234 SEX 



prescribe, but that which women, with a free 

 hand, work out for themselves. 



It is an ordinary rule of life that we try to 

 find out the kind of work which is natural 

 to us, and seek to make the most of our par- 

 ticular machinery, keeping economy of energy 

 as well as efficiency in view. And our main 

 thesis is just this same simple one applied 

 to man and woman, that the most hopeful 

 line of evolutionary experiment is that which 

 seeks to make the most of the deep organic 

 differences which were rooted long ago in 

 the lowest parts of the earth. As Ellen Key 

 has declared, to put women to do men's work 

 is as foolish as to set a Beethoven or a Wagner 

 to do engine-driving. 



If we suppose, as we may continue to do 

 for some time yet, that most women wish to 

 have homes and husbands and children, we 

 have to face the problem of combining 

 maternity and citizenship, production and 

 reproduction. As Prof. Karl Pearson wrote 

 in his famous essay on " Woman and Labour " 

 (1904) : " The race must degenerate if greater 

 and greater stress be brought to force woman 

 during the years of child-bearing into active 

 and unlimited competition with man. Either 

 a direct premium is placed upon childlessness, 

 upon a crushing out of the maternal instincts 

 on which the stability of society essentially 

 depends, or woman has a double work to do 

 in the world, and she can only do it at the cost 

 of the future generation." How, the same 

 author asks, can woman continue to do freely 

 what she alone can do for society and yet have 



