724 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more or less deficient. A ready capacity for acquisition of knowl- 

 edge, and skill in language, are important contributors to this 

 result. 



It would seem, then, that Nature has marked out very clearly 

 the relative positions of the sexes of man. This relation is bene- 

 ficial not only from a natural but also from a social standpoint. 

 The sex affection or passion has the greatest influence in com- 

 pelling evolution of unwilling lives, and of driving where nothing 

 can lead. The best emotions are aroused in the man who finds a 

 woman dependent on him for support, and the infant's breath 

 will awake that woman to serious thought and exertion who 

 never had a serious thought before. Nor is the mutual benefit 

 confined to the earlier days of the relation. It has been said else- 

 where : * " While the interests of the members of the same sex 

 often bring them into collision with each other, those of oppo- 

 site sex can not normally do so. While the contests of the mem- 

 bers of the one sex are the active agent in evolution by rivalry 

 and force, the relations of opposite sex furnish the inducement to 

 progress offered by mutual admiration and pleasure. Among 

 mankind the necessity of pleasing and of inspiring the respect of 

 the opposite sex has a great deal to do with the becoming pleasant 

 and respectable." 



The functions of the sexes being, then, different in society, as 

 in nature, the question arises. To what extent should they perform 

 identical functions ? This question is pressed upon us to-day, and 

 demands have arisen that woman should compete with man in all 

 the forms of human activity, and should even have a hand in the 

 government, whether constitutional or monarchical. The object of 

 the present essay is to enumerate a few practical points with ref- 

 erence to these questions. 



So far as regards cultivation of the mind, there can be no 

 doubt that women should have all the facilities that are open to 

 men. As the mothers of the human race, they should be deprived 

 of no opportunity for development. The education of girls should 

 be pushed as far as is consistent with good health. Had the edu- 

 cation of women been encouraged earlier in human history, the 

 general intelligence of the species would have been at a higher 

 point to-day. 



The competition with men by women in the pursuit of a liveli- 

 hood is a necessity wherever women so outnumber men that they 

 can not all marry, and where polygamy is not practiced. It is 

 compulsory, and questions of taste and feeling have to be put 

 aside in considering it. And the same unbending necessity de- 

 cides the pursuit in which woman fails and that in which she suc- 

 ceeds. In some she succeeds easily ; in some she can never succeed. 



* "The Forum," September, 1887, p. 53, " On the Object of Life." 



