Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



281 



THE PREJUDICE OF SEX. 

 Philosophy of M. Finot. 

 M. Jean Finot. who is bringing out a book on the 

 Woman Question, publishes another chapter from it 

 in La Revue of February i. 



CAUSES OF UNHAPPINESS. 



In two previous chapters M. Finot has shown how 

 a large number of ills, real and imaginary, may poison 

 our existence, whereas happiness in the main depends 

 on our selves. (See " The Science of Happiness " and 

 '■ The Philosophy of Longevity.") In a third he has 

 dealt with the prejudice of race, which has hitherto 

 tended only to di\idc men, as though the world was 

 not large enough to procure for all the means of li\ing 

 divinely. Still more inconceivable, he says, is the 

 prejudice of sex. In his march towards liberty, 

 equality and happiness man would seem to have 

 forgotten his constant companion, to whom he owes 

 his existence and the better part of himself, and without 

 whom paradise would be worse than hell for him. 



COLLABORATION OF THE SEXES. 



.M. Finot points out that since it is due to the collabo- 

 ration of the two se.\es that we owe the immense 

 variety of physiological life, it is also only bv their 

 social and political co-operation that we can bring 

 about a diminution, if not the total disappearance^ 

 of the evils which poison the lives of individuals, 

 nations, and humanity. By the side of the evils 

 resulting from the prejudice of death, the prejudice 

 of the inequality of men, and a false conception of 

 happiness, there is this other great source of discontent 

 —the prejudice ©f sex. Believing themselves unequal. 

 the two sexes have for centuries been erecting between 

 each other a barrier of lies. How can two travellers 

 making a long journey hope to succeed except under 

 conditions of complete harmony? Instead of an 

 asso<iate animated by a sense of dutv and conscious of 

 danger, man has preferred to have at his side a shadow 

 or a slave. The woman, humiliated by the man, has 

 in her turn humiliated him. 



HARMONY VERSUS DISCORD. 



But time is finding a remedy, and in the citv of the 

 future divine harmony will reign between the two 

 human halves of the race, and the dignity of the sexes 

 will be rai.sed. .As humanity grows more just it will 

 be happier, and man will be more contented with his 

 lot when his wife or his sister will be admitted to the 

 banquet of life, and be permitted to ta>te with the 

 same right of its sweetness, joys, and sorrows. U hile 

 one hiilf ul humanity suffers injustice the oppressors 

 arc unhappy, just as when one part of the body is 

 damaged the whole organism sufTers, .\ change in' the 

 condition of woman must improve the condition of 

 man. It is the new woman who will re^tore to 

 humanity harmony between the sexes, peace among 

 the nations whiih ha^ so long been desired, and the 

 happiness so long awaited. 



THE DAY OF THE SPINSTER. 



Anna Garlin Spencer writes a clever paper under 

 this heading in the February Forum. She declares 

 that celibacy is comparatively speaking a recent 

 experience of the human race (in face of the hordes 

 of Buddhist monks, this seems rather a bold saying). 

 But, she avers, " not until our own civilisation is 

 reached do we ever find celibate women numerous 

 enough to form a cla.ss." The courtesans of Athens 

 and the \estals of Rome were exceptions. To make it 

 possible for the respectable secular and average woman 

 tolivca normal life without a husband two world-events 

 of supreme importance were necessarv : one, the pro- 

 clamation of Christianity, the other 'the abolition of 

 slaver}-. Of the new draught of liberty the unmarried 

 woman of to-day drinks the deepest and with the 

 easiest abandon. 



The writer does not think it yet proved that the spin- 

 ster as we now know her is to last for ever as a large 

 class. It is the normal and the average that in the long 

 run serve the purposes of social uplift. Hence she looks 

 upon the day of the spinster as but a bridge of feminine 

 achievement, which shall connect the merely good 

 mother with the mother that shall be both wise and 

 good. 



The writer finds the embodiment of the social value 

 of the spinster in this her dav in the woman head of 

 the social Settlement. Although men have been 

 prominent in this work, and even husbands and wives 

 with young children manage to harmonise a fine 

 domesticity with public household arrangements, and 

 to preser\e for their children a right atmosphere in a 

 wrong environment, the Settlement is distinctly and 

 logically a celibate movement, and also, to a great 

 extent, a movement of celibate womanhood. The 

 woman head of the modem Settlement has established 

 a new type of salon. The larger and better-known 

 Settlements, so far from being places of self-sacrifice, 

 are the most coveted of social opportunities by young 

 people of keen perception, high ambitions, and wide 

 outlook. 



Is Golf Scotch or Dutch ? 



Let Scotland look to her laurels ! The roval and 

 ancient game of golf has been one of her proudest 

 distmctions. Now, in Frfs for Februarv, Mr. \V. W. 

 Tunbridge declares that it is to Holland, not to 

 Scotland, that we originally owe this popular pastime. 

 He says : — 



It is .1 popuKir belief thai ihc game ori(;inatc«l in .^Jcolland, 

 but this IS a fallacy. [| was brought lo Scotland from Holland, 

 at some lime unknown, and this is proved by some of the ex- 

 pressions that slill survive. 



Ihe name "golf" itself is derived from the Dutch word to/f 

 n.canmg a bat or club. Then " fore ! " the word that is shoutc<i 

 before ilnving off, when there are players in front, is derived, 

 from the Dutch fwr (pronounced fore), meaning in front. 



" Putt " simply means to hole, from the Dutch 

 putlen. to hole. Niblick is derived from an old Scotch 

 word " knibloch," a knob of wood, which comes in turn 

 from the Dutch knobhdachlig, meaning knotty. 



