WOMAN AND POLITICAL POWER. 89 



human beings who are actually born into the world could in reality, or 

 even in imagination, be made to conform to this sexless archetype, 

 there could be no objection to voters on the score of sex. Thus much 

 may be safely admitted ; but it would then be in the power of any hu- 

 man being to coin such a word as " mammality," or " animality," or to 

 make use of the old word " entity," to assert the existence of a sub- 

 stance corresponding to each word, and so to destroy not only the dis- 

 tinction between man and brute, but between organic and inorganic 

 matter. In short, the very same argument which would introduce 

 woman to man's occupations on the ground of her humanity, would 

 introduce whales on the ground of their mammality, or stocks and 

 stones on the ground of their entity. 



I trust that I shall not be considered guilty of any disrespect in re- 

 ducing some well-known arguments of some jxistly influential thinkers 

 ad absurdum. I no more mean to show disrespect by my treatment 

 of the subject, than to deny the sincere philanthropy of many who ad- 

 vocate woman's rights, when I say that it savors not a little of 

 priestcraft. Just as the metaphysical stage of thought bears a great 

 resemblance to the religious, so the attempt to carry a philosophical 

 doctrine into execution is by no means unlike the attempt to impose a 

 creed. Every ideal form of government which has hitherto been con- 

 ceived has had innumerable elements in common with the Church of 

 the middle ages. From the time of Plato to our own, philosophers 

 have always presented themselves upon the domestic hearth to dictate 

 the relations between husband and wife ; all who are acquainted with 

 the early books of penance will remember that the priest took upon 

 himself the same office, even to the minutest details. In all the me- 

 diaeval works which touch upon science it will be found that the final 

 authority upon every controverted point is not the evidence which may 

 be discovered, but the doctrine of the Church ; so neither Plato nor 

 Malthus, nor the followers of either, appeal fairly to physiological 

 facts or laws, but would repress the very instincts of human nature 

 wherever they are opposed to the philosophical idea. 



The apostles of all religious and all metaphysical doctrines have 

 commonly been not only energetic but thoroughly honest men. They 

 would direct all thought and all action into the groove worn by their 

 own minds, not from an innate love of tyranny, but from an enthusiasm 

 which cannot admit the possibility that persons of a different opinion 

 may be in the right. In the apostle there is always much to admire, 

 but it happens only too often that his priestly successor inherits his 

 faults without his virtues. The present may be called the apostolic 

 age of the doctrine of equal humanity ; and many followers will be 

 won through respect for the character of the apostles, rather than from 

 conviction after sober consideration. But, to the student who desires 

 something positive in science, and who would use that science for the 

 benefit of mankind, there is sad discouragement in the spectacle of a 



