575. 89 



599.9 



The Influence of Woman in the Evolution of the 



Human Race 



THE recent discussions of Mr Eeid's book, " The Present 

 Evolution of Man," in Natural Science (vol. x., pp. 184, 24<2, 

 305, 393) have interested me, both on account of their able 

 treatment of this subject from so many different sides and also 

 on account of their omissions of certain points of view. Man's 

 place in nature, the possible influence on his destiny of the position 

 he occupies as the terminal form of his own group, should, it seems 

 to me, be given more consideration as a possible factor in his evolu- 

 tion. This has received incidental consideration by the writer in 

 connection with studies upon the phenomena of evolution among the 

 Invertebrata, especially Cephalopoda, and the results are instructive 

 and quite similar to those reached by the distinguished English 

 palaeontologist, Mr S. S. Buckman. 



The way in which man's position may possibly affect his 

 evolution and further prospects has been treated by the writer in 

 a lecture upon " Woman's Occupations and Habits and the Suffrage 

 from a Biological Point of View." This can be used as an example 

 of a certain mode of treating the subject, and an abstract of this 

 lecture may perhaps interest the readers of Natural Science. It is 

 also appropriate that it should appear first in an English periodical, 

 since, if the reports are true which reach this side of the ocean, some 

 leading Englishmen are so sadly deficient in knowledge of the 

 subject and its importance, that they consider the question of 

 whether the suffrage shall or shall not be granted to women as a 

 huge political joke rather than as a question dealing with matters 

 of importance to the future evolution of civilised races. People do 

 not yet recognise that the tendency of evolution is quite as often 

 towards retrogression and extinction as in the direction of pro- 

 gression ; the former indeed being the final result both in the life- 

 history of the individual and of his family, and finally of the race to 

 which he belongs. The laws of biology have not hitherto been used 

 to test the assumptions, that co-education and the changes of 

 occupations and habits induced thereby and by the legal freedom of 

 choice of occupation conferred by the use of suffrage upon women, 

 will be beneficial factors in the evolution of the future. The writer 

 has thus been endeavouring to call attention to this side of these 



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