THE WOMAN OF EVOLUTION AND PESSIMISM. 331 
tion is not confined to woman. Those men who were 
favourites of princes used the same methods of con- 
quest. Moreover, the power of a strong 
will over a weak one has always been a 
factor in history, even though the strong 
will be in a weak body. The freedom of man has 
brought with it the freedom of woman. With woman as 
with man not all are ready to be free. The fool when 
free shows his folly. It is safer for him to follow his 
class, to govern his life by tried conventionality, rather 
than by imperfect reason. The emancipation of woman 
permits the growth of senseless fads and meaningless 
superstitions, distorted desires and hysterical impulses. 
But the emancipation of man has had just the same effect. 
In the long run all these things are outworn; the sur- 
vival of the fittest is the survival of the wise. 
The offensive phases of “new womanhood” are tem- 
porary and self-curative. They are of the nature of 
fads which encumber and disguise real progress. The 
woman of the future will be the fit and equal partner of 
the future man. As the wise and the strong will prize 
the womanly virtues, so will she be modest, sympathetic, 
and beautiful. Nevertheless she need not lack a de- 
gree of sturdy strength, without which motherhood fails 
of its best fulfilment. Yet in so far as the highest 
physical activity and its coordinate reasoning power 
are not to be demanded of women in general, so in the 
nature of things must the brain and muscle of woman 
retain qualities of immaturity. The accelerated devel- 
opment of these qualities in the male of a race “sore 
bestead by the environment,” must leave the female 
relatively undeveloped if judged by the standard of 
the man. 
But, judged by the standard of womanhood, man 
shows an equal number of crude instincts and embry- 
Force breeds 
deceit. 
