342 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



days biologized, it rests back upon the great physical fact that 

 women for all time must be prepared to bear and rear the children 

 of the race. Granting that much of her physical disability is 

 due to various sorts of foolishness and may be removed, it re- 

 mains undeniable that in even the most normal of women the 

 reproductive system is by nature so constituted that it requires a 

 much larger proportion of her vitality than is the case with man. 

 Hence, leaving out of account all other possible variations be- 

 tween the sexes, this difference alone is a definite handicap to all 

 women who " compete " with men. For married women there 

 is the further fact that childbearing and the care of children 

 add a new and very serious handicap in any " competition " with 

 men. 



If, then, woman is physically at so great a disadvantage in 

 many occupations, shall she not consider that these occupations 

 are, for her, but secondary issues ? For her specialty shall she 

 not look along the line of least resistance ? Instead of denying 

 her physical constitution, shall she not exalt it by a consistent 

 allegiance to its fundamental significance ? Notwithstanding the 

 present apotheosis of the physical sciences, woman will not rest 

 satisfied in a purely physical explanation of her destiny. Bitter 

 rebellion is inevitable whenever she is confronted by her physical 

 limitations and possesses not the spiritual key to their meaning. 

 But a spiritual significance in the life of woman has been more or 

 less felt in all times, and in the present it is not only tacitly con- 

 ceded by society in general, but it has received definite scientific 

 formulation. From their physical constitution women more 

 than men must inevitably sacrifice themselves for the progress of 

 the race. Unconscious and unwilling though they may have 

 been, necessity and habit have so trained countless generations of 

 women in the practice of self-denial that they have grown to be 

 in the world the special witnesses and exemplifiers of the altruistic 

 principle. So true is it that motherhood and the love and self- 

 sacrifice which it involves, is woman's peculiar contribution to 

 evolution and progress, that, as has been keenly pointed out, " the 

 woman question is not solved until it is solved by mothers." In 

 other words, a woman can not solve her life problem on a purely 

 individual basis except at the price of her influence on the race. 

 A man may lead a life largely self-centered and still transmit 

 his qualities to his children, but the self-centered woman can 

 not pass on her qualities, for she will have no children to inherit 

 them. If she would, in any large way, save her life, she must 

 lose it. 



The actual facts bear out this conception of a woman's func- 

 tion. It is not that women are wholly altruistic. Though loath 

 to own it, we are but mortal. Nor will any (except the suffrage 



