The Ideal State 243 



in a stock is more liable to become insane. . . . Much 

 more striking is the sex difference with regard to the 

 predominance of the factor of mental stress. Sudden 

 stress was thus recorded in thirty-five males as com- 

 pared with sixty-five females, a fact in harmony with 

 the greater susceptibility to emotional disturbance. 

 Prolonged stress, of which the recorded instances were 

 more than thrice as numerous, likewise appears to be 

 a more frequent precursor of insanity in females than 

 in males, but not to such a marked degree — namely, 

 forty-five males to fifty-five females." 



It must be evident that already in the hysteria of 

 their so-called literature, history, and science, we have 

 distinct suggestions of insanity in the movement and 

 ample warnings of the dangers of its continuity, and 

 more especially of its success, which could only 

 result in a progressively insane development, not 

 limited to women, and which would of necessity 

 affect the race as a whole, and in time bring about 

 disaster. Fortunately we know that this awful cul- 

 mination is not possible, in that Nature invariably 

 reasserts herself, and must inevitably interfere to save 

 the race from extinction. As already observed, in a 

 short time we would find the women demanding, in 

 their own interest and that of their sons and daughters, 

 a return to the old condition of things, in which men 

 resumed, as their own peculiar function, the making 

 and enforcing of the laws by which society is regulated, 

 and the great maternal function of women in the best 

 possible environment would continue to act in the 

 interests of society and the well-being of the race. 



Sir Almroth Wright has already abundantly proved 

 the evils of political life upon the feminine mind ; in- 

 deed he has proved from observed phenomena that the 

 ferocity and instability of the methods pursued in the 

 present agitation are the outcome of morbid tendencies 



