderrate her complexity and the manifoldness of her needs, the morecertainly shall we repeat in one form or another the errors of ourpredecessors. Complete living is a great phrase; perhaps not for a lizard or amushroom, but assuredly for men and women. Perhaps it involves more forwomen even than for men; indeed it must do so if we are to adhere to ourconception of women as more complex than men, having all thepossibilities of men in less or greater measure, and also certainsupreme possibilities of their own. Whatever complete living may meanfor men, it cannot mean for women anything less than all that is impliedin Wordsworth's great line-- "Wisdom doth live with children round her knees. " That line was written in reference to the unwisdom of a man, Napoleon, the greatest murderer in recorded time, and I believe it to be true ofmen, but it is pre-eminently true of women. There needs no excuse forquoting from Herbert Spencer, since we have already accepted hisdefinition of the subject of education, a notable passage which isperhaps at the present time the most needed of all the wisdom with whichthat great thinker's book on education is filled:-- "The greatest defect in our programmes of education is entirely overlooked. While much is being done in the detailed improvement of our systems in respect both of matter and manner, the most pressing desideratum, to prepare the young for the duties of life, is tacitly admitted to be the end which parents and schoolmasters should have in view; and, happily, the value of the things taught, and the goodness of the methods followed in teaching them, are now ostensibly judged by their fitness to this end. The propriety of substituting for an exclusively classical training, a training in which the modern languages shall have a share, is argued on this ground. The necessity of increasing the amount of science is urged for like reasons. But though some care is taken to fit youth of both sexes for society and citizenship, no care whatever is taken to fit them for the position of parents. While it is seen that, for the purpose of gaining a livelihood, an elaborate preparation is needed, it appears to be thought that for the bringing up of children no preparation whatever is needed. While many years are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge of which the chief value is that it constitutes the education of a gentleman; and while many years are spent by a girl in those decorative acquirements which fit her for evening parties, not an hour is spent by either in preparation for that gravest of all responsibilities--the management of a family. Is it that the discharge of it is but a remote contingency? On the contrary, it is sure to devolve on nine out of ten. Is it that the discharge of it is easy? Certainly not; of all functions which the adult has to fulfil, this is the most difficult. Is it that each may be trusted by self-instruction to fit himself, or herself, for the office of parent? No; not only is the need for such self-instruction unrecognized, but the complexity of the subject renders it the one of all others in which self-instruction is least likely to succeed. " If we were wise enough, therefore, we should recognize all education, inthe great sense of that word, to be _as for parenthood_. That ideal willyet be recognized and followed for both sexes, as it has for long beenfollowed, consciously as well as unconsciously, by that astonishing racewhich has survived all its oppressors, and is in the van of civilizationto-day as it was when it produced the Mosaic legislation. The time isnot yet when one could accept with a light heart an invitation tolecture on fatherhood to the boys at Eton. Boys to-day are taught byeach other, and by those who give them what they call "smut jaws, " thatwhat exists for fatherhood, and thus for the whole destiny of mankind, is "smut. " When such blasphemies pass for the best pedagogic wisdom, topreach parenthood as the goal of all worthy education is to run the riskof being looked upon as ridiculous. But the time will come when thehideous Empire-wrecking Imperialisms of the present are forgotten, andwhen we have a new Patriotism--which suggests, first and foremost, asthat word well may, the duty of fatherhood; and then, perhaps, "smutjaws" will not be the phrase at Eton for discussion of those instinctswhich determine the future of mankind. But girls are our present concern, and we may indeed hope that, thoughthe day is still far when the motto of Eton will be education as forfatherhood, yet the ideal of education as for motherhood may yet triumphwherever girls are taught within even a few years to come. On all sidesto-day we see the aberrations of womanhood in a hundred forms, and theconsequences thereof. Wrong education is partly, beyond a doubt, to beindicted for this state of things, and the right direction is so clearlyindicated by nature and by the deepest intuitions of both sexes that wecannot much longer delay to take it. Perhaps the reader will have patience whilst for a little we discuss thefacts upon which right education for motherhood must be based. Some maysuppose that by education for womanhood is meant simply one form orother of instruction; say, for instance, in the certainly importantmatter of infant feeding. At present, however, I am not thinking ofinstruction at all, but of education--the leading forth, that is to say, in right proportion and in right direction of the natural constituentsof the girl. If we are to be right in our methods we must have someclear understanding of what those constituents are, and we musttherefore address ourselves now to getting, if possible, clear andaccurate notions of the material with which we have to deal; in otherwords, we must discuss the psychology of parenthood. We shall perhapsrealize then that though the instruction of mothers in being is verynecessary and very important, that comes in at the end of our duty, andthat we shall never achieve what we might achieve unless we begin at thebeginning. XII THE MATERNAL INSTINCT The deeds of men and women proceed from certain radical elements oftheir nature, some evidently noble, others, when looked at askew, apparently ignoble. These elements are classed as instinctive. We areless intelligent than we think. Reason may occupy the throne, but thefoundations upon which that throne is based are not of her making. Tochange the image, reason is the pilot, not the gale or the engine. Shedoes not determine the goal, but only the course to that goal. We arewhat our nature makes us; our likes and our dislikes determine our acts, and we are guided to our self-determined ends by means of ourintelligence. More often, indeed, we use our intelligence merely tojustify to ourselves the likes and dislikes, the action and theinaction, which our instinctive tendencies have determined. Many of our natural instincts, impulses, and emotions bear only remotelyupon our present inquiry; as, for instance, the instinct of flight andthe emotion of fear, the instinct of curiosity and the emotion ofwonder, the instinct of pugnacity and the emotion of anger. Certainothers, however, are not merely radical and permanent parts of ournature, but determine human existence, the greater part of its failuresand successes, its folly and wisdom, its history and its destiny. Two ofthese--the parental and racial instincts--we must carefully considerhere, and also, very briefly, a supposed third, the filial instinct. Iam inclined to question whether such a specific entity as the filialinstinct exists at all; it is rather, I believe, a product, bytransmutation, of the parental instinct which, in its various forms andpotencies and through the tender emotion which is its counterpart in theaffective realm of our natures, is the noblest, finest, and mostpromising ingredient of our constitution. _Instinct and Emotion. _--We must be sure, in the first place, that wehave a sound idea of what we mean by the word "instinct. " It is absurd, for instance, to speak of "acquiring a political instinct"--or anyother. That is the most erroneous possible use of the word. An instinctis eminently something which cannot be "acquired"; it is native ifanything is native; as native as the nose or the backbone. Instincts maybe developed or repressed; it is the great mark of man that in him theymay even be transmuted--but _acquired_ never. When we come to examine the laws of activity we find that, on theapplication of certain kinds of stimulus, there are certain verydefinite responses, and these we call instinctive. If the arm or the legof a sleeper be stroked or touched, or a cold breath of air blowsthereon, it will be withdrawn, and such withdrawal is what we call areflex action. Now, an instinctive action, as Herbert Spencer saw longago, is a "complex reflex action. " It differs from a simple reflex, amere twitch, such as winking, but it is a complicated, and possiblyprolonged, action, which is, at bottom, of the nature of a reflex. Onemay instance the instinct of flight, which is correlated with fear. Incrossing the street we hear "toot, toot, " and we run. We do notratiocinate, we run. All the primary instincts of mankind act similarly. Take, for contrast, the instinct of curiosity. Consider a child watchinga mechanical toy; the impulse of this instinct of curiosity is such thathe goes to the thing and examines it. By means of the transmutation, which it is the prerogative of man to effect, this instinct may work outinto a lifetime devoted to the study of Nature. There is an unbrokensequence from the interest in the unknown which we see in a kitten or achild up to that which triumphs in a Newton or a Darwin. Thus we begin to learn that human nature is largely a collection ofinstincts, more or less correlated, and that at bottom we act on ourinstincts--in accordance with certain innate predilections, likings, anddislikings with which we were born, and which we have inherited from ourancestors. Indissolubly associated therewith is what we call emotion. For instance, in the exercise of the instinct of curiosity we feel acertain emotion, which we call wonder. There is an ignoble wonder andthere is a noble wonder; but whether it be an astronomer watching thestars, or the crowd at a cinematograph show, there exists an associationbetween the emotion of wonder and the instinct of curiosity. Dr. McDougall, of Oxford, elaborated some few years ago, and has nowestablished, an extremely important theory of the relation betweeninstinct and emotion. He has shown that our emotions are correlated withour instincts; that the emotion is the inward or subjective side of theworking of the instinct. Thus an instinct is more than a "complex reflexaction"; it is more than merely that, on hearing something, or seeingsomething, certain muscles are thrown into action, because along withthe action there is emotion, and this is a natural and necessarycorrelation. We should do well to carry about with us, as part of ourmental furniture, this idea of the correlation between instinct andemotion. Now, if it be true that man is not primarily a rational animal, if he berather, _au fond_, a bundle, an assemblage, _an organism of instincts_, it behoves us to recognize in ourselves and in others the primaryinstincts, because from them flows all that goes to make up humannature, whether it be good or evil. Amongst these, certainly, is theparental instinct. Let us first consider its development in the individual, for this bearson the question when to begin education for motherhood. We find it veryearly indeed. It is commonly asserted that the doll instinct is theprecursor, the infantile and childish form, of the parental instinct. Some psychologists, as we have already noted, assure us that this iswrong, that a small child will be just as content to play with anythingelse as with a doll; that the child gets fond of its possession, andthat what we are really witnessing is the instinct of acquisitiveness. The rest may reason and welcome, but those who are fathers know. Wehave only to watch a child to learn that it very soon differentiates itsdoll, or rather, the shapeless mass it calls its doll, from otherthings. Try with your own children and see if you can get them to likeanything else as well as they like a doll. They will not. There are fewsettled questions as yet in psychology, but we may certainly be surethat the parental instinct and its associated emotion may beunmistakably displayed as the master-passion in a child who is not yettwo years old. In a case where the possibility of imitation was excludedI have seen a little girl adore a small baby, stroke its hands, whisperquasi-maternal sweet nothings to it--"mother it, " in short--as plainlyas I have seen the sun at noon; and there is no reason to suppose thatthis deeply impressive spectacle was exceptional. The parental instinct is connected subtly with the racial instinct; andit is undisputed that, except in utterly degraded persons, the object ofthe feelings which are associated with the racial instinct becomes theobject of the feelings which are associated with the parental instinct. The object of the emotion of sex becomes also the object of tenderemotion. Thus "love, " in its lower sense, becomes exalted by Love in thenoble sense. There is also in us an instinct of pugnacity, which especially appearswhen the working of any other instinct is thwarted. We know that theparental instinct when thwarted, as in the tigress robbed of her whelps, shows itself in pugnacity--even in the female, which commonly has nopugnacity; and in the emotion of anger. It is a reasonable suppositionthat the fine anger, the passion for justice, the passion against, say, slavery or cruelty to children--that these indignations which move theworld are at bottom traceable to the workings of the outraged parentalinstinct. When we have tender emotion towards a child, or towards ananimal, whatever it be, this is really the subjective side of theworking of the parental instinct. Now, tender emotion is what has madeand makes everything that is good in the individual, and in humansociety. It is the basis of all morality--all morality that is realmorality--everything that permits us to hold up our heads at all, or tohope for the future of the race. That is why the study of the parentalinstinct, its correlate or source, is as important and serious as anythat can be imagined. Let us begin by a quotation from Dr. McDougall, author of the best andmost searching account of this instinct yet written:-- "The maternal instinct, which impels the mother to protect and cherish her young, is common to almost all the higher species of animals. Among the lower animals the perpetuation of the species is generally provided for by the production of an immense number of eggs or young (in some species of fish a single adult produces more than a million eggs), which are left entirely unprotected, and are so preyed upon by other creatures that on the average but one or two attain maturity. As we pass higher up the animal scale, we find the number of eggs or young more and more reduced, and the diminution of their number compensated for by parental protection. At the lowest stage this protection may consist in the provision of some merely physical shelter, as in the case of those animals that carry their eggs attached in some way to their bodies. But, except at this lowest stage, the protection afforded to the young always involves some instinctive adaptation of the parent's behaviour. We may see this even among the fishes, some of which deposit their eggs in rude nests and watch over them, driving away creatures that might prey upon them. From this stage onwards protection of offspring becomes increasingly psychical in character, involves more profound modification of the parent's behaviour, and a more prolonged period of more effective guardianship. The highest stage is reached by those species in which each female produces at a birth but one or two young, and protects them so efficiently that most of the young born reach maturity; the maintenance of the species thus becomes in the main the work of the parental instinct. In such species the protection and cherishing of the young is the constant and all-absorbing occupation of the mother, to which she devotes all her energies, and in the course of which she will at any time undergo privation, pain, and death. The instinct becomes more powerful than any other, and can override any other, even fear itself; for it works directly in the service of the species, while the other instincts work primarily in the service of the individual life, for which Nature cares little.... When we follow up the evolution of this instinct to the highest animal level, we find among the apes the most remarkable examples of its operation. Thus in one species the mother is said to carry her young one clasped in one arm uninterruptedly for several months, never letting go of it in all her wanderings. This instinct is no less strong in many human mothers, in whom, of course, it becomes more or less intellectualized and organized as the most essential constituent of the sentiment of parental love. Like other species, the human species is dependent upon this instinct for its continual existence and welfare. It is true that reason, working in the service of the egotistic impulses and sentiments, often circumvents the ends of this instinct and sets up habits which are incompatible with it. But when that occurs on a large scale in any society, that society is doomed to rapid decay. But the instinct itself can never die out save with the disappearance of the human species itself; it is kept strong and effective just because those families and races and nations in which it weakens become rapidly supplanted by those in which it is strong. "It is impossible to believe that the operation of this, the most powerful of the instincts, is not accompanied by a strong and definite emotion; one may see the emotion expressed unmistakably by almost any mother among the higher animals, especially the birds and the mammals--by the cat, for example, and by most of the domestic animals; and it is impossible to doubt that this emotion has in all cases the peculiar quality of the tender emotion provoked in the human parent by the spectacle of her helpless offspring. This primary emotion has been very generally ignored by the philosophers and psychologists; that is, perhaps, to be explained by the fact that this instinct and its emotion are in the main decidedly weaker in men than women, and in some men, perhaps, altogether lacking. We may even surmise that the philosophers as a class are men among whom this defect of native endowment is relatively common. " Dr. McDougall goes on to show how from this emotion and its impulse tocherish and protect spring generosity, gratitude, love, truebenevolence, and altruistic conduct of every kind; in it they have theirmain and absolutely essential root without which they would not be. Heargues that the intimate alliance between tender emotion and anger isof great importance for the social life of man, for "the anger invokedin this way is the germ of all moral indignation, and on moralindignation justice and the greater part of public law are in the mainfounded. "[11] The reader may be earnestly counselled to acquaint himself with Dr. McDougall's book, which, in the judgment of those best qualified, definitely advances the science of psychology in its deepest and mostimportant aspects. _The Transmutation of Instinct. _--The last thing here meant by thetransmutation of instinct is that by any political alchemy it ispossible--to quote Herbert Spencer's celebrated aphorism--to get goldenconduct out of leaden instincts. But it is the mark of man, theintelligent being, that in him the instincts are plastic, and evencapable of amazing transmutations. In the lower animals there isinstinct, but that instinct is an almost completely fixed, rigid, andfinal thing. In ourselves there is a limitless capacity for thedevelopment, the humanization of instinct along many lines, as when theprimitive infantile curiosity works out into the speculations of athinker. In other words, _we_ are educable, the lower animals are not, or only within very narrow limits. Yet in one respect the lower animals have the advantage over us. Theirinstincts are often perfect. We cannot teach a cat anything about how tolook after a kitten; but parallel instincts amongst ourselves, thoughnot less numerous or potent, are not perfected, not sharp-cut. In thecat there is no need for education; in woman there is eminent need forit. Indeed it is the lack of education that is largely responsible forour large infant mortality; not that woman is inferior to the cat, butthat, being not instinctive but intelligent, she requires education inmotherhood. Human instincts in general are capable of modification; sometimes theymay take bizarre forms, and so we find that there are people withoutchildren of their own--more commonly women--who will have twenty cats inthe house and look after them, or who will devote their whole lives tothe cause of the rat or the rabbit, or whatever it may be, while thechildren of men are dying around them. These things are indications ofthe parental instinct centred on unworthy objects. It is a common thingto laugh at these aberrations--thoughtlessly, may we not say? Whileorphans are to be found, we should do better if we try to bring togetherthe woman who needs to "mother" and the child who needs to be"mothered. " Conduct is at least three-fourths of life, and the great business ofeducation is the direction of conduct. We have seen how modernpsychology illuminates what has been so long dark, by directing us toour instincts as the sources of our needs, and by showing us that it isthe possibility of the education of instinct which essentiallydistinguishes us from the lower animals. We must therefore distinguish between education for motherhood andeducation or instruction in motherhood. It is very important that awoman should know the elements of infant feeding, but it is moreimportant that, in the first place, her whole life before she becomes amother--nay, even before she chooses her child's father--shall centre inthe education of her instincts for motherhood. Finding good evidence, aswe do, of the maternal instinct at a very early age, and recognizing itsimportance in conduct and in the formation of ideals long before themarriage age, we are justified in discussing the maternal instinct hereinstead of postponing it, as some might argue, until after we havediscussed marriage. There is nothing which I wish to assert morestrongly than that we are radically wrong in this postponement, which isindeed our customary practice. Partly because we are blind, partlybecause of our most imprudent prudery, we ignore and pervert the duesequence of development, but here I deliberately prefer to follow theindications of nature, and to discuss the maternal instinct now because, in the matter of the education of girls, this is precisely the mostimportant subject that can be named. Let us now note some popular misconceptions which cumber our minds andoften interfere with the work of the reformer. To begin with what is perhaps the oldest of these, though indeedscarcely entitled to the appellation of popular, let us assure ourselvesonce and for all that we are talking about a fact natural, innate, notacquired. The modern criticism of ancient notions of human nature, suchas those expressed in the theologians' conception of "conscience, " hasinclined some to the view that our best feelings are indeed not at allinnate. No one can for a moment analyze conscience without observing theimmense disparity between the facts and the theologians' theory. Andthus we are apt to fall into the opposite error of supposing that ourimpulses towards good action are entirely the products of education, training, public opinion, and so forth. Let the reader refer, forinstance, to such a celebrated work as John Stuart Mill's"Utilitarianism, " and it will be seen how wide of the mark it waspossible for even a great thinker to go, when his ideas of mind wereunguided by the light of evolution. Even in the greatest writer of thattime not a syllable do we find as to the parental instinct. "As is myown belief, " says Mill, "the moral feelings are not innate butacquired. " Yet we have seen convincing evidence which teaches us thatthe moral feelings spring essentially from the root of the parentalinstinct, without which mankind could not continue for anothergeneration, and than which there is nothing more fundamental andessential in any type of human nature that can persist. The importance of noting this can be clearly stated. We are here dealingwith something which is not for us to implant, but which is already partof the plant, so to speak, and which it is for us to tend. Like otherinnate features of mankind, its transmission from generation togeneration is notably independent of the effects of education, theeffects of use and disuse. This is a difficult thing of which topersuade people, but it is the fact. Education, environment, training, opportunity, habit, public opinion, social prejudice--all these andsuch other influences may and do affect the maternal instinct in theindividual for good or for evil. No fact is more certain or important, and that is precisely why we must study this instinct. But the effectupon the individual does not involve any effect upon the nativeconstitution of the individual's children. From age to age the generalfacts and features of the human backbone persist. We do not expect tofind notable differences between the generations in such a radicalfeature of our constitution, no matter what particular habits ofposture, play, and the like we adopt. The maternal instinct is scarcelyless fundamental; it is certainly no whit less essential for thespecies. It is the very backbone of our psychological constitution. Thusit is nonsense to assert that, for instance, women are becoming lessmotherly, if by this is meant that the maternal instinct is failing. That bad education may affect it for evil no one can question, but wemust distinguish between nature and nurture. We may be perfectlyconfident that so far as the _natural_ material of girl-childhood andgirlhood is concerned, there is no falling off; there will not, forthere cannot, be any falling off either in the quality or in thequantity of the maternal instinct. On the contrary, it can, and willlater be shown that through the action of heredity this instinct will bestrengthened in the future, just in so far as motherhood becomes moreand more a special privilege of those women in whom this instinct isstrong, and who become mothers for the _only good reason_--that theylove to have children of their own. I protest, then, against many critics, especially those who used toraise their now silent voices in opposition to the beginnings of theinfant mortality campaign a few years ago, that we who criticize modernmotherhood and find in its defects the causes of many and great evils, as we do, are asserting nothing whatever against the women of this dayas compared with the women of former days, so far as their naturalconstitution is concerned; and if we criticize the results of badeducation, that is mainly criticism of the blindness, the stupidity, andthe carelessness of men, who are responsible for the parodies ofeducation and the misdirection of ideals which have so grosslyafflicted, and still afflict, childhood and girlhood in all civilizedcommunities. Yet, again, there is another misconception of the maternal instinct asit exists in our own species, which is still more serious in itsresults. The argument is that, not only does the maternal instinctexist, but it is a sure guide to its possessor, who therefore requiresno instruction--least of all at the hands of men. A woman being a womanknows all about babies, a man being a man knows nothing. Against thiserror the present writer has endeavoured to inveigh for many years past, and it is always retorted that insistence upon the ignorance of mothersis a very unwarrantable piece of discourtesy. It is nothing of the sort. Native ignorance is the mark of intelligence. It is just becauseinstinct in us has not the perfection of detail which it has in, say, the insects, that it is capable of that limitless modification whichshows itself in educated intelligence, and all that educatedintelligence has achieved and will yet achieve. It may be permitted toquote from a former statement of this point:--[12] "The mother has only the maternal instinct in its essence. That couldnot be permitted to lapse by natural selection, since humanity couldnever have been evolved at all if women did not love babies. But of alldetails she is bereft. She has instead an immeasurably greater thing, intelligence, but whilst intelligence can learn everything it haseverything to learn. Subhuman instinct can learn nothing, but is perfectfrom the first within its impassable limits. It is this lapse ofinstinctive aptitude that constitutes the cardinal difficulty againstwhich we are assembled. The mother cat not merely has a far lesshelpless young creature to succour, but she has a far superior inherentor instinctive equipment; she knows the best food for her kitten, shedoes not give it 'the same as we had ourselves'--as the human mothertells the coroner--but her own breast invariably. None of us can teachher anything as to washing her kitten, or keeping it warm. She can evenplay with it and so educate it, in so far as it needs education. Thereare mothers in all classes of the community who should be ashamed tolook a tabby cat in the face. " The human mother has instinctive love and the uninstructed intelligencewhich is the form, at once weak and incalculably strong, that instinctso largely assumes in mankind. This cardinal distinction between thehuman and all sub-human mothers is habitually ignored, it being assumedthat the mother, as a mother, knows what is best for her child. Butexperience concurs with comparative psychology in showing that the humanmother, just because she is human, intelligent, which means more thaninstinctive, does not know. This is the theory upon which all ourpractice is to be based, and upon which the need for it mainly depends. We must never forget the cardinal peculiarity of human motherhood, itsabsolute dependence upon education, needless for the cat, needed by thehuman mother in every particular, small and great, since she relies uponintelligence alone, which is only a potentiality and a possibility untilit be educated. Educate it, and the product transcends the cat, and notonly the cat, but all other living things. As Coleridge said-- "A mother is a mother still, The holiest thing alive. " Perhaps the foregoing will make it clear that to insist upon the naturalignorance of the human mother and upon the necessity for addinginstruction to the maternal instinct, and even to make comparisons withthe cat (which are, in point of fact, quite worth making, even thoughsome women resent them) is in no way to depreciate or decry womanhood, but simply to demonstrate that it is human and not animal, sufferingfrom the disabilities or necessities which are involved in thepossession of the limitless possibilities of mankind. What, then, is it in our power to do; and how are we to do it? It may beargued that if the maternal instinct is a thing which cannot be made oracquired, our study of it has little relation to practice. But indeed itis eminently practical. For, in the first place, this priceless possession, this parentalinstinct and tenderness, is inheritable. We know by observation amongstourselves that hardness and tenderness are to be found running throughfamilies--are things which are transmissible. Let us, then, makeparenthood the most responsible, the most deliberate, the mostself-conscious thing in life, so that there shall be children born tothose who love children, and only to those who love children, to thosewho have the parental instinct naturally strong, and who will, on theaverage, transmit a high measure of it to their offspring. In ageneration bred on these principles--a generation consisting only ofbabies who were loved before they were born--there would be a proportionof sympathy, of tender feeling, and of all those great, abstract, world-creating passions which are evolved from the tender emotion, suchas no age hitherto has seen. It was necessary to insert this eugenic paragraph because it expressesthe central principle of all real reform, as fundamental andall-important as it is unknown to all political parties, and I fear tonearly all philanthropists as well. But, for the present, our immediateconcern is the application, if such be possible, of our knowledge of theparental instinct to the education of girls. Being indeed an instinct itcan be neither made nor acquired, but, like every other factor ofhumanity that is given by inheritance, it depends upon the conditions inwhich it finds itself. Education being the provision of an environment, there is no higher task for the educator than to provide the rightenvironment for the maternal instinct in adolescence. We are to lookupon it as at once delicate and ineradicable. These are adjectives whichmay seem incompatible, yet they may both be verified. Any one willtestify that, in a given environment, say that of high school oruniversity or that of the worst types of what is called society, thematernal instinct may then and there, and for that period, become anonentity in many a girl. Hence we are entitled to say that it isdelicate; much more delicate, for instance, than what we have agreed tocall the racial instinct, which is far more imperious and by no means soeasily to be suppressed. But, on the other hand, just because this is an instinct, part of thefundamental constitution, and not a something planted from without, itis ineradicable. I doubt whether even in the most abandoned femaledrunkard it would not be possible to find, when the right environmentwas provided, that the maternal instinct was still undestroyed. One is, of course, not speaking of that rare and aberrant variety of women inwhom the instinct is naturally weak--naturally weak as distinguishedfrom the atrophy induced by improper nurture. Our business, then, having recognized, so to speak, the natural historyof this instinct, and further, having come to realize its stupendousimportance for the individual and the race, is to tend it assiduouslyas the very highest and most precious thing in the girls for whom wecare. As educators we must seek to provide the environment in which thisinstinct can flourish. It is a good thing to be an elder sister, notmerely because the girl has opportunities of learning the ways of babiesand the details of their needs, but for a far deeper reason. Babies dohave very detailed and urgent needs, but these can be learnt withoutmuch difficulty, and, if necessary, at very short notice. More importantis it for the whole development of the character and for the making ofthe worthiest womanhood that an elder sister is provided with anenvironment in which her maternal instinct can grow and grow in grace. Much might be said on this head as to some of our present educationalpractices. The kind of educationist with whom no one would trust apoodle for half an hour may and does constantly assume, on a scaleinvolving millions of children, from year to year, that all is well ifthe girl be taken from home and put into a school and made to learn byheart, or at any rate by rote, the rubbish with which our youth is fedeven yet in the great name of education: though perchance whilst she isthus being injured in body and mind and character, she might at home beplaying the little mother, helping to make the home a home, serving thehighest interests of her parents, her younger brothers and sisters andherself at the same time--not to mention the unborn. Such a protest asthis, however, will be little heeded. There is no political party whichcares about education or even wants to know in what it consists. Themost persistent and clever and resourceful of those parties--of which, Ifear, the Fabian Society is far too good to be representative--only halfbelieves in the family, and is daily, and ever with more lamentablesuccess, seeking to substitute for the home some collective device orother precisely as rational as that scheme of Plato's whereby the babieswere to be shuffled so that no mother should recognize her own baby, while the fathers, need it be said, were to be as gloriouslyirresponsible as under the schemes for the endowment of motherhood. "Socialism intervenes between the children and the parents.... Socialismin fact is the State family. The old family of the private individualmust vanish before it, just as the old waterworks of private enterprise, or the old gas company. They are incompatible with it. " Thus Mr. H. G. Wells. Whilst this sort of thing passes for thinking, it is a task that haslittle promise in it to demand a return to the study of human nature, and insist that only by obeying it can we command it, as Bacon said ofNature at large. Meanwhile the madness proceeds apace; nursery-schools, wretched parody of the nursery, are advocated at length in even Fabiantracts, and the writer who suggests that an elder sister may bereceiving the highest kind of education in staying at home and helpingher mother, would sound almost to himself like an echo from the deadpast did he not know that neither a Plato nor a million tons of modernscan walk through human nature or any other fact as if it were notthere. Whatever be our duty to the girl of the working-classes, no man can denythe importance of performing it aright. She will become the wife of theworking-man. From her thus flows most of the birth-rate. If oureducation of her is wrong, it is a very great wrong for millions ofindividuals and for the whole of society. But let us look at the case ofher more fortunate sister. The girl of the more fortunate classes is certain to be well cared forin the matter of air and food and light and exercise. We have alreadyseen how this matter of exercise requires to be qualified and determinedas for motherhood--that is, unless we desire most suicidally to educateall the most promising stocks of the nation out of existence. But nowwhat do we owe to her in the matter of providing the right kind ofintellectual, moral, spiritual, psychical environment? It is a pity toflounder with so many adjectives, but nearly all the available ones areforsworn and fail to express my meaning. Let us, however, speak of thespiritual environment, seeking to free that word from all its lamentableassociations of superstition and cant, and to associate it rather with ahumanized kind of religion that deals with humanity as made by, livingupon, and destined for, this earth, whatever unseen worlds there may ormay not be to conquer. It is our business, then, to provide the spiritual environment in whichthe maternal instinct is favoured and seen to be supremely honourable. If in the "best" girls' schools ideas of marriage and babies areridiculed, the sooner these schools be rubbed down again into the soil, the better. There is no need to substitute one form of cant foranother, but it is possible--possible even though the head-mistressshould be a spinster, for whom physical motherhood has not been andnever will be--to incorporate in the very spirit of the school, as partof its public opinion, no less potent though its power be notconsciously felt, the ideals of real and complete womanhood, which meannothing less than the consecration of the individual to the future, andthe belief that such consecration serves not only the future but alsothe highest satisfaction of her best self. If it were our present task to define and specify the details of aschool in which girls should be educated for womanhood, for motherhood, and the future, it would not be difficult, I think, to show how theservices of painting and sculpture, of poetry and prose, should beenlisted. A word or two of outline may be permitted. There is, for instance, a noble Madonna of Botticelli which is supremelygreat, not because of the skill of the painter's hand, nor yet thedelicacy of his eye, but because of the spirit which they express. Botticelli speaks across the centuries, and is none other than anearlier voice uttering the words of Coleridge, teaching that a mother isthe holiest thing alive. The master may or may not have perceived thatthe Madonna was a symbol; that what he believed of one holy mother wasworth believing just in so far as it serves to make all motherhood holyand all men servants thereof. The painter can scarcely have looked athis model and appreciated her fitness for his purpose without realizingthat he was concerned with depicting a truth not local and unique, butuniversal and commonplace. Whether or not the painter saw this, we haveno excuse for not seeing it. Copies of such a painting as this should befound in every girls' school throughout the world. Girls learn drawing and painting at school, and these are amongst thenumerous subjects on which the present writer is entitled to notechnical or critical opinion. But he sometimes supposes that a paintingis not necessarily the worse because it represents a noble thing, andthat it may even be a worthier human occupation to portray the visage ofa living man or woman than the play of light upon a dead wall or a deadpartridge. It might even be argued by the wholly inexpert that if thebusiness of art is with beauty, the art is higher, other things beingequal, in proportion as the beauty it portrays is of a higher order. Thus in the painting of women, the ignorant commentator sometimes askshimself in what supreme sense it was worth while for an artist to expendhis powers upon the portrait of some society fool who could pay himtwelve hundred pounds therefor; or in what supreme sense a painter canbe called an artist who prefers such a task, and the flesh-pots, to theportrayal of womanhood at its highest. There are attributes of womanhoodwhich directly serve human life, present and to come--attributes ofvitality and faithfulness, attributes of body and bosom, of mind and offeeling, which it is within the power of the great artist to portray;and it is in worthily portraying the greatest things, and in thisalone, that he transcends the status of the decorator. It is worth while also to refer here to sculpture; something can betaught by its means. The Venus of Milo is not only a great work of art;it is also a representation of the physiological ideal. Its model was awoman eminently capable of motherhood. The corset is beyond questionundesirable from every point of view, and it may be of service by meansof such a statue as this to teach the girl's eye what are the rightproportions of the body. She is constantly being faced with gross andpreposterous perversions of the female figure as they are to be seen inthe fashion plates of every feminine journal. It is as well that sheshould have opportunities of occasionally seeing something better. A note upon the corset may not be out of place here. We know that itsuse is of no small antiquity. We have lately come to learn thatcivilization stepped across to Europe from Asia, using Crete as astepping-stone; and in frescoes found in the palace of Minos, atKnossos, by Dr. Arthur Evans, we find that the corset was employed todistort the female figure nearly four thousand years ago, as it isto-day. There must be some clue deep in human nature to the persistenceof a custom which is in itself so absurd. Those who have studied thework of such writers as Westermarck, and who cannot but agree that onthe whole he is right in the contention that each sex desires toaccentuate the features of its sex, will be prepared to accept Dr. Havelock Ellis's interpretation of the corset. By constricting thewaist it accentuates the salience of the bosom and hips. This may simplybe an expression of the desire to emphasize sex, but it may with stillmore insight be looked upon, as the latter writer has suggested, as theinsertion of a claim to capacity for motherhood. This claim is of courseunconscious, but Nature does not always make us aware of the purposeswhich she exercises through us. Now, though the corset serves to drawattention to certain factors of motherhood, in point of fact it isinjurious to that end, and is on that highest of all grounds to becondemned. I return to the point that possibly the direct and formalcondemnation of the corset may be in some cases less effective than themethod, which must have some value for every girl, of placing before hereyes representations of the female figure, showing beauty and capacityfor motherhood as completely fused because they are indeed one. Constrain the girl to admit that that is as beautiful as can be, andthen ask her what she thinks the corset applied to such a figure couldpossibly accomplish. Surely the same principle applies to what the girl reads. Some of usbecome more and more convinced that youth, being naturally moreintelligent than maturity, prefers and requires more subtlety in itsteaching. In addressing a meeting of men, say upon politics, a speaker'sfirst business is to be crude. He has no chance whatever unless he isdirect, unqualified, allowing nothing at all for any kind ofintelligence or self-constructive faculty in the minds of his hearers. Let any one recall the catchwords, styled watchwords, of politicsduring the last ten or twenty years, and he will see how men are to beconvinced. But it is all very well to treat men as fools, provided that you do notsay so--the case is different with young people, and certainly not lesswith girls than with boys. Mr. Kipling, in one of those earlier momentsof insight that sometimes almost persuade us to pardon the brutalitywhich year by year becomes more than ever the dominant note of histeaching, once told us of the discomfiture of a member of Parliament, orperson of that kind, who went to a boys' school to lecture aboutPatriotism, and who unfurled a Union Jack amid the dead silence of thedisgusted boys. He forgot that, for once, he was speaking to anintelligent audience, which demands something a little less crude thanthe kind of thing which wins elections and makes and unmakes governmentsand policies. There is certainly a lesson here for those who are entrusted with thesupreme responsibility, so immeasurably more political than politics, offorming the girl's mind for her future destiny. Suggestion is one of themost powerful things in the world, but we must not forget that invertedform of it which has been called contra-suggestion. We all know how thefirst shoots of religion are destroyed on all sides in young minds bycontra-suggestion. Crude, ill-timed, unsympathetic, excessive, religiousteaching and religious exercises achieve, as scarcely anything elsecould, exactly the opposite of that which they seek to attain. Thus itis not here proposed that we should take any course at home or atschool which should have the result of making motherhood as nauseous tothe girl's mind through contra-suggestion, as it easily could be made ifwe did not set to work upon judicious lines. If we are in any measure to gain, by means of books, our end of formingright ideals in the girl's mind, I am certain that we must not expect toaccomplish much with the help of any but very great writers. We may verywell doubt the substantial value for the purpose of anything written forthe purpose. Such books may be of value for the teacher; they maypossibly be of value in disposing of curiosity that has becomeoverweening or even morbid, but their value as preachments I muchquestion. The kind of writing upon which the young girl's mind will benourished in years to come is best represented by the lecture on"Queens' Gardens" in Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies, " though in thatmagnificent and immortal piece of literature there is nowhere any directallusion to motherhood as the natural ideal for girlhood. Yet if onlyone girl in a hundred who read that lecture can be persuaded, in thebeautiful phrase to be found there, that she was "born to be lovevisible, " how excellent is the work that we shall have accomplished! Achapter might well be devoted entirely to the teaching of Wordsworthregarding womanhood. We need scarcely remind ourselves that this greatpoet owed an immeasurable debt to his sister, and in lesser, though verysubstantial, degree to his wife and daughters. He has left an abundanceof poetry which testifies directly and indirectly to these influences. This poetry is not only utterly lovely as poetry; at once sane andpassionate, steadying and thrilling, but it is also not to be surpassed, I cannot but believe, as a means for rightly forming the ideals ofgirlhood. Every year sees an inundation of new collections of poetry. The anthologist might do worse than collect from Wordsworth a small, butprecious and quintessential volume under some such title as "Wordsworthand Womanhood. " One would do it oneself but that literary people of acertain school regard it as an impertinence that any one who believes inknowledge should intrude into their sphere. Wordsworth, it is true, saidthat "poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is theimpassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science. " Butmost literary people are so busy writing that they have no time to read, and they forget these sayings of the immortal dead. Yet that is just asaying which directly bears upon the present contention. We must be verycareful lest we insult and outrage girlhood with our physiology, notthat physiology is either insolent or outrageous, but that girlhood isgirlhood. It is the "breath and finer spirit" of our knowledge of sexand parenthood that we must seek to impart to her. Poetry is itsvehicle, and the time will come when we shall consciously use it forthat great purpose. But we cannot expect the adolescent girl to be content even with Ruskinand Wordsworth. She must, of course, have fiction, and under thisheading there is more or less accessible to her every possibility in thegamut of morality, from the teaching of such a book as "RichardFeverel" down to the excrement and sewage that defile the railwaybook-stalls to-day under the guise of "bold, reverent, and fearlesshandling of the great sex problems. " The present writer is one of thoseold-fashioned enough to believe that it matters a great deal what youngpeople read. We are all hygienists nowadays, and very particular as towhat enters our children's mouths. But what is the value of theseprecautions if we relax our care as to what enters their minds? It is my misfortune to be scarcely acquainted at all with fiction, and Ican presume to offer no detailed guidance in this matter. The name ofMr. Eden Phillpotts must certainly be mentioned as foremost among thoseliving writers who care for these things. In the Eugenics EducationSociety it was at one time hoped to see the formation of a branch offiction in the library which might form the nucleus of a catalogue, wellworth disseminating if only it could be compiled, of fiction worthy theconsumption of girlhood. Perhaps it would hardly be necessary for thepresent writer to protest that the didactic, the unnaturally good, thewell-meaning, the entirely amateur types of fiction, including thosewhich ignore the facts of human nature, and, above all, those whichdecry instead of seeking to deify the natural, would find no place inthis catalogue. It is possible, though I much doubt it, that there maybe many books unknown to me of the order and quality of "RichardFeverel. " At any rate, that represents in its perfection--save, perhaps, for the unnecessary tragedy of its close, which the illustrious authorhimself in conversation did not find it quite possible to defend--thetype of novel whose teaching the Eugenist and the Maternalist mustrecommend for the nourishment of youth of both sexes. As has been already hinted, discourses on how to wash a baby are less inplace here; and in the following chapter the argument will be set forthin detail that the sequence of the common schemes for the education ofgirlhood and womanhood is, in one essential respect, logically andpractically erroneous. XIII CHOOSING THE FATHERS OF THE FUTURE We live in a social chaos of which the evolution into anything like acosmos is scarcely more than incipient. In such a case the reformer hasto do the best he may; in the only possible sense in which that phrasecan be defended, he has to take the world as he finds it. Heartlessheads will of course be found to comment upon the logical error of hisways, to which his only reply is that, while they stand and comment, what can be done he now will do. In this whole matter of the care and culture of motherhood--which is, verily, the prime condition, too often forgotten, of the care andculture of childhood--we have to do what we can, when and as we can. Welive in a society where mankind, held individually responsible for allother acts whatsoever, is held entirely irresponsible for the act ofparenthood which, being more momentous than any other, ought to be heldmore responsible than any other. Marriage, the precedent condition ofmost parenthood, is thus regarded as the concern of the individuals andthe present. Individuals and the present therefore decide what marriagesshall occur; but by some obscure fatality which no one had thought of, the future appears upon the scene: and when it is actually present, orrather not only present but visible, the responsibility for it isrecognized. We have not yet gone so far as to see that a girl may be agood mother, in the highest sense, in her choice of a mate. But asthings are, it is agreed that we are to act like blind automata, asimprovident and irresponsible as the lower fishes, until the actualbirth of the future. The philosophic truth that the future is nascent inthe present--a truth so genuinely philosophic that it is alsopractical--is still hidden from us, and thus we are faced, in town andcountry alike, with ignorant motherhood, set to the most difficult, responsible, and expert of tasks--the right nurture of babyhood;babyhood, a ridiculous subject for grown men, yet somehow the conditionof them and all their doings. In this state of affairs, those who began the modern campaign againstinfant mortality, or rather that small section of them who were not tobe beguiled by secondaries, such as poverty, alcoholism, and the like, set to work to remedy maternal ignorance. Having been engaged in thiscampaign for many years, one is not likely to decry it now, nor is thereany occasion to do so. The movement for the instruction of motherhoodand for the instruction even of girls in the duties of actualmotherhood, is now not only started but making real progress, and willassuredly prosper. But here our business is to think a little in front of action done anddoing, and we shall very soon discover that there is more for publicopinion yet to learn, while we may be very certain that this last lessonwill be less easily learnt than the former was, for it is based uponevidence much less obvious. I have long maintained that the movementagainst infant mortality must precede in logic and in practice movementsfor the physical training of boys and girls, for the medical inspectionand treatment of school children, and so forth. Relatively to these Ihave always asserted that the right care of babies has the immensesuperiority that it means beginning at the beginning, but I have alwaysdenied that it means beginning at the absolute beginning, if such aphrase be permitted. Given the world as it is, the conditions of marriage as they are, theeconomic position of woman, the power of prudery, and the conventionalsupposition that babies occur by providential dispensation, we must actas if we really made the assumption that human parenthood, until themoment of birth, is as irresponsible as any sequence of events in theatmosphere or the world of electrons. But we who are thinking in frontfor humanity must make no such assumption. We must look forward to andhasten the time when we can act upon the _true_ assumption, which isthat the more the knowledge the greater the responsibility, and moreespecially that our knowledge of heredity, so far from abolishing humanresponsibility--as the enemies of knowledge declare--immeasurablyextends and deepens it. In the present volume we are proceeding upon thetrue assumption, and therefore in the study of womanhood we must nowproceed, in defiance of conventional assumptions, to study theresponsibility and duties of motherhood _as they exist for maidenhood_. To this end, it will be necessary that we remind ourselves of certaingreat biological facts which are of immense significance for mankind, and are doubtless indeed more important in their bearing upon ourselvesthan upon any other living species. The first of these is the fact of heredity; the second the fact thathereditary endowment, whether for good or for evil, or, as is the rule, both for good and for evil, goes vastly further than any one has untillately realized, in determining individual destiny. These are amongstthe first principles of Eugenics or race culture, and as they have beendiscussed at length elsewhere, one may here take them for granted. Scarcely less important is the fact that the conditions of mating in thesub-human world--conditions which beyond dispute make for thecontinuance, the vigour, the efficiency, and therefore the happiness ofthe species--are largely modified amongst ourselves in consequence ofcertain human facts which have no sub-human parallel. The parallels andthe divergences between the two cases are both alike of the utmostsignificance, and cannot be too carefully studied. It will here bepossible, of course, merely to look at them as briefly as is compatiblewith the making of a right approach to the subject now before us, whichis the girl's choice of a husband. But in right priority to the question of choice, we may for conveniencediscuss first the marriage age. The choice at one age may not be thechoice at another, and in any case the question of the marriage age isso important for the individual woman, and so immensely effective indetermining the composition of any society, that we cannot study it toocarefully. XIV THE MARRIAGE AGE FOR GIRLS Let us clearly understand, in the first place, that in this chapter wediscuss principles and averages, and that, supposing our conclusions beaccepted as true, they cannot for a moment be quoted as decisive intheir bearing upon special cases. The impartial reader will not supposethat such folly is contemplated, but those who discuss and advocate newviews very soon learn that many readers are not impartial, and that forone cause or another they do not fail of misrepresentation. This is nota case, then, of "science laying down the law, " and ordering thisindividual to marry at this age, and that not to marry at another; andyet though this rigorous individual application of our principles isabsurd, they are none the less worth formulating, if it be possible. The question before us is very far from simple: it is not in the natureof human problems to be simple, the individual and society being soimmeasurably complex. We have to consider far more points than occur onfirst inspection. We have to ascertain when the average woman becomesfit for marriage. But we must remember that we are dealing with marriageunder the conditions imposed by law and public opinion. Therefore, fitfor mating and fit for marriage are not synonymous, and to ascertain theage of physiological fitness for mating, though an importantcontribution to our problem, is not the solution of it. We have furtherto consider how the taste and inclination of the individual vary in thecourse of her development. We have to ask ourselves at what age ingeneral she is likely to make that choice which her maturity and middleage will ratify rather than for ever regret. We have to consider therelations of different ages to motherhood, both as regards the qualityof the children born, and as regards their probable number under naturalconditions. These are questions which certainly affect the individual'shappiness profoundly, and yet that is the least of their significance. Again, we have to observe how the constitution of society varies asregards the age of its members, according as marriage be early or late. In the former case more generations are alive at the same time, and inthe latter case fewer. The increasing age at marriage would have moreconspicuous results in this respect if it were not for the greatincrease in longevity; so that, though the generations are becoming morespread out, we may have as many representatives of different generationsalive at the same time as there used to be; but of course there is thegreat difference that society is older as a whole. This is a fact whichin itself must affect the doings and the prospects of civilization. Anassemblage of people in the twenties will not behave in the same way asthose in the forties. The probable effect must be towards conservatism, and increasing rigidity. It is a question to be asked by the historianof civilization how far these considerations bear upon the history ofpast empires. Another and most notable result of the modified relation between thegenerations which ensues from increasing the age at marriage, is thatthe parents, under the newer conditions, must necessarily be, on theaverage, psychologically further from their children. The man who firstbecomes a father at twenty-five, shall we say, may well expect still tohave something of the boy in him at thirty, especially as children keepus young. He is thus a companion for his child and his child for him. The same is true of women. It is good that a woman who still hassomething of girlhood in her should become a mother. When the marriageage is much delayed, people of both sexes tend to grow old more quicklythan if they had children to keep them young, and then when the childrencome the psychological disparity is greater than it ought to be--greaterthan is best either for parents or children. Before we consider the question of individual development, let us notethe general trend of the marriage age. There is no doubt that this isprogressively towards a delay in marriage. We have only to study thefacts amongst primitive races, and in low forms of civilization, to seethat increase in civilization involves, amongst other things, increasingage at marriage. In his book, "The Nature of Man, " Professor Metchnikoffquotes some statistics, now very nearly fifty years old, showing the ageat first marriage in various European countries. The figure for Englandwas nearly 26 for males and 24. 6 for females; in France, Norway, Holland, and Belgium the figures for both sexes were considerablyhigher, the average age in Belgium being very nearly 30 for men and morethan 28 for women. In England the age has been rising for many yearspast, and probably stands now at about 28 for men and 26 for women. Itneed hardly be pointed out that this increase in the age of marriage isone of the factors in the fall of the birth-rate, which is generalthroughout the leading countries of the world, proceeding now with greatrapidity even in Germany. On the whole, it is further true that the marriage age rises as weascend from lower to higher classes within a given civilization, thougha very select class among the wealthy offer an exception to this. Now nothing is more familiar to us all than that there is a disharmony, as Professor Metchnikoff puts it, between these ages for marriage andthe age at which the development of the racial instinct is unmistakableand parenthood is indeed possible. The tendency of civilization is toincrease this disharmony, and it is impossible to believe that thistendency can be healthy either for the civilization or for theindividual. Still concerning ourselves with the more general aspects of thequestion, let it be observed that, as regards men, this unnatural delayof marriage very frequently brings consequences which, bearing hardly onthemselves, later bear not less hardly on hapless womanhood. The laterthe age to which marriage is delayed, the more are men handicapped intheir constant struggle to control the racial instinct under theunnatural conditions in which they find themselves. The great majorityof men fail in this unequal fight, and of those who fail an enormousnumber become infected by disease, with which, when they marry, theyinfect their wives, sometimes killing them, often causing them lifelongillness, often destroying for ever their chances of motherhood, ormaking motherhood a horror by the production of children that are anoffence against the sun. These are facts known to all who have lookedinto the matter, but there is no such thing as decent public opinion onthe subject, and the author or speaker who dares to allude to them takeshis means of living, if not his life, into his hands. No doubt men are largely responsible themselves for the rising marriageage, but women are also responsible in some measure. This must mean onthe whole an injury to themselves as individuals, to their sex, and tosociety. Both sexes demand a higher standard of living; the man spendsenough in alcohol and tobacco, as a rule, to support one or twochildren, and then says he is too poor to marry. There is everything tobe said for the doctrine that people should be provident, and shouldbring no more children into the world than they are able to support; butbefore we accept this plea in any particular case, we should firstinquire how the available income is being spent. At present, everyindication goes to show that we are following in the track of all ourpredecessors, spending upon individual indulgence that which ought to bededicated to the future, and thereby compromising the worth or thepossibility of any future at all. In the light of these considerations and many more, some of which weshall later consider, I deplore and protest against with all my heart, as blind, ignorant, and destructive, the counsel of those women, some ofthem conspicuous advocates of the cause of woman's suffrage--in which Inevertheless believe--who advise women to delay in marriage, or whopublish opinions throwing contempt upon marriage altogether. Later, wemust deal in detail with marriage; here we are only concerned with themarriage age. It will then be argued that the conditions of marriagemust sooner or later be modified in so far as they are at presentinacceptable to a certain number of women of the highest type. This maybe granted without in any degree accepting the deplorable teaching ofsuch writers as Miss Cicely Hamilton, in her book entitled "Marriage asa Trade. " Every individual case requires individual consideration, andno less than any individual case ever yet received. But in general thosewomen who counsel the delay of the marriage age are opposing the factsof feminine development and psychology. They are indirectly encouragingmale immorality and female prostitution, with their appallingconsequences for those directly concerned, for hosts of absolutelyinnocent women, and for the unborn. Further, those who suppose that thegranting of the vote is going to effect radical and fundamental changesin the facts of biology, the development of instinct, and itssignificance in human action, are fools of the very blindest kind. Someof us find that it needs constant self-chastening and bracing up of thejudgment to retain our belief in the cause of woman's suffrage, of thejustice and desirability of which we are convinced, assaulted as wealmost daily are by the unnatural, unfeminine, almost inhuman blindnessof many of its advocates. We have constantly to remind ourselves that our immediate concern andduty are not with the world as it might be, or ought to be, or will be, but with the world as it is. There are many good arguments, admirablyadapted to an imaginary world, why the marriage age should be increased. But these forget the possible, nay the inevitable, consequences, if suchan increase show itself in one nation and not in another, in one classof society and not in another. It is a good thing, and it is the idealof the eugenist, as I ventured to formulate some years ago, that everychild who comes into the world should be desired, designed, and loved inanticipation. But if in France, shall we say, such a tendency begins toobtain a generation earlier than it does in Germany, there will come tobe a disparity of population which, continuing, must inevitably meansooner or later the disappearance of France. Or again, difference in the marriage age in different classes within agiven community has very notable consequences, as Sir Francis Galtonshowed in his book, "Hereditary Genius, " and later, in more detail, inhis "Inquiries into Human Faculty. " He shows that, other things beingequal, the earlier marrying class or group will in a few generationsbreed down the others and completely supplant them. If the naturalquality of the one class differ from that of the other, the ultimateconsequences will be tremendous. It has been proved up to the hilt thatin Great Britain these differences in marriage in different classesexist, and that, on the whole, the marriage age varies directly as themeans of support for the children, to say nothing of natural andtransmissible differences in different classes. One can only, therefore, repeat what was said some time ago in contribution to a publicdiscussion on this subject that, "considering the present distributionof the birth-rate, nothing strikes a more direct blow at the future ofEngland than that which tends to increase the marriage age of theresponsible, careful, and provident amongst us whilst the improvidentand careless multiply as they do. " Let us now consider another possible factor in this question, and thenwe must proceed to look at the individual woman as the question of themarriage age affects her. _The Marriage Age and the Quality of the Children. _--Both from the pointof view of the race and from that of the individual who desires happyparenthood it is necessary to learn, if possible, how the age of theparents affects the quality of their offspring. If motherhood is to be ajoy and a blessing, the children must be such as bring joy and blessing. My provisional judgment on this matter is that we are at present withoutanything like conclusive evidence proving that the age of the parentsaffects the quality of their children. Let us look at some of the arguments which have been advanced. Theschool of biometricians, represented most conspicuously in latter yearsby Professor Karl Pearson, have desired us to accept certain conclusionswhich are singularly incompatible with the opinion of their illustriousfounder, Sir Francis Galton, in favour of early marriages among those ofsound stock. By their special procedure, as rigorously critical in thestatistical treatment of _data_ as it is sweetly simple in its innocentassumption that all _data_ are of equal value, they have proposed toshow that the elder members of a family are further removed from thenormal, average, or mean type than the younger members. This, accordingto them, may sometimes work out in the production of great ability orgenius in the eldest or elder members, but oftener still shows itself inhighly undesirable characters, whether of mind or of body, the latteroften leading to premature decease. There is hence inferred a powerfulargument against the limitation of families, which means adisproportionate increase amongst the aberrant members of thepopulation. This argument really offers as good an example as can be desired of thealmost unimaginable ease with which these skilful mathematicians allowthemselves to be confused. Their inquiry has ignored the age of theparents at marriage--or, better still, at the births of their respectivechildren--and has assumed that the number of the family was theall-important point: a good example of that idolatry of number as numberwhich is the "freak religion" of the biometrician. Supposing that theconclusion reached by this method be a true one--which it would needmore credulity than I possess to assert--we must conclude that, somehow, primogeniture, as such, affects the quality of the offspring, and, onthe other hand, that to be born fifth or tenth or fifteenth involvescertain personal consequences of a special kind. Evidently we hereapproach less sophisticated forms of number-worship, as that whichattached a superstitious meaning to the seventh son of a seventh son. It seems, therefore, necessary to point out--surprising though thenecessity be--that, if the biometrical conclusion be valid, what itdemonstrates must surely be not the occult working of certain changes inthe germ-plasm, for instance, of a father, because a certain number ofhis germ-cells, after separation from his body, have gone to form newindividuals (changes which would not have occurred if those germ-cellshad perished!), but rather a correlation between the _age_ of theparents and the quality of their offspring. How cleverly thebiometricians have involved one muddle within another will be evidentnot only from considering the evident absurdity of supposing--as theirargument, analyzed, necessarily supposes--that a man's body can beaffected by the diverse fates of germ-cells that have left it, but alsowhen we observe that one of the commonest and most obvious causes of thereduction in the size of families is the increasing age at marriage ofboth sexes. Two persons may thus marry and become parents at the age ofsay thirty, their child ranking as first-born, of course, in thebiometricians' tables; but had they married ten years sooner, a childborn when the parents were thirty might rank as the tenth child, andwould be so reckoned by the biometricians. One does not need to be abiologist to perceive that conclusions based upon assumptions souncritical are worth nothing at all, and it is tempting to suggest thatthe biometricians are so called, on a principle long famous, becausethey measure everything but life. It is plainly unnecessary, therefore, for us to trouble about collectingthe innumerable instances where children late in the family sequencehave turned out to be illustrious, or have proved to be idiots. It isunnecessary because the most obvious criticism of the contention beforeus disposes of the proof upon which it is sought to be based. Nevertheless, of course, though the particular contention about the sizeof the family must necessarily be meaningless, unless, as is so veryimprobable, it should be shown some day that the bearing of childrenaffects the maternal organism in some way so as to cause subsequentchildren to approximate ever nearer to the type of the race; yet it isquite conceivable, though quite unproved, that the age of the parentsinvolves changes in the body which affect, for good or for evil, eitherthe construction or the general vigour of the germ-cells. As to thisnothing is known, but a great weight of evidence suggests that littleimportance, if any, can be attached to this question. Women marrying atforty or more may give birth to splendid specimens of humanity or toindifferent ones, and the same may be said of the girl of seventeen, though as to this more must be said. Similarly, also, it is impossibleto make any general contrasts between the offspring of fathers ofeighteen or fathers of eighty. Correlations may exist, but we knownothing of them yet. Our conclusion then is that, with regard to the quality of the childrenof any given mother, we cannot say that she should marry at anyparticular age, within limits, rather than another. On the other hand, it is evident that if she be highly worthy of motherhood we shall desireher to have a large family, and therefore must encourage her earlymarriage, as the late Sir Francis Galton so long maintained. _Physical Fitness for Marriage. _--We must carefully distinguish betweenthe question we have just been discussing and that of the marriage agefrom the mother's point of view. We shall find that the best age formarriage, so far as this question is concerned, is neither puberty, onthe one hand, nor the average marriage age amongst civilized women, onthe other hand. If things were as we should like them to be, there would be a harmonybetween the occurrence of puberty and fitness for marriage. But therecan be no question that the goal of evolution, which is perfectadaptation, has not yet been attained by mankind, and indeed reason canbe given to show that the goal recedes as we advance towards it. Thepractice of lower races, amongst whom the girls often marry at pubertyor before it, is much less injurious to the individual and the race thanwe might suppose; but the harmony between the maternal body and thematernal function is much less imperfect in lower races of mankind thanit is among ourselves. Just as we find that, among the lower animals, the phenomena of motherhood are simple, easy, and almost painless, so wefind that, though owing to the erect attitude, as much cannot be saidfor human beings anywhere, yet these phenomena are far less severe amongthe lower races of mankind than among ourselves. The reason is to befound in the astonishing progressive increase in the size of the humanhead in the higher races. The large size of the head in adult life isforeshadowed in its size at birth, and this it is which constitutes the_crux_ of motherhood among the higher races. It is undoubtedly true thatthe maternal body, by a process of natural selection, has been evolvedin the direction of better correspondence with, and capacity for, thatenlarged head of which civilization is the product. But at the presentstage in evolution the great function of giving birth to a human beingof high race--more especially to a boy of such a race--is graver, moreprolonged, and more hazardous than the maternal function has ever beenbefore. The gravity of the process has increased proportionately withthe worth of the product. There are yet further consequences of the development which willconvince us how important it is that we should come to right conclusionsregarding the physical fitness of girls for marriage. Even to-day, whenthe work of Lord Lister has been done, and when maternity hospitals--farmore dangerous than a battlefield less than two generations ago--canshow records from year to year without the loss of a single mother, thefact remains that several thousands of women in Great Britain alone losetheir lives every year in the discharge of their supreme duty. It isalso the case that large numbers of infants lose their lives during, orshortly after, birth, owing to causes inherent in the conditions ofbirth, and practically beyond any but the most expert control. In manycases no skill will save the child. A considerable preponderance of thevictims are of the male sex, so that there is thus early begun thatprocess of higher male mortality, which is the chief cause of the femalepreponderance that is so injurious to womanhood and to society. Thereare thus many and weighty reasons, individual and social--reasons in thepresent generation and in the next--which conduce to the importance ofdiscovering the best age for marriage from the physical point of view. We may probably accept the long-standing figures of Dr. Matthews Duncan, one of Edinburgh's many famous obstetricians, who found that themortality rate in childbirth, or as a consequence of it, was lowestamong women from twenty to twenty-four years of age. Therefore it maysafely be said that, on the average, and looking at the question, forthe present, solely from this point of view, a girl of twenty-one totwenty-two is by no means too young to marry. Of course it would bemonstrously absurd to take such a statement as this and regard it asconclusive, even had it been communicated from on high, for anyparticular case; but as an average statement it may be confidently putforward. At this age, the all-important bones of the pelvis have reachedall the development of which they are capable. This may be accepted, notwithstanding the fact that, especially in men, the growth of the longbones of the limbs continues to a considerably later age. Women reachmaturity sooner than men, and the pelvis reaches its full capacity atthe age stated. Obstetricians know further that if motherhood be begunat a considerably later date, there is less local adaptability than whenthe bones and ligaments are younger. The point lies in the date of thebeginning of motherhood, for this is in general a conspicuous instanceof the adage that the first step is the most costly. [13] _Psychical Fitness for Marriage. _--At the beginning of this chapter itwas insisted that we must carefully distinguish between physical orphysiological fitness for mating and complete fitness formarriage--which, though it includes mating, is vastly more. Few willquestion the proposition that physical fitness for marriage is reachedonly some years after puberty; so complete psychical fitness formarriage may well be later still. We should thus have a seconddisharmony superposed upon the first. But, instead, when we look roundus, we may often be inclined to ask whether, for many girls and women, the age of psychical fitness for marriage is ever reached at all; and wehave to ask ourselves how far this delay or indefinite postponement ofsuch fitness is due to natural conditions, or how far it is due to thefact that we bring up our girls to be, for instance, sideboardornaments, as Ruskin said a generation ago. I believe that this disparity between the age of physical fitness formarriage and the attainment of that outlook upon life and its duties, without which marriage must be so perilous, is one of the most importantpractical problems of our time, and that its solution is to be found inthe principle of education for parenthood, which we have alreadyconsidered at such length. It is a most serious matter that marriageshould be delayed as it is beyond the best age for the commencement ofmotherhood; it is injurious to the individual and her motherhood, andwhether delay occurs, as it does, disproportionately in different cases, or disproportionately within a nation, in the different classes of whichit is composed, the consequences, as we have seen, are of the moststupendous possible kind. Yet observe what a difficulty we are faced with. Perceiving theinjurious consequences of delay in marriage--consequences which, as wehave seen, if considered only as they show themselves in the mosthorrible department of pathology, would be sufficient to demand the mosturgent consideration--we may almost feel inclined to agree with theutterly blind and deplorable doctrine too common amongst parents andschoolmistresses, who should know so much better, that it is good to seethe young things falling in love, and that the sooner they are marriedthe better. Every one whose eyes are open knows how often theconsequences of such teaching and practice are disastrous; and if thereis anything which we should discourage in our present study, it is thatmarriage in haste and repentance at leisure to which these blind guidesso often lead their blind victims. Very different, however, will the case be when the victims are no longerblind. The condemnation of their blind guides at the present time is notthat they regard it as right and healthy that young people should matein their early twenties, but it is that by every means in their power, positive and negative, these blind guides have striven to prevent thelight from reaching their victim's eyes. The day is coming, however, when the principles of education for parenthood--for which, if foranything, this book is a plea--will be accepted and practised, and thenthe case will be very different. Convinced though I certainly am of the vast importance of nature orheredity in the human constitution, I am not one of those eugenists who, to the grave injury of their cause, declare that there are no suchthings as nurture and education, in that they effect nothing; nor do Ibelieve it in any way inherently necessary that perhaps ten years afterpuberty a girl should still be irresponsible in those matters which, incomparably beyond all others, demand responsibility; or incapable, with wise help or even without it, of guiding her course aright. It iswe, as I repeat for the thousandth time, who are to blame, for ourdeliberate, systematic, and disastrous folly in scrupulously excludingfrom her education that for which the whole of education, of any otherkind, should be regarded as the preparation. No one can attach more than its due importance to woman's function ofchoosing the fathers of the future; rejecting the unworthy and selectingthe worthy for this greatest of human duties. It would be a most seriousdifficulty for those who hold such a creed if it were that a girl'staste and judgment could be trusted, if at all, only some years aftershe had reached physical maturity for motherhood. It may be that in thepresent conditions of girls' education, such right direction of thischoice as occurs, is just as likely to occur at the earlier age as atany later one, when indeed it may happen that considerations moreworldly and prudential, less generally natural and eugenic, may come tohave greater weight. One can, therefore, only leave it to the reader'sconsideration whether it is not high time that we should so seek toprepare the girl's mind, that when her body Is ready for marriage hermind may, if possible, be ready also to guide her towards a worthychoice which the whole of her future life may ratify, and the life ofher descendants thereafter. It must be insisted again that this question has many ramifications, andthat not the least important of them are those which concern themselveswith the kinds of disease already referred to. Some enemy of God and manonce invented a phrase about the desirability of young men sowing theirwild oats, and subsequent enemies of life and the good and progress, orperhaps mere fools, animated gramophones of a cheap pattern, haverepeated and still propagate that doctrine. It is poisonous to its core;it never did any one any good, and has done incalculable harm. It hasblinded the eyes of hundreds of thousands of babies; it has broughthundreds of thousands more rotten into the world. Hosts of dead men, women, and children are its victims. It is indeed good that a man shouldbe a man, and not a worm on stilts; it is indeed good that women shouldprefer men to be men, and that as soon as possible they should cease toaccept in marriage the feeble, the cowardly, the echoers, and the sheep. But this is a very different thing from asserting that it is good foryoung men, before marriage, to adopt a standard of morality which wouldbe thought shameful beyond words in their sisters, and which has all thehorrible consequences that have been alluded to, and many more. Now, vicious though the wild oats doctrine be in itself and in itsconsequences, we have to grant that there is little need of it, foryoung manhood needs the insertion of no doctrines from without toencourage it towards the satisfaction of what are in themselves naturaland healthy tendencies. Our right procedure therefore shouldbe--notwithstanding the unhealthy tendency of high civilization in thisrespect, and notwithstanding the terrible folly, traitorous to theirsex, of those women who decry marriage, and seek to delay it--to preparegirlhood and public opinion, and even to modify, so far as may benecessary, economic conditions, in order that the girls who are worthyto marry at all shall do so at the right age, and shall join themselvesfor life with rightly chosen men. One more point may be conveniently considered here, though it is notstrictly a matter of the marriage age for girls. The point is as to themost generally desirable age relation between husband and wife. Here, again, we must remind ourselves that it is impossible to lay down thelaw for any case, and that that is not what we are now attempting to do. As every one knows, there is an average disparity of some few years inthe ages of husband and wife. This may be referred probably to economicconditions in part, and also to the fact that girlhood becomes womanhoodat a somewhat earlier age than boyhood becomes manhood. The girl is moreprecocious. Thus though she be twenty and her husband twenty-three, sheis as mature. It is probable that the economic tendencies of the day are in thedirection of increasing this disparity, since more is demanded of theman in the material sense, and he therefore must delay. Some authoritiesconsider that seniority of six or eight years on the part of the husbandconstitutes the desirable average. But there are considerations commonlyignored that should qualify this opinion in my judgment. It is not that science has any information regarding the consequenceupon the sex or quality of offspring of any one age ratio in marriagerather than another. On subjects like this wild statements areincessantly being made, and we are often told that certain consequencesin offspring follow when the husband is older than the wife, and otherswhen he is younger, and so forth. As to this, nothing is known, and itis improbable that there is anything to know. But it has usually beenforgotten, so far as I am aware, that the disparity of age has a verymarked and real consequence, which is, in its turn, the cause of manymore consequences. We have seen that the male death-rate is higher than the femaledeath-rate. At all ages, whether before birth or after it, the maleexpectation of life is less than the female. This is more conspicuouslytrue than ever now that the work of Lord Lister, based upon that ofPasteur, has so enormously lowered the mortality in childbirth. Evennow that mortality is falling, and will rapidly fall for some time tocome, still further increasing the female advantage in expectation oflife; the more especially this applies to married women. If now, thisbeing the natural fact, we have most husbands older than their wives, it follows that in a great preponderance of cases the husband will diefirst; and so we have produced the phenomenon of widowhood. The greaterthe seniority of the husband, the more widowhood will there be in asociety. Every economic tendency, every demand for a higher standard oflife, every aggravation for the struggle for existence, every incrementof the burden of the defective-minded, tending to increase the man's ageat marriage, which, on the whole, involves also increasing hisseniority--contributes to the amount of widowhood in a nation. We therefore see that, as might have been expected, this question of theage ratio in marriage, though first to be considered from the averagepoint of view of the girl, has a far wider social significance. First, for herself, the greater her husband's seniority, the greater are herchances of widowhood, which is in any case the destiny of an enormouspreponderance of married women. But further, the existence of widowhoodis a fact of great social importance because it so often means unaidedmotherhood, and because, even when it does not, the abominable economicposition of woman in modern society bears hardly upon her. It is notnecessary to pursue this subject further at the present time. But it iswell to insist that this seniority of the husband has remoterconsequences far too important to be so commonly overlooked. CHAPTER XV THE FIRST NECESSITY At this stage in our discussion it is necessary to consider a subjectwhich ought rightly to come foremost in the provident study of the factsthat precede marriage--a subject which craven fear and ignorance combineto keep out of sight, yet which must now see the light of day. For thewriter would be false to his task, and guilty of a mere amateur triflingwith the subject, who should spend page after page in discussing thechoice of marriage, the best age for marriage, and so forth, withoutdeclaring that as an absolutely essential preliminary it is necessarythat the girl who mates shall at least, whatever else be or be notpossible, mate with a man who is free from gross and foul disease. The two forms of disease to which we must refer are appalling in theirconsequences, both for the individual and the future. In technicallanguage they are called contagious; meaning that the infection isconveyed not through the air as, say, in the case of measles orsmall-pox, but by means of contact with some infected surface--it may bea lip in the act of kissing, a cup in drinking, a towel in washing, andso forth. Of both these terrible diseases this is true. They thereforerank, like leprosy, as amongst the most eminently preventable diseases. Leprosy has in consequence been completely exterminated in England, butthough venereal disease--the name of the two contagions consideredtogether--diminishes, it is still abundant everywhere and in all classesof society. Here regarding it only from the point of view of the girlwho is about to mate, I declare with all the force of which I am capablethat, many and daily as are the abominations for which posterity willhold us up to execration, there is none more abominable in its immediateand remote consequences, none less capable of apology than the dailydestruction of healthy and happy womanhood, whether in marriage oroutside it, by means of these diseases. At all times this is horrible, and it is more especially horrible when the helpless victim is destroyedwith the blessing of the Church and the State, parents and friends;everyone of whom should ever after go in sackcloth and ashes for beingprivy to such a deed. The present writer, for one, being a private individual, the servant ofthe public, and responsible to no body smaller than the public, has longdeclined and will continue to decline to join the hateful conspiracy ofsilence, in virtue of which these daily horrors lie at the door of themost honoured and respected individuals and professions in thecommunity. More especially at the doors of the Church and the medicalprofession there lies the burden of shame that, as great organizedbodies having vast power, they should concern themselves, as they dailydo, with their own interests and honour, without realizing that wherethings like these are permitted by their silence, their honour issmirched beyond repair in whatever Eyes there be that regard. I propose therefore to say in this chapter that which at the leastcannot but have the effect of saving at any rate a few girls somewherethroughout the English-speaking world from one or other or both of thesediseases, and their consequences. Let those only who have ever saved asingle human being from either syphilis or gonorrh[oe]a dare to utter aword against the plain speaking which may save one woman now. The task may be much lightened by referring the reader to a play by thebravest and wisest of modern dramatists, M. Brieux, more especiallybecause the reader of "Les Avariés" will be enabled to see the sequenceof causation in its entirety. When first our attention is called tothese evils, we are apt to blame the individuals concerned. The parentsof youths, finding their sons infected, will blame neither their guiltyselves nor their sons, but those who tempted them. It is constantlyforgotten that the unfortunate woman who infected the boy was herselffirst infected by a man. Either she was betrayed by an individualblackguard, or our appalling carelessness regarding girlhood, and theeconomic conditions which, for the glory of God and man, simultaneouslymaintain Park Lane and prostitution, forced her into the circumstanceswhich brought infection. But she was once as harmless and innocent asthe girl child of any reader of this book; and it was man who firstdestroyed her and made her the instrument of further destruction. Ask how this came to be so, and the answer is that he in his turn wasinfected by some woman. It is time, then, that we ceased to blame youth of either sex, and laidthe onus where it lies--upon the shoulders of older people, and moreespecially upon those who by education and profession, or by thefunctions they have undertaken, such as parenthood, ought to know thefacts and ought to act upon their knowledge. It is necessary to proceed, therefore: though perfectly aware that in many ways this chapter willhave to be paid for by the writer: that he has yet to meet the eye ofhis publisher; that there will be abundance of abuse from those "whosesails were never to the tempest given": but aware also that in time tocome those few who dared speak and take their chance in this matter, whether remembered or not, will have been the pioneers in reforming anabuse which daily makes daylight hideous. He who does betray the futurefor fear of the present should tread timidly upon his Mother Earth lesthe awake her to gape and bury her treacherous son. Something is known by the general public of the individual consequencesof syphilis. It is known by many, also, that there is such a thing ashereditary syphilis--babies being born alive but rotted through forlife. Further, it is not at all generally known, though the fact isestablished, that of the comparatively few survivors to adult life fromamongst such babies, some may transmit the disease even to the thirdgeneration. There is a school of so-called moralists who regard all thisas the legitimate and providential punishment for vice, even though teninnocent be destroyed for one guilty. Such moralists, more loathsomethan syphilis itself, may be left in the gathering gloom to the companyof their ghastly creed. Love and man and woman are going forward to thedawn, and if they inherit from the past no God that is fit to be theircompanion, they and the Divine within them will not lose heart. The public knowledge of syphilis, though far short of the truth, is notmerely so inadequate as that of gonorrh[oe]a. "No worse than a bad cold" is the kind of lie with which youth isfooled. The disease may sometimes be little worse than a bad cold inmen, though very often it is far more serious; it may kill, may causelasting damage to the coverings of the heart and to the joints, andoften may prevent all possibility of future fatherhood. These evils sink almost into insignificance when compared with the fargraver consequences of gonorrh[oe]a in woman. Our knowledge of thissubject is comparatively recent, being necessarily based upon thediscovery of the microbe that causes the disease. Now that it can beidentified, we learn that a vast proportion of the illnesses anddisorders peculiar to women have this cause, and it constantly leads tothe operations, now daily carried out in all parts of the world, whichinvolve opening the body, and all that that may entail. Curable in itsearly stages in men, gonorrh[oe]a is scarcely curable in women exceptby means of a grave abdominal operation, involving much risk to life andonly to be undertaken after much suffering has failed to be met by lessdrastic means. The various consequences of gonorrh[oe]a in other partsof the body may and do occur in women as in men. Perhaps the mostcharacteristic consequence of the disease in both sexes is sterility;this being much more conspicuously the case in women, and being the morecruel in their case. Of course large numbers of women are infected with these diseases beforemarriage and apart from it, but one or both of them constitute the mostimportant of the bridegroom's wedding presents, in countless cases everyyear, all over the world. The unfortunate bride falls ill aftermarriage; she may be speedily cured; very often she is ill for life, though major surgery may relieve her; and in a large number of cases shegoes forever without children. One need scarcely refer to the remoterconsequences of syphilis to the nervous system, including such diseasesas locomotor ataxia, and general paralysis of the insane; the latter ofwhich is known to be increasing amongst women. Even in these few words, which convey to the layman no idea whatever of the pains and horrors, the shocking erosion of beauty, the deformities, the insanities, incurable blindness of infants, and so forth, that follow thesediseases, enough will yet have been said to indicate the importance ofwhat is to follow. Medical works abound in every civilized languagewhich, especially as illustrated either by large masses of figures or byphotographs of cases, will far more than justify to the readereverything that has been said. And now for the whole point of this chapter. We are not here concernedto deal with prostitution or its possible control. We are dealing withgirlhood before marriage and in relation to marriage, and the plea isGoethe's--for _more light_. There is no need to horrify or scandalize ordisgust young womanhood, but it is perfectly possible in the right wayand at the right time to give instruction as to certain facts, andwhilst quite admitting that there are hosts of other things which wemust desire to teach, I maintain that this also must we do and not leavethe others undone. It is untrue that it is necessary to excite morbidcuriosity, that there is the slightest occasion to give nauseous orsuggestive details, or that the most scrupulous reticence in handlingthe matter is incompatible with complete efficiency. Such assertionswill certainly be made by those who have done nothing, never will doanything, and desire that nothing shall be done; they are nothing, letthem be treated as nothing. It is supposed by some that instruction in these matters must be uselessbecause, in point of fact, imperious instincts will have their way. Itis nonsense. Here, as in so many other cases, the words of Burke aretrue--Fear is the mother of safety. It is always the tempter's businessto suggest to his victim that there is no danger. Often and often, ifconvinced there is danger, and danger of another kind than any he refersto, she will be saved. This may be less true of young men. In them theracial instinct is stronger, and perhaps a smaller number will beprotected by fear, but no one can seriously doubt that the fear born ofknowledge would certainly protect many young women. There is also the possible criticism, made by a school of moralists forwhom I have nothing but contempt so entire that I will not attempt todisguise it, who maintain that these are unworthy motives to which toappeal, and that the good act or the refraining from an evil one, effected by means of fear, is of no value to God. In the same breath, however, these moralists will preach the doctrine of hell. We reply thatwe merely substitute for their doctrine of hell--which used to besomewhere under the earth, but is now who knows where--the doctrine of ahell upon the earth, which we wish youth of both sexes to fear; and thatif the life of this world, both present and to come, be thereby served, we bow the knee to no deity whom that service does not please. How then should we proceed? It seems to me that instruction in this matter may well be delayed untilthe danger is near at hand. This is not really education for parenthoodin the more general sense. That, on the principles of this book, canscarcely begin too soon; it is, further, something vastly more than mereinstruction, though instruction is one of its instruments. But here whatwe require is simply definite instruction to a definite end and inrelation to a definite danger. At some stage or other, before emerginginto danger, youth of both sexes must learn the elements of thephysiology of sex, and must be made acquainted with the existence andthe possible results of venereal disease. A father or a teacher mayvery likely find it almost impossible to speak to a boy; even though hehas screwed his courage up almost to the sticking place, the boy'sbright and innocent eyes disarm him. Unfortunately boys are often lessinnocent than they look. There exists far more information among youthof both sexes than we suppose; only it is all coloured by pernicious anddangerous elements, the fruit of our cowardice and neglect. Let usconfine ourselves to the case of the girl. Before a girl of the more fortunate classes goes out into society, shemust be protected in some way or another. If she be, for instance, convent bred, or if she come from an ideal home, it may very well be andoften is that she needs no instruction whatever, because she is in factalready made unapproachable by the tempter. Fortunate indeed is such agirl. But those forming this well-guarded class are few, and parents andguardians may often be deceived and assume more than they are entitledto. At any rate, for the vast majority of girls some positiveinstruction is necessary. It is the mother who must undertake thisresponsible and difficult task before she admits the girl to the perilsof the world. Further, by some means or other, instruction must beafforded for the ever-increasing army of girls who go out to business. It is to me a never ceasing marvel that loving parents, devoted to theirdaughters' welfare, should fail in this cardinal and critical point ofduty, so constantly as they do. Many employers of female labour nowadays show a genuine and effectiveinterest in the welfare of their employees. As one might expect, thisis notably the case with the Quaker manufacturers of chocolate andcocoa. I have visited the works of one of these firms, and can testifyto the splendidly intelligent and scrupulous care which is taken of thegirls' general health, their eye-sight, their reading, and many aspectsof their moral welfare. Yet there still remains something to be done inregard to protection from venereal disease, and surely the suggestionthat conscientious employers should have instruction given in thesematters is one which is well worthy of consideration. It is known by all observers--but it is a very meagre "all"--of therealities of politics that in Great Britain, at any rate, there is anincrease of drinking amongst women and girls. This is doubtless inconsiderable measure due to the increase of work in factories, and thegreater liberty enjoyed by adolescence--liberty too often to becomeenslaved. This bears directly upon our present subject. In a very largenumber of cases, the first lapse from self-restraint in young people ofboth sexes occurs under the influence of alcohol, the most pre-eminentcharacter of whose action upon the nervous system is the paralysis ofinhibition or control. Not only is alcohol responsible in this way, butalso in any given case it renders infection more probable for morereasons than one. This abominable thing--in itself the immediate causeof many evils and, except as a fuel for lifeless machines and forindustrial purposes, of no good--is thus the direct ally of the venerealdiseases as of consumption and many more. We must return to thisimportant subject later: meanwhile let it be noted that the influenceof alcohol upon youth of both sexes greatly favours not only immoralitybut also venereal disease. The girl, therefore, who would protectherself directly will avoid this thing, and the girl who desires thatneither she nor her children shall be destroyed after marriage, willexact from the man she chooses the highest possible standard of conductin this matter. A friendly critic has told me that my books would be allvery well, but that I have alcohol on the brain, and I am inclined toreply, Better on the brain than in the brain. But a subject so seriousdemands more serious treatment, and the due reply is that there is nohuman prospect for which I care, no public advantage to be advocated, nogood I know, of which alcohol is not the enemy; no abomination, physical, mental or moral, individual or social, of which it is not thefriend. Further, words like these will stand on record, and may beremembered when there has been achieved that slow but irresistibleeducation of public opinion, to which some few have devoted themselves, and of which the triumph is as certain as the triumph of all truth wasin the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. To the many charges againstalcohol made by the champions of life in the past, let there be addedthat on which all students of venereal diseases are agreed--that it isthe most potent ally of the most loathsome evils that afflict mankind. This chapter is not yet complete. In many cases it may be read not bythe girl who is contemplating marriage, but by one or both of herparents. If the reader be such an one I here charge him or her with thesolemn responsibility which is theirs whether they realize it or not. You desire your daughter's welfare; you wish her to be healthy and happyin her married life; perhaps your heart rejoices at the thought ofgrand-children; you concern yourself with your prospective son-in-law'scharacter, with his income and prospects; you wish him to be steady andsober; you would rather that he came of a family not conspicuous formorbid tendencies. All this is well and as it should be; yet there isthat to be considered which, whilst it is only negative, and should nothave to be considered at all, yet takes precedence of all these otherquestions. If the man in question is tainted with either or both ofthese diseases, he is to be _summarily rejected_ at any rate untilresponsible and, one may suggest, at least duplicated medical opinionhas pronounced him cured. Microscopic examination of the blood orotherwise can now pronounce on this matter with much more definitenessthan used to be possible. But even so, there are possibilities of error, for experts are more and more coming to recognize the existence and theimportance of latent gonorrh[oe]a, devoid of characteristic symptoms butyet liable to wake in the individual and always dangerous from the pointof view of infection. No combination of advantages is worth the dust inthe balance when weighed against either of these diseases in aprospective son-in-law: infection is not a matter of chance but ofcertainty or little short of it. Everything may seem fair and full ofpromise, yet there may be that in the case which will wreck all in thepresent; not to mention destroying the chance of motherhood or bringingrotten or permanently blinded children into the world. It follows, therefore, that parents or guardians are guilty of a gravedereliction of duty if they neglect to satisfy themselves in time onthis point. Doubtless, in the great majority of cases no harm will bedone. But in the rest irreparable harm is often done, and the innocent, ignorant girl who has been betrayed by father and mother and husbandalike, may turn upon you all, perhaps on her death-bed, perhaps with theblasted future in her arms, and say "This is _your_ doing: behold yourdeed. " "_But if ye could and would not_, oh, what plea, Think ye, shall stead you at your trial, when The thunder-cloud of witnesses shall loom, With Ravished Childhood on the seat of doom At the Assizes of Eternity?" These pages may disgust or offend nine hundred and ninety-nine readersout of a thousand. They may yet save one girl, and will have justifiedthemselves. One final word may be added on the relation of this subject to Eugenics, to which this pen and voice have been for many years devoted. Thesubject of venereal disease is one of which we Eugenists, like the restof the world, fight shy; yet just because the rest of the world does so, we should not. Nevertheless I mean to see to it that this subjectbecomes part of the Eugenic campaign which will yet dominate and mouldthe future. For surely the present spectacle has elements in it whichwould be utterly farcical if they were not so tragic. Here we have lifepresent and life to come being destroyed for lack of knowledge. Thesehorrible diseases, ravaging the guilty and the innocent, equally andindifferently, are at present allowed to do so with scarcely a voiceraised against them. Every day husbands infect their wives, who have nokind of protection or remedy, and the wicked, grinning face of the lawlooks on, and says "She is his wife; all is well. " If we had courageinstead of cowardice--the capital mark of an age that has no organ voicebut many steam whistles--we could accelerate incalculably the gradualdecrease of these diseases. The body of eugenic opinion which is beingmade and multiplied might succeed in allying the Church and Medicine andthe Law, with splendid and lasting effect. But we spend thousands ofpounds in estimating correlations between hair colour andconscientiousness, fertility and longevity, stature and the number ofdomestic servants, and so forth, meanwhile protesting against too hastyattempts to guide public opinion on these refined matters; and thistremendous eugenic reform, which awaits the emergence of some couragesomewhere, is left altogether out of account. There was no allusion tothe existence of venereal disease, far and away the most appalling ofwhat I have called dysgenic forces, in any official eugenic publicationuntil April, 1909, when in the Eugenics Review we dared to make acautious and half-ashamed beginning; half-ashamed to stand up againstsyphilis and gonorrh[oe]a. When one thinks of the things that we are notashamed to do, as individuals or as nations, it is to reflect thatperhaps we have "let the tiger die" too utterly, and that just as womanis ceasing to be a mammal, man is perhaps ceasing to be even avertebrate. Is there no Archbishop or Principal of a University or ChiefJustice or popular novelist or preacher or omnipotent editor, boasting abackbone still, who will serve not only his day and generation but allfuture days and generations, by devoting himself and his powers to thislong-delayed campaign wherein, if it be but undertaken, success iscertain, and reward so glorious?[14] CHAPTER XVI ON CHOOSING A HUSBAND Brief reference was made in a previous chapter to woman's great functionof choosing the fathers of the future. Here we must discuss, at duelength, her choice of a companion for life. It is repeatedly argued, bycritics of any new idea, that the eugenist, in his concern for the race, is blind to the natural interests and needs of the individual; that "weare all to be married to each other by the police, " as an irresponsiblejester has declared; that the sanctities of love are to be profaned orits imperatives defied. Even serious and responsible persons assume thatthere is here a necessary antagonism between the interests of the raceand those of the individual, --that the girl would, presumably, chooseone man to be her love and companion and partner for life, but anotherman as the father of her children. There are those whom it alwaysrejoices to discover what they regard as antinomies and contradictionsin Nature, and they verily prefer to suppose that there is in thingsthis inherent viciousness, which sets eternal war between one set ofobligations, one set of ideals, and another. But Nature is not madeaccording to the pattern of our misunderstandings. We have seen that all individuals are constructed by Nature for thefuture. We are certainly right to regard them as also ends inthemselves, but Nature conceived and fashioned them with reference tothe future. In so far as marriage has a natural sanction andfoundation--than which nothing is more certain--we may therefore expectto discover that the interests of the individual and of the race areindeed one. In a word, the man who is most worthy to be chosen as afather of the future is always the most worthy and, in the overwhelmingmajority of cases, is also the most individually suitable, to be chosenas a partner and companion for life. Let the girl choose wisely and wellfor her own sake and in her own interests. If, indeed, she does so, thefuture will be almost invariably safeguarded. Of course it is to be understood that we are here discussing generalprinciples. Everyone knows that cases exist, and must continue to exist, where an opposition between the interests of the race and those of theindividual cannot be denied. Some utterly unsuspected hereditary strainof insanity, for instance, may show itself or be discovered in theancestry of an individual to whom a member of the opposite sex hasalready become devoted. I fully admit the existence of such exceptions, but it must be insisted that they are exceptions, and that they do notat all invalidate the general truth that if a girl really chooses thebest man, she is choosing the best father for her children. It is when the girl chooses for something other than natural qualitythat the future is liable to be betrayed. But the point to be insistedupon is that it is far more worth her while to choose for naturalquality than for any other considerations. The argument of this chapteris that it will not in the long run be worth the girl's while to bebeguiled by a man's money, his position or his prospects, since all ofthese, without the one thing needful, will ultimately fail her. The truth is that very few girls realize how intimate and urgent andinevitable and unintermittent are the conditions of married life. Itrequires imagination, of course, to understand these things withoutexperience. A girl observes a friend who has made what is called "a goodmarriage"; she goes to the friend's house, and sees her the triumphantmistress of a large establishment; she sees her friend at the theatre, meets her escorted by her husband at this place and that; hears of herholidays abroad, covets her jewelry, and she thinks how delightful itmust be. She knows nothing at all of the realities; she sees onlyexternals, and she is misled. Whenever thus misled she is beguiled intomarrying a man for any other reason than that his personal qualitiescompel her love, it is her seniors who are to blame for not havingenlightened her. Such a girl shall be enlightened if her eyes fall onthese pages. Happiness does not consist in external things at all. This is not todeny that external things may largely contribute to happiness if itsprimal conditions be first satisfied. Failing those primal conditions, externals are a mockery and a burden. In the case of the vast majorityof married people we see only what they choose that we shall see. Almost everyone is concerned with keeping up appearances. Things may beand very often are what they appear, but very often they are not. Anywoman of nice feeling is very much concerned to keep up appearances inthe matter of her marriage. A few or none may guess her secret, butwhatever we see, it is what we do not see--no matter how close ourfriendship may be--that determines the success or failure of marriage. The moments that really count are just those which we do not witness, and such moments are many in married life, or should be. If the marriageis what it ought to be, there is a vital communion, grave and gay, whichoccupies every available part of life. Only the persons immediatelyconcerned really know how much of this they have or, if they have itnot, what they have in its place. But we may be well assured that, asevery married person knows, it is the personal qualities that mattereverything in this most intimate sphere of life, and naught else mattersat all. When the girl marries so as to become possessed of any and everykind of external advantage, but there is that in the man which isunlovely or which she, at any rate, cannot love, her marriage willassuredly be a failure. As we have occasion to observe every day, shewill be glad to jump at any chance of sacrificing all externals, whereessentials thus fail her. This is only to preach once again the simple doctrine that a girl is tomarry a man not for what he has but for what he is. If, as a eugenist, Iam thinking at this time as much of the future as of the present, theadvice is none the less trustworthy. It is certain that this advice isno less necessary than it ever was. Everyone knows how the standard ofluxury has risen during the last few decades, both in England and in theUnited States. All history lies if this be not an evil omen for anycivilization. It means, among other things, that more effectively thanever the forces of suggestion and imitation and social pressure arebeing brought to bear, to vitiate the young girl's natural judgment, deceiving her into the supposition that these things which seem to makeother people so happy are the first that must be sought by her. If onlyshe had the merest inkling of what the doctor and the lawyer and thepriest could tell her about the inner life of many of the owners ofthese well-groomed and massaged faces! We hear much of the failure ofmarriage, but surely the amazing thing is its measure of success underour careless and irresponsible methods. For happily married people donot require intrigues nor divorces, nor do they furnish subject matterfor scandal. It is because people do not marry for their personalqualities, but for things which, personal qualities failing, will soonturn to dust and ashes in their mouths, that their disappointed livesseek satisfaction in all these unsatisfactory and imperfect ways. As weall know, social practice differs in say, France and England, in suchmatters as this; and there are those who tell us that the method wherebynatural inclinations are ignored is highly successful, and has just asmuch to be said for it as has the more specially Anglo-Saxon method ofallowing the young people to choose each other. It is incomprehensiblehow any observer of contemporary France, its divorce rate and itsbirth-rate, can uphold such a contention. On the contrary, we may bemore and more convinced that Nature knows her business, and thatmarriage, which is a natural institution, should be based, in each case, upon her indications. There is need here for a reform which is more radical and fundamentalthan any that can be named, just because it deals with our centralsocial institution, and concerns the natural composition and qualitiesof the next generation. I mean that reform in education which willdirect itself towards rightly moulding and favouring the worthy choiceof each other by young people, and especially the worthy choice of menby women. It will further come to be seen that everything which vitiatesthis choice--as, for instance, the economic dependence of women, greatexcess of women in a community, the inheritance of large fortunes--isultimately to be condemned on that final ground, if on no other. But whilst these sociological propositions may be laid down, let us seewhat can be said in the present state of things by way of advice to thegirl into whose hands this book may fall. Perhaps it may be permitted touse the more direct form of address. You may have been told that where poverty comes in at the door, loveflies out at the window. [15] You may have heard it said that so and sohas made a good marriage because her husband has a large income. You maybe inclined to judge the success of marriage by what you see. I warn yousolemnly that the worth or unworth of your marriage, the success orfailure of your life will depend, far more than upon all other thingsput together, upon the personal qualities of the man you choose. If these be not good in themselves, your marriage will fail, certainly;even if they be good in themselves your marriage will fail, probably, unless they also be nicely adapted to your own character and tastes andtemperament and needs. There are thus two distinct requirements; thefirst absolutely cardinal, the second very nearly so. You are utterlywrong if you suppose that the first of these can be ignored: if yourhusband is not a worthy man, you are doomed. And you are almostcertainly wrong if you suppose that lack of community in tastes and ininterests, in objects of admiration and adoration does not matter. Butlet us consider what are the factors of the man for which a girl _does_choose. For what, if it comes to that, does a man choose? Here is HerbertSpencer's reply to that question:--"The truth is that out of the manyelements uniting in various proportions, to produce in a man's breastthe complex emotion we call love, the strongest are those produced byphysical attractions; the next in order of strength are those producedby moral attractions; the weakest are those produced by intellectualattractions; and even these are dependent less on acquired knowledgethan on natural faculty--quickness, wit, insight. " It will probably beagreed that, on the whole, this analysis, which is certainly true in thedirection it refers to, is also true in the converse direction. The girladmires a man for physical qualities, including what may be called thephysical virtues, like energy and courage. She rates highly certainmoral attractions, such as unselfishness and chivalry, but perhaps sheattaches far more value to intellectual attractions than the man does inher case, doubtless because they are more distinctively masculine. No doubt, in this order of importance both sexes are consulting theeugenic end if they knew it, as Spencer, indeed, pointed out nearly halfa century ago. The passage from which we have quoted he thuscontinues:-- "If any think the assertion a derogatory one, and inveigh against the masculine character for being thus swayed, we reply that they little know what they say when they thus call in question the Divine ordinations. Even were there no obvious meaning in the arrangement, we may be sure that some important end was subserved. But the meaning is quite obvious to those who examine. When we remember that one of Nature's ends, or rather her supreme end, is the welfare of posterity; further that, in so far as posterity are concerned, a cultivated intelligence based on a bad physique is of little worth, since its descendants will die out in a generation or two: and conversely that a good _physique_, however poor the accompanying mental endowments, is worth preserving, because, throughout future generations, the mental endowments may be indefinitely developed; we perceive how important is the balance of instincts above described. " But here it will be well to consider and meet a possible criticism. Thisis none the less necessary because there is a very common type of mindwhich listens to the enunciation of principles not in order to graspthem, but in order to point out exceptions. Such people forget thatbefore one can profitably observe exceptions to a principle or a naturallaw it is necessary first of all to know rightly and wholly what theprinciple is. Now in this particular case our principle is that thecause of the future must not be betrayed, and the essential argument ofthis chapter is that faithfulness to the cause of the future does notinvolve, as is commonly supposed, any denial of the interests of thepresent, since, as I maintain, he who is best worth choosing as apartner for life is in general best worth choosing as a father of thefuture. Now what one must here reckon with is the existence of individualcases, --much commoner doubtless in the imagination of critics than inreality, but nevertheless worthy of study--where a man may gain awoman's love of the real kind and may return it, and yet may be unfitfor parenthood. The converse case is equally likely, but here we areconcerned especially with the interests of the woman. She is, shall wesay, a nurse in a sanatorium for consumptives or, to suppose a case morecritical and complicated still, she may herself be a patient in such asanatorium. There she meets another patient with whom she falls in love. Now these two may be well fitted to make each other happy for so long asfate permits, but if the interests of the future are to be consideredthey should not become parents. I must not be taken as here assentingto the old view, dating from a time when nothing was known of thedisease, which regards consumption as hereditary. It is evident thatquite apart from that question the couple of whom we are thinking shouldnot become parents. It is possible that the disease may be completelycured, and the situation will then be altered. But only too often thepatient's life will be much shortened and children will be leftfatherless; they also in certain circumstances will run a grave risk ofbeing infected by living with consumptive parents. If in the case we aresupposing the woman be also consumptive, it is extremely probable thatmotherhood on her part would aggravate and hasten the course of thedisease, it being well-known that pregnancy has an extremelyunfavourable influence on consumption in the majority of cases. Many other parallel cases may be imagined. Woman's love, based perhapsmainly upon the maternal instinct of tenderness, may be called forth bya man who suffers from, shall we say, hæmophilia or the bleedingdisease. He may be in every way the best of men, worthy to make anywoman happy; but if he becomes the father of a son, it will probably beto inflict great cruelty upon his child. What, in a word, are we to say of such cases as these? There is here areal opposition, as it would appear, between the interests of thepresent and the interests of the future. But the answer is that, justbecause, and just in so far as, human beings are provident andresponsible and worthy of the name of human beings, the opposition canbe practically solved. Not for anything must we betray the cause of theunborn, but marriage does not necessarily involve parenthood, and theright course--the profoundly right and deeply moral course--in suchcases as these, is marriage without parenthood. On every hand in the civilized world we now see childless marriages, thenumber of which incessantly increases; they are an ominous symptom ofexcessive luxury and other factors of decadence, if history is to betrusted. But it is not permissible for us, without special knowledge, tocondemn individuals, whatever we may think of the phenomenon as a whole. Yet convention and prejudice are curious things, and people who arethemselves married and deliberately childless, others of both sexes whoare unmarried, people who have never raised their voices againstthemselves or their friends who, though married, are childless, becausethey have little courage or because they permit compliance withfashion's demands to stifle the best parts of their nature--such people, I say, will actually be found to protest, with the sort of cantingrighteousness which does its best to smirch the Right, against thisdoctrine, _Marry, but do not have children_, as the rule of life in thecases under discussion. Nevertheless, this is the moral doctrine; thisis the right fruit of knowledge, and knowledge will more and more beapplied to this high end, the service alike of the present and thefuture. We must not allow our minds to be bullied out of just reasoningbecause the possibility of marriage without parenthood is often abused. All forms of knowledge, like all other forms of power, may be used ormay be abused. Knowledge has no moral sign attached to it, but neitherhas it any immoral sign attached to it. The power to control parenthoodis neither good nor evil, but like any other power may serve either goodor evil. Dynamite may cause an explosion which buries a hundred men in aliving grave, or it may blast the rock which buries them and set themfree. The man of science is false to his creed and his cause if hedeclares that there is any order of knowledge or any kind of power whichwere better unknown or unavailable. For many years past we have beentold that the power to control parenthood is wicked, flying in the faceof providence, interfering with the order of Nature--as if every actworthy of the human name were not an interference with the order ofNature, as Nature is conceived by fools; and even to-day the churches, violently differing from each other in the region of incomprehensibles, are at least agreed in anathematizing the knowledge and the power tocontrol parenthood. The reply to them is the demonstration, here made, of the fact that this knowledge may be used for no less splendid apurpose than to make possible the happiness and mutual ennoblement ofindividual lives in cases where otherwise such a consummation would havebeen impossible without betrayal of the life of this world to come. There is another class of cases to which convenient reference may herebe made. The solution to be found in childless marriage, for many cases, does not apply to those in which there is present disease due to livingorganisms, microbes or protozoa which, by the mere act of drinking froman infected cup, by kissing and so forth, may be passed from the sick tothe sound. So far as these modes of infection are concerned, such asupposed case as that of the nurse and the consumptive patient who fallin love with each other comes into this category. But infection of thatkind is preventable. In the case, however, of the terrible diseases towhich reference has been made in a previous chapter, we must clearlyunderstand that it is not only the future which is in danger, and thattherefore the solution of childless marriage does not apply. Here thedanger is irremovable from the physical _essentia_ of the marriageitself, and in such a case, no matter how high the personal qualities ofthe man who may, for instance, have been infected by accident in thecourse of his duty as a doctor, even childless marriage other than the_mariage blanc_ must be, at any rate, postponed until the disease hasbeen cured. It is to be hoped that the reader will not regard these last two points, which have had to be dealt with at some length, as irrelevant. They arenot strictly part of the general proposition that a girl should marry aman for his personal qualities, but they are surely necessary aspractical comments upon that proposition as it will work out in reallife. We may now return to our main contention. In our quotation from Herbert Spencer we may notice the significantassertion that amongst intellectual attractions it is natural faculty, quickness, wit and insight, rather than acquired knowledge, that a manadmires in a woman. In considering that point the somewhat hazardousassertion was ventured upon that the woman rates intellectualattractions in the man higher than he does in her. One has indeed heardit stated that a man marries for beauty and a woman for brains. Astatement so brief cannot be accurate in such a case. But we may insistupon the contrast between acquired knowledge and natural faculty. Spencer was no doubt right in believing that man values the naturalfaculty rather than the acquired knowledge. A woman no doubt does sotoo. If she admires a man for being an encyclopædia, it is only, onehopes, because she admires the natural qualities of studiousness, perseverance and memory which his knowledge involves. Nor would she belong in finding out whether his knowledge is digested, and the capacityto digest it, remember, is a natural faculty. The reader who remembers our principle that the individual exists forthe future will not fail to see what we are driving at. Directly westudy in any critical way the causes of attraction among the sexes, wesee that under healthy conditions, unvitiated by convention or money, itis always the inborn rather than the acquired that counts. If Spencerhad cared to pursue his point half a century ago, he had the key to itin his hands. Youth prefers the natural to the acquired qualities. Nature, greatest of match-makers, has so constructed youth because sheis a Eugenist, and because she knows that it is the natural qualitiesand not the acquired ones which are transmitted to offspring. And now it may be shown that this fact wholly consorts with ourcontention that there is no antinomy between the happiness of theindividual and the happiness of the race in the marriage choice. For therace it is only the natural qualities of its future parents that matter, for only these are transmissible. From the strictly eugenic point ofview, therefore, the girl should be counselled to choose her mate, notmerely on the ground of his personal qualities but, more strictly still, on the ground of those personal qualities which are natural and notacquired. And my last point is that these qualities, which are alone oflasting consequence to the race, alone will be of lasting consequence toher during her married life. Veneers, acquirements, technicalfacilities, knowledge of languages, encyclopædic information, eleganceof speech and even of conventional manners--all the things which, in ourrough classification, we may call acquired, may attract or please orimpress her for a time, but when the ultimate reckoning is made she willfind that they are less than the dust in the balance. I do not know howand where to find for my words the emphasis with which it would be soeasy to endow them if, instead of addressing an unseen and strangeaudience, one were counselling one's own daughter. I should say to her, for instance, "My dear, be not deceived. He dresses elegantly, I know, and makes himself quite nice to look at. Yet it is not his clothes thatyou will have to live with, but himself; and the question is what do hisclothes mean? It is his nature that you will have to live with. Whatfact of his nature do they stand for? Is it that he is vain andselfish, preferring to spend his money upon himself and upon theexterior of his person rather than upon others and upon the adornment ofhis mind; or is it that he has fine natural taste, a sense of beauty andharmony and quiet dignity in external things?" The answer to thesequestions involves his wife's happiness. How strange that though no girlwill marry a man because she is attracted by the elegance of his falseteeth, yet she will often be deceived into admiring other things whichare just as much acquired and just as little likely to afford herpermanent satisfaction as the products of his dentist's work-room! Ifonly she realized that these other things, though nice to look at, areno more himself than a well-fitting dental plate. Or again: "You like his talk; he strikes you as well versed in humanaffairs; his knowledge of men and things impresses you; he has travelledand can talk easily of what he has seen, and his voice is elegant andcan be heard in many tongues. But if he is going to say bitter things toyou, will the facility of his diction make them less bitter? If he is afool in his heart--and indeed the heart alone is the residence of follyor wisdom--do you think that he will be a fool the less for venting hisfolly in seven languages rather than in one? I quite understand youradmiring his cleverness; people who study the subject tell us, you know, that a woman admires in a man things which are more characteristic ofmen than of women, and that men's admiration of women is based upon thesame good principle. But in this bargain men have the best of it becausethe most characteristic thing in woman is tenderness, and the mostcharacteristic thing in man is cleverness; and which do you think is thebetter to live with? What is the virtue in cleverness coupled with, forinstance, a malicious tongue? What is the virtue in clever things if hesays them at your expense? The vital thing for you is, what are the usesto which he puts his knowledge and capacities? That he knows the ways ofthe world may impress you, but does he know them to admire them? And ifso, where does he stand compared with another, who is less versed andversatile, but who, as your heart tells you, would hate the ways of theworld if he did know them?" ... Indeed, I seem to see that one cannot adequately write a book onWomanhood without including in it somewhere a statement of what manhoodis and ought to be. Surely one of our duties to girlhood is to teach itthe elemental truths of manhood. Such teaching must recognize the factswhich modern psychology perceives more clearly every day, and it mustcombine that knowledge with the eternal truths of morality, which are sointensely real and practical in the great issues of life, such as this. The great fact which modern psychology has discovered is that intellectis less important, and emotion more important than we used to suppose;that knowledge, as we lately observed, is non-moral, and may be for goodor for evil; that cleverness is merely cleverness, and may serve God ormammon; that it is the nature of the man or the woman which determinesthe influence and the uses of education. A girl should know something ofwhat I have elsewhere called the transmutation of sex as it shows itselfin the higher as distinguished from the lower types of manhood: sheshould know that it is good for a youth to spend his energy in visibleways and in the light of day; there is the less likelihood that it isbeing spent otherwise. She should prefer the man who is visibly activeand who keeps his mind and body moving; she should know, as the schoolboy should know, that the capacity to smoke and drink really provesnothing as regards manhood. Doubtless there is some courage required inlearning to smoke, and so much, but it is not much, is to the smoker'scredit; but for the rest, smoking and drinking are simply forms ofself-indulgence, and though they are doubtless very excusable and areoften practised by splendid men, they are of no virtue in themselves. Further, they are open to the fundamental objection that they lessen themeasure of a man's self-mastery. Women should set a high standard insuch matters as these. To take the case of smoking, very few smokers realize, in the firstplace, how much money they expend. It is money which, if not spent, would appreciably contribute to the cost of house-keeping in not a fewcases. Many a man who says he cannot afford to marry spends on tobaccoand alcohol a sum quite sufficient to turn the scale. It will be arguedthat the smoking brings rest and peace, that it soothes, aids digestion, and so forth. But the non-smoker is not in need of these assistances:it is only the smoker who requires to smoke for these purposes. On thispoint I have said, in the volume of personal hygiene which this presentwork is meant to succeed, all that really requires to be said. It wasthere pointed out that nicotine doubtless produces secondary products inthe blood which require a further dose of the nicotine as an antidote tothem. Thus there is initiated a vicious circle, the details of whichhave been fully worked out in the case of opium, or rather, morphia. Allthe good results which are obtained from smoking are essentially of thenature of neutralizing the secondary effects of previous smoking. Here, then, is the scientific argument for the girl's hand if she proposes todeal with her lover on this point. It may be added that the writer can now quote personal experience infavour of his advice. He smoked incessantly for fourteen years--fromseventeen to thirty-one--his quantum being five ounces in all perweek--of the strongest Egyptian cigarettes and the strongest pipetobacco procurable. The practice did him no observable harm whatever. When he wrote the paragraph on "How to control one's smoking, " in thebook referred to, he was only wishing that he could control his own. Atlast he got disgusted with himself and stopped altogether. Personally heis neither better nor worse, but he is buying books in proportion to themoney formerly wasted on tobacco, and perhaps the change is worth while. The girl who reads this book may tell her lover with confidence that itis quite possible to stop smoking, and that after a little while thecraving wholly disappears. If he has been a really confirmed, systematicsmoker, he may have a very uncomfortable three weeks after he stops, butsoon after that the time will come when he can stay in a room whereothers are smoking and not even desire to join them, which he couldnever have done before. He will have the advantage that he is definitelyless likely to die of cancer of the mouth, more especially cancer of thetongue. That is a point which will affect his wife as well as himself. He will save a quite remarkable sum of money, and since object lessonsare very valuable, he may follow the suggestion to lay it out in theform of books, as time goes on, though perhaps my reader can give himbetter advice from the point of view of the future housekeeper. Of course there is the point of view expressed in a poem of Mr. Kipling's: "A woman is only a woman, But a good cigar is a smoke. " If a man takes that point of view he is not good enough for a woman, Ithink; she may remember Dogberry, Take no note of him but let him go ... And thank God she is rid of a ---- fool. Certainly, I am not saying anything which will be grateful to all ears, but while we are at it, and since this book is written in the interestsof women, I must say what I believe. I counsel the girl to stop herlover's smoking; a thousandfold more strongly would I counsel her tostop his drinking. In a former volume on eugenics, some of the effectsof parental drinking have been dealt with at length, and that subjectneed not be returned to here. But also from the point of view of theindividual, a girl may be counselled to stop her lover's drinking. Anexcellent eugenic motto for a girl, as my friend Canon Horsley pointedout in discussing my paper on this subject read before the Society forthe Study of Inebriety in 1909, is "the lips that touch liquor shallnever touch mine. " There are always plenty of people to sneer at the teetotaler; people whomake money out of drink naturally do so; people who drink themselvesnaturally do so; the unmarried girl may do so, thinking that theteetotaler is a prig and not quite a man. _But there is one great classof the community, the most important of all, which does not sneer atteetotalers, and that is the wives. _ They know better, nay, they knowbest, and their verdict stands and will remain against that of allothers. I am now addressing the girl who may become a wife, and I tellher most solemnly that from her point of view she cannot afford to laughat the teetotaler; and if she can stop her lover's drinking, whether hedrinks much or little, she will do well for him and herself. She shouldknow what the effect of alcohol is upon a man, and she should haveimagination enough to realize that his hot breath, coming unwelcome, will not be more palatable in the future for its flavouring of whisky. It may be admitted that in saying all this the interests of the futureare perhaps paramount in my mind. I am trying to do a service to theprinciple, "Protect parenthood from alcohol, " which I advocate as thefirst and most urgent motto for the real temperance reformer. Yet thequestion of parenthood may be entirely left out of consideration, andeven so the advice here given to the girl about to choose ahusband--alas, that only a small proportion of maidenhood can be in thatfortunate state, which is yet the right and natural one!--is warrantedand more than warranted. We may go so far as to declare that it is agreat duty, laid upon the young womanhood of civilization, to protectitself and the future, and to serve its own contemporary manhood, bytaking up this attitude towards alcohol. Would that this greatmissionary enterprise were now unanimously undertaken by these mosteffective and cogent of missionaries, whose own happiness so largelydepends upon its success! Of course it should not be necessary for any man to set forth, for theinstruction of girlhood, the qualities which it should value in men. Allwho train and teach girlhood and form its ideals should devotethemselves scarcely less to this than to the inculcation of high idealsfor girlhood itself; yet it is not done. We do not yet recognize thesupreme importance of the marriage choice for the present and for thefuture. Fortunately, if Nature alone gets a fair chance, she teaches the girlthat a man should "play the game, " and should not be afraid of "having ago, " that of the two classes into which, as one used to tell a littlegirl, people are divided--those who "stick to it, " and those who donot--the former are the worthy for her. But Nature is speciallyhandicapped by stupid convention, not least in Anglo-Saxon countries, asregards a woman's estimation of _tenderness_ in a man. The parentalinstinct with its correlate emotion of tenderness, is the highest ofexisting things, and though it is less characteristic of men than ofwomen, it is none the less supreme when men exhibit it. In days to come, when women can choose, as they should be able to choose to-day, they maywell be counselled to use as a touchstone of their suitor's quality thatline of Wordsworth, "Wisdom doth live with children round her knees. " Aman who thinks that "rot" _is_ rot, or soon will be. But in the minds of men and women there is a half implicit assumptionthat tenderness is incompatible with manliness. "Let not women'sweapons, water-drops, stain my man's cheeks, " says Lear. But it is quitepossible for a man to be manly and yet tender, and to the highest typeof women it is the combination of strength and tenderness in a man thatappeals beyond aught else. It has always seemed to the present writer that the followers of Christhave done him far less than justice in insisting upon one aspect of hischaracter disproportionately with another. They speak of him as the"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild "; they tend to describe him as almost orwholly effeminate; and the representations of him in art, with small, feminine and conspicuously un-Jewish features, with long feminine hairand the hands of a consumptive woman, join with sacred poetry infurthering this impression. Nothing can be truer than that he wastender, and that he had a passion for childhood and realized, as we maydare to say, its divinity, as only the very few in any age have done. But this "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, " was also he whose blazing wordsagainst established iniquity and hypocrisy constitute him the supremeexemplar not only of love but of moral indignation, and of a sublimeinvective which has been equalled not even by Dante at his highest. Weforget, perhaps, when we use such a phrase as "whited sepulchre, " thatwe are quoting the untamable fierceness, the courage, fatal and vital, of the "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, " who was murdered not for lovingchildren, but for hating established wickedness. Why have Christians notrecognized that it is this perhaps unexampled combination of strengthand tenderness which makes their Founder worthy for all time to beregarded as the Highest of Mankind? One more counsel to the girl who can choose. It is contained in thesaying of Marcus Aurelius that the worth of a man may be measured by theworth of the things to which he devotes his life. We must now pass to consider the sociological fact that, under presentconditions, the sole use of this chapter for a very large proportion ofwomen can merely consist in suggesting to them that they are betterunmarried than married without love. It is not possible for them toexercise the great function of choice which is theirs by natural right. Evil and ominous of more evil are whatever facts deprive woman of thisher birthright. CHAPTER XVII THE CONDITIONS OF MARRIAGE In my volume introductory to Eugenics I have dealt at length withmarriage from that point of view. Here our concern is with theindividual woman, and though neither in theory nor in practice can weentirely dissociate the question of the future from that of theindividual's needs, it is necessary here to discuss the presentconditions of marriage in the civilized world, from the woman's point ofview. We have to ask ourselves how these conditions act in selectingwomen from the ranks of the unmarried; whether the transition proceedsfrom random chance, or whether there is a selection in certain definitedirections, and if so, what directions? We have to ask whether differentwomen would pass into the ranks of the married if the conditions ofmarriage were other than they are; and we shall assuredly arrive at theprinciple that whatever changes are necessary in the conditions ofmarriage, so that the best women shall become the mothers of the future, must be and will be effected. One has elsewhere argued at length that monogamy is the marriage formwhich has prevailed and will be maintained because of its superiorsurvival-value--in other words, because it best serves the interests ofthe future. But what of the individual in a country where there arethirteen hundred thousand adult women in excess of men, which is thecase of Great Britain? Plainly, there is need for very serious criticismof such an institution in such circumstances. Let the reader briefly bereminded, then, that, as I have previously argued, Nature makes noarrangement for such a disproportion between the sexes. More boys thangirls are indeed born, but from our infantile mortality, which islargely a male infanticide, onwards, morbid influences are at work whichresult in the disproportion already named. Two excellent reasons may be adduced why any disproportion in thenumbers of the sexes should be the opposite of that which now obtains. The ideal condition, no doubt, is that of numerical equality. Failingthat, the evils of a male preponderance, though very real, arecomparatively small. For one thing, celibacy affects a woman more than aman: men, on the whole, suffer less from being unmarried. It is a moreserious deprivation for the woman than for the man, in general, to bedebarred from parenthood. This is a proposition which we need not labourhere, for no reader will dispute its importance and its relevance. No less important is the economic question. Specially consecrated as sheis to the future, woman as distinctive woman is necessarily handicappedin relation to the present. She is at an economic disadvantage. One'sblood boils at the cruel effrontery of men who protest against women'sefforts to gain an honest living, but who have never a word or a deedagainst prostitution or against the causes which produce the numericalpreponderance of women. But here again our proposition, thoughunfamiliar, and indeed so far as I know never yet stated, needs nolabouring--that owing to the economic opportunities of the sexes, it is, at any rate, on that ground, of no significance that men shall be inexcess in a community, but it is of very grave significance that womenshall be in excess. It is pitiable, and indeed revolting, in thiscountry where the excess of women is so marked, to hear from year toyear the comments of men upon the supposed degeneration of women, upontheir unnatural selfishness, their desire to invade spheres which do notbelong to them, and so forth and so forth _ad nauseam_; whilst thesecommentators are themselves hand in hand with drink, with war and withMammon, destroying male children of all ages in disproportionate excess, sending our manhood to be slain in war, and sending it also in the causeof industry--that is to say, in the cause of gold--to our colonies, asif the culture of the racial life were not the vital industry of anypeople. A third very important reason why a numerical preponderance of women ismore injurious to a country than a numerical preponderance of men isthat, though the duty and responsibility of selection for parenthooddevolves upon both sexes, it is normally discharged with greaterefficiency by women than by men; and a numerical preponderance of womengravely interferes with their performance of this great function. It mayobviously be argued that such a preponderance leaves a greater choiceto the men. But I believe that men do not exercise their choice so well. In a word, women are more fastidious; the racial instinct is weaker inthem, less rampant and less roving. In the exercise of this functionwomen are therefore, on the whole, naturally more capable, moreresponsible, less liable to be turned aside by the demands of themoment. In his "Pure Sociology, " Professor Lester Ward has very clearlyand forcibly discussed the comparative behaviour of the two sexes inthis matter, and he shows how the great feminine sentiment, not confinedmerely to the human species, is to choose the best. The principle isalso a factor in masculine action, but much less markedly so. What wecall, then, the greater fastidiousness of the female sex is a definitesex character, and has a definite racial value, raising the standard offatherhood where it is allowed free play. But in a nation which containsa great excess of women, under economic conditions which are greatly totheir disadvantage, the value of this natural fastidiousness ispractically lost. Such are the conditions in Great Britain at presentthat practically any man, of however low a type, however diseased, however unworthy for parenthood, may become a father, if he pleases. The natural condition suitable to monogamy being a numerical equality ofthe sexes, the suggestion may obviously be made that where there is agreat excess of women, monogamy should yield to polygamy; and indeedwhere there is such excess monogamy is more apparent than real--an idealrather than a practice. Thus we have one or two modern authors who haveinstalled themselves in sociology by the royal road of romance--thougheven to this branch of learning, as to mathematics, there is no shortcut whatsoever, even for those whose pens are naturally skilful--authorswho tell us that, given this numerical preponderance of women, some kindof polygamous modification of the present marriage system shouldcertainly be adopted. To one aspect of this contention we shall laterreturn. Meanwhile, the answer is that, rather than abolish monogamy, weshould strive to alter the conditions which produce such an excess ofwomen. If such an aim were necessarily impracticable, we might well feelinclined to vote for polygamy rather than the present state of things. It is a very decent alternative to prostitution. But in point of factour aim of equalizing the numbers of the sexes, which I assert as acanon of fundamental politics, is eminently practicable; and here we maybriefly outline, as very relevant to the problems of womanhood, themethods by which that aim is to be realized for the good of both sexesin the present and the future. Nature gives us more than a fair start, almost as if she knew that thewastage of male life is apt to be higher at all ages even under the bestconditions. She sends more male children into the world, as if tosecure, on the whole, an equality of the sexes in adult life. That idealis realizable, even allowing for a considerable excess of male deaths. One of our duties, then, is to control that part of the male death-rate, if any, which is controllable. To begin at the beginning, we find thatinfant mortality claims our attention at once. For years past in thecampaign against infant mortality I have urged this as an apparentlysomewhat remote, yet very real and important issue. Infant mortalitybears heaviest upon male babies. It is largely, as I have so often said, a male infanticide, notably contrasting with the practice of deliberatefemale infanticide which is known in so many times and places. Inlowering the infant mortality we shall reduce this disproportion of maledeaths, and shall make for the survival of a larger number of men. Bringdown the infant mortality to proper limits and we shall have in adultlife possible male partners for a large number of women who are nowwithout such because of the male infanticide of twenty and thirty yearsago. It is characteristic of the fashion in which the surface gains ourattention while the substance evades it, that the question of thedisproportion of the sexes should have been brought to the public noticein regard to a subject which, though not unimportant, is quite secondarycompared with those which we are now discussing. Only three or fouryears ago people were startled and incredulous when one told them by thepen or in lectures that there was a very great excess of women in theseislands. Nowadays everybody knows it. This is not because people havesuddenly come to realize the fundamental importance for the State ofsuch matters, but simply because the fact provides an argument regardingWoman Suffrage. This immensely important fact of female preponderance, with its gigantic consequences, which affect every aspect of thenational life, was totally ignored by the public until, forsooth, itbecame an argument against Woman Suffrage; and then the foolish peoplewhose voices are allowed to be heard on these complicated matters, butwho would be laughed out of court if they expressed their opinions onother subjects equally outside their competence, told us that woman'ssuffrage would mean government by women, they being in the majority. Forall other consequences of this gigantic fact they have no concern; noteven the mental capacity to grasp that it must have consequences. Butthis, which happens not to be a consequence of it, they are loud toinsist upon. At any rate, they have done this service until the publicat last is acquainted with the demographic fact; and one of thesuffragist leaders some time ago publicly expressed an old argument ofthe present writer's that in point of fact this grave supposedconsequence of woman's suffrage need not be feared if only for thereason that Woman Suffrage would certainly mean increased attention toinfant mortality, and therefore increased control of the morbid causeswhich at present account for female preponderance. It might indeed be added also that, in so far as Woman Suffrage operatedagainst war, it would contribute in another way to the correction ofthis numerical disparity. Not the least of the many evils which haveflowed from the last hideous war in which Great Britain engaged--evilswhich glass-eyed politicians have since been exploiting in the interestsof their own charlatanry--is the loss to scores of thousands of women inthis country of the complemental manhood which was destroyed by woundsand more especially by disease in South Africa. The wickedness withwhich that war was entered upon, and the criminal ignorance with whichit was mismanaged, and the elementary principles of hygiene defied, havetheir consequences to-day in much of the unmated and handicappedwomanhood of Great Britain. It may be noted that polygamy as ahistorical phenomenon has commonly and necessarily been associated withmilitarism. Large destruction of manhood by war leads to a numericalexcess of women, and polygamy is a consequence. If the consequences inour modern civilization are less decent than polygamy, which wouldaffront the beautiful minds that are unconcerned for Regent Street, surely our duty is more strenuously than ever to combat the causeswhich, as we see, are quite definitely traceable and controllable. The increased attention paid to the conditions of child life is ofdirect service to the nation, and to womanhood in especial, by tendingto interfere with the excessive and unnecessary mortality of boys. As wehave elsewhere observed, the male organism has less vitality than thefemale organism. When both sexes at any age are subjected to the sameinjurious influences, more males than females die. Thus all our workwith such a measure as the Children Act, keeping children out ofpublic-houses, and so forth, directly serves the womanhood of the notdistant future by preserving a certain amount of manhood to keep itcompany. Accepting the truth of the dictum that it is not good for manto be alone, we have to learn the still more general and profound truththat it is not good for woman to be alone, and, as we now learn, themodern movement for the care of childhood has this notable consequence, which I have been pointing out for many years and now insist upon onceagain, that it makes for the greater numerical equality of the sexes inadult life, and therefore for the relief of the many evils near andremote which flow from the numerical excess of women. Answering thequestion, "Whither are we tending?" in Christmas, 1909, Mr. G. K. Chesterton referred to our liability to "float feebly towards everysociological fad or novelty until we believe in some plain, cold, crudeinsanity, such as keeping children out of public-houses. "[16]Considering the authority, I think this is fairly good testimony towardthe wisdom of the achievement to which some of us devoted the greaterpart of three strenuous years; and if the question is to be asked"whither are we tending, " part of the answer will be that by suchmeasures as this for the care of child life, which means in practiceespecially for the keeping alive of boys, we are tending toward thecorrection of one of the gravest, though least recognized, evils of thepresent day. Our business in the present volume is not with childhood. It is notpossible to go fully into the statistical details of the comparativedeath-rate of the sexes, but the data can readily be obtained by anyinterested reader. [17] It may be argued that the questions now under consideration are foreignto a chapter entitled "The Conditions of Marriage, " but the excess ofwomen in a community is one of the most fundamental conditions ofmarriage therein, and the question is not the less necessary to be dealtwith because, so far as one can ascertain, its consequences have escapedthe notice of previous students. Having dealt with the waste of male life in infancy, in childhood and inwar, we must pass on to a totally different factor of our problem, andthat is the emigration to our colonies and elsewhere of a greatlydisproportionate number of men. One does not assert for a moment thatthe men should not go, but merely that if they do, so should women also. As everyone knows they go for many reasons and purposes. These arelargely industrial and imperial. The Civil Service claims a largenumber. These bachelors go in the cause of Empire, whether as actualservants of the State or in the interests of commerce. They are largelypicked men, capable of discipline and initiative and of withstandinghardships; and also in large degree intellectually able. It is certainlynot good for them to be alone, and it is worse for the women whom theyleave behind. All this may seem right and the only practicable thing forthe day, but it is fundamentally wrong because it is wrong for themorrow. If other needs were not so pressing, one might well devote an entirevolume, not inappropriately in these days of fiscal controversy, to thequestion of vital imports and exports. Year after year passes, andpoliticians in Great Britain grow more and more voracious and, ifpossible, less and less veracious on the subject of what theymisunderstand by imports and exports. The subject is really one forknowledge, not for politicians. With great ceremony at intervals, theygo through the highly superfluous performance of calling each otherliars, as who should say that Queen Anne is dead: and while thistragical farce continues the question of vital imports and exports isignored. Within it there lies the key to the Irish question, forinstance, since no nation can be saved which persistently exports thebest of its life. And in this question also lies the key to a great partof the woman question and to a great part of the colonial question. Politicians who have not even discovered yet that trade is a process ofexchange, and who assume that in every bargain someone is being worsted, pay no heed to the questions what sort of people leave our shores, andwhat sort of people enter them. Or rather, as if in order to emphasizetheir blindness to fundamentals, they make a point about passing an actagainst alien immigration, which merely serves to throw into prominenceour national neglect of this great issue. This is not the time and theplace in which I can deal with it in its entirety, but it must bereferred to in so far as it bears on the proportion of the sexes. Towardthe end of 1909 there was a long correspondence in the _Times_ on thesubject of "Unmarried Daughters. " One may print in the text theadmirable letter in which a finger is put upon the heart of thequestion. We are told about the incompetence of women to deal withnational affairs, but here we find a woman writing to the _Times_ on afundamental matter for the Imperialist, though no member of our Housesof Parliament has yet given any attention to it. SIR: Only two of your numerous correspondents on this subject have really reached the root of the matter. For more than thirty years the young men of the British Isles have found it increasingly difficult to make a living in their native land. Therefore there has been--and still is--a steady exodus of our male population to our Colonies, where they are unhampered by the many disadvantages prevailing here. Unfortunately they are obliged to leave the corresponding proportion of women behind. The result is a surplus of 1, 000, 000 women in Great Britain; but let me hasten to add (lest the mistake be laid upon Nature when it is not hers) that there is a proportionate shortage of 1, 000, 000 women in our colonies. I have recently been on a tour throughout Canada and the States, and was most struck by the scarcity of women in Western Canada--there are about eight men to one woman. And in America the saddest sight of all is the appalling number of half-castes, a blot on the civilization of the States, but a blot for which Europeans are responsible. The absence of white women is answerable for the worst type of population, so that in reality this is a very pressing Imperial question; and all those interested in the growth and future of Canada should turn their attention to it. For, unless we can induce the right sort of British women to emigrate we shall not have the Colonies peopled with our own race or speaking our own mother tongue. Canada wants unmarried women, her cry is for our marriageable daughters, and each one would find her vocation out there. Canadian men are one of the finest types of manhood possible, but they are too hard working to be able to return here in search of a wife. How gladly they would welcome the possibility of sharing their homes with a sister or a wife can only be guessed by those who have been there. I am so greatly impressed with the advisability of encouraging English women to go out there that I strongly urge every suitable, healthy, and useful woman between the age of twenty-five and thirty-five to depart (if she has nothing to prevent her), and, through the British Emigration Society, Imperial Institute, I shall hope to do all that I can to assist them financially. I am, sir, Yours faithfully, SOPHIE K. BEVAN. (_Times_, Dec. 24, 1909. ) It was of interest for the student of opinion and practice to comparethis letter with another which appeared in the _Times_ within a few daysof it. This was an official letter from another Emigration Society andadvocated the object, worthy in itself, of sending boys to Australasia. The letter ended with the following assertion regarding such boys: "Theyare the pioneers of Empire, they will be the founders of nations tocome. " But the point exactly is that at present the nations to come in ourColonies are not coming: much more likely as nations to come inAustralasia, as things go at present, are the Chinese and Japanese. Before nations can be founded, the co-operation of women isindispensable. We complain of the birth-rate in our Colonies, or atleast those few persons do who know that parenthood is the key tonational destiny. But we should complain of our own folly in sointerfering with the natural balance of the sexes as to create pressingproblems, wholly insoluble, alike at home and in our Colonies. At alltimes "England wants men, " but wherever it wants men it wantswomen, --even in war we are now beginning to realize the importance ofthe trained nurse. There can be no future for our Colonies if they areto be inhabited by a bachelor generation, and the excess of women athome prejudices the stability of the heart of empire. Either we mustcease exporting our boys and young manhood--which I certainly do notadvocate--or our girlhood must go also--which I certainly do advocate. This is only one aspect of the question of vital imports and exports, upon which a book of vital importance for any nation, and above all, forEngland, might well be written. Once again let us remind ourselves how cogently this question concernsthe conditions of marriage. It means that the conditions are now suchthat in our Colonies a woman can exercise her rightful function ofchoosing the best man to be her husband and a father of the future, while at home this is possible only for the very few, and for vastnumbers marriage is wholly impossible. I return, then, to the originalproposition: are we to follow the advice of our gay, irresponsiblesociologists so-called, who advise us to abolish monogamy in thecircumstances, or are we to alter the alterable conditions which sodisastrously prejudice and complicate that great institution in theheart of our empire to-day? Surely there can be but one answer to thisquestion when we realize that all the causes of the presentdisproportion between the sexes at home--causes such as infantmortality, child mortality, war, and the exportation of one sex in greatexcess to the Colonies--are evil in themselves quite apart from theirinfluence upon the practice of monogamy. Unfortunately, it is a moderncustom in this age of transition for clever people to criticize onabstract, patriotic, sociological, quasi-ethical, and such like grounds, institutions and practices which irk them personally. Unfortunately, also, sociology is in the position, at present and yet for a littlewhile inevitable, of shall we say medicine in its earliest stages, whenanyone may be accepted as qualified who simply asserts that he is. Lastly, sociology is the most complicated of all the sciences becausethe chain of causation is longer; and very few of those who write orread about it have the patience to go back through psychology to biologyand the laws of life in their analyses. An institution like marriage iscriticized by those who think that it is an ecclesiastical invention ofyesterday, and that what hands have made, hands can destroy, thoughmarriage is æons older even than the mammalian order. They taketransient, artificial conditions, lasting not for a second in thehistory of mankind seen as a whole, and simply accepting theseconditions as part of the order of nature, they ask us to overthrow aninstitution which is immeasurable ages older than man himself. The oddsare somewhat against them, one may surmise, but they may do considerableinjury to their own age notwithstanding. After having dealt with this fundamental biological condition ofmarriage, we must next turn to a psychological question which isscarcely less important. The human being is immensely complex both incomposition and in needs, and the institution of monogamy does notbecome easier of maintenance as human complexity increases. Amongst thelower animals or even amongst the lower races of mankind, the relationsbetween the sexes are mostly confined to one sphere, but amongstourselves the problem is to mate for life complex individuals whoseneeds are many, ranging from the purely physical to the purelypsychical. Thus it is a matter of common experience that whilst onewoman meets one part of a man's needs, another meets another, and thisof course with grave prejudice to monogamy. Some of the modern writersto whom allusion has been made suggest that these different needs wantsorting out; that one woman is to be the intellectual companion of aman, and another the mother of his children. But though men and womenare multiple and complex, they are in the last resort unities. Theseabsolute distinctions between one need and another do not work out inpractice. Anything which tends toward splitting up the human personalitymust be a disservice to it. Nor do we desire that women of the highertype, best fitted to be the intellectual companions of men, shall bethose who do not contribute to the future of the race. From the eugenicpoint of view the mother is every whit as important as the father. I donot believe for a moment that these more or less definite proposals ofMr. Shaw and Mr. Wells are soundly based, and perhaps indeed it is notnecessary to argue against them at greater length. Of more value is itto ask ourselves whether feminine nature may not prove itself quiteequal to the task of meeting all the needs of masculine nature. It seems to me that the right answer, in many cases at any rate, to thewife's question, how is she to retain the whole of her husband'sinterest, is hinted at in Mr. Somerset Maugham's recent play"Penelope"--she must be many women to him herself. And this the wise andhappy woman is, though I do not think the phrase "many women" at allcovers the variety of feeling to which the ideal woman can appeal. The ideal love is that in which the whole nature is joined, in all itsparts, upon one object which appeals alike to every fundamental instinctin our composition. The ideal woman does not require to be "many women"to a man of the right kind in the sense suggested in Mr. Maugham's play. She requires rather to be in herself at one and the same time or atdifferent times, mother, wife and daughter. This condition satisfied, behold the ideal marriage. It is probably fair to say that the three strongest and most importantneeds of a man's nature are those which are satisfied by mother, wife, and daughter. Primarily, perhaps, his wife must be to him his wife, hiscontemporary and partner, and there must be a physical bond betweenthem. (Doubtless there are many happy marriages where this primarycondition is not satisfied, this primitive form of affection beingsubstantially absent, and its presence being proved non-essential: butsuch must be a state of unstable equilibrium at best, though theconcession must be made. ) Now the problem for the wife is to unite inher person and in her personality those other feelings which are part ofnormal human nature. Every man likes to be mothered at times, and it isfor his wife to see that she performs that function better than anyother; better even than his own mother. Where he finds merely physicalsatisfaction, he also finds, happy man, sympathy and comfort, protectionand solace, balm for wounded self-esteem--everything that the hurt orslighted child knows he will find in his mother's arms. Yet again, a man likes not only to be mothered but he likes to play thefather. Let his wife be a daughter to him; let her be capable ofshrinking, so to say, into small space, becoming little and confidentand appealing and calling forth every protective impulse of herhusband's nature. To one who knew nothing of human nature it might sound as if we wereasking more of womanhood than is within its capacity. But many a man andmany a woman will know better. The right kind of woman can be and ismother, wife and daughter to her husband; and in every one of thesecapacities she strengthens her hold in the other two. Let the happilymarried examine their happiness, and they will discover that thePreacher was right when he said: "and a threefold cord is not quicklybroken. " What has here been said is perhaps far more fundamental, just because itis based upon the primary instincts of humanity, than much of theordinary talk about intellectual companionship and the like. What a manwants is sympathy, not intellectual companionship as such; what a manwants from another man, indeed, is sympathy, and not merely intellectualparity as such. The man who annoys us is not he who is incapable ofappreciating our arguments, or he who does not share our knowledge, buthe who is out of sympathy with us, and we find far more happiness withthe rawest youth who, though entirely ignorant, is at least on ourside--caring for the things for which we care. Capacity to share thesame intellectual work may be a very pleasant addition to marriage, butit is no essential. What a man wants is that his wife shall be on hisside in his pursuits. A boy does not require that his mother shall beable to play football with him, but he does require that she shall carewhether his side wins or loses. The wife who is a true mother to herhusband, in this sense, need not be concerned because she cannot, let ussay, follow his working out of a geometrical proposition. Let her be onhis side whether he fails or succeeds, thus playing the mother; and forthe rest, if she asks him what those funny marks mean, she can play thedaughter too, and hold his heart with both hands at once. It is to be hoped that such arguments as these will persuade the readerto assent to our rejection of the psychological grounds on which it isproposed to abolish monogamy. We extend all the sympathy in the world tothose whose fortune has been unfortunate, and we admit that the idealdoes not always coincide with the real, but we deny that the supposedargument against monogamy is based upon a sound understanding of humannature, its needs and its unity in multiplicity. If we are to stand by monogamy it behoves us to examine very carefullycertain of its present conditions which militate against the fullrealization of its value for the individual and for the race. Thedisproportion of the sexes we have already discussed, and it may here beassumed that that grave obstacle to the success of monogamy is removed. There remains the fact, probably on the whole a quite new fact of ourday, that under modern conditions a large proportion of women, whosequality we must consider, are declining monogamy as at presentconstituted. Let it be granted that a certain number of these women are cranks, aberrant in various directions, unfitted for any kind of marriage, undesirable from the eugenic standpoint, and perhaps less oftendeclining to be married than failing of the opportunity. There remainsthe fact that a large and probably increasing number of women arenowadays being educated up to such a standard of ideals that, eventhough their decision involves the sacrifice of motherhood, they cannotconsent to marriage under present conditions. It is not that they arewithout opportunity, for many of them during ten or fifteen years oftheir lives may refuse one proposal after another, and spend theintervals in avoiding the onset of such attentions. It is notnecessarily that the men who propose are of an inferior type. Such womenmay refuse many men who come well up to or far surpass the modern malestandard. It is not that they are by any means without capacity foraffection; nor can one be at all certain that in many cases they wouldnot do better to marry, after all, heavy though the price may be. What we have to recognize is that this is a phenomenon in every wayevil. There must be something wrong with any institution which does notappeal to many members of the highest types of womanhood. Perhaps incertain of its details this institution must be an anachronism, asurvival from times to which it may have been well suited when thedevelopment of womanhood was habitually stunted, but inadequate tosatisfy the demands of fully developed womanhood in our own days. Nowfrom the eugenic point of view it is of course the finest kind of womenthat we desire to be the mothers of the future--the more and not theless fastidious, those who are capable of the highest development, thosewho hold themselves in the highest honour, those who are least willingto renounce their possession of themselves. Men are to be heard who say that this is all nonsense; that it isnatural for women to surrender themselves, that motherhood is a splendidreward, and that they are handsomely paid as well in material things. But how many men would be willing to marry on the conditions with whichmarriage is offered to a woman? How many men would be willing tosurrender their possession of themselves to an owner for life, so thatat no future hour can they have the right to privacy? Of course if theconditions for marriage were for a man what they are for a woman, scarcely any men would marry, and men would very soon see to it thatthese conditions were utterly altered. They are conditions imposed in apast age by the stronger sex upon the weaker, and no moral defence ofthem is possible. It may be argued, and might long have been argued, that a practical defence of them is possible, but that is undermined inour own time when we find that under these conditions marriage isdeclined by a large number of the best women. The practical argument isnow the other way. In the interests of elementary justice, of marriage, of the individual and of the race, the conditions of marriage must be somodified that they shall be equal for both sexes, and that the bestmembers of both sexes shall find them acceptable. This last is of coursethe fundamental eugenic requirement. The initial criticism of some will be, no doubt, that many men who nowmarry will decline the bargain. But surely we need not care at all--ifthe right kind of men accept it. As for the others, in the coming time, when we take more care of our womanhood, and when they are deprived ofthe economic weapon, they may go whither they will, theirnon-representation in the future of the race being precisely what wedesire. Women, then, are entitled to demand that the conditions of marriage beso modified as, above all things, to allow them the possession ofthemselves as the married man has possession of himself. The impositionof motherhood upon a married woman in absolute despite of her health andof the interests of the children is none the less an iniquity because ithas at present the approval of Church and State. It is woman who bearsthe great burden of parenthood, and with her the decision must rest. Itis idle to reply that this is impossible, for it is possible, as thereare not a few happy wives throughout the civilized world to beartestimony. Every new life that comes into being is to be regarded assacred from the first. The accident of birth at a particular stage inits development does not in the slightest degree affect this ethicalprinciple, as even the law, for a wonder, recognizes. The fullacceptance of the principle that woman must decide is, I am convinced, the only right and effective way in which to abolish altogether thedangers at present run by the life which is at once unborn and unwanted. The decision must be made once and for all _before_ the new life iscalled into initial being, and the last word must lie with her who is tobear it. I am strengthened in the enunciation of this principle by thereflection that it would be ridiculed and condemned by the vote of everypublic-house and music-hall throughout the civilized world. Let it be observed that in thus allowing the wife the possession of herown person, we are giving her only what her husband possesses, and thather possession of herself is of vastly more moment to her than his ownliberty to him. Nothing more than sheer equality is being claimed forher, and the claim in her case has a double strength, since it is madevalid not only by her own interests but by those of the future. Thefuture must be protected, and therefore she who is its vessel must beprotected. This is no more than the sub-human mother everywhere has asher birthright, and however much this teaching may offend the commonmale assumption that a wife is a form of property, the future certainlyholds within itself the establishment of this principle. The question of divorce is so important that we must defer it to thenext chapter. We have briefly alluded to the question of the wife's possession ofherself. We must now refer to the question, scarcely less important, ofher possession of her own property and her claims upon her husband's. Itis difficult for the present generation to realize that very few decadeshave passed since the time when everything which a woman possessedbecame, when she married, the property of her husband. That is now aquestion which there is no need to discuss, but there remains a verygreat issue, lately become prominent, and suggested by the popularphrase, the endowment of motherhood. We should obviously be false to our first principles if we did notassent with all our hearts to the _fundamental_ principle expressed bythis phrase. If it is necessary that the wife be protected as a wife, itis even more necessary that she be protected as a mother. There aretwelve hundred thousand widows in this country at the present time, andof these a large number stand in unaided parental relation to a greatmultitude of children. I showed some years ago that, as we shall see inmore detail in a later chapter, alcohol makes not less than forty-fivethousand widows and orphans every year in England and Wales. Nothingcan be more certain than that, in the interests of all except theworthless type of man, the economic protection of motherhood is anurgent need, less open to criticism perhaps than any other economicreconstruction proposed by the reformer. Some will argue, of course, that the State is to look after children directly, but I, for one, as abiologist, have no choice but to believe that the way to save childrenis to safeguard parenthood, and I cannot question that our duty is toprovide the mother with the necessary means for performing her supremefunction, whether she has a living husband or is a widow or isunmarried. The question remains, how is this to be done, and whence is the money tobe obtained? Here we join issue with those Socialist writers who advocate theendowment of motherhood and give it their own meaning; and that is whyin a preceding paragraph the word fundamental has been emphasized, sincein the endowment of motherhood as understood by socialists there are twoprinciples, one which I call fundamental, and a second--that theendowment shall be by the State--which now falls to be considered. I donot see how any one can challenge the following sentences from Mr. H. G. Wells: "So the monstrous injustice of the present time which makes a mother dependent upon the economic accidents of her man, which plunges the best of wives and the most admirable of children into abject poverty if he happens to die, which visits his sins of waste and carelessness upon them far more than upon himself, will disappear. So too the still more monstrous absurdity of women discharging their supreme social function, bearing and rearing children in their spare time, as it were, while they earn their living by contributing some half mechanical element to some trivial industrial product, will disappear. "[18] But the remarkable circumstance is that Mr. Wells proposes to remedythese consequences of, for instance, "sins of waste and carelessness, "not by dealing with those sins but by the simple method that "a womanwith healthy and successful offspring will draw a wage for each one ofthem from the State so long as they go on well. It will be her wage. Under the State she will control her child's upbringing. How far herhusband will share in the power of direction is a matter of detail uponwhich opinion may vary--and does vary widely amongst Socialists. " Howfar a father is to share in directing his children's upbringing is "amatter of detail, " we are told. The phrase suffices to show thatwhatever we are dealing with here is either sheer fantasy or elsethinking of so crude a kind as to be unworthy of the name. Since earlyin the history of the fishes paternal responsibility has been a factorof ascending evolution. It has ever been a more and more responsiblething to be a father. It is now proposed to reduce fatherhood to thepurely physiological act--as amongst, shall we say, the simpler worms;and the proposal is only "a matter of detail. " Probably we had better go our own way, and waste no more time upon thiskind of thing. There remains to answer our question, how is motherhoodto be endowed; and the answer I propose is _by fatherhood_. Motherhoodis already so endowed in many a happy case. There are quite a number ofmen to be found who take such a remarkable pride and interest in theirown children that their "share in the power of direction" is a real one, and would never occur to them to be "a matter of detail. " They regardtheir earnings, these unprogressive fathers, as in large measure a trustfor their wives and children, and expend them accordingly. They are notguilty of "sins and waste and carelessness"; and some of them are eveninclined to question whether they should pay for the results of suchsins on the part of other men: and since those who believe in the"fetish of parental responsibility, " to quote the favourite Socialist_cliché_, can show that this is not a fetish but a tutelary deity ofSociety, whose power has been increasing since backbones were invented, they may be well assured that the last word will be with them. What we require is the application of the principle of insurance; wemust compel a husband and father to do his duty, as many husbands andfathers do their duty now without compulsion. We must regard him asresponsible in this supremely important sphere, as we do in every other. Doubtless, this will often mean some interference with his "sins ofwaste and carelessness"; and so much the better for everybody. Those whoprefer to be wasteful and careless had best remain in the ranks ofbachelorhood. We have no desire for any representation of their moralcharacteristics in future generations, but if they do marry they mustbe controlled. Meanwhile our champions of paternal irresponsibility arehaving things all their own way. Every year more children are being fedat the expense of the State, and there is no one to challenge the fatherwho smokes and drinks away any proportion of his income that he pleases. * * * * * Perhaps we may now attempt to sum up the suggestion of this chapter. Itis based upon a belief in the principle of monogamy--without, as somewould assert, a credulous acceptance of all the present conditions ofthat institution. The principle underlying it may be right andimpossible of improvement, but our practice may be hampered by anynumber of superstitions, traditions, injustices, economic and otherdifficulties, which nevertheless do not invalidate our ideal. Therefore, instead of proposing to abolish monogamy or that greatprinciple of common parental care of children, the support of motherhoodby fatherhood, which is perfectly expressed in monogamy alone, let usseek rather, in the interests of the future--which will mean proximatelyin the interests of woman, the great organ of the future--to make theconditions of marriage such that it best serves the highest interests. We need not cavil at those who look upon marriage as a symbol of theunion between Christ and His Church, but we must look upon it also as ahuman institution which exists to serve mankind and must be treatedaccordingly. We are quite prepared to accept in its place any otherinstitution which will serve mankind better, and we adhere to monogamyonly because such an alternative cannot be named. We are to regard any disproportion in the number of the sexes asinimical to monogamy. We know that in the past, when there has been agreat excess of women, as owing to chronic militarism, polygamy has beenthe natural consequence; and we must recognize that such an excess ofwomen at the present day is a predisposing cause, if not of polygamy, ofsomething immeasurably worse. The causes of that excess of women havetherefore been examined in some degree, and our duty of opposing them islaid down as a fundamental political proposition. We then discussed and criticized a second argument for polygamy, basedupon the assumption that a man requires more from women than one womancan afford him. The answer to that argument is that many women exist whomeet all their husbands' needs and satisfy all their instincts, and thatfor this end the intensive education of woman's intellect is not anecessary condition. It may be added that if the race is to rise, thehighest type of women as well as the highest type of men must be itsparents, the mothers being exactly as important as the fathers on thescore of heredity. Any attempt, therefore, to split up womanhood, sothat the lower types shall become the mothers, and the higher thecompanions of men, is a directly dysgenic proposal, opposing the greateugenic principle that the best of both sexes must be the parents of thefuture. When we find, therefore, that marriage under present conditions doesnot satisfy many of the highest kinds of women, we must ask whethertheir dissatisfaction is warranted, and if, as we do, we find it basedupon the fact that the present conditions are grossly unjust to women, we must modify those conditions so that, at the very least, the wife andmother shall not have the worst of them. Finally, whatever we may fail to achieve because, for instance, of somefundamental facts of human nature against which it is vain to legislate, at least we have economic conditions under our control, and control themwe must, so that, whoever shall be in a position of economic insecurity, at least it shall not be the mothers of the future. Our first concernmust be to safeguard them, whosoever else is inconvenienced. In decidinghow this is effected we are to be guided by that great fact ofincreasing paternal responsibility which is demonstrated by the historyof animal evolution since the appearance of the earliest vertebrates, and of which marriage, in all its forms, is at bottom the human andsocial expression. We are to recognize that if sub-human fathers are inany degree held by nature responsible with their mates for the care oftheir offspring, much more should this be true of man, "made with suchlarge discourse, looking before and after, " who is to be heldresponsible for all his acts, and most of all for those most chargedwith consequence. The man who brings children into the world isresponsible to their mother and through her to society at large, whichmust see to it that that responsibility is not evaded. At present inEngland the working man spends on the average not less than one-sixthof his entire income on alcoholic drinks, whilst society yearly pays forthe feeding of more of his children. But it is not good enough that thefather shall swallow the interests of the future in this fashion. As theState in Germany takes a percentage of his earnings in order to protecthim against the risks of the future, so we must see to it that thenecessary proportion of his earnings is devoted towards discharging theresponsibilities which he has incurred. A notable consequence must follow from many such reforms as this chaptersuggests. The marriage rate must fall, and the birth-rate, alreadyfalling, must fall much further; and so assuredly in any case they will;nor need anyone be alarmed at such a prospect. Even from the point ofview of quantity, the future supply of "food for powder, " and so forth, the question is not how many babies are born, as people persist inthinking, but how many babies survive. For seven years past I have beenpreaching, in season and out of season, that our Bishops and popularvaticinators in general are utterly wrong in bewailing the fallingbirth-rate, whilst the unnecessary slaughter of babies and childrenstares them in the face. How dare they ask for more babies to besimilarly slain! It may be permitted to quote a passage written severalyears ago. "My own opinion regarding the birth-rate is that so long aswe continue to slay, during the first year of life alone, one in six orseven of all children born (the unspeakably beneficent law of thenon-transmission of acquired characters permitting these children to beborn amazingly fit and well, city life notwithstanding), the fall in thebirth-rate should be a matter of humanitarian satisfaction. Let us learnhow to take care of the fine babies that are born, and when we haveshown that we can succeed in this, as we have hitherto most horriblyfailed, we may begin to suggest that perhaps, if the number wereincreased, we might reasonably expect to take care of that number also. Babies are the national wealth, and in reality the only national wealth;and just as a sensible father will satisfy himself that his son can takecare of his pocket-money, before he listens to a demand for itsaugmentation, so, as a people, we are surely responsible to the HigherPowers, or our own ideals, for the production of proof that we can takecare of the young helpless lives which are daily entrusted to us, beforewe cry for more. It would be easy to quote episcopal denouncementsregarding the birth-rate, but I am at a loss for references to similarlyinfluential opinions about the slaughter of the babies that are born--amatter which surely should take precedence. May I, in all deference, commend for consideration a parable which always comes to my mind when Iread clerical comments on the birth-rate, without reference to theinfant-mortality? It was figured by the Supreme Lover of Children that awicked servant, entrusted with a portion of his master's wealth to turnto good account, went and hid it in the earth. He was not rewarded bythe charge of more such wealth. We, as a people, are entrusted withliving wealth, and, whilst we demand more, we go and bury much of it inthe earth--whence, alas! it cannot be recovered. Not an increase ofopportunity, thus wasted, was the reward of the unprofitable servant, but to be cast into outer darkness. Is there no moral here?" Very distinguished recent authority may be quoted in favour of thisprinciple. At the Annual Public Meeting of the Academy of Sciences, heldin Paris in December, 1909, Professor Bouchard discussed the question ofthe population of France, and came to the conclusion that the birth-rate"depended upon social conditions which it was difficult if notaltogether impossible to modify, and in these circumstances thealternative remedy was to reduce the number of deaths. " It must surely be plain that those reforms in the conditions of marriagewhich have been advocated in this chapter will meet this need, and arenot necessarily to be feared even by those who, in this matter, devotetheir solicitude entirely to the question of numbers, quality apart. Forthe eugenist who is primarily concerned with quality these reforms aresurely unchallengeable. CHAPTER XVIII THE CONDITIONS OF DIVORCE A brief chapter must be devoted to the question of the conditions ofdivorce, which are really part of the conditions of marriage. Here, asin every other case, we must apply the universal and unchallengeableeugenic criterion: the conditions of divorce, like the conditions ofmarriage itself, must be such as best serve the future of the race. Thiswill mean that, in the first place, in entering upon marriage--which ofnecessity means so much more to a woman than it does to a man--the womanmust have the assurance that when the conditions of the contract arebroken she will be liberated. The law must bear equally upon the twosexes. This condition of safety, once established, may determine towardmarriage a certain number of women at present deterred by what they knowof the manner in which our unjust laws now work. Secondly, Divorce Law Reform in the right interests of women and thefuture must involve the complete protection of both from, for instance, the drunken husband. The male inebriate is on all grounds unfitted to bea father, and the laws of divorce must ensure that if he be married, hiswife and therefore the future shall be protected from him. Those of uswho believe in the movement for Women Suffrage will be grievouslydisappointed if, when that movement at last succeeds, such fundamentaland urgent reforms as these are not promptly effected. A Royal Commission is now sitting in England upon this subject ofDivorce Law Reform, and I wish to repeat here with all the emphasispossible what has been already said in indirect contribution to theevidence laid before that Commission. It is that the first principle ofjudgment in all such matters is the Eugenic one. Primarily marriage isan invention for serving the future by buttressing motherhood withfatherhood. The judgment of all our methods of marriage and divorce lieswith their products. "By their fruits ye shall know them. " If there wereany antagonism between the interests of the individual and those of therace we should indeed be in a quandary, but as I have shown a hundredtimes there is no such antagonism. The man or woman from whom a divorceought to be obtained is _ipso facto_ the man or woman who ought not tobe a parent. When it is a question of life or gold, we in England are consistentMammon worshippers. Woe to the poacher, but the wife beater has onlystrained a right and may be leniently dealt with; woe to the destroyerof pheasants, but the destruction of peasants is a detail. Thus it isthat the great fundamental questions which, because they determine thedestiny of peoples, are the great Imperial questions, are unknown evenby repute to our professed Imperialists. Every kind of industry exceptthe culture of the racial life interests them profoundly--if there ismoney in it. The whole nation can go wild over a budget or the proposalto revive protection, but the conditions under which the race isrecruited are the concern of but a few, who are looked upon as cranks. In the case of such a question as our Divorce Laws the public issubstantially unaware that we are hundreds of years behind the rest ofthe civilized world; that our practice is utterly unthought out, andthat the supposed compromise of Separation Orders is insane in principleand hideous in result. The present law bears very hardly upon both sexesin a thousand cases, but more especially upon women, toward whom it isgrossly unjust. All honour is due to the Divorce Law Reform Union, [19]which for many years has devoted itself to this important subject, andhas at last succeeded in obtaining the formation of a Royal Commission, the upshot of which, we may hope, will be to reform our law on moral, humane, and eugenic lines. The following is a striking quotation from apamphlet written on behalf of this Union by Mr. E. S. P. Haynes, adistinguished expert. "But our law of divorce is only one example among many of our hide-bound attachment to ancient abuses. It is of the utmost importance to realize that Divorce Law Reform will merely bring our jurisprudence up to the level of the modern enlightened State. It involves no revolutionary disturbance of anything but our crusted ignorance of how modern civilization works outside England. It sets out to place the family on a firmer basis, to regulate the marriage contract on equitable lines, and to improve the chances of the future generation in a country where deserted wives fill the work-houses and forty thousand illegitimate children are born every year. " In Germany, which we are always being asked to imitate in non-essentialsby the more stupid kind of Imperialist--the kind which only very strongempires can survive--the law of divorce is vastly superior to ours. There is no such thing as judicial separation, which "is rightlycondemned as being contrary to public policy. " Further, as Mr. Haynespoints out, "In Germany a male cannot marry under twenty-one or a femaleunder eighteen, whether parental consent is available or not. In Englanda man may and not infrequently does cut his wife and family out of hiswill; in Germany the rights of wife and children are properlysafeguarded by limiting this liberty of disposition. In England a fatherneed not do more for his children than keep them out of the work-houseunless he has brought himself under Divorce Jurisdiction; in Germany heis obliged to maintain them in a suitable manner. In England aspendthrift or dipsomaniac can only be controlled when he has spent allhis money. In Germany such persons are protected from themselves by thefamily council. In England an illegitimate child can never belegitimated by the subsequent marriage of the parents. In Germany thishumane and reasonable opportunity of making reparation to the childexists as a matter of course. " Here in England we have one law for the rich and another for the poor, for the average cost of a decree is about £100; and a case was recentlyreported in which a woman had saved up for twenty years in order toobtain a divorce. What an absolutely abominable scandal; how hideouslybeneath the level of practice amongst what we are pleased to call savagepeoples. As everyone knows, the present law directly encouragesimmorality, pronouncing separation _without_ the power ofre-marriage--that is to say, the greater punishment, for lesseroffences, and divorce _with_ the power of re-marriage, that is to say, the lesser punishment, for greater offences. Further, the law totally ignores the interests of the future inconspicuous cases where one or other possible parent is hopelessly unfitfor such a function. In the interests not only of the individual but thefuture it would be advisable to grant divorce to a person whose partnerhad been confined in a lunatic asylum for, say five years, and who couldbe certified as likely to remain insane permanently, or whose partnerhad been confined in an Inebriates' Home for, say, two terms of oneyear, or who could be proved and certified to be an incurable drunkard. We must abolish these atrocious Separation Orders, with their directpromotion of every kind of immorality, illegitimacy and cruelty towomen. But perhaps this chapter may be brought to a close since inEngland the matter is now before a Royal Commission, and since ourstupidities are of no direct interest to the American reader. It wasnecessary, however, to deal with the subject because of its immediateand urgent bearing upon many of the problems of Womanhood. CHAPTER XIX THE RIGHTS OF MOTHERS We reach here a central question which must be approached from the rightpoint of view or we shall certainly fail to solve it. That point of viewis the child's. There is a school of thought which approaches thequestion otherwise--on abstract principles of justice and individualindependence. The only objection to them is that, if upheld on modernconditions, these principles would soon leave us without anyone touphold them. The relation of the mother to the State is central andfundamental, however considered, and the principles on which it must besettled must, above all, be principles which are compatible with thefundamental conditions on which States can endure. Those principles, surely, are two. The first is that in a State we aremembers one of another, and that those who need help must be helped. This will be indignantly repudiated by a stern school of thought, butwhat if it applies, everywhere, always and above all, to children? Theyare members of the community who need help and they must be helped. Thesecond principle is indeed only a special case of the first. It is thatif the State is to continue, it must rear children. We take it then, first, that the moral and social law is perfectly finalas to the right of every child to existence. There are no principles ofnational welfare which can divorce us from the simple truth that we mustregard every human individual as sacred from the moment of its cominginto existence--and that is a long time before birth. A familiar medicaldogma is, "Keep everything alive. " There may be exceptions to it, but itis dangerous to discuss them with the unprepared. The only safeprinciple is to maintain, as long as possible, the life of all--thecentenarian or the embryo conceived since the sun set. At times theState deliberately takes life on behalf of life. The sentence ofexecution passed upon the murderer may be warrantably passed by theState of the future or its officers upon a monstrous birth, a babyriddled with congenital syphilis or some such horrible fruit of ourpresent carelessness and wickedness in such matters. The State mayregard such children or their survival as illegitimate, since the lawsof nature as we see them at work throughout the living world do notapprove the survival of such. Apart from these cases, all children arelegitimate, and all children are natural. Whatever the history of thereader's parents, he or she was assuredly both a legitimate child and anatural child--a paradox which may be left to the solution of thecurious. Directly a new human being has been conceived, its right toexistence and survival may be conceded. Vast numbers of human beings areconceived every year whose conception is a sin against themselves andthe State. That is a question on which the present writer has writtenand spoken incessantly for years, and which no one can accuse him ofneglecting. But here we have to deal with the facts of the world as theyare and as they will be for some time to come. All children are to be cared for. No child should die; there should beno infant mortality; the children that are not fit to live should not beconceived, and those that are fit to live should be allowed to live; allchildren are legitimate. If the State has any kind of business at all, this is its business. Our subject here, the reader may say, is not children, but woman andwomanhood. The reply is that unless we have our principles rightlyformulated, we cannot solve this question of the rights of women asmothers. Failing our principles, we shall be reduced to the prejudiceswhich serve as principles for our political parties. We shall haveindividualist and socialist at loggerheads, the friends of marriage andits enemies, and many other opposing parties who cannot solve thequestion for us because they have not waited first to discover itsfundamentals. The rights of mothers can be approached only from thepoint of view of the rights of children. We may happen to believe, asthe present writer certainly does, that parents should be responsiblefor their children. He once lectured for, and published the lectures inassociation with, a body called the British Constitution Association, which holds the same belief, but when he found as he did that protestswere raised against any suggestion to help children whose parents do notdo their duty, it became plain that principles which were right in amerely secondary and conditional way were being made absolute andfundamental. The fundamental is that the child shall be cared for; theconditional and secondary principle is that this is best effectedthrough the parents. To say that if the parents will not do it, thechild must be left to starve, is immoral and indecent. Worse words thanthose, if such exist, would be required to describe our neglect ofillegitimate infancy; our cruelty toward widows and orphans; our utterlycareless maintenance of the conditions which produce these haplessbeings in such vast numbers. If every child is sacred, every mother is sacred. If every child is tobe cared for, every mother must be cared for. It is true that we maymake experiment with devices for superseding the mother. Man hasimpudent assurance enough for anything, and if Nature has been workingat the perfection of an instrument for her purpose during a few scoremillion years--an instrument such as the mammalian mother, forinstance--man is quite prepared to invent social devices, such as theincubator, the _crèche_, the infant milk _dépôt_, and so forth; notmerely to make the best of a bad case when the mother fails, but tosupersede the mother altogether directly the baby is born. Such cases, except in the last resort, are more foolish than words can say. We haveto save our children; we can only do so effectively through thenaturally appointed means for saving children, which is motherhood. Therights of mothers follow as a necessary consequence from our firstprinciple, which was the rights of children. Because every child mustbe protected, every mother must be protected, if not in one way, inanother. The State may not be able to afford this. The necessities of existencemay be so difficult to obtain, not to mention for a moment such luxuriesas alcohol and motor-cars and warships and fine clothes and art, and soforth, that no arrangements for the support of motherhood can be made. If we lay down the proposition that no mother should work because she isalready doing the supreme work, it may be replied that this iseconomically impossible; the thing cannot be done. The only reply tothis is that the State which cannot afford to provide rightly for themeans of its continuance had better discontinue, and must in any casesoon do so. Motherhood is rapidly declining as a numerical fact incivilized communities generally. Not merely does the birth-rate fallpersistently and without the slightest regard to the commentatorsthereon, but it will continue to do so for many years to come. In thelight of this fact the great argument of presidents and bishops, politicians and journalists, moralists and social censors generally isthat somehow or other this decline must be arrested. To all of which onereplies, for the thousand and first time, that, whatever it ought to be, it will not be arrested; that the really moral policy, the really humanone, and the only possible one, is to take care of the children that areborn. Then when we have abolished our infant and child mortality andhave solved the substantial problem of finding room for all new-comers, having ceased to far more than decimate them, we may begin cautiouslyto suggest that perhaps if the birth-rate were slightly to rise we mightbe able to cope with the product. At present the disgraceful fact is notthe birth-rate, but what we do with the birth-rate; though moredisgraceful perhaps are the blindness and ignorance and assurance of thehost of commentators in high places who waste their time and ours inanimadverting upon a fact--the falling birth-rate--which is a necessarycondition and consequence of organic progress, whilst the motherhood wehave is so urgently in need of protection and idealization in the mindsof the people. We have reached the conclusion that all motherhood is to be protected. This means that from some source or other the money shall be forthcomingfor the maintenance of the mother and her children. For, in the firstplace, the children are not to work because, if they do, they will notbe able to work as they should in the future. The State cannot afford tolet them work. Further, the proper care of childhood is so continuousand exacting a task, and of such supreme moment, that it is the highestand foremost work that can be named; and therefore, in the second place, she whose business it is must not be hampered by having to do anythingelse. If any labourer is worthy of his hire, she is. Her economicsecurity must be absolute. She must be as safe as the Bank of England, because England and its banks stand or fall with her. In the rightlyconstituted State, if there be any one at all whose provision andmaintenance are absolutely secure, it will be the mothers. Whoever elsehas financial anxiety, they shall have none. Any State that can affordto exist can afford to see to this. No economist can inform me whatproportion of the labour and resources of England are at this momentdevoted to the means of life, and what proportion to superfluities, luxuries and the means of death. But it is a very simple matter withwhich the reader, who is doubtless a better arithmetician than I am, mayamuse himself, to estimate the number of married women of reproductiveage in the community, and allowing anything in reason for illegitimatemotherhood and nothing at all for infertile wives, to satisfy himselfthat the total cost which would be involved in the adequate care ofmotherhood, is a mere fraction of the national expenditure. Few of usrealize how extraordinary and how unprecedented is the margin ofsecurity for existence which modern civilization affords. A savagecommunity may have scarcely any margin at all. The same may be true ofmany primitive communities which cannot be called savage. They maintainlife under such conditions, whether in Greenland or in a thousand otherparts of the world, that they cannot afford to labour for anything whichis not bread. The primary necessities of existence take all theirgetting. Some transient accident of weather or the balance of Nature inthe sea or in the fields imperils the existence of the whole community. They, at any rate, are wise enough to take good care of their women andchildren. But in civilization we have an enormous margin of security. Not only are we dependent on no local crop or harvest, but the gettingof necessities has become so effective and secure that we are able tospend a vast amount of our time and energy on the production of luxuriesand evils. How little, then, is our excuse if we fail to provide thefirst conditions for continuance and progress! Our first principles of the value of the child and therefore ofmotherhood are unchallengeable, nor will anyone nowadays be found toquestion that neither children nor mothers should work in the ordinarysense of that word, since the proper work of children who are to workwell when they grow up is play, and since the mother's natural work isthe most important that she can perform. It remains, then, for us todetermine by whom mothers and children in the modern and future Stateare to be provided for. The conditions of mothers are various, and we shall best approach theproblem by the consideration of different cases. The simplest is that of the widowed mother who is without means. It isonly too common a case, and we have already seen certain causes whichcontribute to the enormous number of widows in the community. Men do notlive as long as women, and men are older when they marry. These naturalcauses of widowhood, as they may be called, are greatly aggravated bythe destructive influence of alcohol upon fatherhood, as will be shownin the chapter dealing with alcohol and womanhood. On the individualistic theory of the State, a theory so brutal and soimpracticable that no one consistently upholds it, the widow'smisfortune is her private affair, but does not really concern us. Herhusband should have provided for her. Indeed she should, and indeed weshould have seen that he did. But if he and we failed in our duty toher, the consequences must be met. The hour is at hand when the Statewill discover that children are its most precious possessions, moreprecious as they grow scarcer, and efficient support will then beforthcoming, as a matter of course, for the widowed mother and herchildren. The feature which will distinguish this support from any pastor present provision will be that it recognizes the natural sanctity andthe natural economy of the relation between mother and children. It willbe agreed not merely that the children must be provided for, but thatthey must be provided for through her. The current device is to divorcemother and children. "Whom God hath joined together, let no man putasunder, " is quoted by many against the divorce of a married pair whom, as is plain, not God but the devil has joined together; but theprinciple of that quotation verily applies to the natural and divineassociation of mother and children. If, then, the State is to provide in future for all widowed mothers andtheir children, husbands need no longer trouble to insure or makeprovision for them. Such is the proper criticism. The reply to it isthat the State will have to see to it that, in future, husbands _do_take this trouble. To this we shall return. Next we may consider the case of the unmarried mother and her"illegitimate" child or children. Here, again, the child must be caredfor, and the care of the child is the work which has been imposed uponthe mother. We must enable her to do it, nor must we countenance themonstrous and unnatural folly, injurious to both and therefore to us, ofseparating them. Napoleon, desirous of food for powder, forbade thesearch for the father in such a case, though the French are now seekingto abrogate that abominable decree. Our law recognizes that the fatheris responsible, and under it he may be made to pay toward the upkeep ofthe child. Some contemporary writers on the endowment of motherhood areadvocating changes which would make this law absurd, for they areseeking to free the married father from any responsibility for hischildren, and could scarcely impose it upon the unmarried father. Suchproposals, however, are palpable reversions to something much lower andæons older in the history of life than mere barbarism, and I have nofear of their success. Assuredly the unmarried father must be heldresponsible; and no less certainly must we see to it that, with orwithout his help, the unmarried mother and her children are adequatelyprovided for. The present death-rate amongst illegitimate children is ascandal of the first order and must be ended. If we are wise, ourprovision will involve protecting ourselves against the need for newprovision, especially where the mother is feeble-minded or otherwisedefective, as is so often the case: but provision there must be. Finally, we come to the central problem of the mother who has a livinghusband in employment. It is the case of the working classes that reallyconcerns us, not least because the greater part of the birth-rate comestherefrom. It is the contemporary settling-down of the birth-rate inthis class, combined with the novel consequences of modernindustrialism, especially in the form of married women's labour, thatmakes the question so important. Before we go any further, theproposition may be laid down that married women's labour, as it commonlyexists, is an intolerable evil, condemned already by our firstprinciples. It need scarcely be said that one is not here referring tothe labours of the married woman who writes novels or designsfashion-plates. There is no condemnation of any kind of labour, in thehome or outside it, if the condition be complied with, that it does notprejudice the inalienable first charge upon the mother's time andenergy. Her children are that first charge. It may perfectly well be, and often is, chiefly though not exclusively in the more fortunateclasses, that the mother may earn money by other work without prejudiceto her motherhood. Such cases do not concern us, but we are urgentlyconcerned with married women's labour in the ordinary sense of the term, which means that the mother goes out to tend some lifeless machine, whilst her children are left at home to be cared far anyhow or not atall. No student of infant mortality or the conditions of child life andchild survival in general has any choice but to condemn this wholepractice as evil, root and branch. And from the national and economicpoint of view it may be said that whatever the mother makes in thefactory is of less value than the children who consequently die at home. The culture of the racial life is the vital industry of any people, andany industry that involves its destruction and needs the conditionswhich make up that destruction, is one which the country cannot afford, whatever its merely monetary balance-sheet. A complete balance-sheet, with its record of children slain, would only too readily demonstratethis. Our right attitude toward married women's labour must depend upon aright understanding of the social meaning of marriage. This was aquestion which had to be dealt with at length in a previous volume and Ican only state here in a word, what was the conclusion come to. It wasthat marriage is a device for supporting and buttressing motherhood byfatherhood. Its mark is that it provides for _common parental care ofoffspring_. A more prosaic way of stating the case would be thatmarriage is a device for making the father responsible. If we go farback in the history of the animal world, we find mating but notmarriage. The father's function is purely physiological, transient andwholly irresponsible. The whole burden of caring for offspring, whenfirst there comes to be need for that care, in the history of organicprogress, falls upon the mother. But even amongst the fishes we findthat sometimes, as in the case of the stickleback, the father helps themother to build a sort of nest, and does "sentry-go" outside it to keepoff marauders. In this common care of the young we see what is in allessentials marriage, though some may prefer to dignify the word byconfining it to those human associations which have been blessed byChurch and State, even though the father throws the baby at the mother, or sends her into the streets to earn her bread and his beer. If some of our modern reformers knew any biology, or even happened tovisit a music-hall where the biograph was showing scenes of bird-life, they would learn that the human arrangement whereby the father goes outand forages for mother and children has roots in hoary antiquity. Thepity is that there is no one to point the moral to the crowd when thefather-bird is seen returning with delicacies for the mother, who tendsher nest and its occupants. The reader will already have anticipated the conclusion, to which, as Isee it, the study of the fundamental laws of life must lead thesociologist in this case. It is that the duty of the father is tosupport the mother and children, and that the duty of the State is tosee that he does this. Thus, if asked whether I believe in the endowment of motherhood, Ireply, yes, indeed, I believe in the endowment of motherhood by thecorresponding fatherhood. If our first principles are sound, we mustbelieve that the mother must be endowed or provided for; there can be nodifference of opinion so far. Often, as we have seen, there is nocorresponding fatherhood, for the mother may be a widow, or unmarriedand unable to find the father. But where the corresponding fatherhoodexists, we fly directly in the face of Nature, we deny the consistentteaching of evolution as the study of sub-human life reveals it to us, if we do not turn to the father and say, this is your act, for which youare responsible. At all times the community has been entitled to say this to the father. It is even more entitled to say so now, when, as everyone knows, parenthood has come so entirely under the sway of human volition. Themore knowledge and power the more responsibility. The more important thedeed, the more responsible must we hold the doer. The time has come whenfatherhood, whether within marriage or without it, must be reckoned adeliberate, provident, foreseen, all-important, responsible act, forwhich the father must always be held to account. On a recent public occasion, having endeavoured to show that the historyof animal evolution teaches us the increasing importance and dignity offatherhood, I was asked whether I had any argument in favour of parentalresponsibility. To this the fitting reply seemed to be that, primarily, I believe in parental responsibility because I believe in humanresponsibility. It need hardly be said that the questioner belonged tothat important political party which loathes the idea of paternalresponsibility and styles it a "fetish. " Without it none of us would behere. Yet the Socialists are less likely than any other party to abandonthe idea of human responsibility. They propose to hold men responsiblefor the remoter effects of their acts--upon the present--as no otherparty does. The maker of money is held to account for his deeds andtheir effect upon the life around him. I agree with the principle: but Imaintain that the maker of men is also to be held to account for hisdeeds and their effect upon the future and the life of this world tocome. No Socialist can afford to question the practical politicalprinciple that men are to be held responsible for their deeds: and noSocialist can explain the sudden and unexplained abandonment of thisprinciple when we come to the most important of all a man's deeds. To beconsistent, the Socialist should uphold the doctrine of a man'sresponsibility for the remoter consequences of his acts in this supremesphere, more earnestly and thoughtfully and providently than any of hisopponents. The position of those who would free the father from responsibility iseven less defensible when, as we commonly find, they are prepared tomake the mother's responsibility more extensive and less avoidable thanever. Why this distinction? And if parental responsibility is a "fetish"when it refers to a father, why is it not the same when it refers to amother? In the schemes of Mr. H. G. Wells, kaleidoscopic in theirglitter and inconsistency, there remains from year to year this onepermanent element, that while the mother must attend to her business, itis no business of the father. This is the essential feature, the onenovelty of his scheme. Already the married mother--he proposes nothingfor the unmarried mother--is legally entitled to some measure ofsupport. His endowment of motherhood is essentially a _discharge offatherhood_, and should be so called. There can be no compromise, nothing but a fight to the finish, between the principle of endowingmotherhood by making fatherhood less responsible, and the principle herefought for, of endowing motherhood by making fatherhood moreresponsible. As Nature has been doing so, in the main line of progressfor many millions of years, --a statement not of interpretation or theorybut of observed fact--I have no fear of the ultimate issue. But itmight well be that any portion of mankind, perhaps a portion ill to bespared, should destroy itself by an attempt to run counter to the greatprinciple of progress here stated. There is an abundance of men who willbe very happy to side with Mr. Wells. Men have never been wanting, inany time or place, who were happy to gratify their instincts withouthaving to answer for the consequences; and it has always been the firstissue of any society that was to endure, to see that they did not havetheir way: hence human marriage. The "endowment of motherhood" sounds asif it were a scheme greatly for the benefit of women. Let them beware. Let them begin to think of, not the remoter, but the immediate andobvious consequences of any such schemes as are proffered by the overtor covert enemies of marriage, and they will quickly perceive that _thelast way in which to secure the rights of women is to abrogate theduties of men_. The support allotted to such schemes as these is notfeminine but masculine. That is the impression I derive from discussionsfollowing lectures on the subject; and that is what I should expect, judging from the natural tendencies of men, and the profound intuitionof women in such matters. And, conversely, the opposition to suchprinciples as are expressed here, and embodied in the "Women's Charter, "will be masculine. But woman has been civilizing man from the beginning, and she will have her way here also--for, in the last resort, not merelyyouth, but the Unborn must be served. Before we consider the alternative suggestions that some are making, and proceed to indicate how the paternal endowment of motherhood can beenforced in every class, as public opinion practically enforces it inthe upper and middle classes, let us meet the objection that, iffatherhood is to be made so serious an act, and if so muchself-sacrifice is to be exacted from those who undertake it, themarriage-rate and the birth-rate will fall more rapidly. And as regardsthe marriage-rate, the answer is that marriage and parenthood are notinseparable, a proposition which might be much amplified if a writer whowishes to be heard could afford to have the courage of everybody'sconvictions. But already, in the middle classes, men limit theirfamilies to the number they can support. They simply practiseresponsible fatherhood, and the mothers and children are protected. Onwhat moral grounds this is to be condemned, no one has yet told us. And as regards the effect of more stringent responsibility forfatherhood upon the birth-rate, it must be replied, for the thousandthtime in this connection, that the question for a nation is not how manybabies are born, but how many survive. The idea of a baby is that itshall grow up and become a citizen; if babies remained babies peoplewould soon cease to complain about the fall in the birth-rate. But, inpoint of fact, a vast number of babies and children are unnecessarilyslain, and if we could suddenly arrest the whole of this slaughter, theincrease of population would become so formidable that everyone woulddeplore the unmanageable height of the birth-rate. Its present fall isquite incapable of arrest, and is perfectly compatible with as rapid anincrease of population as any one could desire. We must arrest thedestruction of so much of the present birth-rate, so that it meansnought for the future. By nothing else will this arrest be soaccelerated as by those very measures for making fatherhood moreresponsible for the care of motherhood, which are here advocated. Let itbe freely granted that these measures will lower the birth-rate. Muchmore will they lower the infant mortality and child death-rate, anddiminish the permanent damaging of vast multitudes of children whoescape actual destruction. And now we can turn to those proposals which have lately been revived byone or two popular writers in England, for the endowment of motherhoodby the State, leaving the fathers in peace to spend their earnings asthey please, whilst others support their children. Detailed criticism isnot needed, for the details to criticize are not forthcoming, and theopinions on principles and on details of these imaginative writers arenever twice the same. It suffices that proposals such as these, apartfrom their vagueness and their obvious impracticability in any form, aredirectly condemned by the fundamental principle that a man shall beresponsible for his acts. The endowment of motherhood, as Mr. Wellsmeans it, is simply a phrase for making men responsible for theirneighbours' acts and for striking hard and true at the root principle ofall marriage, human or sub-human, which is the common parental care ofoffspring. Reference is made to this proposal here, not that it reallyneeds criticism, but in order that one may be clearly excluded from anyparticipation in such proposals. The difference between such schemes for the endowment of motherhood andthe proposal here advocated is that those seek to endow the mother bymaking the father less responsible--or, rather, whollyirresponsible--while this seeks to endow her by making the father moreresponsible. The whole verdict of the ages is, as we have seen, on theside of this principle. It has been practised for æons, and it is theaim of sound legislation and practice everywhere to-day. As has been admitted, the more we express this principle, the lower willfall, not necessarily the marriage-rate, but the parent-rate; fewer menwill become fathers, _but they will be fitter_. There will be fewerchildren born, but they will be children planned, desired and loved inanticipation, as every child should be, and will be in the goldenfuture. These children will not die, but survive; nor will theirdevelopment be injured by early malnutrition and neglect. The believerin births as births will not be gratified, but there will be abundanceof gratification for the believer in births as means to ends. The practical working-out of our principle is no more difficult thanmight be expected if it be remembered that we are counselling nothingrevolutionary nor even novel. The demand simply is that the practicewhich obtains among the more fortunate classes shall be made universal, and that the State shall see that all fathers who can, do their duty. The State will be quite busy and well employed in this task, which maylegitimately be allotted to it even on the strictly individualist andSpencerian principles, that the maintenance of justice is alone theState's province. We allot a great function to the State, but deny thatit can rightly or safely set the father aside and perform his duty forhim. The kind of means whereby the rights of mothers may be granted them isindicated in the Women's Charter which has lately been formulated andadvocated by Lady Maclaren. The principle there recognized is that thehusband's wages are not solely his own earnings, but are in part handedto him to be passed on to his wife. Directly children are concerned, theState should be. Whatever the answer to the crudely-stated question, "Should Wives haveWages?" it is certain that mothers should and must have wages or theirequivalent. To many of the well-wishers of women it is disappointing that theWomen's Charter is not more keenly supported by women themselves. Unfortunately the suffrage has become a fetish, the mere means hasbecome an end, preferred even to the offer of the real ends, such aswould be attained in very large measure by this Charter. We see here, itis to be feared, the same spirit which protests against the wisest andmost humane legislation in the interests of women and children because"men have no business to lay down the law for women. " In general terms, one would argue that the principle of insurance mustbe applied to this case, as it is now voluntarily applied by thousandsof provident fathers. Here the State may guarantee and help, even bythe expenditure of money. It should help those who help themselves. Thisis a principle which may apply to many forms of insurance or provision, whether for old age or against invalidity; just as non-contributoryold-age provisions are fundamentally wrong in principle, and have neverbeen defended on any but party-political grounds of expedience, even bytheir advocates, so the "endowment of motherhood" which meant thecomplete liberation of fatherhood from its responsibilities would bewrong in principle. But in both of these cases the State might rightlyundertake to help those who help themselves. Fatherhood of the new order will not be so wholly irksome and unrewardedas might at first appear to the critic who does not reckon children asrewards themselves. It may involve some momentary sacrifices, but itneeds very little critical study of the ordinary man's expenditure todiscover that, on the whole, these sacrifices will be more apparent thanreal. It is, for instance, a very great sacrifice indeed for the smokerto give up tobacco; but once he has done so, he is as happy as he was, and suffers nothing at all for the gain of his pocket. Both as regardsalcohol and tobacco, the common expenditure which would so amply providemilk and the rest for children, is necessitated by an acquired habitwhich, like all acquired habits, can be discarded. The non-smoker andnon-drinker does _not_ suffer the discomfort of the smoker and drinkerwho is deprived of his need. These things cease to be needs at all, soonafter they are dispensed with, or if the habit of taking them is neverbegun. They are luxuries only to those who use them. To those who do notthey are nothing, and the lack of them is nothing. The sheer waste theyentail is gigantic, and the expenditure on them in such a country asEngland would endow all its motherhood and provide good conditions forall its children. The father who, in the future, is compelled to yieldthe rights of mothers and children, may sometimes be compelled topractise what at first looks like great self-restraint in theserespects. The point I wish to make is that the sacrifice and the needfor restraint are transient, and that thereafter there is simply moreliberty and the promise of longer life for the wise. The working-out will be that the legislation of the future will benefitthe right kind of husband and father, but will restrain and irk thewrong kind. But that is precisely what good legislation should do. Thusthe right kind of father, who in any case will do his best to care forhis wife and children, will be helped in the future by the State. Itwill insist that he does the duty which in any case he means to do, butit will make the doing easier. We see admirably working parallels tothis in the German insurance laws and their provision for death, diseaseand old age. They benefit those whom they appear to harass. Insuranceagainst fatherhood will work in the same way. The State will not beantagonistic to the father, but will be his best friend, knowing that_its_ best friends are good fathers and mothers. There will be far lessworry and anxiety for well-meaning parents, especially for mothers, butalso for fathers. Nor do I, for one, much mind how substantial may bethe State's contribution to the father's efforts, provided only thatthose efforts are demanded and obtained. Nothing is more certain than that we are about to free ourselves fromthe crass blindness of the nineteenth century in its great delusion thatthe wealth of a nation consists in the number of things it makes andpossesses. Parenthood and childhood will shortly come to be recognizedas the first concern of the State that is to continue, and whilst thebirth-rate continues to fall, the honour paid to fathers and motherswill continue to rise. We shall become as wise in time as the Jews havebeen ever since we have record of them. We shall estimate the relativevalue of these things as well as if we were the kinds of people we call"Savages. " Fatherhood will not be such an uncompensated sacrifice inthose days, even apart from its inherent rewards. The point I am trying to make is that the legislation and the socialchanges here advocated as necessary in the interests of women, andindeed asserted to be their rights, do not involve any injury to men. This common delusion is a mere instance of the poisonous principle ofpoliticians, notably fiscal politicians, and of many business men. Theirbelief is that what benefits Germany must hurt England, that what hurtsGermany must benefit England, that all trade is a question of somebodyscoring off another or being scored off. The idea that there are greatgames in which both sides stand to win, if they "play the game, " ismeaningless to them. That German prosperity can favour Englishprosperity, that true commerce is a mutual exchange for mutualbenefit--these are notions obviously absurd to people who think on thishorrible assumption which reigns unchallenged in a thousand columns offiscal controversy every morning. And when these people turn to thequestion of legislation as between the sexes, they naturally assume thatanything which promises to benefit women will injure men. The vote isthus regarded as a means of injuring men--necessarily, because itadvantages women--and assuredly such people will suppose that anymeasures in the direction of granting what I here prefer to call the"rights of mothers" (leaving to one side the "rights of women"), necessarily involve a proportionate disadvantage to men. I deny itutterly: The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink Together, dwarfed or God-like, bond or free. The rights of mothers, we have seen, are fundamental for any society, and to satisfy them is to meet the most clearly primary of social needs. But there will be some readers of this book, perhaps, who miss anydiscussion of the "rights of women. " I do not care for the phrase, because I do not think that we often see it usefully employed. For methe propositions are self-evident that men and women, being humanbeings, have the rights of human beings. Each of us has the right to theconditions of the most complete self-development and expression that iscompatible with the granting of the same right to others. It is truethat women have been largely debarred from these conditions as a sex, and in so far there is some meaning in the phrase "Women's rights. " Butotherwise we all agree that men and women alike have the right which hasjust been stated in terms that are a paraphrase of Herbert Spencer'sdefinition of liberty. Men's rights and women's rights are the rights to"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. " If any one disputes theapplication of this principle to women as unreservedly as to men, I willnot argue with him. I write for decent people. At this stage in the development of civilization, our business is tosee, first, that our social proceedings and reconstructions ofenterprises are compatible with the nature of the human individual, maleand female. It is always necessary for us to be reminded of the facts ofthe individual, for in the last resort they will determine the failureor the success of all our schemes. And then we must see where ourexisting social structure fails to satisfy the needs of individualdevelopment and of individual duty. In seeking to rectify what may herebe wrong, of course we must take first things first--we must set thecase right for the most important people before we go on to the others. Now it is the simple, obvious truth, --so obvious and unchallengeablethat somehow it has never been stated--that in any human society theparents are the most important people. The division is not betweeneducation and the lack of it, or wealth and the lack of it, or breedingand the lack of it. It is not the aristocracy that matters supremely;nor the "great middle-class"; nor the masses; nor the teachers; nor thedoctors; nor the servants of modern industrialism. The classification isa biological one--into parents and non-parents. The non-parents may beinvaluable in their way, if only they beget something that is valuable. Heaven forbid that I should undervalue the children of the mind. But ifwe are to classify any nation, the first and last classification of anymoment is none of those in which we always indulge and which all ourcustoms and traditions and prejudices are ever seeking to perpetuate;but the classification into those who will die childless and those whocreate the future race. That is why, for me at any rate, the subject ofwomen's rights is jejune and sterile compared with the subject of thischapter. First let us ascertain the rights of mothers and grant them, tothe very uttermost; then let us do the same for the fathers. Let usexact of each the corresponding duties; and the next generation, broughtinto being under such conditions, will solve all our problems. Butwhilst we neglect the first things we shall permanently solve no problemat all. We may seem to do so, but if we dishonour parenthood, if weleave the inferior women to mother the future, the degenerate race thatmust ensue will find itself in difficulties compared with which ours aretrivial, and our solutions of them impotent. That is why I seek to draw attention to the rights not of women aswomen, --for neither men nor women have any peculiar rights as men orwomen--nor yet to the rights of wives as wives, but to the rights ofmothers as mothers, whether married or unmarried, whether husbanded orwidowed. The rights of women are the rights of human beings, and nospecial concern of a writer on woman and womanhood, paradoxical as theassertion may be. The rights of wives are often discussed, but Iquestion whether the discussion ever helped a wife yet, except solely inthe matter of her monetary claims upon her husband. Discussion andpublic opinion and consequent legislation can effect, and have effected, something for wives as wives in this matter. In other matters, much morevital to their happiness, each case is unique because all individualsare unique; and the discussion of the questions can amount to no morethan futile and obvious platitude. But when motherhood is concerned the monetary question becomes worthy ofthe adjective economic, so often prostituted, for the making of futurelife depends upon the provision of adequate means. The whole essence ofmotherhood is that it is a dedication of the present to the future. Every mother is in the position of the inventor or the poet or themusician for whose work the present makes no demand and no payment. Thefuture is being served, but the future is not there to pay. The rightsof mothers are the rights of the future, and its claims upon thepresent. It can be abundantly shown that increasing prevision or provision marksthe ascent of organic Nature; that as life ascends the present is moreand more dedicated to the future. The completeness of this dedication isthe most exemplary fact of the many which the bee-hive provides for ourinstruction and following. Consider the dedication of the hive to thequeen. Realize that she is not in any way the ruler of the hive, but sheis _the only mother in it_. She is the parent, and, on our principles, she is therefore the most important person in the hive. No one else hasany rights but to serve her, for the future absolutely depends upon her. So does the future of our society depend upon its mothers. In ourspecies there are many and not one, as in the bee-hive. If there werejust one individual who was to be the mother of the next generation, even our politicians would perceive that she was the most importantperson in the community, and that her rights were supreme. But theprinciple stands, though, as it happens, human mothers are not one ineach generation, but many. They are in our society what the queen bee isin the hive, and the future will transcend the present and the past justin so far as they are well-chosen, and well cared for. To the best of my belief this principle has not yet been recognized byany one. The rights of women and the rights of wives are oftendiscussed, but the rights of mothers is a term expressing a principlewhich is not to be called new, only because in the bee-hive, forinstance, we see it expressed and inerrably served. Perhaps it may be permitted to close with a personal reminiscence which, at any rate, bears on the genesis of this chapter. Some nine years agowhen I was resident-surgeon to the Edinburgh Maternity Hospital, Iproposed to get up a concert for the patients on Boxing Day, and onasking permission of the distinguished obstetrician who was in supremecharge, was met with the question, "Do they deserve it?" After severalseconds there slowly dawned the fact which I knew but had longforgotten, that the mothers in the large ward where the music wasproposed, were all unmarried, and finally I answered, "I don't know. "Nor do I know to this day, and though the answer was given in weaknessand in a disconcerted voice, I doubt whether any wiser one could beframed. We all know what desert means, and merit and credit, until webegin to think and study: and we end by discovering that we do not knowwhat, in the last analysis, these terms mean. But, at any rate, thesewomen, --one of them, I remember, was a child of fourteen--were mothers, and whatever favoured their convalescence unquestionably made for thesurvival of their babies. It might have been argued that if the patientsdid not deserve music, they did not deserve the air and light and foodand skill and kindness with which they were being restored to health. But it is not a question of deserts. These women were mothers. If theyshould not have been, they should not have been, and if the blame wastheirs, they were blameworthy. But mothers they were, with the dutiesof mothers to perform, and therefore with the rights of mothers. Theygot their concert and were all the better for the remarkably indifferentmusic of which it consisted, as such concerts commonly do; and I am onlyvery sorry if any of them argued therefrom that she had nothing in thepast to regret. But the spiritual attitude revealed in the question, "Do they deserveit?" is one which must speedily go to its own place. Let us strive todignify marriage, to educate the young of both sexes for parenthood, toreduce illegitimacy, to reward virtue. But where there is motherhood inbeing, whether expectant or achieved, we have a duty which is thehighest and most sacred of all because it is the Future that we arecalled upon to serve, and upon us it wholly depends. As Mr. John Burns said to our first Infant Mortality Conference in GreatBritain in 1907, "Let us dignify, purify and glorify motherhood by everymeans in our power. " Evidently this can only be done through marriage, which is in its very essence an institution for the dignifying ofmotherhood. But a biological writer cannot distinguish as a theologiancan between legal and extra-legal motherhood. He may declare thatmotherhood is hideously illegitimate when it is forced upon a wifemarried to an inebriate degenerate. He may accept marriage with all hisheart as an institution which for him has natural sanctions millions ofyears older than any Church or State or mankind itself. But for him as astudent of life all motherhood must be guarded as such--even if it beguarded in such a fashion that it can never recur, which is our duty tothe feeble-minded mother. If there be any reader who is unacquainted with M. Maeterlinck's "Lifeof the Bee, " let him or her study that instructive book. Let him ask whythe queen is the End of the hive, why all is for her. Let him askwhether the natural law upon which this depends--the law that allindividuals are mortal--does not apply to all races, even our own, andperhaps he will come to agree that the rights of mothers are the oldestand deepest and most necessary of any rights that can be named. And the recognition and granting of them--as they must necessarily berecognized and granted in every living race that depends uponmotherhood--is even more imperative in our case than in any other, sincehuman motherhood makes more demands upon the individual than any other. By our constitution we human beings must devote more of our energies tothe Future than any other race. But it is a Future better worth workingfor than any of theirs. CHAPTER XX WOMEN AND ECONOMICS It will be evident that the writer of the foregoing chapter must havesomething to say on the question of women and economics, but though whatmust be said seems to me to be very important, it can be stated at nogreat length. If we turn to the most widely-read and applauded of the feminist bookson this subject, _Women and Economics_, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, weare by no means encouraged to find it stated in the first chapter thatwoman's present economic inferiority to man is not due to "any inherentdisability of sex. " Wherever Mrs. Gilman may be right, here thebiologist knows that she is wrong. The argument has been fully stated inearlier pages, and need not here be restated. But we shall not besurprised if a premise which denies any natural economic disadvantage ofwomen leads to more than dubious conclusions. Only a few pages later, Mrs. Gilman refers to the argument that theeconomic dependence of women upon their husbands is defensible on theground that they perform the duties of motherhood, and the following isher comment thereon: "The claim of motherhood as a factor in economic exchange is false to-day. But suppose it were true. Are we willing to hold this ground, even in theory? Are we willing to consider motherhood as a business, a form of commercial exchange? Are the cares and duties of the mother, her travail and her love, commodities to be exchanged for bread? "It is revolting so to consider them; and if we dare face our own thoughts, and force them to their logical conclusion, we shall see that nothing could be more repugnant to human feeling, or more socially and individually injurious, than to make motherhood a trade. " Surely this is special pleading and not very plausible at that. It maybe replied, "Is not the labourer worthy of his hire?"--however noble thelabour. If we choose to call society's or a husband's support ofmotherhood "a form of commercial exchange, " it is indeed "revolting" soto see it; let us then look at the case as it is. We applaud the "caresand duties of the mother, her travail and her love"; but the moreassiduous her maternity, and the more admirable, the more certainly willshe require to be fed. If she cannot simultaneously feed her child andforage for herself, somebody must forage for her; and to say thattherefore the cares and duties of the mother, her travail and her love, become commodities to be exchanged for bread, is simply to cloud a clearcase with question-begging epithets. Always, everywhere, if motherhoodis to be performed at its highest, the mother must be supported. It isnot a question of commercial exchange, but of obvious natural necessity. The foregoing chapter with its argument for the rights of mothers as agreat and neglected social principle, may be unsound throughout, but itwill certainly not be refuted by sentences such as these. Briefly, Mrs. Gilman proposes to "do away with the family kitchen anddining-room, to transform all domestic service from the incapable, hand-to-mouth standard of untrained amateurs to that of professionalexperts, to raise the work of child nursing and rearing to a scientificand skilled basis, to secure the self-support of the wife and motherthrough skilled labour, so that she may be economically independent ofher husband. " But if her child nursing and rearing are to be scientific and skilled, and she is simultaneously to support herself through skilled labour, sheclearly requires to be two women or one woman in two places at the sametime. This, in effect, is what Mrs. Gilman expects. We have seen thatMr. H. G. Wells's proposed help for motherhood consists in dischargingfatherhood from its duties: Mrs. Gilman's idea is to double the mother'swork. Both come to much the same thing. All women, mothers or other, are to become economically independent, instead of being "parasitic on the male, " our author's unpleasing way ofrecognizing that fatherhood has reached high and responsible estateamongst mankind. Now if Mrs. Gilman's solution be feasible, we mustreturn to our fundamentals and see whether they are compatible with it. She has no doubt of it. Thus:-- "If it could be shown that the women of to-day were growing beards, were changing as to pelvic bones, were developing bass voices, or that in their new activities they were manifesting the destructive energy, the brutal combative instinct, or the intense sex-vanity of the male, then there would be cause for alarm. But the one thing that has been shown in what study we have been able to make of women in industry is that they are women still, and this seems to be a surprise to many worthy souls ... 'the new woman' will be no less female than the 'old' woman ... She will be, with it all, more feminine. "The more freely the human mother mingles in the natural industries of a human creature, as in the case of the savage woman, the peasant woman, the working-woman everywhere who is not overworked, the more rightly she fulfils these functions. "[20] We may not be so sure that there is not some evidence for "growingbeards, " "developing bass voices, " and "manifesting the destructiveenergy, the brutal combative instinct, or the intense sex-vanity of themale"; and in our brief attempt to make a first study of womanhood inthe light of Mendelism, we have seen good reason to understand whymasculine characters may come to the surface in the female whosefemininity has worn thin. Several of the lower animals definitely showus the possibilities. But we need not accept the issue on the grounds of such superficialmanifestations as these, for there are others, more subtle and vastlymore important, on which must be fought the question whether women inindustry are women still, and whether the "new woman" is more femininethan the old. Let us dismiss the extremes in both directions. We neednot adduce the members of the Pioneer Club, who show their increasingfemininity by donning male attire; nor need we question that largenumbers of women in industry continue to remain feminine still. Thepractical question which we must determine, if possible, is the averageeffect of industrial conditions and the assumption of the functionscommonly supposed to be more suitably masculine, upon women in general. Here we definitely join issue with Mrs. Gilman. It is impossible to discuss, as we might well do, the available evidenceas to the effect of external activities upon that wonderful function ofwomanhood which, in its correspondence with the rhythm of the tides, hints, like many other of our attributes, at our distant origin in theSea--the mother of all living. Reference was made in an earlier chapterto this function, and its use as, in most cases at any rate, a criterionof womanhood and a gauge of the effect of physical exercise or mentalexercise thereupon. The writer of "Women and Economics" has nothing tosay on this subject--less, if possible, than on the subject oflactation. The menstrual function would admirably and fundamentallyillustrate the present contention, but it will be better to take thegreat maternal and mammalian function of nursing as a criterion ofwomanhood, and as a test of the contention that the more freely themother works as do the savage woman and the peasant woman, the morerightly she fulfils the "primal physical functions of maternity. " Before we consider the actual evidence (and Mrs. Gilman does not deal atall in evidence on these fundamentals to her argument) let us meet theargument about the "savage woman, " who works as hard as men do, --thoughmuch less hard than early observers of savage life supposed--and who isnevertheless a successful mother. It is completely forgotten that, justas parenthood, both fatherhood and motherhood, demands more of theindividual as we rise in the scale of animal evolution, so, within ourown species, the same holds good. In general, the mothers of civilizedraces are the mothers of babies whose heads are larger at birth (as theywill be in adult life), than those of savage babies. It is true that thecivilized woman has, on the average, a considerably larger pelvis thanthat of, for instance, the negress. There must be a feasible, practicable ratio between the two sets of measurements if babies are toenter the world at all. But the increasing size of the human head is agreat practical problem for women. No one can say how many millions haveperished in the past because their pelves were too narrow for theincreasing demands thus made upon them, and doubtless the greatercapacity of the female pelvis in higher races is mainly due to thisterrible but racially beneficent process of selection, by which womenwith pelves nearer (e. G. ) to negro type, have been rejected, and womenwith wider pelves have survived, to transmit their breadth of pelvis totheir daughters and carry on the larger-headed races. But even nowobstetricians are well aware that the practical mechanical problem forthe civilized woman is much more serious than for her savage sister; andthe argument that civilized women would discharge maternal functions aswell as savage women if they worked as hard is therefore worthless. Let us return now to the question of nursing capacity. "Bass voices"and "beards" are doubtless unlovely in woman, but their extensiveappearance would be of no consequence at all compared with thedisappearance or weakening of the mammalian function which, as everyoneknows or should know, is the dominating factor in the survival or deathof infancy. Now it may be briefly asserted that civilized woman, andmore especially industrial woman, threatens to cease to be a mammal. Ifthis assertion can be substantiated, and if the "economic independenceof women" necessarily involves it, no biologist, no medical man, nofirst-hand student of life, will hesitate to condemn finally the idealtoward which Mrs. Gilman and those who think with her would have us go. Things may be bad, things _are_ very bad: the lot of woman must beraised immensely, because the race must be raised, and cannot be raisedotherwise; but progress is going forward and not backward, Mr. Chesterton notwithstanding. Woman will not become more than a mammal bybecoming less, and going back on that great achievement of ascendinglife. Individuals may do so, and are doing so, lamentably misdirected asmany of them now are; but that is the end of them and their kind. It isquite easy to stamp out motherhood and its inevitable economicdependence, but with it you stamp out the future. It is generally admitted that our women nurse their babies less thanthey used to do. It is as generally admitted that this is oftendeliberate choice, and we all know that it is often economic necessity:the human mother "mingles in the natural industries of a humancreature, " such as the factory affords, and cannot simultaneously stayat home to nurse her baby, making men--for which, as a "naturalindustry" of women, even as against making, say, lead-glaze for china, there may be something to be said. But whilst popular preachers and castigators of the sins of societyfulminate against the fine lady who asks for belladonna and refuses todo her duty, we must enquire to what extent, if any, women no longernurse their babies because they cannot, try they never so patiently andstrenuously. It is the general belief amongst those whose daily workqualifies them for an opinion, that women are tending to lose the powerof nursing. Professor von Bunge, whose name is honoured by all studentsof the action of drugs, has satisfied himself that alcoholism in thefather is a great cause of incapacity to nurse in daughters. Howeverthat interpretation may be, the fact seems clear; and the change in thisdirection is evidently much more rapid than might be accounted for bythe improvement in artificial feeding of infants leading to the survivalof daughters of mothers unable to nurse, and transmitting theirinability to their children. Mrs. Gilman--having ignored menstruationaltogether--makes only one allusion to this vastly important subject, and we shall see to what extent her sanguine assumption is justified. According to her, "A healthy, happy, rightly occupied motherhood shouldbe able to keep up this function (of nursing) longer than is nowcustomary--to the child's great gain. " There can be no question aboutthe child's great gain; but what is the evidence for supposing that amother earning her own living in free competition with men--which iswhat a "healthy, happy, rightly occupied motherhood" means in thisconnection--can thus spend her energies twice over, unlike any othersource of energy known? According to official statistics, maternal lactation is steadilydecreasing in several German cities, notably in Berlin, where only 56. 2per cent. Of infants under one month were suckled by their mothers in1905, as against 65. 6 per cent. In 1895, and 74. 3 per cent. In 1885. Atnine months of age 22. 4 per cent. Were suckled in 1905, 34. 6 per cent. In 1895, 49 per cent. In 1885. Other towns show more favourable results;a general decrease, however, is marked. These facts cannot be ascribed, according to the author, [21] to a growing disinclination tobreast-feeding, nor to the employment of mothers (in Prussia only 5 percent. Of the married women are employed in manufacture). The questionwhether the decrease in breast-feeding is due to the industrialemployment of women before marriage, or to (inherited) degeneration, remains to be determined. According to a recent statement by Professor von Bunge, the conditionsare very similar now in Switzerland, where only about one mother in fivecan nurse her children. Similar evidence could be cited from other sources, and the fact beingadmitted must evidently be reckoned with. That the modern development of infant feeding will serve to replacenatural lactation, must be denied, and this without prejudice to themagnificent work of the late Professor Budin of Paris and ProfessorMorgan Rotch of Harvard. These pioneers and their followers have devisedsome admirable second bests--admirable, that is, relatively to some ofthe pitiable methods which they have superseded, but relatively to themother's breast not admirable at all. At the beginning of the campaignagainst infant mortality, the crèche and the sterilized milk dépôt andthe fractional analysis of cow's milk and its recomposition in suitableproportions of proteid, fat, etc. , as devised by Rotch, were rightlyacclaimed and admitted to save vast numbers of infant lives. All this ismere stop-gap, wonderfully effective, no doubt, but only stop-gapnevertheless. In France they are going ahead, and public opinion inLondon is being slowly persuaded to follow along the more recent Frenchlines. The modern principle upon which we should act is Nature'sprinciple--saving the children through their mothers. Expectantmotherhood must be taken care of; we must feed, not the child, but thenursing mother, and the child through her. If we rightly take care ofher, she will construct a perfect food for the child. There is no otherpath of racial safety. It is not our present concern to deal with theproblems of infancy and childhood as they require, and surely we neednot wait to prove that nursing motherhood cannot safely be superseded, but must be retained and safeguarded. If this postulate be granted, we have to determine how it comes aboutthat the German figures, for instance, are showing this extraordinarilyrapid decline in maternal lactation. As has already been noted inpassing, we must reject the suggestion that the natural type of women ischanging. Such a change of natural type in any living race can occuronly through selection for parenthood, and such selection in the case inquestion can scarcely be imagined to occur in the direction of choosingwomen who are naturally less capable of nursing. On the contrary, thetendency of the selective principle must always be toward the greatersurvival of infants whose mothers can nurse them, and who in their turn, if they are to be women, will be more likely to be able to nurse theirchildren. Further, the action of selection cannot demonstrate itselfmore quickly than is permitted by the length of human generations. Itmust therefore be rejected as any interpretation of this case. If womenare ceasing to be able to nurse their babies, and if this change isoccurring with such extraordinary rapidity as the German figuresindicate, plainly the explanation must be found in the action of somerecent and novel condition or conditions upon womanhood. Perhaps it need scarcely be insisted that the distinction here sought tobe made is of the utmost importance. If the natural type of womanhoodwere actually changing, we could scarcely do more than observe anddespair, but if it be merely that the capacities of this generation ofwomen are being modified by the particular conditions to which they aresubjected, plainly we who have made those conditions can modifythem--"What man has made, man can destroy. " If we come to ask ourselves what these recent and novel conditions are, the answer is only too ready at hand. The principles which will guide ustoward discovering it have been set forth at length in the earlierchapters of this book. Let us recur to our Geddes and Thomson, and atonce we have the key. The production of milk is an act of anabolism orbuilding-up, such as we have seen to be characteristic of the femalesex, involving the accumulation and storage of quantities of energy solarge that if they were stated in the units of the physicist they wouldastonish us. If we consider what the child achieves in the way ofmovement and development and growth, and if we realize that at the mostrapid period of development and growth, all the energy therefor has beengathered, prepared, and is dispensed by the nursing mother, we shallbegin to realize what an astonishing feat that is which she performs. Itis in reality, of course, the same feat which is performed by theexpectant mother, only that it is slightly less arduous, since afterbirth the child can breathe and digest for itself. Perhaps the reader will begin to realize what Mrs. Gilman and those whothink with her are asking us to believe when they say that the primalphysical functions of maternity will be best fulfilled by the mother who"mingles in the natural industries of a human creature. " This statementis either ridiculously false or can be rendered true by rendering it asa truism. The primal physical functions of maternity _are_ the naturalindustries of the particular human creature we call a mother; and thebetter she fulfils them, the better she fulfils them, certainly. But theso-called natural industries in which the modern mother is desired tobe engaged whilst she is bearing or nursing her children are asunnatural as anything can be. As at present practised, they are morbidproducts of civilization which it will require to cast off if it is tosurvive. It is the student of life and its laws who must have the last word inthese matters. If he utters it wrongly or is unheeded, Nature is notmocked, but will be avenged. The writer who can lay down a new principleon which our life is to be based, without paying any more attention tolactation than is to be found in the argument we have been considering, has left out the beginning, has omitted the foundations. No measure ofearnestness or literary skill can save her case. Of course the reply will be that the biological criticism is simply theancient and oriental idea of woman as a helpless dependent, reassertedfor male advantage in our own day. One cannot believe that it isnecessary to rebut that accusation. It is necessary, however, to examinesomewhat the words "economic dependence" and "economic independence"which are employed with such naïve antithesis in this controversy. When we examine Mrs. Gilman's proposal for the salvation of woman, wefind it to mean that in future mothers are to do double work. Theglorious consummation is to be that woman is no longer "parasitic on themale, " which is Mrs. Gilman's way of expressing the great truth that themother for whom the father works, represents the future supported by thepresent. But the future is always supported by the present. Woman, we began bysaying, is Nature's supreme organ of the future, and the present mustlive for her and die for her. When we say the future, we mean childhood. If childhood is to appear and to survive, womanhood must be dedicated toit, and manhood, which stands for the present, must supply its own linkin the chain. The following paragraph from an unsigned article whichappeared some years ago in the _Morning Post_ states the case in a formwhich may convince the reader. It was headed "Repairs and Renewals ofthe People, " and ran as follows:-- "It is, indeed, seldom sufficiently realized how much a nation, so to speak, lives always in and for the future. Broadly speaking, of every ten persons living in the United Kingdom now, four are less than twenty years of age, while three of the rest are women (two of them married women)--that is to say, people also mainly concerned, through the care of children, with the future rather than with the present. Upon the remaining three men, one of whom be it noted is over fifty-five, falls the bulk of the work of providing for immediate needs and so releasing the others to provide for the continuance of the race. A definite large share of all the present activities of a people is required and, as it were, pledged to provide for its renewal. If it fails to allow sufficient, it may, just like a company or a municipal concern with an inadequate depreciation fund, show large profits and great prosperity for a time; it cannot be regarded as a sound concern. " The reader must decide whether there is more light and leading in theinterpretation that upon men falls the bulk of the work of providing forimmediate needs, and so enabling women to provide for the continuanceof the race, or, in Mrs. Gilman's version that woman is parasitic uponthe male. The future, if she likes to state it in that way, is parasiticupon the present, always has been and always will be. The case which sheimagines to be unique and morbid, peculiar to civilized mankind, isprecisely the case of the hen bird who sits upon her eggs, incubatingthe future, whilst the male goes and forages for her. She is parasiticupon the male, as Mrs. Gilman would put it. The truth is that, like many other women dominated by sexantagonism--which glares ferociously from such paragraphs as that whichwas quoted regarding "the brutal combative instinct or the intensesex-vanity of the male"--Mrs. Gilman, in seeking to further theinterests of her sex, proposes to dispense with the help of its bestfriend, which is the other sex. It is not easy to speak with patience ofthose who thus seek to set the house of mankind against itself, to theinjury of men, women and children alike. No doubt it is true that Mrs. Gilman's attitude is engendered by sexantagonism as we see it everywhere in men--though for some obscurereason it is only so labelled when displayed by women. No doubt, also, amuch better case can be made out for Mrs. Gilman's proposals, up to apoint, than could be made out for corresponding proposals on the otherside. No one who thinks for a moment can question that all proposalswhatsoever to make either sex independent of the other are starkmadness; yet there is a certain short-lived plausibility in the argumentthat women are to be independent of men, and this depends upon the factwhich we have already attempted to demonstrate and interpret by means ofMendelism, that women are more than men, and that womanhood includeslatent manhood. If, therefore, we are careful with the argument andboldly rush past the really crucial places, such as the conditions andneeds of expectant and nursing motherhood, we can make out what lookslike a case for the economic dependence of women. Each sex is to workfor itself, and then there need be no more quarrelling. But we could not go even so far with any theory for making menindependent of women without seeing that we were no less wrong on thatside than Mrs. Gilman is on the other. Man's apparent economicindependence of women is as complete a myth as women's projectedeconomic independence of men. In the last resort, when we come down torealities, and remember that both men and women are mortal, and thatunless they are replaced, everything ends, we see that the introductionof the word economic into this question simply serves to confusethought, just as the older political economy confused thought and laiditself open to the mercilessly magnificent attacks of Ruskin. Economy isliterally the law of the house or the home--where life begins. Of alleconomies, life is the last judge, because there is no wealth but life. _In the last resort the economic dependence of the sexes means nothingbecause the sexes cannot independently reproduce themselves. _ If Mrs. Gilman is to be arraigned for her error let us see to it mostcarefully that we do not fail to arraign the men who, with notone-thousandth part of her excuse and with no iota of her ability, fallinto the corresponding error on their side. When Women's Suffrage isbeing debated, there never fails a supply of men who write to the papersto say that men must vote and not women because men and not women "madethe State. " How much simpler our problems would be if there were somemeans of distinguishing children who will grow up into men of this type, and carefully refraining from teaching them to read or write! Make theState, indeed!--they can make nothing but fools of themselves, andwithout women's assistance could not even reproduce their folly. Ofcourse the retort to all this nonsense is that neither sex ever yetcreated anything without the other. Every human act and achievement isthe product of both sexes. When some friend of the past assures us thatwomen should not vote because they cannot bear arms, he is of coursereminded that women bear the soldiers. It is true and it isunanswerable. In just the same way, when Mrs. Gilman wishes women to beeconomically independent of men, whom she considers as animalsdistinguished by their destructive energy, brutality and intense sexvanity, she is simply ignoring half the truth. Let either sex try to runthe earth alone till Halley's comet returns, and what would be left forit to see? Of all follies uttered on this subject, and they are many, the cry, each sex for itself, is the wickedest and worst. The reader may well declare that such criticism is easy, but of littleworth unless it be accompanied by some kind of constructive proposalsfor the amelioration of present conditions. Nothing is destroyed untilit is replaced. If the present economic conditions of women involve themost hideous wickedness and cruelty and injure the entire progress ofmankind, as they assuredly do, and if they therefore must be destroyed, we must have something to replace them with; and if Mrs. Gilman'sproposals would simply make the difficulty a thousand times worse bydepriving women of men's help, what proposals are there to offerinstead? The reply is that we must go back to first principles. We must drop allour phrases about economic independence or dependence. They have urgentand real meanings for each one of us at any given time, but when appliedto the problems of the reconstruction of society as a whole, they meannothing because they are based upon no vital truths whatever. A man maybe economically secure when he is producing absinthe or whisky, or hemay die of starvation because he is producing the songs of Schubert. Economic independence and dependence mean very much to the prosperousdistiller whom men pay for poison, and to the immortal composer whom mendo not pay at all, but who yet produces that which nourishes the life ofall the future. The maker of death may live, and the maker of life maydie; we see it every day and history is the continuous record of it. These economic dependences and independences consist only in therelations of one man or woman to the others. They have nothing to dowith the real issue, which is the relation of mankind as a whole toNature. These economic questions are simply concerned with money--themeans whereby one man has more or less claim upon another: society mayhave to be reconstructed in such a fashion that economic independenceand dependence, as at present understood, would have no meaningwhatever. Yet all the real economic questions would remain, even thoughmoney or private property were abolished. The real economy is the makingand preserving of life and the means of life. We live in a chaos wherethe elementary conditions of human existence are constantly forgotten. The real politics, the real economy, the real political economy, are thequestions of the birth-rate and the wheat supply--the relations notbetween man and man, or class and class, or sex and sex, but mankind, living and dying and being born, and the world in which he has to live. The time is near at hand when the first conditions of national life willbe recognized as they have never been since the dawn of modernindustrialism. The products of men's labour and women's labour will beappraised and paid for in proportion to their _real_ value, theirstrength or availableness for life. In "Unto This Last" and "Munera Pulveris, " Ruskin has laid down, on whatare really unchallengeable biological grounds, the foundations of thepolitical economy of the future. We are going to have done with theindustries which eat up men. We cannot much longer afford to grow whiskywhere we might grow wheat, for there are ever more mouths to be fed, andwheat is running short. Cheap and dear mean nothing when we get down torealities. Is a thing vital or is it mortal?--that is the onlyquestion. It may be vital and costless, like air, or mortal and dear, like alcohol. The question is not how much money can you get fromanother man for your product, but how much life can mankind get fromNature for it. Thus we shall return to a sane appreciation of theprimary importance of agriculture as against manufacture, of food asagainst anything else, --for unless one is fed, of what use is anythingelse? And as nations gradually begin to discover that the means of lifeare the really valuable things, they will go on to learn, what primitiveraces, hard-pressed races, races making their way in the world againstheavy odds, have always known--that at all costs the insatiabledestructiveness of Death must be compensated for by Birth. If the meansof life are the real wealth, the life itself is more real still, andunless we abolish death, the makers and bearers and nourishers of lifeare at all times and everywhere the producers, the manufacturers, theworkers of the community above and beyond all others. And these are thewomen in their great functions as mothers and foster-mothers, nurses, teachers. The economics of the future will be based upon these elemental andperdurable truths. No writer in his senses will then be guilty of suchimmeasurable folly as to place the "natural industries of a humancreature" _in antithesis_ to "the primal physical functions ofmaternity. " The sex which came first and remains first in the immediacyand indispensableness of its relations to the coming life will base itseconomic claims--in the vulgar and narrow sense of that term--upon theworth of those relations. The society which cannot afford to payfor--that is, to sustain--the characteristic functions of womanhood, cannot continue; and societies have continued and will continue inproportion as they hold hard by these first conditions of their lives. The case of Jewish womanhood is the supreme illustration of a thesiswhich requires no experimental demonstration, but is necessarily true. Here, then, is the solution, as the future will prove, of the problem ofthe economic status of woman. At present, though Ellen Key is the onlyfeminist writer who recognizes it, women can compete successfully withmen only at the cost of complete womanhood, --and that is a price whichsociety as a whole cannot afford to pay, if it wishes to continue. Therefore we must, in effect, pay women in advance for their work, theactual realization of the value of which is always necessarily deferred. The case is parallel to that of expenditure upon forestry. In theplanting of trees or the nurture of babies the State will get value forits money in the long run, but it must be prepared to wait. States areslowly becoming more provident, and already we are coming to see thisabout trees. Soon we shall see it about babies, and the problem of theeconomic status of woman will then be solved in practice as it isassuredly soluble in principle. Mankind must first learn to renounce Mammon and set up Life as its God;but to that also we shall come--or perish, for Life is a jealous God andvisits the sins of the fathers upon the third and fourth generation. CHAPTER XXI THE CHIEF ENEMY OF WOMEN If we believe that the sexes are mutually dependent and, in the longrun, can neither be injured nor befriended apart, we shall be preparedto expect that the chief enemy of civilized mankind is no less inimicalto women than to men. So long as it was supposed that drinking merelyinjured the drinker, and so long as the drinkers were almost entirelymen, it could be argued by persons sufficiently foolish that indulgencein alcohol was a male vice or delight which really did not concern womenat all--if men choose to drink or to smoke or to bet or to play games, what business is that of women? It is an argument which would not appealto the mind of the primitive law-giver, and can be accepted by no one whothinks to-day. For the least effects of drink are those which are seen in the drinker. The question of alcoholism is not one of the abuse of a good thing, hereand there injuring those who take it to excess, but is a nationalquestion which affects the entire community, abstainers, and drinkers, men, women and children, present and to come. No one who has seriouslystudied the action of alcohol on civilization can question that it isour chief external enemy. We must use the word external for the best ofgood reasons, since we know that always and everywhere man's chief foesare those of his own household--his own proneness to injure himself andothers. And alcohol, indeed, would not be our chief external enemy wereit not for the very fact that its malign power is chiefly exerted by adegradation of the man within. It is a material thing and no part of ourpsychological nature. So long as it is kept outside us it has the mostadmirable uses, which are yearly becoming more various and important;but, taken within, it alters the human constitution, and hereby achievesits title as our worst enemy. People who estimate the influence of alcohol by means of the alcoholicdeath-rate or by the rate of convictions for drunkenness will notreadily accept the doctrine that alcohol is a greater enemy of womenthan of men. Yet assuredly this is true. It is an axiomatic and firstprinciple that whatever injures one sex injures the other, and whilstdrinking on the part of women at present injures men as a whole incomparatively small degree, the consumption of alcohol by men worksenormous injury upon women indirectly, in addition to that direct injurywhich civilized women are yearly inflicting more gravely uponthemselves, at any rate in Great Britain. Woman, we have argued, is Nature's supreme organ of the future, and justas she is mediate between men and the future, so men are mediate betweenher and the present. For the individual woman and the present, thequality of the manhood which constitutes her human environment is moreimportant than anything else. If the manhood is withdrawn and she isthrown upon her own resources, there is disaster; if the manhood bedamaged or degenerate, so much the worse for the woman; if the manhoodbe of the best, there and only there are the best conditions providedfor the highest womanhood. First, then, let us observe how alcohol injures women by itscontribution to the male death-rate. Allusion has already been made to asimple statistical enquiry which I made a few years ago in regard to theinfluence of alcohol as a maker of widows and orphans. The results ofthat enquiry may here be quoted, having only appeared in the daily presshitherto. They will suffice to show that alcohol on this ground alone isa great enemy of women, and especially of wives. The following is theconclusion published in several papers in England in November, 1908:-- "Some time ago we heard a good deal, both in and out of Parliament, about the debenture widow whose little all is invested in brewery securities. There is, on the other hand, the widow so made by alcohol. I am not aware that anyone has attempted to estimate the approximate number of each of these two classes. The following is merely a rude approximation. It has been stated that there are half a million persons who have invested money in the licensed trade. Let us allow that half of these are men. The death-rate of all males, above fifteen years of age, is slightly over sixteen per 1, 000. At the census of 1901, 536 in each 1, 000 males aged fifteen years and upwards were found to be married. Ignoring the differential death-rate of the married as compared with bachelors and widows, it follows that about 4, 100 male investors in the licensed trade die each year, of whom some 2, 197 will be married men, leaving behind them the same number of widows entirely or partly dependent on these investments. The widows made by drink are nearly six times as many. Numerous inquiries at home and abroad agree somewhat closely in stating _14 per cent_. Of the entire death-rate to be due to alcohol. The proportion of one in seven is accepted by Dr. Archdall Eeid, who considers that all efforts to restrain drinking increase drunkenness. I do not think the justness of this figure can be disputed at all, except as an under-estimate. We are here dealing with male deaths only, and I will do my contention the obvious injustice of supposing that the proportion of deaths due wholly or in part to alcohol is no higher amongst men than amongst women. If one could allow for the existing difference, the result would be even more terrible. Taking the figures for 1906 for England and Wales alone, we have 167, 307 deaths of males over fifteen; 23, 422 of these wholly or partly due to alcohol, and of this number 12, 554 were married men (i. E. , 536 per 1, 000). The average size of a family in England and Wales is 4. 62, according to Whitaker. If we multiply the number of widows, 12, 554, by 3. 62, we shall have an approximation to the number of widows and orphans made by alcohol in 1906. There were 45, 445, or over 124 widows and orphans made by alcohol every day in the year. We may now note some further data helping us to compare the 12, 554 alcohol-made widows with the 2, 197 whose husbands' fortunes were wholly or in part bound up with the welfare of the licensed trade. (Of these latter, also, of course, a large proportion would be alcohol-made. ) Dr. Tatham's recently published letter on occupational mortality in the three years, 1900, 1901, 1902, informs us as to twenty-one occupations in which the alcoholic death-rate is grossly excessive. In these twenty-one occupations selected by Dr. Tatham as having an alcohol mortality which exceeds the standard by at least 50 per cent. , we can work out the alcohol factor and find that it amounts to 24. 5 per cent. The table would take up too much space for me to ask you to print it, but it is ready on demand, public or private. The figures work out to show that 5, 092 married men in these twenty-one trades died in each year from alcohol. (I have taken 24. 5 per cent, of the whole number of deaths in the three years, and reckoned the married proportion of these. ) The calculation shows that in these twenty-one occupations the comparative alcohol mortality is 24. 5 per cent. , as against only 12 per cent. In all other occupations. Amongst the occupations in Dr. Tatham's table may be noted coalheaver, coach, cab, etc. , service, groom, butcher, messenger, tobacconist, general labourer, general shopkeeper, brewer, chimney sweep, dock labourer, hawker, publican, inn and hotel servants. A glance at the table will show that in most cases the men who are dying are "industrial drinkers, " who frequent public-houses in the districts where the reduction in the number of the licenses under the present Bill will occur. Often nowadays the widows are heavy drinkers, and the lives of their children centre round the public-house. If the only wealth of a nation is its life, and history teaches no more certain truth--and if, since individuals are mortal, the quantity and quality of parenthood--or of childhood, according to the point of view--are the supreme factors in the destiny of nations, do not the foregoing figures warrant the contention that he who at this date is for alcohol is against England?" It has been shown that the effect of alcohol upon the brain persists fornot less than thirty hours after the last dose. But more than two yearshave now passed since the foregoing was printed, leaving ample time forany member of the alcoholic party to "pull himself together" anddemolish it. One is therefore entitled to assume that it cannot bedemolished; on the contrary, it could easily be shown that the foregoingfigures very considerably underrate the actual number of widows andorphans who must be made by alcohol in this country every year. All students of modern life, however greatly they differ in theirmethods and objects, are agreed that the question of the economicposition of women is one of the gravest of our time. While this is so, it may be added that only the Eugenist can adequately realize theimportance of this question, since he knows that with it is involved theall-important matter of the selection amongst present women for themotherhood of the future. Unfortunately, as we have seen, the moderntrend is quite definitely in the direction of those of our guides, whommost of us follow, knowingly or unknowingly, because they have thebrains and we have not, in favouring the economic position of women atthe expense of male responsibility. Meanwhile we have the economic basisof society as it is, and there is no more serious indictment againstalcohol than this which I have attempted to formulate against it on theground of its destruction of fatherhood. Whatever the rest of thecommunity may incline to, it assuredly seems that the wives, from palaceto hovel, ought to be enemies of this great enemy of theirs. The timewill certainly come when the woman who is bringing up children will beplaced in a position of economic security, and when indeed all otherpersons will be less secure than she because the sane State of thefuture will guarantee, and regard as the first charge upon itself, themaintenance of the conditions necessary for the production of the nextgeneration. But in the chaos in which we welter, widows and orphans haveto take their chance. Who will say a good word for the substance whichmakes them by tens of thousands in England and Wales alone every year? At least one economic aspect of this question may, however, be dealtwith here. In a rightly constituted society people are held responsiblefor their deeds. Parenthood is a deed; in a very true sense it is a moredeliberate, a more active, more self-determined deed, on the part of thefather than on the part of the mother. At present the only act for whichmen are held irresponsible--for our practice amounts to that--is the actfor which, above all others, they should be held responsible. A largeamount of the money now spent by men on alcohol and tobacco, and otherthings which shorten their lives, and are needed only because theycreate a need for themselves, is really required for the interests ofthe race. Such is the double destruction worked by the alcoholic form ofthis waste that if the average sum, say six shillings a week, expendedin the working-class family on alcohol, were invested on behalf of thepossible widows and orphans, not only would they be provided for, butthe fathers would be saved, and they would not become widows andorphans. In days to come it will be discovered that such matters asthese are the real political economy, the absence or presence oftariffs, the incidence of taxation and the like, being matters of noconsequence or significance whatever compared with the question, fundamental in all times and places for every nation and for everyindividual: For what are you spending: for bread or a stone, for life orfor death? The foregoing has been chosen for the forefront of this chapter becauseof its bearing on a central economic problem of the time, and alsobecause, for some reason or other, this alcoholic destruction offatherhood, though it is of the utmost importance, has hitherto escapedthe attention of sociological students. We pass now to a second point, of a wholly different character, which particularly well illustratescertain of the general principles with which we began. The supremeimportance of alcohol or of anything else for human happiness isattained only through its influence on the selves of men and women. Itis upon these that our happiness depends--upon the nature and thenurture, from hour to hour, of our selves and the selves with which wehave to deal. Above all, do women as individuals depend for theirhappiness upon the selves of men, as we have suggested. Now if there be anything certain about the action of alcohol upon thebrain, it is that it degrades the quality of the self. Much of thecruder pathology of alcohol is open to doubt. A great many of thesupposed degenerative changes in nerve-cells, which were attributed toit and thought to be irrevocable, are now interpreted otherwise. Chronicalcoholism is looked upon by such foremost students as Dr. F. W. Mott, less as a disease due to organic changes produced in the brain than as achronic functional derangement due to the continued action of a poison. This newer interpretation of chronic alcoholism has the very importantpractical corollary of encouraging us to the belief, which is frequentlyjustifiable, that if the chronic intoxication ceases, the individual maycompletely or all but completely recover, as would not be the case ifthe fine structure of his brain had been actually destroyed. The recentmodification of our views on this subject has, however, only served torender clearer our understanding of the mental symptoms of alcoholism. Here is a drug which poisons the organ of the mind. The action of asingle dose persists for a far longer period than used to be supposed, and thus we now know that in the great majority of civilized meneverywhere, the nervous system, which is the home of the self, iscontinuously under the influence of alcohol. That influence, as we have said, consistently shows itself in adegradation of the quality of the self. The poison deranges first thelatest and highest products of evolution; it beheads a man, as we maysay, in thin slices from above downwards. Beginning as it does with themost human, and only at the very last attacking the most animal part ofour nervous constitution, it is essentially the bestializer, save onlythat the alcoholized human being is much lower than the beast, on thegeneral principle, _Corruptio optimi pessima_--the corruption of thebest is the worst. Now wherever alcohol is consumed women have to pay the penalty for itsdaily deterioration in the human scale of the men with whom they live;nor need any reader of even the smallest experience require any writer'sassurance that in vast numbers of such cases the woman suffers more thanthe man. He has its moments of compensation, inadequate though they be;she has none. Whilst women suffer in every respect from the influence of alcohol as adegrader of their men, most of all do they and the race suffer throughthe action of alcohol upon the racial instinct. In my book on personalhygiene was sought an interpretation of the difference between low andhigh types of mankind largely in terms of their success or failure inachieving what may be called the "transmutation" of the racial instinct. In less metaphorical language this transmutation depends upon themeasure of self-control and deference of present desire to futurepurpose. These are supremely human characteristics, and there are nonewhich alcohol more surely and early attacks. Men are not so constitutedthat they are at all likely to profit by any substance which keeps theirracial instinct on its original and less than human plane, and certainlywomen suffer in many ways, and with them necessarily the future suffers, just because of this action of alcohol upon men. The argument need not be elaborated, but it may be added that thedisastrous action upon young womanhood of the consumption of alcohol byyoung manhood is greatly increased when we find, as we do, that theyoung women start drinking too. In these modern days, when thecontrolling influence of religion and especially of religious fear issteadily relaxing, the young woman's best protection is to be found inher own judgment and self-control and prevision of the future. But theseare the very defences which alcohol in her nervous system saps. Everysocial worker is familiar with the daily truth that young womanhoodconnives at its own ruin under the influence of alcohol, where otherwiseit need not have fallen. This last consideration leads us to the study of a phenomenon which inmany respects is new and unprecedented, while none could be of worseomen. It has for long been alleged that the amount of drinking amongst womenis increasing. When writing an academic thesis on the consequences ofcity life, I attempted to discover definite evidence on this point. Nothing that could be called precise was forthcoming, though theevidence was abundant that the general assertion is correct. Drinkingamongst women means, of course, drinking amongst mothers. It meansdrinking by unborn children. No one concerned with the fundamentals ofnational well-being can ignore anything so minatory. Within the last fewyears, much attention has been directed to the subject, and the Churchof England Temperance Society, for instance, sent out a form of inquiryto the medical profession as to their experience in this matter. It maynow be stated, without any fear of contradiction, that drinking hasgreatly increased amongst women of all classes during the last twentyyears, and especially, it seems probable, during the latter half of thatperiod. Along with it has gone an increase in the amount ofdrug-taking; some, at any rate, of the drugs being not dissimilar toalcohol in their action upon mind and body. It is here necessary not so much to discuss the causes of this fact asto insist upon its consequences and indicate some possible remedies. Sofar as one can judge there seem to be three principal causes for thisincrease of drinking amongst women, and quite briefly they may be namedin order to guide the subsequent discussion, though it is not necessaryto occupy space here in discussing all the evidence for this diagnosis. A cause of some importance at work amongst women of the middle and upperclasses would seem to be the general tendency to revolt against sexrestrictions and limitations. In order to prove themselves the equals ofmen, women proceed to demonstrate that they are capable of imitatingmen's vices and indulgences. The trainer of chimpanzees for themusic-hall acts on the same principle. Directly the animals can smokeand drink, they are such good imitations of men, in his judgment andthat of his patrons, as to be worthy of exhibition. Any ape, any boy, any man, can learn to smoke and drink. It may be taken for granted thatany woman can do likewise, but the actual demonstration is worse thansuperfluous. Much more important as a cause of the increased drinking amongst womenof the lower classes are the modern conditions of factory and industriallife which so largely take women out of the home; the making of lifebeing neglected in order to serve some industry or other which, if itcosts the loss of the coming life, is a national cancer, howevergrateful its expansion may appear to the capitalist or the Chancellor ofthe Exchequer. As the nation cares nothing for its girlhood nor fordirecting employment and education for the supreme business ofmotherhood, upon which the national existence is always staked, vastnumbers of women in early adolescence are now exposed to the veryconditions of temptation outside the home to which so many of theirbrothers have succumbed. The factory girl learns to drink, and when shemarries she takes her drinking habits with her into her home. Modernindustrialism, therefore, is to be cited as one of the causes for theincrease in drinking amongst women. It may be noted that, in Italy, thetemperate race which, according to one elegant but baseless theory, hasbeen evolved through ages of past drinking, is proving itselfintemperate when its members are exposed in towns to the industrialconditions which look like national success and the continuance of whichwould mean national ruin. A third cause of this increase is to be found in the greatly enhancedfacility with which alcoholic drinks can now be obtained by women, notmerely outside the home, but within it. So far as Great Britain isconcerned we must trace disastrous consequences to the "heaven-bornfinance" of a former illustrious Chancellor of the Exchequer, who made alittle money for the State by selling to grocers permission to sellalcoholic liquors. That was a great blow at womanhood and especiallymotherhood; not to mention its lamentable effect in raising thedeath-rate amongst grocers in that intensely obvious and inevitablemanner, the increase of temptation, which nothing can persuade theenemies of temperance reform to understand. It is bad enough that women should be able to obtain alcohol as they doby means of devices which may often prevent their habits from beingdiscovered at all until irreparable mischief has been done. Here thecunning and the greed of commercialism have set to work to fool thepublic and poison it by a systematic practice which is injurious to allsections of the community, but especially to women, and which cannot betoo widely reprobated and exposed. All honour is due to the _BritishMedical Journal_, the official organ of the British Medical Association, for its recent attention to this subject. No one can challenge it whenit makes the following assertion regarding meat-wines and otherspecifics containing alcohol, which are now so widely advertised andconsumed:--"It may be pointed out that by the use of these meat-winesthe alcoholic habit may be encouraged and established, and that it is amistake to suppose that they possess any high nutritive qualities. " Thefollowing are analyses to which everyone ought to be able to havereference, and further information regarding which may be found in the_British Medical Journal_ for March 27 and May 29, 1909. Let the readerfirst note what proportions of alcohol are contained in the acceptedwines, the danger of which is admitted by all, and then let him comparethose figures with the figures which follow:-- ALCOHOL IN ORDINARY WINES Port 20 per cent. Or 3-1/4} Sherry 20 " " " 3-1/4}Fluid drachms Champagne 10/15 " " " 1-3/4}in a wineglassful. Hock 10 " " " 1-1/2} Claret 9 " " " 1-1/2} ALCOHOL IN MEAT WINES Bendle's 20. 3 per cent. Or 3-1/4} Bivo 19. 2 " " " 3 } Bovril 20. 15 " " " 3-1/4}Fluid drachms Glendenning's 20. 8 " " " 3-1/3}in a wineglassful. Lemco 17. 26 " " " 2-3/4} Vin Regno 16. 05 " " " 2-1/2} Wincarnis 19. 6 " " " 3 } ALCOHOL IN TONIC WINES Armbrecht's Coca Wine 15. 05% Bugeaud's Wine 14. 80% Baudon's Wine 12. 75% Busart's Wine 16. 85% Christy's Kola Wine 18. 85% Hall's Wine 17. 85% Mariani's Coca Wine 16. 40% Marza Wine 17. 48% Nourry's Iodinated Wine 11. 50% Quina Laroche 16. 90% St. Raphael Quinquina Wine 16. 89% St. Raphael Tannin Wine 14. 65% Savar's Coca Wine 23. 40% Serravallo's Bark and Iron 17. 26% Vana 19. 20% Vibrona 19. 30% In order to complete our reference to this subject, the following may bequoted from an excellent little pamphlet which is published by theNational Temperance League. The United States Government Laboratoryaffords striking evidence of the large percentages of alcohol containedin specifics which are stated to be largely used by persons who professto be total abstainers. Of these the following are given as examples:-- Paine's Celery Compound 21. 00% Peruna 23. 00% Brown's Blood Purifier 23. 00% Brown's Vervain Restorer 25. 75% Hostetter's Bitters 44. 30% But indeed we are far from having covered the ground in Great Britainalone. There are many well-known preparations which consist almostentirely of alcohol and water, together with small quantities offlavouring matter nominally medicinal. Thus we find, for instance, thefollowing proportions of alcohol in-- Powell's Balsam of Aniseed 40. 0% Dill's Diabetic Mixture 35. 0% Congreve's Balsamic Elixir 25. 5% Steven's Consumption Cure 21. 3% Hood's Sarsaparilla 19. 6% There are also other compounds such as Crosby's Balsamic Cough Elixir, Townsend's American Sarsaparilla, and Warner's Safe Cure, which containfrom 8 to 10-1/2 per cent. Of alcohol. As the _British Medical Journal_justly points out, in a mixture of which a table-spoonful is to be takenfive or six times a day a proportion of 10 per cent. Of alcohol is by nomeans negligible. Let it be noted further that though most malt extracts are free fromalcohol, that which is called "bynin" contains 8. 3 per cent, and"standard liquid" 5 per cent. The _British Medical Journal_ has alsoshown that there is at least one "inebriety cure" in Great Britain whichconsists of a liquid containing just under 30 per cent. Of alcohol. On this whole subject it is impossible to speak too strongly, moreespecially when one is concerned with the interests of woman andwomanhood. It is true that in consequence of the labours of those fewkeen workers whom the impotent and the meaningless and the selfish callfanatics, we are making a beginning in the matter of education onTemperance. But apart from that, which amounts only to very little asyet, it is the lamentable truth that the State does absolutely nothingwhatever to protect the community and especially its women from themanifold evils which are involved in such figures as those here quoted. The State wants money, and life is a trifle. Anything that can pay tollto the State may therefore go without further question. A tax has beenpaid on all the alcohol in these things. In many cases, also, a furthertax has been paid for the government stamp on patent medicines. That themedicine may be dangerous, that it may be a cruel swindle, that it maytake from consumptives and others money which is sorely needed for airand food, and give them in return what is worse than nothing--all thesethings are nothing to the State if the tax is paid. Preparations such as those which have been mentioned above have no placeor status whatever in scientific medicine. Their constituents are knownand their action is known. The public pays for sarsaparilla, forinstance, and simply gets a 20 per cent. Solution of flavoured alcohol, and there is no one to inform it that sarsaparilla has been exhaustivelystudied by pharmacologists, employing every means of observation andexperiment in their power, and that none of them have yet been able todetect its capacity to modify the body or any function of the body inany degree at all whether in health or disease. This is only one of manyinstances that might be named; every preparation of which thecomposition is not stated is suspect. Men are paying for these things atthis moment under the impression that they are buying valuable tonicswhich will save their wives from the consequences of the drink cravingand help to avert it. Large numbers of women are ruining themselves inpurse and in body quite secretly under cover of these scandalous abuseswhich are allowed to go on from year to year, and which are undoubtedlydoing more injury to the feminine--that is to say, to the moreimportant--half of the community in each succeeding year. At least letthe facts be known. Let liberty be believed in and encouraged; but ifthese things are to be made and sold and bought, let their compositionbe stated on the bottles. The composition of milk is supervised by theState; margarine, which is harmless and an excellent food, may not besold as butter; alcohol, which is noxious, may be sold under any lyingname, but so long as the State gets its percentage, it is well pleased. The official organ of the medical profession in this country has donewell to draw renewed attention to this subject. Surely it ought to bepossible for the profession and the advocates of temperance to joinhands for the promotion of legislation in a direction where reformcannot otherwise be obtained. Something, one hopes and believes, can bedone by merely writing on the subject. A certain number of women whoread this book will be deterred from buying these things on finding thatthey are simply "masked alcohol" and that their medicinal virtues areless than _nil_. But though all that is to the good, only legislationcan meet the real need. These preparations offer insidious means ofteaching women to drink, and when the habit is established, nothing canbe accomplished by revealing to the victim the history of its origin. The minimum demand for legislation should be, at the very least, thatall preparations of this kind should have their composition stated withevery portion of them that is vended to the public. Assuredly thechampions of womanhood will have to take this matter up soon, and thesooner the better. There is no need to be a fanatic, there is no needeven to be a teetotaler, in order to satisfy oneself that here is acrying abuse which is ruining the unwarned and the unprotected up anddown the land, and which is quite definitely and obviously within thecapacity of legislation to control effectively and finally. Let us turn now to the general question of the organic or physiologicalrelations between womanhood and alcohol. Both sexes of human beings areidentical in a vast majority of their characters, and the variousreactions to alcohol come within this number. There is no need to repeathere any of the facts and conclusions which have been set forth atlength elsewhere. What was said there applies to women as to men. Thatis true so far as the individual is concerned and it is also true that, so far as the race is concerned, the germ-plasm or germ-cells in bothsexes alike may be injured by the continued consumption of largequantities of alcohol. There remains the important fact, which it is the present writer'sconstant effort to bring to the notice of Eugenists, that alcohol hasspecial relations to motherhood, to which there can necessarily be nocorrespondence in the case of the other sex, and though motherhood, assuch, is not the subject of this book, yet it would be most pedanticallyto limit the usefulness which one hopes it may possess if we were toomit the discussion, as brief as possible, of the effect of alcohol uponwomanhood at the time when womanhood is expressing itself in its supremefunction. In my book on Eugenics there is merely the briefest allusion in afoot-note to this subject, and I confess myself now ashamed of havingdealt with it in that utterly inadequate fashion. In practicaleugenics, --though sooth to say when eugenics begins to become practicalmany professing eugenists seem to think that it is wandering from thepoint--the great fact of expectant motherhood must be reckoned with. Todecline to do so is in effect to declare that we are greatly concernedwith bringing the right germ-cells together, but have nothing to do withwhat may or may not happen to the product of their union. We desire, however, not merely conjugated germ-cells, but worthy men and women, andexpectant motherhood is therefore part of the eugenic province. Unfortunately it is easier to invent terms and categories and get peopleto accept them than to control their use of one's terms thereafter. Otherwise, I should forbid the use of the term Eugenist at all by anyonewho is unprepared to move a finger or utter a word on behalf of the careand the protection of expectant motherhood. It is quite true that the question of expectant motherhood has nothingto do with heredity in the proper sense of that term. We are dealing nowwith "nurture, " not with "nature, " but we are dealing with a departmentof nurture which can only be understood when we realize that humanbeings begin their lives nine months or so before they are born, andthat the first stage of their nurture is coincident with what we callexpectant motherhood, whilst the second stage of their nurture, normallyand properly, ought to be coincident with what we may call nursingmotherhood. Let us then acquaint ourselves with the fact, fully established byexperimental and chemical observation, that alcohol given to theexpectant mother finds its way into the organism of the child. Thus, aswe should expect, alcohol can readily be demonstrated in a newborn childwhen the drug has been given to the mother just before its birth. It must be understood that the circulation of the mother and of herchild are each complete and self-contained. They come into relation inthe double organ called the placenta, and it has been exhaustivelyproved that this organ is so constituted as in large measure to protectthe child from injurious influences acting upon and in the mother. Wemay therefore speak of the placenta as a filter. Its protective actionexplains the facts, so familiar to medical men and philanthropicworkers, that healthy and undamaged children are often born to motherswho are stricken with mortal disease--most notably, perhaps, in the caseof consumption. It becomes a most important matter to ascertain thelimits of the placental power, and by observation upon human beings andexperiment upon the lower animals this matter has been very thoroughlyelucidated of late years. There are many kinds of poison, and manyvarieties of those living poisons that we call microbes, which theplacenta does not allow to pass through from the mother's blood-vesselsinto those of the child, and which are unable, fortunately for thechild, to break down the placental resistance. On the other hand, thereare certain microbes and certain poisons which readily pass through theplacenta. Conspicuous amongst these are alcohol, lead and arsenic, andit is especially important to realize that alcohol injures the child notmerely by its own passage through the placenta, but by injuring thatorgan, so that its efficiency as a filter is impaired. On the wholesubject of expectant motherhood and the morbid influences which may actupon it, the greatest living authority is my friend and teacher, Dr. J. W. Ballantyne of Edinburgh. He contributed an important paper on thissubject to our first National Conference on Infantile Mortality held in1906. [22] I only wish it were possible to reproduce in full here Dr. Ballantyne's paper on the Ante-Natal Causes of Infantile Mortality. Theunread critic who is so ready with the word fanatic whenever alcohol isattacked might begin to derive from it some faint idea of the qualityand massiveness of the evidence upon which our case is based. Here itmust suffice merely to quote the verdict at which Dr. Ballantyne arrivesafter surveying all the evidence on the subject that had been obtainedup to the year 1906. He summarizes as follows:-- "It must then be concluded that parental and especially maternal alcoholism of the kind to which the name of chronic drunkenness or persistent soaking is applied, is the source of both ante-natal and post-natal mortality. It acts in all the three ways in which I indicated that ante-natal causes can be shown to act in relation to the increase of infantile mortality, viz. , . By causing abortions. , by predisposing to premature labours, and by weakening the infant by disease or deformity so that it more readily succumbs to ordinary morbid influences at and after birth. By causing diseases of the kidneys and of the placenta it also leads to that failure of the filter to which I have already referred; the placenta being damaged, not only does the alcohol more readily pass through it itself, but it is also possible for other poisons, germs, and toxins to cross over into the fatal economy. So it comes about that the most disastrous consequences are entailed upon the unborn infant in connection with syphilis, lead-poisoning, fevers, and the like in the intemperate mother. " The foregoing was written as long ago as 1906, and various workers havehelped to confirm it since that date. We must further learn that alcohol taken by the mother who nurses herchild has an organic relation to the child after birth. It is true, indeed, that according to a celebrated observer, Professor von Bunge, the influence of alcoholism in preceding generations is such that thedaughters of such a stock are mostly unable to nurse their children. Itis not quite certain that Professor von Bunge has proved his case, butit is definitely proved that even if alcoholism in the maternalgrandparent has not altogether prevented a child from being fed in thenatural fashion, it may yet suffer gravely in consequence of receivingalcohol in its mother's milk. In the case of the nursing mother, thereis one fresh avenue of excretion which the organism can employ forridding itself of the poison, and to the efforts of the lungs and thekidneys are added those of the breasts. Alcohol can be readily traced inthe mother's milk within twenty minutes of its entry into her stomach, and may be detected in it for as long as eight hours after a large dose. Many cases are on record where infants at the breast have thus becomethe subjects of both acute and chronic alcoholic poisoning. We havenumerous reports of convulsions and other disorders occurring in infantswhen the nurse has taken liquor, and ceasing when she has been put on anon-alcoholic diet. A most distinguished lady, Dr. Mary Scharlieb, maybe quoted in this connection, or the reader may indeed refer to thechapter, "Alcoholism in Relation to Women and Children, " contributed byher to the volume "The Drink Problem" in my New Library of Medicine. Shesays, "The child, then, absolutely receives alcohol as part of his dietwith the worst effect upon his organs, for alcohol has a greater effectupon cells in proportion to their immaturity. " Further, as she pointsout, "the milk of the alcoholic mother not only contains alcohol, but itis otherwise unsuitable for the infant's nourishment; it does notcontain the proper proportions of proteid, sugar, fat, etc. , and it istherefore not suited for the building up of a healthy body. " It is plain that here we cannot avoid criticism of an almost universalmedical practice. Our concern in the present volume is not with childrenbut women; and in dealing with the effects of maternal alcoholism uponchildhood, the main intention is being kept in view. As regards thegiving of alcohol to the nursing mother, there is no doubt that thechild is more seriously in danger than she is. There is no doubt alsothat, as one has often pointed out, the Children Act which forbids thegiving of alcohol to children under five years old is being broken whenthe nursing mother takes alcohol. I refer to this subject here becauseonly thus can we come to a decision on the question whether the nursingmother owes the taking of alcohol as a duty to her child. She may be ateetotaler; she may fear to take alcohol; and she may be authoritativelytold that it is her duty to do so because the quality of her milk willbe improved. In such a case she may yield, though often with a wry face;and thus we have the frequent beginning of disasters to which there isno end. The truth is that the medical profession has long erred in this respect. Judgment has gone by superficials. Undoubtedly there is a greater bulkof milk when stout and porter are taken. But everyone knows thatordinary household milk may come from the cow or from the pump. Thequestion is not how much bulk is there, but what does the bulk consistof? Definite chemical evidence, which may be repeated a thousand times, and which is allowed to go unchallenged by the vast host of doctors whoare prescribing alcohol for nursing mothers all over the world, shows usthat its influence is to increase the bulk of the milk while reducingthe amount of its nutritive constituents, and adding to them one whichis poisonous. The increase of bulk is easy to explain. Alcohol isexceedingly avid of water. Thus the common experience that alcoholicliquors tend to increase the desire for liquid can readily be explained. Alcohol, leaving the blood, tends to withdraw with itself, if it can, aquantity of water. These two, in the milk, between them maintain theadded bulk on account of which alcoholic liquors are so widely orderedfor and drunk by nursing mothers throughout the civilized world. Theinfant mortality is thus contributed to, and many women are urged anddeceived by their love for their children into a practice which achievestheir own ruin. Doctors look back a hundred years or so and observe theamazing practices of their predecessors. They have record ofprescriptions and treatments which were ridiculous or disgusting ortrivial or painful; they have abundant record of practices which weredeadly, and for which any medical man at the present day might be calledupon to pay heavy damages or indicted for manslaughter. Yet in thematter of the indiscriminate and ignorant employment of alcohol, indefiance of overwhelmingly proved facts which will not be challenged byany of those whom this criticism hits and who will virulently resent itand decry its author, doctors of the present day are assuredly earningthe astonished contempt of their successors in times by no means remote. A certain number of women who nurse or will nurse will read this book. Of these not a few will be ordered various alcoholic beverages by theirmedical attendant in order to aid this function. Let them obey hisorders when he has satisfactorily answered the following questions: Areyou aware that part of the alcohol will pass unchanged through my breastinto my baby's body? Are you aware that if my milk is analyzed it willbe found to contain less food for the baby with more bulk than if I wereto do without the alcohol? Are you aware that careful enquiry andobservation have shown that the best foods for the making of milk arethose which contain the constituents of milk--as seems notunreasonable--like milk itself and bread and butter and meat? Can youbegin to explain any imaginable process by which either the animal orthe vegetable body could build up a molecule composed as the molecule ofalcohol is into any of the nutritive ingredients in milk? That catechismis quite short, but it will suffice. A serious error which has long been made by temperance workers consistsin supposing that the problem of alcoholism is the problem ofdrunkenness. They speak of "the sin of intemperance, " and by that termthey mean only such intemperance as produces what should properly becalled acute alcoholic intoxication. The friends of alcohol eagerlyaccept an error which suits their case so admirably. Nothing can suitthem better than to assume that alcohol does no ill apart from causingdrunkenness. Better still, they are able to quote the case of theincurable drunkard, suffering from an uncontrollable craving, and topoint out quite truly that he will get drunk in any case no matter howmany public-houses, for instance, we close. It was always a gross error to suppose that drunkenness was the whole ofthe evil done by alcohol; if, indeed, it be one per cent. Of it, whichwe may doubt. This is not a point which one need trouble to argue here, except in so far as our right understanding of it is necessary if we areto see the meaning of current changes in the drinking habits of thepeople. That women are drinking more, everyone grants. That this is evilnot merely for the women of the present but for both sexes in thefuture, I am constantly asserting. But it will not do at all to use meredrunkenness as our measure of what is happening amongst women. We knowthat in either sex a single bout of drinking, say once a week onSaturday night, may leave the individual little worse, may injure healthquite inappreciably, if at all; it may not interfere with his work, andmay even be of small economic importance. In such a coal-mining countyas Durham, for instance, where alcohol cannot be drunk in associationwith work because the workman and his fellows know that the safety oftheir lives will not permit it, we find a huge proportion of arrests fordrunkenness, and it might be supposed that in this most drunken countyin England we should find the highest proportion of permanentconsequences of alcoholism. On the contrary, as Dr. Sullivan says, "owing to their relative freedom from industrial drinking coal-minersshow a remarkably low rate of alcoholic mortality, ranking in fact withthe agriculturists and below all the other industrial groups. " Here is asimple statistical fact which continues true year by year, and thesignificance of which must be insisted upon. In the case of women, the very obvious and natural tendency is for theproportion of drunkenness to the alcohol consumed to be much lower thanin the case of men. Drunkenness is commonly the result of convivialdrinking. A company of men get together, and they help each other to getdrunk. Women are not subjected to so many temptations in this respect. Their drinking is industrial drinking, --above all, at the supremeindustry, which is the culture of the racial life. Like other industrialdrinking, it is less conspicuous than convivial drinking; it leads tofew arrests for drunkenness, but it has far graver effects on theindividual, and it shows its consequences in the industrial product withwhich in this case no other industrial product can compare. Now unlesswe disabuse ourselves once and for all of the notion that the drinkquestion is merely the drunkenness question, we shall never succeed inrightly approaching and dealing with this most ominous development ofmodern civilization, to which I have done such imperfect justice in thepresent chapter. Dr. Sullivan[23] has some important remarks on this subject from whichone cannot do better than freely quote. As a distinguished andexperienced Medical Officer in H. M. Prison Service, notably atHolloway, where so many women have been under his care, Dr. Sullivan hasvery special credentials, even if the internal evidence of his book didnot convince us. He says that:-- "The domestic occupations which are the chief field of women's activities obviously allow ample opportunity for the continuance of alcoholic habits formed prior to marriage. This is a matter of much importance. For the ordinary existence of the working man's wife, with its succession of pregnancies and sucklings, and the management of a brood of children in cramped surroundings, will of itself be very likely to promote tippling; and if a knowledge of the effect of alcohol as an industrial excitant has been acquired by the factory girl, it is pretty sure of further development in the married woman. Instances of this sort, in which the discomforts of the first pregnancy stimulate the growth of a rudimentary habit of industrial drinking to confirmed intemperance, are tolerably common in any wide experience of the alcoholic. " The following paragraph must also be quoted for its clear indication ofa matter which is of prime importance, which no one denies, and yet ofwhich no statesman or politician has begun to take cognizance:-- "The employment of women in the ordinary industrial occupations not only involves a disorganization of their domestic duties if they are married, but it also interferes with the acquisition of housewifely knowledge during girlhood. The result is that appalling ignorance of everything connected with cookery, with cleanliness, with the management of children, which make the average wife and mother in the lower working class in this country one of the most helpless and thriftless of beings, and which therefore impels the workman, whose comfort depends on her, not only to spend his free time in the public-house, but also tends to make him look to alcohol as a necessary condiment with his tasteless and indigestible diet. Both directly and indirectly, therefore, the employments that withdraw women from domestic pursuits are likely to increase alcoholism, and, it may be added, to increase its greatest potency for evil, namely its influence on the health of the stock. " Elsewhere I have endeavoured to deal with the general physiology ofalcohol and its relations to race-culture. Here our special concern hasbeen woman, and not woman as mother, but rather woman as individual. Wehave had specially to refer, however, to expectant and nursingmotherhood because each of these offers special temptations andopportunities for the beginning of the alcoholic habit or strengtheningits hold in a deadly fashion, and it is certainly necessary for us toknow that the supposed advantages to the child, which constitute a newargument for alcohol at these times, are not advantages but injurieswhich may be grave and often fatal. The utterly incomprehensible thingis how anyone can suppose or ever could suppose otherwise. It is necessary to add a few words to the foregoing since there hasrecently appeared what purports to be a contribution to some of theproblems that have concerned us. Part of the foregoing argument hasrested upon the fact, only too definitely, variously and frequentlyproved, that alcoholism in women prejudices the performance of theirsupreme functions. Complicated as the maternal relation to the futureis, the relations of alcohol to the problem are correspondingly so, andin any discussion that is to be of value we must draw the necessarydistinctions. In many scientific contributions to the subject this hasalready been done. We have identified certain degenerate stocks whodisplay the symptoms of alcoholism. The alcohol may aggravate theirdegeneracy but it is not the prime cause of it in them, though it mayhave been so in their ancestors. The children of such persons aredegenerate also, and as the class is numerous and fertile there is herea social problem which is not primarily a problem in alcohol, but isaccidentally connected therewith simply because the proneness toalcoholism is a symptom of the degeneracy. Quite distinct from the foregoing there is the influence of alcohol uponmothers and motherhood that would otherwise have been healthy. Alcohol, like lead, as has been shown elsewhere, may injure the racial elementsin the mother before even expectant motherhood occurs. Later, it mayprejudice both expectant motherhood and nursing motherhood; further itis often the primary cause of over-laying and of chronic cruelty andneglect. Until quite lately there was also the action of thepublic-house upon the children to be reckoned with, where the mothervisited it and was allowed to take them with her. That, however, hasbeen at last put a stop to in England, following the example ofcivilization elsewhere. But it will be clear that the problem is a complicated one. It has beenconfidently attacked by Professor Karl Pearson in a Report upon "theinfluence of parental alcoholism upon the offspring, " and theconclusions of that Report have been widely circulated and are beingcirculated almost wherever the monetary interest of alcohol has power. Briefly, Professor Pearson came to the conclusion that the children ofdrunken parents are, on the average, superior to those of sober parentsin physique and in intelligence, in sight and in freedom from epilepsyand other diseases. This, of course, as everybody knows, is obviousnonsense, and the only problem remaining is how to account for itsassertion. I have dealt with that question at length elsewhere, [24] andhere need only note in a word that Professor Pearson's Report includesno comparison between the children of abstainers and drinkers, since thenumber of abstainers was too few to be treated separately; thatProfessor Pearson attaches no strict meaning to the term alcoholism, bywhich he means anything from what the word really means down to ageneral suspicion that the parents were drinking more than was good forthemselves or their home; and finally that in studying the influence ofalcohol upon offspring Professor Pearson has omitted to enquire in asingle case whether the alcoholism or the offspring came first. TheReport has no scientific basis whatever and has been riddled withcriticism by expert students of every kind, including not merelystudents of alcoholism but also Professor Alfred Marshall of Cambridge, the greatest English-speaking economist of the time, who has shown thatthere are no grounds for the assumptions made by Professor Pearson inthat part of his argument which is based upon the economic efficiency ofdrinking and non-drinking parents. The publication of this Report merelyhastens the rapid decadence of "biometry, " the foundations of which havealready been sapped by the re-discovery of Mendelism in 1900; but it wasnecessary to refer to the matter here, since in the advertisements andthe other printed matter paid for by the alcoholic party, the public isbeing informed that the children of alcoholic parents have been provedto be, on the whole, superior to those of non-alcoholic parents. Thisquestion has been exhaustively studied, yet again, in London by Dr. Sullivan, in Helsingfors by Professor Laitinen, and also in New York inan enquiry which actually embraced no less than fifty-five thousandschool children. The elementary fallacies entertained by ProfessorPearson were of course avoided and the uniform result in these and in ahost of other enquiries that might be named is the only result whichcould be imagined in a universe where causes have effects. The particular causes under consideration have been having their effectsfor a very long time. It begins to be more and more clear that they haveplayed a great part in the history of mankind. As the "history" welearnt at school is more and more discredited, there is slowly cominginto being a real kind of history which deals with the essentials ofnational life and death, and is based upon the principles of organicevolution. This is a thesis which one has attempted to justify in aprevious book, but one aspect of it must be recurred to here. Our modernstudy of various diseases and poisons is throwing a light on the life ofnations. Take for instance the modern theories as to the influence ofmalarial poison upon Greece. In the case of alcohol, we now haveevidence which is real and unchallengeable. The properties which itdisplays when we study it to-day have always been and always will be itsproperties. We find that it has certain actions on living protoplasm inthe twentieth century; we know enough of the uniformity of nature torealize that it had those actions in the tenth century, and will havethem in the thirtieth. As we study under the microscope the influence ofalcohol upon the racial tissues in the individual, [25] and therein findconfirmation of experimental study and observation by all the othermeans available to science, we begin to see that the greatest facts ofhistory are those of which historians have no word, and not leastamongst these has ever been the influence of alcohol upon parenthood. Itis possible to adduce arguments in favour of the view that thepractically complete immunity of their parenthood from alcohol is one ofthe great factors that explain the all but unexampled persistence ofthe Jews and their present status in the van of the world's thought andwork. For history it is the parents that matter as against thenon-parents, and of the parents it is the mothers even more than thefathers. The freedom of the Jews as a whole from alcoholism is moremarked than ever in the case of their women; that is to say, in the caseof their mothers. We see the part-results of this in our own time when we compare theinfant mortality amongst the Jews with that of their Gentile neighboursin a great city such as London or Leeds. As everyone should know, thereis a huge disparity between the figures in the two cases, and in somerecords it has been found that under equal conditions two Gentile babieswill die for each Jewish baby. The conditions are of course not equal, because the Jewish babies have Jewish motherhood, splendidly backed upas it usually is by Jewish fatherhood; whereas the Gentile babies have avery inferior parental care. Now if it were that infant mortality, asmost people suppose, simply meant the death of a certain number ofbabies, the foregoing facts would have no particular bearing upon thequestions of racial survival, except in so far as those questions dependupon mere numbers. But the advocates of the great campaign againstinfant mortality have always maintained that the actual mortality isonly one effect of the causes which produce it. When people have saidthat the loss of a certain number of babies mattered little, we havealways replied that for every baby killed many were damaged. Thiscontention has now been proved up to the hilt in the remarkableofficial enquiry, the first of its kind, made by Dr. Newsholme, nowChief Medical Officer of the Local Government Board. [26] He studiedinfant mortality in relation to the mortality of children and youngpeople at all subsequent ages, and he proved, once and for all, thatinfant mortality is what we have always maintained it to be, not merelya disaster in itself but an evidence of causes which injure the healthand vigour of the survivors at all ages. Wherever infant mortality ishighest, there child mortality is highest, and the mortality of boys andgirls at puberty and during the early years of adolescence when the bodyis preparing for and becoming capable of parenthood. The evil conditionsthat cause infant mortality are thus proved to be far-reaching and muchwider in their effects than any but the students of the subject have yetrealized. This chapter must be brought to a close, but it may be added that theemergence of sober nations, such as Japan and Turkey, into contemporaryhistory, and the possibilities latent in China, --to mention none otherof the "dying nations, " so very much alive, at whom glass-eyedpoliticians used to sneer--constitutes one of the major facts ofcontemporary history. No one can yet say whether these nations will havethe wisdom to retain their ancient habits or whether they will acceptour whisky along with our parliamentary institutions and motor-cars. Much future history rests upon this issue. But I have little doubt that whatever happens in the case of Japan andTurkey, Jewish parenthood will retain the quality which has long agobecome fixed as a racial characteristic, and that the race which hassurvived so much oppression and so many of its oppressors will survivecontemporary abuse and the abusers. Its women nurse their own babies andhave retained the power to do so. Neither before birth nor after do theyfeed the life that is to be on alcohol; they lay rightly the foundationsof the future, where alone those foundations can be durably laid. Thereader is not necessarily asked to admire them or to like them or tospeak well of them, but if he desires the strength and continuance ofwhatever race or nation he belongs to, he will do well to imitate them. It seems necessary to believe in the yellow peril, though not, ofcourse, in its absurd form of a military nightmare. The pressure ofpopulation is the irresistible force of history. It depends, of course, upon parenthood, and more especially upon motherhood and therefore uponwomanhood. At present the motherhood of the yellow races is sober. If itremains so, and if the motherhood of Western races takes the coursewhich motherhood has taken for many years past in England, it is verysure that in the Armageddon of the future, those ancient races, Semiticand Mongol, which had achieved civilization when Europe was in the StoneAge, will be in a position of immense advantage as against our own race, which is threatening, at any rate in England, to follow the example ofmany races of which little record, or none, now remains, and drinkitself to death. CHAPTER XXII CONCLUSION The plan of this book has now been satisfied. The reader may be very farfrom satisfied, but not, it is to be hoped, on the ground that manysubjects have been omitted which might quite well have been includedunder the title of Woman and Womanhood. It was better to confine oursearch to principles. For it seems evident that civilization is at the parting of the ways inthese fundamental matters. The invention of aeroplanes and submarine andwireless telegraphy and the like is of no more moment than the fly onthe chariot wheel, compared with the vital reconstructions which are nowproceeding or imminent. The business of the thoughtful at this junctureis to determine principles, for principles there are in these matters, if they can be discovered, as certain, as all-important as those onwhich any other kind of science proceeds. Just as the physicist musthold hard by his principles of motion and thermodynamics and radiationand the like, so the sociologist must hold hard by the organicprinciples which determine the life and continuance of living things. Unless we base our projects for mankind upon the laws of life, they willcome to naught, as such projects have come to naught not once but athousand times in the past. None will dare dispute these assertions, yet what do we see at thepresent time? On what grounds is the woman question fought, and by whatkind of disputants? It is fought, as everyone knows, on the grounds ofwhat women want, or rather, what a particular section of half-instructedwomen, in some particular time and place, think they want, --or do notwant--under the influence of suggestion, imitation and the otherinfluences which determine public opinion. It is fought on the groundsof precedent: women are not to have votes in England because women havenever had votes in England, or they are to have votes in England becausethey have them in New Zealand. It is fought on party political grounds, none the less potent because they are not honestly acknowledged: theLiberal and the Conservative parties favour or disfavour this or thatSuffrage Bill, or whatever it may be, according to what they expect tobe its effect upon their voting strength. It is fought upon financialgrounds, as when we see the entire force of the alcoholic party arrayedagainst the claims of women, as in the nature of things it always hasbeen and always will be. It is fought on theological grounds by clericswho quote the first chapter of Genesis; and on anti-theological groundsby half-instructed rationalists who attack marriage because they supposeit was invented by the Church. And whose voices never fail among the disputants? Loudest of all arethose of youth of both sexes, who know nothing and want to know nothingand who have no idea that there is anything to know in attempting todecide such questions as this. It is argued in the House of Gramophonesand such places, by common politicians of the type the many-headedchoose, who would do better to confine themselves to the soiledquestions of tariffs and the like, in which they find a native joy. Itis argued by vast numbers of men who hate or fear women, and women whohate or fear men, as if any imaginable wisdom on this question or anyother could possibly be born of such emotions. Yet all the while we are dealing with a problem in biology, with livingbeings, obeying and determined by the laws of life, and with a speciesexhibiting those fundamental facts of heredity, variation, bi-parentalreproduction, sexual selection, instinct and the like, which are meremeaningless names to nine out of ten of the disputants, and yet whichdetermine them and their disputes and the issues thereof. If these contentions be correct, there is plainly much need for anattempt, however imperfect, to set forth the first principles of womanand womanhood. Evidently the time for discussion of detailed questionshas not yet come, since, to take a single instance, there is not yet tobe heard on either side of the controversy a single voice asserting thefundamental eugenic necessity that, at whatever cost, the best womenmust be selected for motherhood, and the contribution of theirsuperiority to the future stock. Let us briefly sum up the substance of the foregoing pages. First, we have stated the eugenic postulate, failing to grant which weand our schemes, our votes and our hopes, will assuredly disappear ordecay, as must all living races which are not recruited from theirbest, Secondly, we have proceeded to analyze the nature of womanhood, its capacities and conditions, assuming that we can scarcely discoverwhither it should go unless we know what it is. To the party politician, hungry for the prizes that suit his soul or stomach, such an assumptionis mere foolish pedantry; and the ardent suffragist will have littlemore to say to it. That, however, cannot be helped. It is to be hopedthat all parties, _as parties_, will unite in banning the views hereinexpressed, and then one may take heart of grace and dare to hope thatthere is something in them. They may be crystallized in the dictum that woman is Nature's supremeorgan of the future. This is not a theory, but a statement of evidenttruth. It is an essential canon of what one might call the philosophy ofbiology, and applies to the female sex throughout living nature. Birthis of the female alone. No sub-human male, nor even man himself, candirectly achieve the future; the greatest statesman or law-giver orfounder of nations can only work, if he knew it, through womanhood. Thegreatest of these, and their name is very far from legion, was evidentlyMoses, as history shows, and he acted on this principle. On the otherhand, those who have sought to achieve the future, as Napoleon did, failed because they defiled and flouted womanhood. The best men died onthe battlefield and the worst were left to aid the women in that supremework of parenthood by which alone, and only through the co-operation ofmen and women, the future is made. Thirdly, we have seen it to follow from this dedication of the greaterand vastly more valuable part of woman's energies to the future that, just in proportion as she serves it and devotes herself thereto, sheneeds present support. Biology teaches us that the male sex was inventedfor this purpose; doubtless one should say for this "increasingpurpose, " since it is scarcely more than foreshadowed at first in thehistory of the male sex. The study of life has clearly proved that themale sex is secondary and adjuvant, and that its essentially auxiliaryfunctions for the race have been increasing from the beginning until wefind them in perfection wherever two parents join in common consecrationand devotion to their supreme task, upon which all else depends andwithout which nothing else could be. And just as woman is mediate between man and the future, so man ismediate between woman and the present. Woman is the more immediateenvironment, the special providence, so to say, of childhood; and man, in a rightly constituted society, is the special providence, the moreimmediate environment of woman, standing between her and inanimateNature, guarding her, taking thought for her, feeding her, using hisspecial masculine qualities for her--that is to say, in the long run, for the future of the race; this indeed being the purpose for whichNature has contrived all individuals of both sexes. If we prefer suchphrases, we may say that the future or the children are parasitic uponwoman, and that woman is "parasitic upon the male, " which is one woman'sway of putting it. Or we may say that these are the natural andtherefore divine relations of the various forms in which human life iscast, and that our business is to make them more effective, moreprovident and freer from the factors which in all ages have tended toinjure them. Fourthly, we have everywhere seen cause to condemn sex-antagonism, andit is my hope that no page or line or word of this book can be accusedof illustrating or justifying or inciting to or even attempting topalliate either form of this wholly abominable spirit of the pit. Ifsuch places there be, there assuredly is misdirection and falsity. Thisspirit is one of the great enemies of mankind. As aroused in womenagainst men, it has done and is doing no little harm; as exhibited bymen against the righteous claims of women, it is one of the supremelymalign forces of history. Wherever and however displayed, it is false tothe first and most essential facts of life, from the moment of theevolution of sex, hundreds of millions of years ago, until our own time. All who display it, however excellent their intentions, are enemies ofmankind; all who work upon it for their own ends, political andpersonal, without feeling it, are beneath disgust. These are things trueand necessary to be said, though they should not deter us fromsympathizing with the unhappy individuals, not a few, whose lives havebeen blasted by individuals of the other sex, and who show the naturalbut tragic tendency to make their private injury cause for resentmentagainst one-half of mankind. Surveying the pages that are past, I amalmost inclined to regret that, the plan of the book notwithstanding, aspecial chapter was not devoted to Sex-Antagonism and to a demonstrationon biological grounds of its wickedness and pestilence wherever it befound, and whatever plausible case for it may anywhere be made. If the sound of hope is not heard as the ground-tone of these chapters, let it ring through all else at the end. I am an optimist because I aman evolutionist, and because I believe, as every one of those whom Icall Eugenists must, that the best is yet to be. The dawn is breakingfor womanhood, and therefore for all mankind. If we are asked to expressin one phrase the reason why this hope is justified, it is because thelong struggle between two antithetic conceptions of human society isreaching a definite issue. These radically opposed ideas may for convenience be called the_organic_ and the _internecine_. The internecine conception of societyforever sets nation against nation, race against race, class againstclass, sex against sex, individual against individual, on the groundthat the interest of one must be the injury of the other. It is false. Nay, more, for man living his life on this earth as he must and will, itis the Great Lie. And it is being found out. Even international trade and commerce, fromwhich such a service could scarcely have been expected, are herecontributing to philosophy. Our fathers talked of the comity of nations;we are beginning to discover their interdependence. The coming of thatdiscovery is one of the few really new things under the sun. Not so verylong ago, when mankind was far less numerous, such interdependence ofnations did not exist; they were self-sufficient, just as thepatriarchal family was self-sufficient still further ago. But the interdependence of the sexes is so far from being a new factthat it is as old as the evolution of sex, and the decadence anddisappearance of parthenogenesis or reproduction from the female sexalone. Once bi-parental reproduction becomes necessary for thecontinuance of the race, both sexes sink with either, and neither canswim but with both. Yet so far are we from realizing this most ancientof facts to-day that, on both sides of the woman question, wonderful torelate, are to be found controversialists who are seeking to deny thiscontinuous lesson of so many million ages. The reader may take hischoice of folly between them. On the one hand, there are the feministswho seek to do without man, --except for the minimum physiologicalpurpose. The women are to sustain the present and create the futuresimultaneously, and man is to be reduced, apparently, to the function ofthe drone. Thus Mrs. Gilman in "Women and Economics. " Over against herand those who think with her are to be set the men, and women too, whotell us that "men made the State, "--a sufficiently shamefuladmission--and that women have no business with these things. Do nottheir mothers blush for such; to have travailed so much, and to haveachieved so little? Fortunately, however, the greater number of those who think anddetermine the deeds of the mass are beginning, though the dawn is yetvery faint, to perceive that this truth of the interdependence of thesexes, which is part of the greater truth that mankind is an organicwhole, is not only much truer than ever to-day, but is vital to oursalvation; and save us it will. In so far as we are keeping womeninferior to men, we must raise them; in so far as we are keeping men, inother and certainly no less important respects, inferior to women, wemust raise them. The future needs and will obtain the utmost of thehighest of both sexes. Thus and thus only "springs the crowning race ofhuman kind": wherein, as we hasten to the dust, living for a day, yetfor ever, our eyes prophetic may behold the sure and certain hope of aglorious resurrection. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- INDEX OF SUBJECTS Adolescence, 124 ---- and advertisements, 135 ---- and alcohol, 228 Alcohol, 54, 100 ---- accessibility of, 360 ---- and expectant motherhood, 367 ---- and breast-feeding, 371 ---- and industrialism, 360, 377 ---- and tobacco _versus_ children, 201, 251, 354 ---- widows and orphans, 350 ---- and womanhood, 348 _et seq. _ Alcoholism and lead poisoning, 379 ---- and offspring, 380 ---- and Jewish survival, 382 _et seq. _ Anti-Suffrage societies, 16 Asceticism, old and new, 102 Bees, arguments from, 31, 84, 322 Birth-rate, fall of, 288 _et seq. _ ---- and infant mortality, 301 ---- and marriage-rate, 312 Board of Education Syllabus, 121 Breast feeding, 333 _et seq. _ ---- and alcohol, 371 "British Medical Journal" on meat, wines, etc. , 361 _et seq. _ Brooding instinct in fowls, 82 Canada's need of women, 269 Childless marriage, 244 Children Act, 265, 372 Climacteric, 21, 77, 98 Confirmation and adolescence, 124 Conservation of energy, 64 ---- and higher education, 79 Contagious diseases, 219 Corset, 120, 186 _et seq. _ Cycling for women, 119 Dancing, 120, 122 Degeneracy and inaction, 42 Determination of sex, 72 _et seq. _ Divorce, conditions of, 291 _et seq. _ ---- _versus_ separation, 293 ---- in Germany, 293 ---- Law Reform Union, 293 Dolls and their significance, 95, 166 Education, definition of, 156 ---- and instruction, 161, 172 ---- for motherhood, 151, 158 _et seq. _ Educational question, 43 Endowment of motherhood, 282 _et seq. _, 308 Engagements, length of, 135 Eugenic feminism, 7 Eugenics, _passim_. "Evolution of Sex, " 67 Exercise in girls' schools, Herbert Spencer on, 104 _et seq. _ Expectant mother, 143, 367 Fabian Society, 182 Femaleness, constitution of, 76 Games _versus_ dumb-bells, 110 ---- mixed, 113 Gameto-genesis, 82 Germ cells and germ plasm, 27, 28, 81, 206, 367 ---- its immortality, 29 ---- and sex inheritance, 74 Girls' clubs, 123 ---- clothing, 125 Gonorrh[oe]a, 223 _et seq. _ Gymnastics _versus_ play, 109 Hæmophilia, 3 Happiness in marriage, 236 Heredity and responsibility, 195 Heredity of sex, 73 Higher education, 151 ---- in London, 128 ---- and marriage rate, 78 ---- and conservation of energy, 79 Highest education, 154 Identical twins, 55 Illegitimacy, 148, 304, 336, 384 Infant mortality, 70, 172, 177, 194, 259, 325 Infant mortality and alcohol, 370 Insanity, 54, 225 Instinct and emotion, 164 Instinct, Spencer's definition of, 164 Insurance for motherhood, 315 Joy, physiological value of, 112 Kaiser's creed, 11 Knossos, 186 Law of multiplication, 66 Leprosy, 220 Maleness, constitution of, 76 "Man before speech, " 39 Marriage age, 196 ---- Metchnikoff on, 199 ---- and quality of children, 204 ---- conditions of, 258 ---- and the "superfluous woman, " 259 _et seq. _ "Marriage as a Trade, " 202 Marriage, social function of, 307 Married women's labour, 306 Mars, the parallel from, 50 Maternal instinct, 163 _et seq. _ ---- McDougall on, 168 _et seq. _ ---- in the cat, 171, 177 ---- alleged decadence of, 174 _et seq. _ Mendelism, 4, 67, 74, 75, 81 _et seq. _, 330 Menstrual function, 108 Monogamy and its critics, 272 Monogamy and polygamy, 261 "Morning Post, " quotation from, 340 Mortality in childbirth, 217 Mosaic legislation, 147 Mother and child worship, 148 Motherhood, endowment of, 282 ---- physical and psychical, 83 Motherhood insurance, 315 "Mrs. Warren's Profession, " 138 Muscles, relative value of, for women, 117 Muscularity and vitality, 99 Natural selection, 32 Nature and nurture, 52, 214 Neanderthal skull, 38 Notification of Births Act, 132 Organic analysis by Mendelism, 81 Parental instinct, 95 Parthenogenesis, 72 Patent medicines and alcohol, 361 _et seq. _ Physical fitness for marriage, 208 Physical training of girls, 99 Physiological division of labour, 87 Play centres, 22 Preventive eugenics, 24 Progress and the nervous system, 102 ---- definition of, 37 ---- the two kinds of, 38 Prudery, 130, 132 _et seq. _ Psychical fitness for marriage, 211 Puberty, 98, 124 Racial instinct, 167, 180, 225 Racial poisons, 24, 382 Radium, 35 "Reproduction" and "parenthood, " 141 Rescue homes, 137 "Richard Feverel, " 191 Rights of mothers, 293 _et seq. _ ---- of women, 319 Scotland, educational strain at puberty, 115 Separation _versus_ divorce, 293 "Sex and Character, " 68 Sex equality and sex identity, 56 _et seq. _ Sex and breathing, 93, 94 Sex and the blood, 93 Sex in childhood, 92 Sex antagonism, 391 "Sexual instinct" and "racial instinct, " 144 _et seq. _ Sexual attraction, Spencer on, 240 _et seq. _ Sexual selection, 144 Skipping, 122 Socialism, 182 ---- and motherhood, 282 Socialism and responsibility, 309 Swedish gymnastics, 121 Swimming, 120 Syphilis, 54, 222 _et seq. _ Terms of specialization, 87 Transmutation of instinct, 171 ---- of sex, 251 Vacation schools, 22, 114 Variation within a sex, 89 ---- amongst women, 90 Venereal diseases, 219 _et seq. _ Venus of Milo, 120, 186 Vital imports and exports, 267 Vitality superior in women, 99 Widowhood, causes of, 217 ---- and motherhood, 303 Women and colonization, 268 _et seq. _ "Women's Charter, " 311, 315 Women and economics, 327 _et seq. _ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- INDEX OF NAMES Aristotle, 39 Aurelius, Marcus, 257 Bacon, 182 Ballantyne, Dr. J. W. , 370 Bateson, 77 Bonheur, Rosa, 58 Botticelli, 184 Bouchard, 290 Brieux, 138, 221 Budin, Prof. , 336 Bunge, Prof. Von, 334, 371 Burke, 225 Burns, John, 325 Butler, Lady, 58 Carlyle, 8 Chesterton, G. K. , 266, 333 Clouston, 21 Coleridge, 40, 178, 184 Croom, Sir Halliday, 119 Darwin, 26, 47 Duncan, Miss Isadora, 123 Duncan, Dr. Matthews, 210 Ehrlich, 233 Eliot, George, 58 Ellis, Dr. Havelock, 61, 93, 118, 119, 186 Evans, Dr. Arthur, 186 Fawcett, Mrs. , 21 Forel, 86, 149 Galton, 7, 52, 203, 205, 208, 211 Geddes and Thomson, 65, 84 Gilman, Mrs. C. P. , 327, 393 Goethe, 225 Haeckel, 82 Hamilton, Miss Cicely, 202 Haynes, E. S. P. , 293 Helmholtz, 36 Horsley, 254 Huxley, 46 Kelvin, 35 Key, Ellen, 8, 59, 347 Kipling, 188 Laitinen, Prof. Taav, 381 Lamarck, 158 Lister, 20, 209 Maclaren, Lady, 315 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 325 Marshall, Prof. Alfred, 381 McDougall, Dr. W. , 165 Meredith, 48, 142 Metchnikoff, 199 Mill, J. S. , 174 Milne-Edwards, 87 Minot, 87 Mosso, 120 Mott, Dr. F. W. , 356 Napoleon, 305 Nation, Carrie, 23 Newman, Sir George, 121 Newsholme, Dr. A. , 384 Nightingale, Florence, 17 Pasteur, 217 Pearson, Karl, 205, 380 Phillpotts, Eden, 191 Plato, 2, 56, 182 Rotch, Prof. Morgan, 336 Ruskin, 19, 48, 150, 157, 189, 345 Sappho, 58 Scharlieb, Dr. Mary, 371 Shakespeare, 52 Spencer, Herbert, 6, 45, 48, 64, 81, 104, 129, 156, 159, 171, 240, 320 St. Francis, 46 St. Paul, 150 Stevenson, 154 Sullivan, Dr. W. C. , 376, 381 Thales, 64 Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 21 Ward, Lester, 72, 261 Weininger, 68 Weismann, 26, 28, 82 Wells, H. G. , 182, 282, 310, 313 Westermarck, 186 Wordsworth, Dorothy, 14 Wordsworth, 13, 48, 159, 189, 256 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FOOTNOTES: [1] "The Germ-Plasm. " English translation in Contemporary ScienceSeries, London: New York. [2] "Parenthood and Race-Culture: An Outline of Eugenics. " [3] "The Obstacles to Eugenics, " published in the _Sociological Review_, July 1909. [4] See his "Pure Sociology. " [5] _I. E. _ marrying cells. [6] Here, as in many other cases, I am indebted to that invaluablerepertory of facts, Dr. Havelock Ellis's "Man and Woman. " [7] This may be obtained from any bookseller at the price of 9d. [8] Further particulars may be obtained from the Vice-Principal, King'sCollege (Women's Department), 13 Kensington Square, London, W. [9] From _La Question Sexuelle_, French edition, p. 62. The author wrotethe book first in German and then in French. [10] The modern use of the word environment really dates from Lamarck'soriginal phrase. In his discussion of the characters of living beings, he spoke of the _milieu environnant_. The higher the type of organismthe more comprehensive must the term become, not only quantitatively butqualitatively. [11] "An Introduction to Social Psychology, " by William McDougall, M. A. , M. B. , M. Sc. , Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy in the University ofOxford. [12] From the writer's paper, "The Human Mother, " in the Report of theProceedings of the National Conference on Infantile Mortality, 1908, p. 30. [13] It it well to quote here the most recent comment of the late SirFrancis Galton upon this subject. It is to be found in his celebratedHuxley lecture, now published by the Eugenics Education Society, together with much of the illustrious author's other work, under thetitle, "Essays in Eugenics. " The passage relevant to our discussion runsas follows:-- "There appears to be a considerable difference between the earliest ageat which it is physiologically desirable that a woman should marry andthat at which the ablest, or at least the most cultured, women usuallydo. Acceleration in the time of marriage, often amounting to sevenyears, as from twenty-eight or twenty-nine to twenty-one or twenty-two, under influences such as those mentioned above, is by no meansimprobable. What would be its effect on productivity? It might beexpected to act in two ways:-- "(1) By shortening each generation by an amount equally proportionate tothe diminution in age at which marriage occurs. Suppose the span of eachgeneration to be shortened by one-sixth, so that six take the place offive, and that the productivity of each marriage is unaltered, itfollows that one-sixth more children will be brought into the worldduring the same time, which is roughly equivalent to increasing theproductivity of an unshortened generation by that amount. "(2) By saving from certain barrenness the earlier part of thechild-bearing period of the woman. Authorities differ so much as to thedirect gain of fertility due to early marriage that it is dangerous toexpress an opinion. The large and thriving families that I have knownwere the offspring of mothers who married very young. " [14] An unavoidable delay in the publication of this book makes possiblereference to Professor Ehrlich's synthetic compound of arsenic, known as"606, " the anti-syphilitic potency of which will render even lessexcusable the cowardice and neglect against which the foregoing is aprotest. [15] This is a libel upon poor people everywhere. There has been someconfusion between drink and poverty. [16] "T. P. 's Weekly, " Christmas Number, 1909. [17] The first treatise on Infant Mortality in English, written by SirGeorge Newman at the present writer's request, and published in his NewLibrary of Medicine in 1906, gives abundant and trustworthy informationas to the initial incidence of this disproportionate mortality. [18] "Socialism and the Family, " Sixpenny Edition, p. 59. [19] The address of this Union is 20, Copthall Avenue, London, E. C. [20] "The primal physical functions of maternity. " [21] W. Claassen in the Archiv für Rassen-und-Gesellschafts-Biologie, Nov. --Dec. , 1909. See the Eugenics Review, July, 1910, p. 154. [22] We decided to reprint the Report of that Conference, and a fewcopies of the reprint are still obtainable. [23] In his "Alcoholism. " 1906. [24] In the articles, "Racial Poisons: Alcohol, " Eugenics Review, April, 1910, and "Professor Karl Pearson on Alcoholism and Offspring, " BritishJournal of Inebriety, Oct. , 1910. [25] This study has only just begun, but remarkable results have alreadybeen obtained. The interested reader should refer to the Proceedings ofthe Twelfth International Congress on Alcoholism held in London in 1909. [26] This Report, published in 1910, can readily be obtained through anybookseller. Its number is Cd. 5263, and the price only 1s. 3d. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Transcriber's Notes: 1. Original chapter titles were inconsistently named. For example "CHAPTER VI" was followed by simply "VII" without the "CHAPTER" designation. The original printing has been retained. 2. P. 269: word omitted in original ("on") has been added: "I have recently been on a tour throughout Canada.... "