Human Physiology. 



In his savage state, degraded or undeveloped, man, in many 

 cases, has made woman his slave; and she continues to be so, 

 in perhaps a majority of cases, in the highest civilisation, as I 

 have shown in Part First. But what we call civilisation is a 

 mixed condition, made up of a certain number of really edu- 

 cated, refined, civilised, and Christian people, mixed up with 

 perhaps still larger numbers of rude savages and coarse bar- 

 barians. Among the really civilised members of society in 

 every country woman reigns as mistress, wife, mother, and 

 queen; the mistress of our youthful romantic aspirations, the 

 wife of our affections, the mother of our children, the queen of 

 society; to whom, in all these relations, we pay willing and 

 devoted homage. The way in which men treat women is the 

 true measure of their civilisation, and the higher the position of 

 woman, in idea and in fact, in the literature, poetry, art, and 

 life of any country, the higher is that country's moral and social 

 condition. 



It becomes, then, a matter of very high interest and grave 

 importance that the relation of the sexes to each other should 

 be understood, and its moralities regarded. Injustice to woman 

 is an injury to the race. Degrade women, and all children, 

 male and female, are degraded; elevate women, and the race, 

 both men and women, is elevated. The child may receive an 

 equal half of its mental and moral, as of its physical character, 

 form, complexion, etc., from the father, but his direct influence 

 may end with the procreative act, while the mother's continues 

 through gestation, and, as a rule, through infancy and child- 

 hood; and every thought, every emotion, every act of the 

 mother, has some influence, good or evil, on the character of 

 her child. When women become what they should be, and are 

 treated as they ought to be, our own salvation and the salvation 

 of the race will be alike secured. Before a Saviour could be 

 born into this world, there had to be a woman in it pure and 

 boly enough to be His mother. And the pure life of God will 



