74 DARWINISM AND POLITICS. 



other races will continue to do so when the 

 struggle becomes of a higher and more complex 

 kind. 1 



The objection is sometimes made that, in 

 countries where it is considered necessary to 

 have compulsory military service for all males, 

 it would be unjust and inexpedient that women 

 should have a voice in political matters. This 

 objection would be easily met by compelling all 

 women physically fit for it to undergo training 

 as nurses, and making them liable to be called 

 upon to serve as such in time of war. 2 And 

 this training would be more useful to them and 



1 " Such is the nature of men that, when they have reached 

 their ends by a certain road, they cannot understand that, 

 the times being different, success may be won by other 

 methods and the old ways are no longer of use." These 

 words represent the theme of the 9th chap, of Machiavelli's 

 Discourses on Livy, Bk. iii. 



a A probably reverend reviewer in the Guardian has un- 

 derstood this passage, as if I imagined an army of " four-and- 

 twenty fighting men and five-and-twenty " nurses ! In the 

 very next sentence I suggest that nurses are useful elsewhere 

 than in military hospitals. I quite admit, however, that until 

 all service for the community, whether it be fighting the 

 enemy in the field or fighting disease in the sick-room, come 

 to be treated as " public service," we can have no genuine 

 social equality. This is implied in the next paragraph. 



