70 EMANCIPATIOX— BLACK AND WHITE iii 



go so far as to lay his liands upon the ark itself, 

 so to speak, and to defend the startling paradox 

 that, even in physical beauty, man is the superior. 

 He admitted, indeed, that tliere was a brief period 

 of early youth when it might be hard to say 

 whether the prize should be awarded to the grace- 

 ful undulations of the female figure, or the per- 

 fect balance and sup])le vigour of the male frame. 

 But while our new Paris might hesitate between 

 the youthful Bacchus and the Venus emerging 

 from the foam, he averred that, when Venus and 

 Bacchus had reached thirty, the point no longer 

 admitted of a doubt; the male form having then 

 attained its greatest nobility, while the female is 

 far gone in decadence; and that, at this epoch, 

 womanly beauty, so far as it is independent of 

 grace or expression, is a question of drapery and 

 accessories. 



Supposing, however, that all these arguments 

 have a certain foundation; admitting, for a 

 moment, that they are comparable to those by 

 which the inferiority of the negro to the white 

 man may be demonstrated, are they of any value 

 as against woman-emancipation? Do they alTord 

 us the smallest ground for refusing to educate 

 women as \Ve\\ as men — to give women the same 

 civil and politicnl rights as men? No mistake is 

 so commonly made by clever people as that of 

 assuming a cause to be bad because the arguments 

 of its supporters are, to a great extent, non- 



