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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



may ordinarily be held a fair equivalent for 

 the earning of an income by the husband." 



As to political rights or privileges, he 

 holds that those of women are not to be 

 regarded as identical with those of men. 

 With men, the possession of the suffrage 

 involves the obligation to become military 

 defenders of the nation. Women have not 

 the same liabilities ; hence, if they are grant- 

 ed identical privileges, their position is not 

 one of equality but of superiority to men. 

 The question of equal political rights for 

 women can not be entertained, he argues, 

 until we reach a state of permanent peace. 

 In criticism of this view, it may be main- 

 tained, we think, in accordance with a logic 

 which Mr. Spencer has himself recognized in 

 treating of the property rights of women, 

 that the question is not so much one of 

 identity of function and obligation as of 

 just equivalence. Even in case of war, it 

 may not unjustly be held that the serv- 

 ices of women, in the hospital and in the 

 home, as tax-payers and wage-earners, as 

 mothers and educators of the country's de- 

 fenders, constitute a fair equivalent to the 

 services of men in the field, and entitle 

 women to equal political consideration, all 

 other conditions being identical. Moreover, 

 large classes of men are legally exempt from 

 military service, by age, occupation, or physi- 

 cal disqualification, but such persons are not 

 therefore disfranchised. Evidently, there- 

 fore, suffrage is not conditioned, de facto, 

 upon military service or ability therefor. 

 Nor, happily, are the problems of govern- 

 ment mainly those growing out of physical 

 conflicts between nations. The arguments 

 against enfranchising women in the later 

 chapter on The Constitution of the State, 

 based on their constitutional differences from 

 men their comparative impulsiveness, emo- 

 tional susceptibility, and relative inability to 

 recognize the force of abstract and remote 

 considerations, bearing upon the public wel- 

 fare appear to us to have much greater 

 weight than the by no means novel argument 

 based on the incapacity of women for mili- 

 tary service. They will doubtless seem to 

 many minds at present conclusive. Mr. 

 Spencer, it should be said, expressly dis- 

 claims the application of this argument as 

 an objection to local or municipal suffrage 

 for women. 



In discussing the rights of children, the 

 reciprocal duties of parent and child are 

 clearly outlined, and the necessity of giving 

 the child a gradually increasing freedom of 

 action to fit him for the independent or self- 

 directed activities of his adult life is strong- 

 ly affirmed. 



With a notable series of chapters on 

 the nature, constitution and duties of the 

 State, Mr. Spencer concludes the present 

 volume. In many respects these chapters 

 constitute the most suggestive and valu- 

 able part of this discussion. Nowhere else 

 have the nature and duties of citizenship, 

 and the proper limitations of state-control 

 over the individual, been so clearly and terse- 

 ly set forth. With admirable brevity and lu- 

 cidity, Mr. Spencer first shows the fallacy of 

 the eighteenth-century doctrine of political 

 rights, a doctrine which still finds intelligent 

 supporters, especially in democratic and re- 

 publican communities like our own. The 

 only rights, truly so called, which man pos- 

 sesses, he affirms, are the personal rights to 

 life, freedom, security, etc. Political privi- 

 leges are instrumental, in greater or less meas- 

 ure, depending on the state of culture and 

 civilization, in maintaining these rights ; and 

 they can only be claimed in virtue of their 

 efficiency in securing this end. " The giving 

 of a vote," e. g , '' considered in itself, in no 

 way furthers the voter's life, as does the ex- 

 ercise of those various liberties we properly 

 call rights. All we can say is that the pos- 

 session of the franchise by each citizen gives 

 the citizens in general the power of check- 

 ing trespasses upon their rights ; powers 

 which they may or may not use to good pur- 

 pose " (page 111). 



Attention is called to the fact that in 

 France the bureaucratic despotism is as 

 great under the republic as it was under the 

 empire ; and that in America universal suf- 

 frage does not prevent corruptions of mu- 

 nicipal government, the surrender of power 

 to wire-pullers and bosses, the coercion of the 

 citizens by laws dictating what they shall 

 not drink, and the taxation of the many for 

 the benefit of the few by a " protective " 

 tariff. " The so-called political rights may 

 be used for the maintenance of liberties, 

 they may fail to be so used, and may even 

 be used for the establishment of tyrannies." 

 In considering The Nature of the State, 



