WOMAN'S PLACE IN NATURE. 299 



have her reason and imagination exercised to the highest point; and 

 then she would probably transmit these qualities chiefly to her adult 

 daughters. The whole body of women, however, could not be thus 

 raised, unless, during many generations, the women who excelled in 

 the above robust virtues were married, and produced offspring in 

 larger numbers than other women." 



Though the writer appears to see no incompatibility in these two 

 conditions of the intellectual elevation of women, doubtless many of 

 ray readers will, particularly such of them as have borne and raised 

 large families. 



Herbert Spencer says: "Taking degree of nervous organization as 

 the chief correlative of mental capacity, and remembering the physio- 

 logical cost of that discipline whereby high mental capacity is reached, 

 we may suspect that nervous organization is very expensive ; the in- 

 ference being that bringing it up to the level it reaches in man, whose 

 digestive system, by no means large, has at the same time to supply 

 materials for general growth and daily waste, involves a great retar- 

 dation of maturity and sexual genesis." This is a general statement, 

 applicable to the race as a whole, but it follows that, in so far as re- 

 production is a greater physical tax upon woman than upon man, so 

 far she labors under a natural disability to equal man intellectually, 

 there being a necessary antagonism between self- evolution and race- 

 evolution, since energy expanded in one direction is not available in 

 another. 



Darwin, in suggesting a method evidently impracticable, however 

 by which women may become the intellectual peers of men, fails to 

 provide for the elevation of man to a moral equality with woman, 

 although he admits that " the moral faculties ai'e generally esteemed, 

 and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers." He 

 says also that "the moral nature of man has reached the highest 

 standard as yet attained, partly through the advancement of the 

 reasoning powers and consequently of a just public opinion, but espe- 

 cially through the sympathies being rendered more tender and widely 

 diffused." 



In regard to the future progress of the race, Herbert Spencer asks 

 "in what particular ways this further evolution, this higher life, this 

 greater coordination of actions may be expected to show itself; " and 

 concludes 1 that it will not be in the direction of increased muscular 

 strength, but somewhat in an increase of mechanical skill, largely in 

 intelligence, but most largely in morality. 



Thus these high authorities assign to woman a place in the pro- 

 duction of those influences which have developed and must continue 

 to develop mankind, coextensive in importance with the moral interests 

 of the race. 



But, if I have read their teachings aright, neither man nor woman 



1 For argument, see " Principles of Biology," vol. ii., p. 495. 



