68 DARWINISM AND POLITICS. 



the widening conceptions of Roman Law, how 

 far to the Stoic philosophy with its brotherhood 

 of mankind, and how far to Christianity as an. 

 inter-national or non-national religion, declaring 

 the equality of all before God, though carrying 

 with it the Judaic supremacy of the male sex. 

 When this idea of equality was proclaimed in 

 the American revolution, the negro slaves were 

 conveniently overlooked; when it was proclaimed 

 in the French revolution, the existence of a 

 whole sex seemed to be forgotten by everv 

 one but Condorcet. And there are many old- 

 fashioned Radicals still, who lack sufficient faith 

 in their own creed to apply it in a thorough- 

 going way. How often does one hear the ar^u- 

 ment, " Oh, but women are naturally Conser- 

 vative, and if they had political power, we 

 should be governed by the priests." It may 

 rather be said that the instability of republican 

 government in France has been very much due 

 to its not having appealed to the sympathies of 

 the mothers of the French people. If women 

 are expressly and purposely kept in the patri- 

 archal stage of social evolution, is it wonderful 

 that their feelings and sympathies mostly 

 correspond to an antique social type ? It is 



