INTRODUCTION 



In the following pages our subject will be Woman, and 

 I shall endeavour to make clear, so far as our knowledge 

 allows, the difficult problem of the female sex-complex 

 in all its ramifications. To do this I shall be obliged to 

 draw upon the facts of general biology, both in argument 

 and experiment ; but we must always remember that 

 details which are true of one species are not necessarily 

 so of another. We must, therefore, endeavour to go 

 forward along the highways of the general principles, 

 holding only to those particulars which help us to 

 keep the path. 



Our disquisition resolves itself into two sub- Subjects 



,. . . discussed. 



divisions : 



(1) A consideration of the factors which lead to 

 the production and maintenance of the normal 

 characteristics and functions of Woman ; that 

 is to say, of the individual with feminine attri- 

 butes, primary and secondary, both of the 

 mind and body. 



(2) A discussion of the morphological and physio- 

 logical derangements of the sex-complex. 



At the very outset of the first enquiry we bring Prejudice has 

 ourselves to the threshold of lively controversy — enquiry. 

 controversy concerning the differences between Man and 

 Woman which has rarely been conducted on unbiassed 

 and scientific lines. So much of this has come within 

 my personal experience, that I feel it best at once clearly 

 to emphasize the impossibility of taking sentiment 

 into account in a discussion of femininity and its causes, 

 and in my statements concerning the psychical attributes 

 which cannot be ignored in a consideration of this subject. 



1 



