Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/224

 is in these considerations that we find the true explanation of what has been from the beginning until now, and what must doubtless continue to be, though it be in a modified form. It may be a pity for woman that she has been created woman, but, being such, it is as ridiculous to consider herself inferior to man because she is not man, as it would be for man to consider himself inferior to her because he cannot perform her functions. There is one glory of the man, another glory of the woman, and the glory of the one differethdifferent [sic] from that of the other.

Taking into adequate account the physiology of the female organization, some of the statements made by the late Mr. Mill in his book on the subjection of women strike one with positive amazement. He calls upon us to own that what is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing, the result of forced repression in some directions, of unnatural stimulation in others; that their character has been entirely distorted and disguised by their relations with their masters, who have kept them in so unnatural a state; that if it were not for this there would not be any material difference, nor perhaps any difference at all, in the character and capacities which would unfold themselves; that they would do the same things as men fully as well on the whole, if education and cultivation were adapted to correcting, instead of aggravating, the infirmities incident to their temperament; and that they have been robbed of their natural development, and brought into their present unnatural state, by the brutal right of the strongest which man has used. If these allegations contain no exaggeration, if they be strictly true, then is this article an entire mistake.

Mr. Mill argues as if, when he has shown it to be probable that the inequality of rights between the sexes has no other source than the law of the strongest, he had demonstrated its monstrous injustice. But is that entirely so? After all, there is a right in might—the right of the strong to be strong. Men have the right to make the most of their powers, to develop them to the utmost, and to strive for, and if possible gain and hold, the position in which they shall have the freest play. It would be a wrong to the stronger if it were required to limit its exertions to the capacities of the weaker. And if it be not so limited, the result will be that the weaker must take a different position. Men will not fail to take the advantage of their strength over women: are no laws, then, to be made which, owning the inferiority of women's strength, shall ordain accordingly, and so protect them really from the mere brutal tyranny of might? Seeing that the greater power cannot be ignored, but in the long-run must tell in individual competition, it is a fair question whether it ought not to be recognized in social adjustments and enactments, even for the necessary protection of women. Suppose that all legal distinctions were abolished, and that women were allowed free play to do what they could, as it may