ON THE EQUALITY OF THE SEXES. 553 



improvement ; and that it ought to he replaced hy a principle of per- 

 fect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor dis- 

 ability on the other." 



Mr. Mill is fully aware of the difficulty of his task. He admits that 

 he is arguing against "an almost universal opinion," but he urges that 

 it and the practice founded on it is a relic of a by-gone state of things. 

 " We now live that is to say, one or two of the most advanced na- 

 tions of the world now live in a state in which the law of the strong- 

 est seems to be entirely abandoned as the regulating principle of the 

 world's affivirs. Nobody professes it, and, as regards most of the rela- 

 tions between human beings, nobody is permitted to practise it. . . . 

 This being the ostensible state of things, people natter themselves that 

 the rule of mere force is ended." Still they do not know how hard it 

 dies, and in particular they are unaware of the fact that it still regu- 

 lates the relations between men and women. It is true that the actu- 

 ally existing generation of women do not dislike their position. The 

 consciousness of this haunts Mr. Mill throughout the whole of his argu- 

 ment, and embarrasses him at every turn. He is driven to account for 

 it by such assertions as that " each individual of the subject class is in 

 a chronic state of bribery and intimidation combined," by reference to 

 the affection which slaves in classical times felt for their masters in 

 many cases, and by other suggestions of the same sort. His great 

 argument against the pi*esent state of things is that it is opposed to 

 what he calls " the modern conviction, the fruit of a thousand years 

 of experience " 



"That things in which the individual is the person directly interested never 

 go right but as they are left to his own discretion, and that any regulation of 

 them by authority except to protect the rights of others is sure to be mischievous. 

 . . . The peculiar character of the modern world ... is that human beings are 

 no longer born to their place in life and chained down by an inexorable bond to 

 the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties and such favor- 

 able chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desira- 

 ble. Human society of old was constituted on a very different principle. All 

 were born to a fixed social position, and were mostly kept in it by law or inter- 

 dicted from any means by which they could emerge from it. . . . In consonance 

 with this doctrine it is felt to be an overstepping of the proper bounds of author- 

 ity to fix beforehand on some general presumption that certain persons are not 

 fit to do certain things. It is now thoroughly known and admitted that if some 

 such presumptions exist no such presumption is infallible. . . . Hence we ought 

 not ... to ordain that to be born a girl instead of a boy shall decide the per- 

 son's position all through life." 



The result is that " the social subordination of women thus stands out 

 as an isolated fact in modern social institutions." It is in " radical 

 opposition " to " the progressive movement, which is the boast of the 

 modern world." This fact creates a " prima-facie presumption" 

 against it, " far outweighing any which custom and usage could in 

 such circumstances create " in its favor. 



