134 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Man and woman can never be equal. The only way to bring 

 about an approximate equality is to unsex both. Such a level- 

 ling process the primitive instincts of healthy women and men 

 will prevent. Nevertheless it must be admitted that too much 

 attention has been given to the views of those in whom these 

 healthy instincts are not properly developed. Signs are not 

 wanting that some men and women, who think that they have a 

 public mission, look upon their animal characteristics as an 

 obstacle to the attainment of what they call the higher intellectual 

 and spiritual life. They have lost or never fully possessed the 

 natural instincts which serve as a guide to life. They do not 

 know what or how much to eat or drink, when to work or when 

 to rest or when to marry, and vainly seek for rules of life ; they 

 have overlooked the fact that excesses of intellectuality and 

 spirituality as often lead to wayward conduct, illness, and 

 degeneration as the more common vices. Sexual antagonism 

 is the special mission of other extremists. The words of our 

 national marriage service, which has long been cherished by 

 many generations of women, are declared to be offensive and 

 indecent. The widespread decline in the birth-rate has shown 

 that marriage has been debased from the position which it 

 should occupy according to the teachings of religion and 

 biology. 



The old-fashioned view of woman's place in nature is the 

 one supported by biological knowledge. Woman's sphere was 

 the home and family, for there she found ample opportunities 

 for the exercise of her special gifts of patience, kindness, and 

 love of offspring. Her influence in the State was indirectly 

 as great as that of man, for apart from the control she exercised 

 upon man, she held in her hands the training of her sons and 

 daughters in those early years during which character is most 

 easily moulded. The responsibility of a family prevented her 

 from becoming too much interested in herself or in intellectual 

 problems. As a young woman she looked upon marriage as 

 the aim of life, and as an experienced matron, with every wish 

 for the happiness of her daughters, she kept the same ideal 

 before them. The term " old maid " was one of reproach ; a 

 childless marriage was a calamity, a reflection upon one or other 

 or both partners; the marriage of a young man and an old 

 woman was an unnatural condition to be explained only by 

 sordid motives. All of these prejudices had a true biological 



