BIOLOGY AND " WOMAN'S BIGHTS^ 209 



greater boon either to the aspirants themselves or to the nation than 

 it has been in the factory and the workshop ? A friend, of original 

 habits of thought, points out ' that upon man alone was laid the pen- 

 alty of labor as upon woman the sorrow of child-bearing. This is in 

 fact the very same lesson, clothed in theological language, which we 

 learn from biology. Among the lower animals, who, as compared 

 with man, may be called the proletariate " of creation, both sexes in- 

 deed seem merely or mainly to exist in order to perpetuate their spe- 

 cies. Still, even here, the female is more exclusively constructed for, 

 and more totally absorbed in, the task of reproduction than the male. 

 The share of the latter in this function is, strictly speaking, momentary, 

 while dm-ing the stage of maturity the energies of the normal female 

 are more or less completely devoted to the nurture, intra- and extra- 

 uterine, of her offspring. Even when she never becomes a mother the 

 generative system exercises a modifying influence upon her whole career. 

 This consideration throws a strong light u^jon the ground taken by cer- 

 tain of the more " advanced " female advocates of the movement. The 

 femnie libre (free woman) of the new social order may, indeed, es- 

 cape the charge of neglecting her family and her household by con- 

 tending that it is " not her vocation to become a wife and a mother." 

 Why then, we ask, is she constituted a woman at all ? Merely that she 

 should become a sort of second-rate man ? We have ali'eady declared, 

 and we repeat, that we wish a free career for every talent. If an ab- 

 normal woman possesses a man's muscular strength and adaptation for 

 toil, we would not, either by law or by social influences, seek to debar 

 her from working at the oar, or the forge, or even from wielding the 

 policeman's truncheon or the soldier's rifle. But we would not calculate 

 on such anomalies ; we would not legislate for their special protection, 

 or seek to increase their number. In a manner perfectly analogous, if 

 a woman possesses the taste and the power for scientific research usu- 

 ally confined to men — and far from common even among them — we 

 would not wish to restrain her from the cultivation of her j^eculiar fac- 

 ulties ; but we would not foster the growth of such a class of females. 

 We would not seek to entice women into the observatorv, the labora- 

 tory, or, above all, into the dissecting-room, nor erect colleges for the 

 training of savantes, any more than we would organize female regiments 

 and open institutions where muscular young ladies might perfect them- 

 selves in the management of heavy artillery. 



It is generally — too generally — assumed that every novelty, every 

 change from what has hitherto been customary and recognized, com- 

 mends itself, on the mere ground of its novelty, to men of science, as, 

 indeed, to all unfettered inquirers, and will be resisted merely by those 



* Genesis iii. 16, 1*7. 



* As applied to the human species we consider this term eminently foolish. The 

 man who benefits his race in no other way will probably injure it by leaving posterity 

 like himself. 



VOL. XIT. — 14 



