CONTENTS OF CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION-THE STARTING-POINT OF THE INQUIRY

The twentieth century the age of hurrying progress-The change in the position of women-Reasons for the revolution-First efforts towards emancipation Outlook of the Woman Movement-Its fundamental error-Possibilities of future development—Motherhood and the Woman Movement-Schopenhauer's view of woman— He asserts an absurdity-The predominance of man over woman not to be regarded as a natural and inviolable law-An examination of the mastery of the male-Can we look forward to a remedy— Our own time a turning-point in the history of women-Assumed inferiority of the female sex-Necessity for biological knowledge in forming an estimate of the present sex-relationship-Two kinds of influences to be considered-Nature and Nurture-The different play of the environmental forces, or Nurture, upon women and upon men-The importance of Nature-Galton's Law of Inheritance-Woman's responsibility as race-bearer-Sexual differences between the female and the male-Primitive woman and her position in early civilisations-Remarks and conclusion-The immense importance of motherhood.

B

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION-THE STARTING-POINT OF THE INQUIRY

"The method of investigating truth commonly pursued at this time, therefore, is to be held erroneous and almost foolish, in which so many inquire what others have said, and omit to ask whether the things themselves be actually so or not.”—WILLIAM HARVEY.

THE twentieth century will, we may well believe, be stamped in the records of the future as "the "the age of hurrying change." In certain directions this change has resulted in a profounder transformation of thought than has been effected by all the preceding centuries. Never, probably, in the history of the world were the meanings and ambitions of progress so prevalent as they are to-day. An energy of inquiry and an endless curiosity is sweeping away the complacent Victorian attitude, which in its secure faith and tranquil self-confidence accepted the conditions of living without question and without emotion. Stripped of its masks, this phase of individual egoism was perhaps the most villainous page of recorded human history; yet, with strange confidence, it regarded itself as the very summit of civilisation. It may be that such a phase was necessary before the awakening of a social conscience could arise. Old conceptions have become foolish in a New Age. A great motive, an enlarging dream, a quickening understanding of social responsibility, these are what we have gained.

Above all, this common Faith of Progress has brought

a new birth to women. Many are feeling this force. There are two, says Professor Karl Pearson,' and it might almost be said only two great problems of modern social life-they are the problem of woman and the problem of labour. Regarded with fear by many, they are for the younger generation the sole motors in life, and the only party cries which in the present can arouse enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and a genuine freemasonry of class and sex.

There is something almost staggering in the range and greatness of the changes in belief and feeling, in intellectual conclusions and social habits, which are now disturbing the female part of humankind. How complete is the divorce between the attitude of the woman of this generation towards society and herself, and that of the generation that has passed-yes, passed as completely as if hundreds and not units represent the years that separate it from the present.

It is instructive to note in passing what was written about woman at the time immediately preceding the present revolt of the sex. The virtue upon which most stress was laid was that of "delicacy," a word which occurs with nauseous frequency in the books written both by women and men in the two last centuries. "Propriety," wrote Mrs. Hannah Moore, "is to a woman what the great Roman citizen said action is to an orator: it is the first, the second, and the third requisite."

1 "Woman and Labour," The Chances of Death, Vol. I.

P. 226.

2 Quoted from The Emancipation of English Women, by W. Lyon Blease, a book which gives an unbiased, and in many respects, excellent account of the struggle of English women to gain freedom from the seventeenth century to the present day.

3 Strictures, I. 6, Gregory.