Page:The Future of the Women's Movement.djvu/82

 has, in fact, come to birth and steadily grown with the steady decline of the rule of physical force. And it will be seen that this must be so, when once we have grasped the fact that the unmoral use of physical force may here and there profit an individual but is always bad business for the community.

If we abandon the visions of the Antis, we shall see that, as a matter of prosaic fact, the vote in England is given to a man not as a reward of virtue (as the assertion, "woman has disgraced herself," would seem to imply), nor as a prize for intellectual ability (as those who speak slightingly of women's intellect would suggest), nor as the guerdon of physical prowess (as the physical force party declare), nor does it depend upon his being a husband and father. An Englishman who has, by debauchery, ruined body, mind and spirit, and who has neither wife nor child, may yet have the necessary qualifications to vote, for these are a confused and illogical jumble of accretions, but, such as they are, they depend on the possession of property. It is proposed by Liberals to abolish these and to enfranchise a man in virtue of his manhood. Once you see the immorality, the waste and the stupidity of the physical force argument, there is no possible ground for refusing to enfranchise a woman in virtue of her womanhood.