Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/255

Rh man-class. The mere suggestion of such an idea is sufficient to make all the folly and narrow-mindedness of it clear to everybody. Just because it was narrow-mindedness and exclusion that have driven us into a position of disqualification, we, in our turn, must occupy higher ground, upon which narrow-mindedness and exclusion disappear. It is the standpoint of a common humanity, of common human rights. Upon this standpoint we learn to unite with all individuals and with all classes, who in the conception of common rights also recognize and strive for our rights; we further learn to look upon every right for which others struggle as our own cause, even if it does not directly accrue to our advantage; and in combatting every wrong that is perpetrated on others we ward off a blow directed to the common rights in which we also share. If the negro rattles his chains, we must help him break them; if the laborer fights with his exploiter, we must take his part; when nations rise against their oppressors, we must take part in the uprising; and when intellectual liberty scores a victory in a field where the art of mystification and dogmatic barbarity have heretofore held sway, we must hail it as a benefactor of mankind. In short, whenever the question is one of human rights, and of the diffusion of humanity, liberty and truth, there we must take part and help, not only for the sake of satisfying our own natures, and of putting to shame those who declare us incompetent to