55 z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



take account of the influence of the environment which, as you have 

 seen, effaces some of the most marked differences. 



In this examination of the physical man, every thing leads to the 

 conclusion which we had already reached in our earlier lectures ; and 

 we can repeat with redoubled certainty : the differences among human 

 groups are characters of race, and not of species ; there exists only one 

 human species ; and, consequently, all men are brothers all ought to 

 be treated as such, whatever the origin, the blood, the color, the race. 



Gentlemen, the lectures I have given here require a special prepa- 

 ration, and are not always easy to prepare ; but I shall not regret 

 either my time or my pains-, if I am able, in the name of science, and 

 that alone, to render a little more clear and precise for you this great 

 and sacred notion of the brotherhood of man. 



-4^- 



OX THE EQUALITY OF THE SEXES. 1 



SIR : In the foregoing letter I have examined the theory of the con- 

 nection between equality and justice, with the view of showing 

 that the only real connection between the two ideas is to be found in 

 the fact that, as justice implies general rules, it also implies an impar- 

 tial application of those rules to all the particular cases to which they 

 may apply. I also showed that when equality is spoken of as being 

 just or unjust in any more general sense than this, the expression can 

 mean nothing else than that it is or is not generally expedient. The 

 doctrine upon this subject which I deny, and which I am disposed to 

 think Mr. Mill affirms though, if he does, it is with somewhat less 

 than his usual transparent vigor and decision is that equality is in 

 itself always expedient, or, to say the very least, presumably expedi- 

 ent, and that in every case of inequality the burden of proof lies on 

 those who justify its maintenance. 



If I had time to do so, I might give in proof or illustration of this 

 the whole of his essay on the " Subjection of "Women," a work from 

 which I dissent from the first sentence to the last, but which I will con- 

 sider on the present occasion only with reference to the particular topic 

 of equality, and as the strongest distinct illustration known to me of 

 what is perhaps one of the strongest, and what appears to me to be 

 by far the most ignoble, contemptible, and mischievous of all the popu- 

 lar feelings of the age. 



The object of Mr. Mill's essay is to explain the grounds of the 

 opinion that " the principle which regulates the existing social rela- 

 tions between the two sexes, the legal subordination of one sex to the 

 other, is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human 

 1 From the letters of " F.," in the Pall Mall Budget. 



