THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 323 
“The case,” says Schopenhauer, “is not altered by 
particular and partial exceptions; taken as a whole, 
women are, and remain, thoroughgoing 
Philistines, and quite incurable. Hence, 
with that absurd arrangement which al- 
lows them to share the rank and title of their husbands, 
they are a constant stimulus to his ignoble ambitions. 
And, further, it is just because they are Philistines that 
modern society, where they take the lead and set the 
tone, is in such a bad way. Napoleon’s saying, that 
women have no rank, should be adopted as the right 
standpoint in determining their position in society ; and 
as regards their other qualities, Chamfort makes the 
very true remark, ‘ They are made to trade with our own 
weaknesses and our follies, but not with our reason.’ 
The sympathies that exist between them and men are 
skin-deep only, and do not touch the mind, or the feel- 
ings, or the character. They form the sexus seqguior—the 
second sex, inferior in every respect to the first; their 
infirmities should be treated with consideration; but to 
show them great reverence is extremely ridiculous and 
lowers us in their eyes. When Na- 
ture made two divisions of the human 
race, she did not draw the line exactly 
through the middle. These divisions are polar and op- 
posed to each other, it is true, but the difference be- 
tween them is not qualitative merely, it is also quanti- 
tative. 
“This is just the view which the ancients took of 
woman, and the view which the people in the East take 
now; and their judgment as to her proper position is 
much more correct than ours, with our old French no- 
tions of gallantry and our preposterous system of rev- 
erence—that highest product of Teutonico-Christian 
stupidity. These notions have served only to make 
Philistinism of 
women. 
The sexes 
unequal. 
