THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 



331 



tion is not confined to woman. Those men who were 

 favourites of princes used the same methods of con- 

 quest. Moreover, the power of a strong 

 will over a weak one has always been a 

 factor in history, even though the strong 

 will be in a weak body. The freedom of man has 

 brought with it the freedom of woman. With woman as 

 with man not all are ready to be free. The fool when 

 free shows his folly. It is safer for him to follow his 

 class, to govern his life by tried conventionality, rather 

 than by imperfect reason. The emancipation of woman 

 permits the growth of senseless fads and meaningless 

 superstitions, distorted desires and hysterical impulses. 

 But the emancipation of man has had just the same effect. 

 In the long run all these things are outworn ; the sur- 

 vival of the fittest is the survival of the wise. 



The offensive phases of " new womanhood " are tem- 

 porary and self-curative. They are of the nature of 

 fads which encumber and disguise real progress. The 

 woman of the future will be the fit and equal partner of 

 the future man. As the wise and the strong will prize 

 the womanly virtues, so will she be modest, sympathetic, 

 and beautiful. Nevertheless she need not lack a de- 

 gree of sturdy strength, without which motherhood fails 

 of its best fulfilment. Yet in so far as the highest 

 physical activity and its coordinate reasoning power 

 are not to be demanded of women in general, so in the 

 nature of things must the brain and muscle of woman 

 retain qualities of immaturity. The accelerated devel- 

 opment of these qualities in the male of a race "sore 

 bestead by the environment," must leave the female 

 relatively undeveloped if judged by the standard of 

 the man. 



But, judged by the standard of womanhood, man 

 shows an equal number of crude instincts and embry- 



