more than a bearer of burdens, a slave, and a drudge; as coarse as man, and lower in rank and treatment. The man fishes, hunts, fights, plays, rests; putting every repulsive task exclusively on the woman. It is the brute right of the stronger, which very slowly yields to the refining influence of reflective sympathy.

With each successive advance of society, it is not true that the distinction of sex becomes more definite and more important; but it is true that the distinctive feeling of men towards women becomes less a feeling of scorn and authority, more a feeling of deference and homage. Woman is as distinct from man in the grossest barbarism as in the finest civility only, in that, she is the degraded servant of his senses; in this, she is the honored companion of his soul. If, with the historic progress of society, the sphere of feminine life becomes more domestic, inward, individual, so does that of man too. His ideal life constantly encroaches more on his active life; his physical energies become less predominant, his moral sympathies more so.

Such is the lesson which history yields to him who impartially surveys it. Woman begins by being totally distinct from. man in personality and estate, totally subjected to him in service; and goes on, with the improvement of civilization, to be ever freer from his authority, nearer his equal in status, more closely blended with him in personality and moral pursuits. Men and women ascend or sink together, and should share in common every earthly privilege, every heavenly aspiration. They are not, in any proper sense, master and servant; but equals, responsible to one another for mutual perfection, each responsible to God for personal perfection. Therefore, while to efface the intrinsic characteristics of the sexes would undoubtedly be a retrograde step, it is an impossible step, which no one proposes to take. It is proposed merely to efface those factitious characteristics whose removal will clear away barriers and secure the more rapid improvement of all, by blending their culture, their liberty, and their worship, showing us men and women as equal units of humanity in its personal ends, but dependent coadjutors in its social means.

The common destiny of a woman, as a representative of humanity, is the same as that of a man; namely, the perfect development of her being in the knowledge of truth and the practice of virtue and piety. Her peculiar destiny, as a woman, is wifehood and maternity. But if she declines this peculiar destiny of her sex, or it is denied her, still her common human destiny remains unforfeited; and she has as clear a right to the most unrestricted use of every means of fulfilling it, as she could have if she were a man. Let any one attempt to give a satisfactory reason for the contrary opinion, and he will find that it rests on nothing but unthinking prejudice.

The good wife and mother fulfils a beautiful and sublime office, the fittest and happiest office she can fulfil. If her domestic cares occupy and satisfy her faculties, it is a fortunate adjustment; and it is right that her husband should relieve her of the duty of providing for her subsistence. But what shall be said of those millions of women who are not wives and mothers, who have no adequate domestic life, no genial private occupation or support? What reason can be given why they should not enjoy the same freedom as men, to earn their own livelihood, take care of themselves, do good, win position, by any avocation for which they are fitted? Victoria is not blamed for being Queen of England, Ristori for occupying the tragic stage, Jenny Lind for singing in public, Rosa Bonheur for painting matchless pictures, Jean Ingelow for writing sweet poems, Dorothy Dix for planting great trophies of her philanthropic labors in many nations. If these illustrious examples of women, in public offices of honor, emolument, beneficence, are admired, not considered as having unsexed themselves, what becomes of the reasoning, that no woman is truly feminine who leaves the domestic sphere?

There are multitudes of women with too much self-respect to be willing to be supported in idleness by men; with too much genius and ambition to be content to spend their lives in trifles; with too much devotedness not to burn to be doing their share in the relief of humanity, the work and progress

of the world. If these were all happy wives and mothers, that might be best. But denied that function, and being what they are, why should not all the provinces of public labor and usefulness, which they are capable of occupying, be freely open to them? What else is it save prejudice that eagerly applauds a woman dancing a ballet or performing an opera, but shrinks with disgust from one delivering an oration, preaching a sermon, or casting a vote? Why is it less womanly to prescribe as a physician, than to tend as a nurse? If a woman have a calling to medicine, divinity, law, literature, art, instruction, trade, or honorable handicraft, it is hard to see any sound reason why she should not have a fair chance to pursue it. Of course, such must ever be the exceptional callings of women; but, in proportion as those not otherwise more satisfactorily employed enter into them, we must believe that the burden on men, instead of being aggravated by the new competition, will be shared, and thus lightened, and the best interests of society receive impulse. These are the simplest commonplaces of the subject. It would be an affront to any unprejudiced mind to suppose them in need of argument. They are well put and amply illustrated in the volume to which we have referred.

But it is necessary to see more clearly the grounds on which women, as a class, have hitherto been excluded from public activity and authority, in order properly to understand the justice or the injustice of that exclusion; and, in studying the origin of customs and opinions now prevalent, it is as much our right to do it with freedom, as it is our duty to do it with reverence. Many persons forget that the highest question is, What ought to be? and not, What has been or is? Usages frequently endure after their utility has ceased, after their propriety has gone. The true ideal of human conduct is not to be found in the imperfections of the past, but to be constructed from the perfections of the future. The fact that a thing has always been, is an historic justification of it for bygone time, but not a moral justification of it for coming time. This requires intrinsic and enduring reasons, reasons of right and use. While the exclusion of

women from public life has been perfectly natural in the ages behind us, it is a distinct inquiry whether such an exclusion be either obligatory or expedient now.

All history demonstrates the law, that the male sex has greater muscular strength, with its natural accompaniments, than the female. The more differentiated and largely supplied nervous structure, connected with the offices of maternity, detracts so much from the amount of force furnished for the muscles and the will. In the rudeness of the primitive state, it is an unavoidable result of the superior muscular power of man that woman is his subject. But the more pronounced nervous system of woman gives her certain spiritual advantages. Her greater sensibility; her greater seclusion, with its relative stimulus of solitude and meditation; the closer endearments of maternity, - develop her affections in a higher degree than his. Hence arises a tendency to refinement, elevation, influence, on her part, a tendency to which, in proportion to his moral susceptibility, he responds with sympathy, respect, and veneration. Every step of social progress has been marked by a softening of the tyranny of man and a lifting of the position of woman, an approximation towards an equal companionship. First the tool of his will, next the toy of his pleasure, then the minister of his vanity, she is at last to become the free sharer of his life, the friend of his mind and heart. In the first of these stages, no question of right was consciously raised: the brute preponderance of strength decided all. In the last stage, there will be no question in debate, no exercise of executive authority on either side; all being settled by a spontaneous harmony of privileges and renunciations on both sides. But in the intermediate stages, covering the whole historic period thus far, man has sought, by crude or elaborate reasoning, to justify himself in monopolizing authority, and holding woman subject to the laws he imposes.

The first argument of the master was the argument, prompted by the unneutralized, uneducated, selfish instincts, - that the mere possession of power to rule, gives the right to rule. Might makes right. Muscular superiority is, by intrinsic fit

ness and necessity, divinely installed to reign. Woman, as "the weaker vessel," must obey. Such a mode of thought was unavoidable, and had its legitimate ages of sway. But no moralist would dream of adopting it after the conscience has advanced to the stage of general principles, has risen into the region of disinterested sympathy or justice. No one would now consciously employ this argument to maintain the subjection of women; yet in multitudes, below the stratum of their conscious thoughts, it blindly upholds that subjection to-day. A single consideration is enough to show the logical absurdity of the assumption. If men are entitled to the exclusive enjoyment of political privileges, simply because they have more physical might, then, by the same principle, among men themselves the weak should be subject to the strong. But the very purpose of law, the moral essence of civilization, is to rectify the natural domination of strength, displacing its sway with spiritual superiority, and bringing all before a common standard.

The argument from intellectual inferiority is as vacant as that from muscular inferiority. In the first place, it is an open question whether women, as a whole, are inferior in mind to men. Many intelligent judges firmly believe, that, taken as a whole, they are superior. Cornelius Agrippa wrote a book in 1509, entitled "The Nobility of the Female Sex, and the Superiority of Woman over Man." Lucretia Marinella published a book at Venice, in 1601, undertaking to prove the superiority of her sex to the other. A book entitled "La Femme Généreuse," an attempt to demonstrate "that the women are more noble, more polite, more courageous, more knowing, more virtuous, and better managers than the men," was published at Paris in 1643. Madame Guillaume also published at Paris, in 1665, a work called "Les Dames Illustres," devoted to the proof of the proposition that the female sex surpasses the masculine in all kinds of valuable qualifications. Mrs. Farnham devotes her book, "Woman and her Era," published in New York in 1864, to the support of the same thesis, with new arguments and illustrations. That woman is intellectually superior to man, was likewise the

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