22 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [n. 



Let Nature alone sit high above the lists, &quot; rain influence and 

 judge the prize.&quot; 



And the result ? For our parts, though loth to prophesy, we 

 believe it will be that of other emancipations. Women will find 

 their place, and it will neither be that in which they have been 

 held, nor that to which some of them aspire. Nature s old 

 salique law will not be repealed, and no change of dynasty will 

 be effected. The big chests, the massive brains, the vigorous 

 muscles and stout frames, of the best men will carry the day, 

 whenever it is worth their while to contest the prizes of life 

 with the best women. And the hardship of it is, that the very 

 improvement of the women will lessen their chances. Better 

 mothers will bring forth better sons, and the impetus gained by 

 the one sex will be transmitted, in the next generation, to the 

 other. The most Darwinian of theorists will not venture to 

 propound the doctrine, that the physical disabilities under which 

 women have hitherto laboured, in the struggle for existence with 

 men, are likely to be removed by even the most skilfully 

 conducted process of educational selection. 



We are, indeed, fully prepared to believe that the bearing of 

 children may, and ought to become as free from danger and long 

 disability, to the civilized woman, as it is to the savage ; nor is 

 it improbable that, as society advances towards its right organ 

 ization, motherhood will occupy a less space of woman s life than 

 it has hitherto done. But still, unless the human species is to 

 come to an end altogether a consummation which can hardly 

 be desired by even the most ardent advocate of &quot;women s 

 rights&quot; somebody must be good enough to take the trouble 

 .and responsibility of annually adding to the world exactly as 

 many people as die out of it. In consequence of some domestic 

 difficulties, Sydney Smith is said to have suggested that it would 

 have been good for the human race had the model offered by 

 the hive been followed, and had all the working part of the 

 female community been neuters. Failing any thorough-going 

 reform of this kind, we see nothing for it but the old division of 

 humanity into men potentially, or actually, fathers, and women 



