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The other question is, Whether, in case such a feminine development be possible, it is desirable? This every man and woman must decide for themselves. It depends upon a single consideration. If manhood is commensurate with humanity, and womanhood is only an accident, a temporary provision of physical nature for the perpetuation of the race, then it is probable that nothing worth while would follow from organizing the world of women. This of course is, and always has been, the prevailing sentiment, otherwise there is no adequate explanation of the contempt men always express for possible feminine achievement and the distrust that, in consequence, women themselves have hitherto felt of it. 'They hunt old trails,' said Cyril, 'very well; But when did women ever yet invent?'"

This is the whole thing in a sentence. Because women do not originate, their practical and mental power is esteemed worthless. And yet the great mystery of Nature might teach us a very different lesson. Granted that all the vitalizing mental power of the race resides with men: the analogy from the physical world seems to show that the results may be barren enough without true feminine co-workers to complete what they can only begin. Therefore I, for one, cheerfully surrender to them the point of originality; I may know nothing in the whole realm of thought or invention that they have not started. But I also know nothing that they have perfected. Their learning, arts, and sciences are all one-sided; their churches inadequate; their governments and societies at once incomplete and rotting into dilapidation and decay. One after another their melancholy civilizations rise, return upon themselves, and are not. To judge what men alone can avail for humanity, it is quite enough to read an article in a recent number of the North British Review called "The Social Sores of Britain." With all their genius and all their energy, that