BIOLOGY OF MAN 1185 



grace? Woman, of course; thus transforming mere house to home; 

 we men have but rough camp and bunk and mess without her. 

 Our point, however, is not merely her gently exercised influence, at 

 once cheering and civilising her menfolk: it is her co-ordination of 

 our varied details into her functioning unity of them. For here is 

 the distinctive quality of life ; and this for each main step and phase 

 throughout its evolution. In a word, though men be Lords of Action, 

 women are Queens of Life. 



In the present Industrial Age, conducted as it has been on fullest 

 masculine lines, so with long-increasing dissipation of the energies 

 and material resources of nature (termed "development" in the 

 euphuistic verbiage of that pseudo-science of "political economy" 

 which it is a main task for sociology to transform), woman has 

 mostly had very subordinate share, as coal-pusher, factory-hand, 

 and the like: but in recent times our incipient transition beyond 

 palseotechnic rudeness and competitiveness, and towards neotechnic 

 skill and co-ordination, are increasingly offering woman less uncon- 

 genial and better remunerated tasks, as nowadays so notably in 

 clerkly situations. This proportional increase, at the expense of men, 

 however, suggested by economy, proves women's efficiency also: 

 and though her replacement of men is comparatively new, it is 

 already yielding clear evidence of maturing co-ordinative powers, 

 even towards widely responsible business management accordingly. 

 Most forms of business, and of industries too, since more or less 

 specialised, may doubtless retain masculine predominance; but the 

 more instinctive feminine aptitudes, as for care of children, of sick, 

 and aged, have been opening up the great professions of teaching 

 and nursing. These again exhibit further developments, witness 

 not only medicine and pharmacy, but secondary as well as primary 

 instruction. So why not more and more in higher education too? 

 And especially as this becomes more vital and sympathetic? In this 

 the few examples are excellent ; though openings are still rare, since 

 too long well-obstructed to admit of any rapid increase. 



The political claims of women do not, of course, come within this 

 bio-anthropo-social field; but in any case we should maintain the 

 importance of the evolutionary past and present of the sexes as 

 more significant, more determinative of the future also, than can 

 be our essentially masculine strifes for power in the political arena ; 

 though woman's services, even there, are being justified. 



As to her long-debated "rights", there should, of course, be no 

 further question of maintaining wrongs. But here it should be far 

 more widely known than it yet is, that the foremost legal thinkers, 

 like Duguit and others, are now discarding wholesale all our insis- 

 tences upon "Rights"; although these have been, and are still, the 

 traditional basis of civil law, from Roman times and earlier. For 

 they are now elaborating a fresh conception of law, which substitutes, 



VOL. II GG 



