DARWINISM AND POLITICS. 69 



hypocritical to deny the political capacity of 

 women, simply because their political ^capacity 

 has through long centuries been diligently culti- 

 vated ; but this is always the favourite sort of 

 argument with the jealous champions of privi- 

 lege : first to prevent a race or class or sex 

 from acquiring a capacity, and then to justify 

 the refusal of rights on the grounds f this 

 absence to shut up a bird in a narrow cage and 

 then pretend to argue with it that it is incapable 

 of flying. What is the reason of the power 

 which the Catholic Church possesses over the 

 minds of women, except that the Church alone 

 offers them any escape into a larger circle of 

 interests than those of the patriarchal family ? 

 They do not reflect that the Church brands 

 them with a stamp of inferiority, 1 that did not 



1 Even the cult of the Madonna, which is a revival of the 

 female element in deity, did not do away with the degrada- 

 tion of the woman. There is a story (given in Grimm's 

 Household Talcs, Note to Tale 139) of St. Bernard, that he 

 once went into a Cathedral to pay his devotions to the 

 image of the Virgin. He fell twice on his knees before it, 

 and full of fervour uttered the words, " Oh, gracious, mild, 

 and highly favoured mother of God." Hereupon the image 

 began to speak, and said, " Welcome, my Bernard ! " But 

 the saint, who was displeased by this, reprimanded the 

 Queen of Heaven for speaking, in these words, " Silence ! 



