216 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



civilization is distinguished. There is no more 

 remarkable phenomenon of the modern Western 

 world than that vast change, now in progress in 

 the psychology of the race, which has a bearing 

 intimately related to this subject. 



In the literature of imagination and idealism it 

 is impossible to ignore certain features. In the 

 imaginative literature of the peoples of the modern 

 West as contrasted with the literature of peoples 

 of more primitive times and standards, a fact which 

 strikes the mind is the position occupied therein 

 by woman. She stands out as the central figure. 

 It is woman who inspires nearly all the deeds, and 

 nearly all the deep passions of men, which form 

 the subject of the imaginative literature of the 

 modern races. Even under the fiercest practical 

 and competitive aspects of life we do not escape 

 from the presence of this fact. The imagin- 

 ative literature of the West is the vehicle in one 

 form or another of all its highest idealisms. But 

 it is woman who is always in evidence therein as 

 the touchstone of man's ideals. Wherever man 

 becomes an idealist in imaginative literature it is 

 almost invariably woman who is the measure of 

 it. It is to the woman that man always brings his 

 idealisms to prove them and to look for support. 



So deep seated is this instinct that it has become 



