WOMAN'S PLACE IN NATURE. 297 



either a social, an amatory, or a maternal meaning. Thus, through 

 the principle of inherited associations, music asserts its sway over the 

 deepest emotions of the nature spoken of by Herbert Spencer as 

 arousing " dormant sentiments of which we had not conceived the pos- 

 sibility, and do not know the meaning," and apostrophized as follows 

 by the more impassioned Richter : " Away ! thou tellest me of that 

 which I have not and never can have ; which I forever seek, and never 

 find!" Its mysterious influence is explained by Darwin as consisting 

 in its power of exciting sensations and ideas which " appear from their 

 vagueness, yet depth, like mental reversions to the emotions and 

 thoughts of a long-past age." 



Woman, unable to obtain an influence by those means so readily at 

 the command of man, Avill have naturally resorted to milder measures, 

 both for securing any desired object, and in self-defense ; and music, 

 appealing as it does to the gentler and more tender emotions, will have 

 been often employed in arousing the better nature of him at whose 

 mercy her inferior strength has placed her. Thus she will have held 

 the ruder passions of man in check, and, in taming his wilder nature, 

 will have developed an increasing gentleness both of feelings and of 

 maimers in the entire race. 



During the battles of rival males, the female will have occupied the 

 less active but more dignified position of arbiter and judge. Net be- 

 ing in the heat of the conflict, she will have had opportunity to ob- 

 serve the strategy of each, and to weigh their comparative merits. 

 By this exercise of the faculties of observation, comparison, judgment, 

 and reason, her intellectual powers will have been " continually put to 

 the test and selected during " womanhood. Unfairness in the conduct 

 of the battle will doubtless have roused her indignation, and compelled 

 her better feelings in favor of the more honorable combatant. Sym- 

 pathy for the vanquished will sometimes have taken the place of ex- 

 ultation in the superior prowess of the victor, and admiration for mere 

 muscular power will have had to contend with these finer emotions. 



While man has been engaged in contests with the common enemy, 

 during which his fiercest passions will have been aroused, woman has 

 been subjected to the discipline of family life. To meet emergencies 

 successfully, to provide for the sick, to maintain order and discipline 

 in the household, which, at an early period in human history, included 

 slaves as well as children, will have required mental powers of a high 

 order. At the same time she will have developed a milder character 

 through the exercise of the beneficent traits of maternal love, and 

 solicitude for the absent husband and father. These feelings of tender- 

 ness and love will have gradually prepared the way for the develop- 

 ment of the devotional sentiment, and will have thus furnished a basis 

 for the deeper religious nature which has become a part of woman's 

 birthright. 



Darwin says that the foundation of the moral qualities lies in the 



