55 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



less human nature is radically changed, we cannot even imagine their 

 removal ; and of these the differences of age and sex ai*e the most 

 important. 



The difference of age is so distinct a case of inequality that even 

 Mr. Mill does not object to its recognition. He admits, as every one 

 must, that perhaps a third or more of the average term of human life 

 and that the portion of it in which the strongest, the most durable, 

 and beyond all comparison the most important impressions are made 

 on human beings, the period in which character is formed must be 

 passed by every one in a state of submission, dependence, and obedi- 

 ence to orders the objects of which are usually most imperfectly un- 

 derstood by the persons who receive them. Indeed, as I have pointed 

 out in previous letters, Mr. Mill is disposed rather to exaggerate than 

 to underrate the influence of education and the powers of educators. 

 Is not this a clear case of inequality of the strongest kind, and does it 

 not at all events afford a most instructive precedent in favor of the 

 recognition by law of a marked natural distinction ? If children were 

 regarded by law as the equals of adults, the result would be something 

 infinitely worse than barbarism. It would involve a degree of cruelty 

 to the young which can hardly be realized even in imagination. The 

 proceeding, in short, would be so utterly monstrous and irrational that 

 I suppose it never entered into the head of the wildest zealot for equality 

 to propose it. Upon the practical question all are agreed ; but con- 

 sider the consequences which it involves. It involves the consequence 

 that, so far from being " unfortunate necessities," command and obedi- 

 ence stand at the very entrance to life, and preside over the most im- 

 portant part of it. It involves the consequence that the exertion of 

 power and constraint is so important and so indispensable in the great- 

 est of all matters that it is a less evil to invest with it every head of a 

 family indiscriminately, however unfit he may be to exercise it, than 

 to fail to provide for its exercise. It involves the consequence that, by 

 mere lapse of time and by following the promptings of passion, men 

 acquire over others a position of superiority and of inequality which 

 all nations and ages, the most cultivated as well as the rudest, have 

 done their best to surround with every association of awe and rever- 

 ence. The title of Father is the one which the best part of the human 

 race have given to God, as being the least inadequate and inappropri- 

 ate means of indicating the union of love, reverence, and submission. 

 Whoever first gave the command or uttered the maxim, " Honor thy 

 father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land," had a 

 far better conception of the essential conditions of permanent national 

 existence and prosperity than the author of the motto " Liberty, Equal- 

 ity, and Fraternity." 



Now, if society and government ought to recognize the inequality 

 of age as the foundation of an inequality of rights of this inrportance, 

 it appears to me at least equally clear that they ought to recognize the 



