26^ THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. 



Even a recent discussion, which is professedly from the bio- 

 logical point of view, that of ■Mr Romanes, sorely disappoints 

 us in this regard. 



The reader need not be reminded of the oldest and most 

 traditional views of the subjection of women inherited from the 

 ancient European order ; still less perhaps of the attitude of 

 the ordinary politician, who supposes that the matter is one 

 essentially to be settled by the giving or withholding of the 

 franchise. The exclusively political view of the problem has 

 in turn been to a large extent subordinated to that of economic 

 laissez-faire^ from which of course it consistently appeared that 

 all things would be settled as soon as women were sufficiently 

 plunged into the competitive industrial struggle for their own 

 daily bread. AVhile, as the complexly ruinous results of this 

 inter-sexual competition for subsistence upon both sexes and 

 upon family life have begun to become manifest, the more 

 recent economic panacea of redistribution of wealth has 

 naturally been invoked, and we have merely somehow to 

 raise women's wages. 



All disputants have tolerably agreed in neglecting the 

 historic, and still more the biological factors ; while, so far as 

 the past evolution of the present state of things is taken into 

 account at all, the position of women is regarded as having 

 simply been that in which the stronger muscle and brain of 

 man was able to place her. The past of the race is thus depicted 

 in the most sinister colours, and the whole view is supposed to 

 be confirmed by appeal to the practice of the most degenerate 

 races, and this again as described with the scanty sympathy or 

 impartiality of the average white traveller, missionary, or settler. 



As we have already said, we cannot attempt a full discussion 

 of the question, but our book would be left, as biological books 

 for the most part are, without point, and "its essential thesis 

 useless, if we did not, in conclusion, seek to call attention to 

 the fundamental facts of organic difference, say rather divergent 

 lines of differentiation, underlying the whole problem of the 

 sexes. We shall only suggest, as the best argument for the 

 adoption of our standpoint, the way in which it becomes 

 possible relatively to affiliate the most varied standpoints. We 

 shall not so readily abuse the poor savage, who lies idle in the 

 sun for days after his return from the hunting, while his hea\7- 

 laden wife toils and moils without complaint or cease; but 

 bearing in \-iew the extreme bursts of exertion which such a 



