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FEMINISM   AND    SEX-EXTINCTION 


OLIVE  SCHREINER'S 
GREAT  BOOK 

WOMAN  &  LABOUR 

Large  Crown  8vo.      Cloth. 
8s.  6d.  net 


"The  feelings  which  are  behind  the 
various  women's  movements  could  not 
find  clearer  or  more  eloquent  expression 
than  they  do  in  this  remarkable  book." 
The  Daily  Mail. 
"At  last  there  has  come  the  book 
which  is  destined  to  be  the  prophecy  and 
the  gospel  of  the  whole  awakening." 

The  Nation. 


T.  FISHER  UNWIN,  Ltd.,  London. 


FEMINISM   AND 
SEX-EXTINCTION 


BY 

ARABELLA    KENEALY 

L.R.C.P.  (Dublin) 


"  A  good  tree  cannot  bring  forth  evil  fruity  neither  can 
a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit. ^'' 

"  IV here  fore  y  by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them'' 


.     LONDON 
T.   FISHER   UNWIN,  LTD. 

I  ADELPHI   TERRACE 


HQIX2.I 


Firsi  published  in  ig20 


All  rights  reserved 


FOREWORD 

Feminism,  the  extremist — and  of  late  years  the 
predominant  cult  of  the  Woman's  Movement,  is 
Masculinism. 

It  makes  for  such  training  and  development  in  woman, 
of  male  characteristics,  as  shall  equip  her  to  compete 
with  the  male  in  every  department  of  life;  academic, 
athletic,  professional,  political,  industrial.  And  it 
neither  recognises  nor  admits  in  her  natural  aptitudes 
differing  from  those  of  men,  and  fitting  her,  accord- 
ingly, for  different  functions  in  these.  It  rejects  all 
concessions  to  her  womanhood;  even  to  her  mother- 
function.  It  repudiates  all  privileges  for  her.  Boldly 
it  demands  a  fair  field  only  and  no  favour ;  equal  rights, 
political  and  social,  identical  education  and  training, 
identical  economic  opportunities  and  avocations,  an 
identical  morale,  personal  and  public. 

In  Woman  and  Labour,  Miss  Olive  Schreiner  sums  in 
a  line  the  Feminist  objective  :  "  We  take  all  labour  for 
our  province. ^^  And  this  is  the  text  of  the  Feminist 
creed;  the  elimination  of  sex-differences  and  the  abo- 
lition of  sex-distinctions  in  every  department  of  life 
and  activity. 

Feminists  anticipate — ^the  militant  faction  with  zest 
— fierce  economic  encounters  between  the  sexes  now 
that.  War  ended,  our  men,  having  fought  their  own  and 
woman's  battle  in  the  trenches,  are  returning  to  reclaim 
their  places  in  the  world  of  work.  Secure  in  that 
possession  which  is  "  nine-tenths  of  the  law,"  and  armed 
with  their  new  powers  of  enfranchisement,  it  is  further 

V 

•   498323 


vi  FOREWORD 

anticipated  that  the  usurpers  will  be  able  triumphantly 
to  stem  the  masculine  reflux,  and  to  retain,  on  all  hands, 
their  new  industrial  footing. 

By  showing  that,  contrary  to  Feminist  doctrine,  the 
division  of  Labour  into  two  sexes,  so  to  speak,  is  as 
natural  and  is  as  indispensable  to  Human  Progress  as 
is  the  division  of  Life  into  two  sexes,  the  purpose  of  this 
book  is  to  dissuade  women  from  exploiting  a  world's 
misfortunes  for  their  own  immediate  profit,  and  to 
reconcile  them,  in  their  profounder  and  more  vital 
interests  and  in  those  of  the  Race,  to  surrender  freely 
all  the  essentially  masculine  employments  into  which 
mischance  has  cast  them. 

Human  evolution  and  progress  have  resulted  abso- 
lutely from  an  opposite  trend,  in  inherence  and 
development,  of  the  two  sexes,  as  regards  Life  and 
characteristics,  aptitude  and  avocation.  The  progressive 
differentiations  and  specialisations  of  vital  processes  and 
living  forms,  whereby  human  character  and  faculty 
have  been  increasingly  advanced  to  higher  powers, 
reach  their  most  admirable  culmination  in  the  complex 
division  of  Humanity  into  two  genders;  each  of  which 
is  enabled,  by  way  of  such  complex  specialisation,  to 
promote,  to  intensify  and  to  dignify  its  own  allotted 
order  of  qualities.  To  oppose  and  frustrate  this  natural 
dispensation,  w^hereby  Human  development  is  achieved 
by  the  two  sexes  travelling  along  diametrically  opposite 
lines  of  Ascent,  is  to  nullify  all  that  civilisation  has 
secured,  and  to  transform  the  impulse  of  Progress  into 
one  of  Decadence. 

Nature,  marvellously  prescient  in  all  her  processes, 
has  provided  that  the  sexes,  by  being  constituted  wholly 
different  in  body,  brain  and  bent,  do  not  normally 
come  into  rivalry  and  antagonism  in  the  fulfilment  of 
their  respective  life-roles.  Their  faculties  and  functions, 
being  complementary  and  supplementary  (and  ob- 
viously best  applied,  therefore,  in  different  departments 


FOREWORD  vii 

of  Life  and  of  Labour),  men  and  women  are  naturally 
dependent  upon  one  another  in  every  human  relation; 
a  dispensation  which  engenders  reciprocal  trust, 
affection  and  comradeship. 

Feminist  doctrine  and  practice  menace  these  most 
excellent  previsions  and  provisions  of  Nature  by  thrust- 
ing personal  rivalries,  economic  competition  and  general 
conflict  of  interests  between  the  sexes. 

Should  any  reader  find  in  these  pages  allusions  and 
passages  which,  without  biological  or  medical  know- 
ledge, may  not  be  wholly  clear  to  him,  let  him  remember 
that  these  are  addressed  to  such  as  have  dipped  more 
deeply  into  the  subjects  dealt  with. 

The  main  outlines  and  implications  of  the  new 
Hypothesis  presented  here,  of  the  origin  and  evolution 
of  Sex,  are  all  that  he  requires  to  grasp,  in  order  to  follow 
the  argument  of  the  book  in  its  relation  to  Feminist 
methods. 

Arabella  Kenealy,  L.R.C.P. 


CONTENTS 

HAP.  PAGE 

FOREWORD        .......  V 

BOOK  I 
woman's  part  in  human  evolution 

I.      IMPASSIONED    FALLACIES    OF    FEMINISM         .  .  3 

II.  INCREASING  DIFFERENCES  BETWEEN  MALE  AND 
FE:MALE  SEX-CHARACTERISTICS  AND  FUNCTIONS 
ARE   THE    MAIN    FEATURE    OF  HUMAN   ADVANCE         21 

III.  THE    MYSTERY   OF   SEX  AND    SEX-TRANSMISSION   .  35 

IV.  ONE  SIDE  OF  BODY  IS  MALE,  THE  OTHER  SIDE  IS 

FEMALE .  51 

V.  MASCULINE  MOTHERS  PRODUCE  EMASCULATE  SONS 
BY  MISAPPROPRIATING  THE  LIFE- POTENTIAL  OF 
MALE   OFFSPRING  .....  73 

BOOK  II 
woman's  part  in  human  decadence 

I.      DECLINE    AND    FALL    OF    ANCIENT    CIVILISATIONS 

DUE   TO   FEMINISM  .....  95 

II.      THE  EVOLUTION  OF  SEX  IN  ADOLESCENCE  .  .       109 

III.  THE   EXTINCTION    OF   SEX   IN   ADOLESCENCE  .        126 

IV.  THE     WOMAN     BRAIN  I       ITS     POWERS     AND     DIS- 

ABILITIES     .......        146 

V.      MALE   AND    FEMALE   SEX-INSTINCTS   AND    MORALE 

DIAMETRICALLY   DIFFERENT  .  .  .166 

VI.      FEMINIST    DOCTRINE    AND    PRACTICE    DISASTROUS 

TO   INFANT-LIFE   AND   HUMAN    FACULTY   .  .        190 

ix 


X  CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

VII.  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE  AND  PRACTICE  DESTRUC- 
TIVE OF  WOMANLY  ATTRIBUTES,  MORALE  AND 
PROGRESS      .......       219 

VII  r.      DANGEROUS    SEPARATION    OF    WOMEN    INTO    TWO 

ORDERS  :    FEMINISTS   AND   FEMININISTS    .  .       242 

IX.      THE   IMPENDING   SUBJECTION   OF   MAN  .  .       264 


APPENDIX 

FURTHER   EVIDENCES    IN    SUPPORT   OF   BIOLOGICAL   AND 

MENDELIAN    PROPOSITIONS    ADVANCED    IN    BOOK    I      292 


BOOK  I 

WOMAN'S  PART  IN  HXJMAN  EVOLUTION 


CHAPTER  I 

IMPASSIONED   FALLACIES   OF  FEMINISM 

"  TKe  sexual  love  which  has  its  origin  in  what  is  external  and 
accidental  may  easily  be  turned  to  hate,  a  kind  of  madness 
that  is  nourished  on  discord;  but  that  love,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  lasting  which  has  its  source  in  freedom  of  soul  and  in  the  will 
to  bear  and  bring  up  children." — Spinoza. 


There  is  no  subject  save  that  of  Religion  about  which 
so  much  impassioned  fallacy  has  been  spoken  and 
written  as  has  been  spoken  and  written  round  the  Woman 
Question.  ^^ 

^  For  more  than  half  a  century — since  Mill  wrote  his  '- 
famous  Subjection,  indeed — it  has  become  an  increasing 
vogue  to  regard  Woman  as  a  martyr;  more  or  less 
sainted,  more  or  less  crushed  and  effaced  beneath  the 
iron-heeled  tyrannies,  personal,  economic,  and  political, 
of  the  oppressor,  Man.  And  it  has  been  in  the  spirit  of 
this  conviction  and  in  fervid  endeavours — indignant 
and  chivalrous  on  the  part  of  the  one  sex,  and  still  more 
indignant  and  but  little  less  chivalrous  on  the  part  of  the 
other — to  liberate  unhappy  victims  from  a  barbarous 
oppression,  that  most  of  the  impassioned  fallacy  has 
been  spoken  and  written,  and  doughty  deeds  done. 

At  the  certain  cost,  therefore,  of  being  stigmatised 
as  a  reactionary  (severely  qualified),  1  propose  to 
unmask  some  of  these  which  I  believe  to  be  baseless 
obsessions,  and  to  present  a  wholly  new — and,  I  hope, 
a  more  veracious  and  inspiring  version  of  the  case 
between  the  sexes. 
To   begin   with,    I   assert   boldly  that  the   so-called  I 


4  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

Subjection  of  Woman,  very  far  from  having  been  i 
cruel  injustice  merely,  on  the  part  of  man,  has  served 
on  the  contrary,  as  a  blessing  and  an  inestimable  benefi 
not  only  to  herself  but  to  the  Race  bound  up  in  her  J  A 
blessing  often  rough  and  painful  in  its  methods,  during 
epochs  when  all  other  methods  were  both  rough  anc 
painful,  attended,  too,  by  wrongs  and  cruelties;  yet 
in  the  main,  operating  vastly  to  her  well-being  anc 
advancement  and,  in  hers,  to  those  of  the  Race. 

Looking  back  upon  the  hard  and  bloody  routes  o: 
Evolution  whereby  the  human  Races  have  attained  tc 
present-day  developments,  we  see  our  forbears  groping 
blindly,  fighting  blindly,  advancing  blindly;  stumbling 
falling,  picking  up  again;  making  new  departures  onh 
hopelessly  to  lose  the  road;  making  new  departures 
now  to  find  it  and  trudge  on.  In  all  its  painful  anc 
laborious  phases,  a  terrible  and  sordid  climb.  Yet 
nevertheless,  in  its  great  annals  of  Ascent,  a  noble  anc 
a  wondrous  March  of  Progress. 

And  whether  we  are  Religionists  or  Evolutionists— 
or  are  sufficiently  broad-minded  to  be  both — ^the 
history  of  Life  is  seen  to  have  been  a  history  of  death- 
less effort,  never  ceasing,  never  waning;  renewed  with 
every  generation;  intensified  by  every  further  acquisi- 
tion of  new  power,  as,  with  every  further  recognition 
of  new  goals  and  problems,  the  ever-increasing  Purpose 
and  the  ever-increasing  perplexity  and  complexity  of 
The  Purpose  revealed  itself  at  every  step.  It  becomes 
increasingly  clear,  moreover,  that  Creation,  or  Creative 
Evolution  (to  employ  Professor  Bergson's  phrase),  has 
been  the  resultant  of  a  progressive  aggregation  of 
Atomic  Matter  about  some  vast  immanent  Idea,  slowly 
and  by  infinitesimal  degrees  materialising  in  the  objec- 
tive. Very  much  as  bricks  are  grouped  about  the  pre- 
conceived plan  of  a  house,  and  could  not  be  assembled 
in    the  building  of  the  simplest  tool-hut  without    pre- 


FALLACIES   OF   FEMINISM  5 

determination  of  the  site  of  every  brick,  and  of  the 
relation  of  every  brick  to  every  other. 

And  in  all  those  past  ages  of  conflict,  bringing  Order 
out  of  Chaos,  Progress  out  of  Order,  and  an  ever- 
increasing  domination  of  blind  Energy  and  Inorganic 
Matter  by  Mind  and  Purpose,  the  fighting  male  it  has 
been  who,  in  his  conquest  of  the  Earth  as  in  his  con- 
quest of  other  fighting  males,  both  brute  and  human, 
has  borne  the  greater  heat  and  burden  of  the  day. 
Women  have  striven  also — ^toil  has  been  the  crux  of 
their  development  as  of  their  mates.  But  men  have 
striven  twofold.  While  women  toiled  in  the  security 
of  homes,  the  sword,  the  blunderbuss  or  press-gang,  or 
the  equivalent  of  these,  according  to  the  epoch,  awaited 
men  and  still  await  them  at  most  street-corners  of  the 
arduous  male  career. 

Women  have  suffered  more,  psychically ;  because  this 
way  lay  their  nature  and  their  human  lot.  Men  have 
suffered  more,  materially ;  because  here  lay  theirs. 
And  since  advancement  comes  by  suffering,  women  are 
reaping  to-day  the  harvest  of  past  travail  of  their  sex, 
in  the  higher  psychical  development  which  now  charac- 
terises that  sex.  i*  During  centuries  when  men  were 
vastly  too  hard-pressed  by  the  struggle  for  barest 
existence  to  have  been  aware  that  they  possessed  souls, 
women  were  privileged  to  be  aware  of  theirs — by  the 
affliction  thereof. 

y^he  immediate  purpose  of  this  fencing  of  the  women 
behind  the  stronger  frameSj  the  stronger  wills,  and 
stronger  brains  of  fighting  males  was  the  Racial  one, 
of  course.  While  men  battled  with  environment  and 
with  alien  aggressors  for  their  lives  and  for  their  food, 
as  for  those  of  the  family,  the  sheltered  women  were 
alike  the  loom  and  cradle  of  the  Race./  As  well,  they 
made  havens,  or  homes,  for  the  fighters  ^o  return  to  for 
sleep  and  refreshment.  They  plied  a  simple,  primitive 
agriculture,  practised  a  primitive  healing  art,  and  other- 


6  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

wise  evolved  The  Humanities.  But  since  mortal  power 
is  limited,  power  expended  in  one  direction  is  power 
withdrawn  from  some  other.  Power  spent  in  battle  is 
power  lost  to  progress.  The  woman  who,  with  the 
instinct  for  home  and  as  shelter  for  her  babes,  laid  the 
foundations  of  Architecture  in  a  hut  of  mud,  was  enabled 
to  do  this  solely  by  virtue  of  masculine  protection. 
/  It  is  in  peace  only  that  Progress  arises,  in  leisure  that 
/  The  Arts  evolve.  And  woman,  walled  in  by  the  lives 
of  the  males,  found  leisure  of  body  and  mind  to  pluck 
flowers  for  the  adorning  of  her  hut,  to  shape  platters  of 
clay,  and,  later,  even  for  embellishment  of  these  with 
crude  designs.     Thus  she  was  the  first  artist. 

The  fighting  male  was — by  necessity — destructive. 
He  invented  a  club.  The  female  was — by  privilege — 
constructive. f  She  invented  the  needle  (a  fish-bone, 
doubtless).  And  while  the  male  transmitted  to  off- 
spring his  virile  fighting  and  destructive  qualities, 
woman  tempered  and  humanised  these  by  incorporating 
with  them  her  milder  traits  and  artistries  of  peace. 
Lacking  the  male  aggressive  and  protective  faculties, 
however,  increasing  in  skill  and  resource  with  his  evei 
further  Adaptation  to  (and  of)  environment,  woman's 
gentler  and  humanising  aptitudes  would  have  had 
neither  opportunity  for  evolution,  nor  scope  for  exercise 
and  further  sway. 

II 

I  have  been  reading  an  account,  by  a  naturalist,  ol 
some  phases  in  the  life-history  of  crabs.  And  it  is 
interesting  to  find  even  among  creatures  so  low  in  the 
Life-scale  (although  Darwin  regarded  these  as  the  most 
intelligent  of  crustacece)  that  same  instinct  of  protection 
of  the  female  which  is  seen  in  the  higher  orders  oi 
creation. 

A  crab,  being  encased  in  an  unyielding  shell,  is  able 
to  increase  its  grov/th  only  by  "casting  "  its  shell  and 


FALLACIES   OF   FEMINISM  7 

developing  one  of  larger  size  over  its  increased  bulk. 
During  the  interval  between  casting  an  old  shell  and 
acquiring  a  new  one,  the  crab  in  its  soft,  pulpy  condition 
is  readily  injured,  or  falls  prey  to  its  natural  enemies. 
To  protect  itself  as  well  as  may  be,  it  shelters  in  rocky 
crevices  or  in  other  available  hiding-places.  This  shell- 
casting  occurs  in  both  sexes,  of  course.  But  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  the  change  is  made  differ 
widely  in  the  sexes.  For  while  the  male-crab  has  no 
protector  during  his  defenceless,  shell-less  state,  his  shell 
is  cast  a  month  or  more  earlier  than  occurs  in  the  female ; 
after  which  he  feeds  up,  in  order  to  be  in  superior 
fighting  trim  for  her  protection  during  her  shell-casting 
phase.  Fishermen  describe  him  as  then  spreading 
himself  over  her  as  a  hen  covers  her  chicks,  and  in  her 
defence  desperately  attacking  all  comers.  The  result 
of  such  protection  of  the  female  is  that,  although  males 
are  larger  and  fiercer,  "hen-crabs"  are  numerous, 
while  males  are  scarce. 

/'^  The  like  is  true  of  nearly  every  species.  The  males 
protect  the  females.  Even  the  gorilla,  savage  and 
most  terrible  of  beasts,  lies  at  night  on  guard  beneath 
the  tree  in  which  his  mate  and  offspring  sleep.  If  need 
arise,  he  fights  to  the  death  in  their  defence,  j 

With  regard  to  the  chivalrous  devotion  of  male-birds, 
Olive  Schreiner  thus  comments  in  Woman  and  Labour 
(an  example  of  that  I  have  ventured  to  describe  as  the 
"  impassioned  fallacy "  hurtling  round  the  Woman 
Question) :  "  Along  the  line  of  bird-life  and  among 
certain  of  its  species,  sex  has  attained  its  highest  and 
aesthetic,  and  one  might  almost  say  intellectual,  develop- 
ment on  earth  .  .  .  represents  the  realisation  of  the 
highest  sexual  ideal  which  haunts  humanity." 

(This  however,  less,  I  fear,  to  accredit  the  male-sex 
with  chivalry  than  to  discredit  the  human  male  by 
ornithological  comparison  !) 


8  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

/  One   does  not   profess  that   such   protective  role  o 

rniales — beast   and   bird  and  crab — is  the  outcome  c 

/sentiment.     It    is    instinctive,    subconscious.     Nature' 

/  purpose  being  to   preserve  and  to  perpetuate  species 

she  achieves  this  by  safeguarding  the  female,  j  The  pre 

i  vince  of  the  male  in  reproduction  is  but  slight  and  briei 

\  It  exacts  so  little  from  him  as  to  interfere  not  at  all  wit] 

Vthose  other  masculine  activities  which  are  the  functio: 

of  his  sex. 

Whereas,  as  Professor  Lester  Ward  says,  "  Woma: 
[and  the  female  of  all  species]  is  the  Race."  Out  c 
her  blood  and  bone  and  vital  powers  she  evolves  an 
fashions  it,  nurtures  and  ministers  to  it.  a'^ 

For  the  preservation  of  species,  two  roles  are  essential 
the  Male  role  of  Combat,  demanding  strength  and  bole 
ness,  resource  and  fighting-quality,  in  order  to  protec 
and  provide  for  the  female  and  offspring;  and  th 
Female  role  of  Devotion  and  Self-surrender,  in  orde 
to  nurture  offspring  ante-natally,  and,  after  birth,  t 
nurture  and  to  tend  its  helplessness. 

Now  all  but  biologists,  perhaps,  take  it  as  matter-oi 
course  that  Love  had  its  origin  in  Sex. 

Seeing  love  between  the  sexes  as  the  strongest  an 
most  dominant  of  the  civilised  passions,  it  is  natun 
to  infer  that  it  was  born  of  the  instinctive  attractio 
between  male  and  female,  and  that  this  instincti\ 
attraction,  with  the  growth  and  expansion  of  faculty 
mental  and  temperamental,  has  evolved  to  the  hig 
and  tender  issues  to  be  found  in  latter-day  romanti 
passion;  theme  of  poets,  novelists,  artists;  richest  an 
most  exquisite  of  life's  emotions;  inspiration  an 
motive  of  the  finest  human  achievements.  A  passio 
which,  for  a  space  at  least,  transfigures  the  natures  an 
ennobles  the  lives  of  all  but  the  crass  and  the  sordid. 


FALLACIES   OF  FEMINISM  9 

Nevertheless — Love  did  not  arise  out  of  sex.  The 
sex-relation  in  primal  men  and  women  held  no  element 
of  affection;  no  sympathy,  tenderness,  self-sacrifice,  or 
other  attribute  of  Love.  On  the  part  of  the  female,  it 
was  compulsory  surrender  and  the  habit  of  surrender 
to  superior  strength,  mitigated,  doubtless,  by  a  sub- 
conscious instinct  to  secure  offspring.  In  the  male,  it 
was  impulse  as  tyrannous  and  selfish  as  was  the  instinct 
to  kill.  Like  the  instinct  to  kill,  a  factor  in  it  made 
for  fitness  for  survival.  There  was  in  it,  accordingly, 
an  element  of  instinctive  selection.  But  the  selection 
made  for  survival-fitness  merely  in  the  mate.  It  owed 
nothing  to  sentimental  appeal  exercised  by  one  female, 
and  lacking  in  another.  The  instinct  to  mate  was 
implanted  by  Nature  for  the  continuation  of  species. 
If  its  observance  contained  an  element  of  gratification, 
it  held  no  more  of  reciprocity  than  did  the  gratification 
of  that  stronger  lust,  to  kill,  include  a  consideration  of 
the  feelings  of  the  prey,  or  than  greed  of  any  other  form 
of  possession  extends  a  grace  of  reciprocal  benefit  to 
the  thing  acquired. 

Modern  savages  have  no  conception  of  sexual  love. 
There  are  no  love-songs,  no  courtship,  no  affection  in 
their  matings.  The  males  marry  mainly  in  order  to 
secure  wives  to  work  for  them.  And  they  select  strong 
women  because  these  are  best  fitted  for  work.  Or  they 
select  women  who  have  some  or  another  small  posses- 
sion. Biological  instinct  is  a  factor,  doubtless,  but  it 
is  not  a  factor  of  sentiment. 

In  his  fine  book.  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World, 
Professor  Drummond  says  : 

"  Probably  we  have  all  taken  for  granted  that 
husbands  and  wives  have  always  loved  one  another. 
Evolution  takes  nothing  for  granted  ...  in  the 
lower  reaches  of  Human  Nature,  husband  and 
-  wife  do  not  love  one  another  ...  for  the  vast 
mass   of    mankind    during    the   long   ages   which 


10  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

preceded  historic  times,  conjugal  love  was  probably 
all  but  unknown.  .  .  . 

"  The  idea  that  the  existence  of  sex  accounts  for 
the  existence  of  love  is  untrue.     Marriage  among 
early  races  has  nothing  to  do  with  love.     Among 
savage  peoples,  the  phenomenon  everywhere  con- 
fronts us  of  wedded  life  without  a  grain  of  love. 
Love  then  is  no  necessary  ingredient  of    the    sex- 
relation;  it  is  not  an  outgrowth  of  passion.     Love 
is  love  and  has  always  been  love,  and  has  never 
been  anything  lower." 
Even   to-day,    despite   the   evolution   of   the   higher 
faculties,  despite  long  centuries  of  inherited  habit  and 
tradition,  and  despite  the  circumstance  that  in  all  the 
nobler  types   of   men   and   women   the   sex-instinct   is 
spiritualised  by  affection  and  understanding — Even  in 
this  late  day  of  civilisation,  the  male  sex-instinct  may 
be  seen  still  in  all  its  native  tyranny  and  selfishness; 
seeking   gratification   in    sensuality   and   cruelty,    with 
callous  disregard  alike  of  the  welfare  as  of  the  suffering 
of  its  victim.     In  the  violation  of  women  and  children 
that   occurs   both   in   peace   and   in   war,   the   instinct 
manifests  as  an  impulse  of  aggression,   and  the  sex- 
function  as  one  of  brutality  or  ruthless  lust. 

IV 

Respecting  the  origin  of  Mind  and  Emotion,  Charles 
Darwin  said : 

"  In  what  manner  the  mental  powers  were  first 
developed  in  the  lowest  organisms,  is  as  hopeless 
an  inquiry  as  how  life  itself  first  originated." 
And  Huxley : 

"  I  know  nothing,  and  never  hope  to  know  any- 
thing of  the  steps  by  which  the  passage  from 
molecular  movement  to  states  of  consciousness  is 
effected.     The  two  things  are  on  two  utterly  dif- 


.  FALLACIES   OF  FEMINISM  11 

ferent  platforms,  the  physical  facts  go  along  by 
themselves  and  the  mental  facts  go  along  by 
themselves." 
While  Dr.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace  (the  biologist  who 
was  working  out  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection  simul- 
taneously with  Darwin,  both  unaware  that  the  other 
was  working  in  the  same  direction)  attributes  to  a 
Creative  act  of  Gk)d,  all  the  moral  and  intellectual 
qualities  which  have  been  super-added  in  man  to  those 
lesser  and  simpler  ones  he  possesses  in  common  with  the 
higher  animals.  Wallace  describes  this  as  a  "  Divine 
Influx,"  and  regards  it  as  being  wholly  distinct  and  apart 
from  the  slow  and  gradual  processes  of  Natural  Selection. 
But  yet,  in  point  of  fact,  what  was  it  that  inspired 
and  energised  the  earlier  processes,  if  not  this  same 
Divine  Influx  ?  The  simpler  processes  must,  from  their 
earliest  rudimentary  beginnings,  have  been  leading  up 
to  the  later  and  more  complex.  And  the  later  and 
more  complex  were,  surely,  continuous  with  the  simpler 
— since  Nature  abhors  miracles,  and  works  by  slow 
progressive  biological  sequences. 

Nothing  shows  as  more  impersonal  than  a  crystal; 
cold,  hard,  senseless,  motionless.  And  yet  in  crystals 
is  the  element  of  Life,  even  the  power  of  reproduction, 
showing  factors  of  sex  already  operative  in  them. 
While  living  bodies,  charged  with  warmth,  mobility, 
sentience,  intelligence,  have  Inorganic  Matter, for  their 
basis  of  construction.  And  that  Inorganic  elements  are 
very  far  from  being  the  impersonal  things  they  seem, 
but  are  linked  by  subtle  correspondences  to  living  Mind 
and  vital  powers,  is  shown  by  their  effects  on  living 
processes  and  consciousness.  Given  as  medicines,  diges- 
tion (which  is  a  species  of  rapid  evolution  from  lower 
to  higher  forms  of  energy)  develops  such  vital  inherences 
within  them  as  prove  their  apparent  impersonality  to 
contain  a  principle  continuous  not  only  with  living 
processes,  but  with  the  highest  mentality. 


12  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

Professor  Leduc  observes  in  his  illuminating  book 
"  The  Mechanism  of  Life,"  "  the  ordinary  physical  force 
have,  in  fact,  a  power  of  organisation  infinitely  greate 
than  has  been  hitherto  supposed  by  the  boldest  imagination.^ 

Coralline  structures  and  beautiful  shells,  fungi,  leaves 
and  plants  bearing  coloured,  flowerlike  blooms  sprin] 
into  growth  when  a  formless  fragment  of  calcium  sal 
is  dropped  into  a  chemical  solution.  And  thes 
"  Osmotic  growths,"  artificially  produced,  possess  fa 
greater  complexity  of  structure  and  of  function  thai 
do  the  simpler  living  organisms  of  Nature. 

The  evidences  of  a  Vast  Stupendous  Plan,  whicl 
every  further  scientific  discovery  still  further  emphasises 
are  slowly  forcing  from  our  men  of  Science  the  conf essioi 
that  behind  the  marvellous  phenomena  their  finding 
reveal,  and  which  they  are  powerless  to  explain,  mus 
lie  a  Cause,  occult  and  irresistible,  an  Impulse,  all 
pervading,  incomprehensible. 

Bergson  describes  an  elan  vital — a  living  impetus- 
determining  such  phenomena. 

In  his  Presidential  address  to  the  British  Associatioi 
at  Dublin,  in  1908,  Professor  J.  S.  Haldane  summed  uj 
as  follows  the  position  of  Physiological  Science  :  "  Th( 
point  now  reached  is  that  the  conceptions  of  Physici 
and  Chemistry  are  insufficient  to  enable  us  to  understanc 
physiological  phenomena." 

Weismann  says  :  *'  Behind  the  co-operating  forces  o: 
Nature,  we  must  admit  a  Cause  .  .  .  inconceivable  ir 
its  nature,  of  which  we  can  only  say  one  thing  witt 
certainty,  that  it  must  be  theological." 

Drummond  says  :  "  Evolution  is  Advolution, — better 
it  is  Revelation — the  phenomenal  expression  of  th( 
Divine,  the  progressive  realisation  of  the  Ideal,  the 
Ascent  of  Love." 

If,  then,  we  admit  Life  to  be  the  product  of  a  Divine 
Influx,  whereby  Inorganic  Matter  has  been,  by  way  oJ 


FALLACIES   OF  FEMINISM  13 

evolutionary  processes,  increasingly  empowered  to 
fructify  in  living  form  and  faculty,  Human  Attri- 
butes are  seen  to  be  the  flower  of  Spiritual  seed,  which, 
sown  in  Life,  has  germinated;  has  struck  roots  of 
biological  function  into  living  flesh  and  put  forth  leaves 
in  living  traits;  has  developed  in  physiological  pro- 
cesses and  blossomed  in  powers  of  Mind  and  of  body. 
And  as  the  stronger  and  deeper  the  grip  of  its  roots  in 
the  earth,  the  taller  and  nobler  the  oak  towers  heaven- 
ward, so  it  must  be  with  human  characteristics.  The 
deeper  and  more  firmly  the  seedling  faculties  strike 
roots  in  living  function,  the  fuller  and  more  potent 
springs  the  impulse  toward  that  evolutionary  per- 
fection which  is  the  goal  of  Human  Being. 

If,  however,  living  processes  are  the  resultant  of  a 
Divine  Influx,  they  are  Spiritual  processes.  Life  is 
then  a  manifestation  in  Matter,  of  Spirit.  All  the 
developments  of  Life  are  Spiritual  phenomena,  there- 
fore. The  imperfection  and  evil  found  in  living  creatures 
are  not  attributes  of  Life.  They  are  crudities  of  rudi- 
mentary organisation,  or  are  failures  in  or  aberrations 
from  the  normal  development  of  Life. 


In  the  Evolution  of  Faculty,  living  traits  are  seen  to 
have  been  all  the  while  attaining  to  higher  power  by 
the  differentiation  and  development  of  special  organs 
to  subserve  their  fuller  function,  their  finer  conscious 
apprehension,  and  their  more  complex  manifestation 
on  the  material  plane. 

The  brain  has  been  specialised  thus  to  serve  as  the 
organ  of  Consciousness;  the  eye,  of  Vision;  the  ear, 
of  Hearing;  the  hand,  of  Touch  and  of  manipulation. 
The  lowest  organisms  possess  no  such  specialised  organs 
of  sense  or  of  consciousness.  Nor  are  they  equipped 
with  special  reproductive  organs.     They  reproduce  by 


14  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

cleavage;  by  budding  a  small  portion  of  themselves 
which,  when  separated,  grows  to  a  mature  organism. 

With  other  differentiations  and  specialisations  o 
Function  and  Faculty,  there  has  developed — ^for  thi 
all-important  racial  purpose  of  creating  ever  higher  anc 
more  potent  living  species — ^the  highly-complex  humai 
reproductive  system,  which,  by  its  close  and  subtL 
nervous  alliance  with  the  brain,  has  become  the  mediun 
and  the  instrument  of  a  new  and  irresistible  emotion 
So  that  it  serves  not  only  for  the  perpetuation  of  i 
complex  species,  but,  moreover,  for  the  attraction,  b] 
natural  affinity,  of  the  mates  best  suited  to  one  another 

And  in  course  of  evolutionary  progress,  the  emotioi 
of  Love  has  been  all  the  while  more  and  more  so  leaven 
ing  and  inspiring  sex-attraction  with  its  purer  and  mor< 
tender  attributes,  that  human  passion  has  come  t( 
combine — in  those  of  higher  nature — the  flame  anc 
energy  of  physical  attraction  with  the  tenderness  an( 
devotion  of  altruistic  affection.  With  the  result  tha 
human  parenthood,  thus  quickened  and  spiritualised 
has  become  ever  further  empowered  to  evolve  mor( 
highly  intelligised,  more  beautiful  and  more  efficieni 
types  of  offspring. 

That  Passion,  pure  and  simple,  has  evolved  out  o: 
the  Male  sex-instinct  is  certain.  Even  in  its  chivalroui 
development  of  romantic  passion,  are  found,  in  trans 
figured  form,  that  flame  and  urgence  for  possession  whicl 
manifest  crudely  and  cruelly  in  the  primal  male-instinct 
Without  this  virile  ardour,  indeed,  the  sex-relation  i{ 
but  a  poor  and  tepid,  or  a  cold  and  sensual  thing. 

Yet  Passion  is  not  Love. 

That  meekness  and  forbearance,  humility  and  self 
surrender  have  been  reared  in  the  Female  sex-instinci 
of  submission  to  passion  (primarily  in  aversion  and  feai 
more  often  than  in  acquiescence)  is  equally  certain 
And  without  these  chastening  factors  to  temper,  softer 


FALLACIES   OF  FEMINISM  15 

and  anneal,  the  sex-relation  is  a  fierce  and  tyrannous 
concern.  But  no  more  than  passion,  is  submission  Love. 
Neither  in  passion  nor  in  submission,  pure  and  simple, 
is  there  joy  of  surrender  or  welding  communion. 

Nevertheless,  since  every  human  faculty  must  have 
its  roots  in  living  function,  and  every  living  function 
must  possess  some  physical  organ  in  which  its  processes 
occur,  from  what  human  function  sprang  the  Love  that 
is  selfless,  altruistic  and  pitiful;  soul  and  inspiration  of 
the  most  sacred  emotions — self-sacrifice,  charity,  mercy, 
devotion,  tenderness?  In  what  nursery  of  Human 
Consciousness  was  this  fair  and  gentle  blossom  sown; 
to  spring,  to  develop,  and  to  make  for  gracious  growth  ? 

Since,  although  it  has  come  to  lend  its  purity  and 
sweetness  to  the  Sex-passion,  it  neither  sprang  from 
nor  has  been  reared  in  sex-instinct,  is  it  a  product  of 
Parental  Affection?  Is  it  an  evolution  of  the  self- 
negation  and  the  tenderness  of  parents  for  their  children  ? 


VI 

Throughout  Nature,  the  parental  instinct  is  seen  as 
a  unique  development,  detached  from  and  high  above 
all  other  developments.  Demanding,  as  it  does,  the 
complete  surrender  and  self-denying  labours  of  one 
individual  in  the  interests  of  another,  it  differs  from  and 
traverses  all  other  dictates.  It  impels  a  creature  whose 
every  instinct  it  had  been — ^whose  religion  of  biological 
survival  it  had  been,  indeed — ^to  be  wholly  self-centred 
in  its  every  aim  and  action,  all  at  once  to  make  another 
creature  the  focus  of  its  interests  and  efforts.  Where 
for  a  scratch,  for  a  glance,  the  fierce  female  would  have 
fallen  tooth  and  nail  upon  another,  now  she  surrenders 
meekly  to  the  pangs  of  bringing  offspring  into  life — 
and  straightway  licks  and  suckles  the  frail  being  that 
has  riven  her.  Where  she  would  furiously  have  driven 
off,   or  would  have  killed,   another  creature  that   ap- 


16  FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

proached  her  food,  now  she  gives  herself  as  food  for 
this.  Where  lesser  Fitness  for  survival  on  another's 
part  had  been  signal  for  making  such  her  prey,  now 
Unfitness  in  the  extremest  degree  claims  her  devotion 
and  care. 

Superfluous  to  cite  cases  of  maternal  altruism.  The 
mildest  and  most  timid  among  creatures  becomes  fierce 
and  courageous  in  defence  of  her  young.  Style  it 
"merely  instinct,"  if  you  will.  It  is  none  the  less 
heroic  on  the  part  of  every  individual  that  obeys  it, 
and  does  not  obey  it  blindly  and  mechanically  merely, 
but  employs  all  her  poor  wit  and  resource  to  suit  her 
heroism  to  the  special  circumstance. 

Without  care  and  attention  from  the  moment  of  its 
birth,  the  life  of  an  infant  would  be  reckoned  in  hours. 
The  higher  the  organism,  the  more  and  for  the  longer 
period  its  infancy  exacts  unceasing  devotion  and  nurture. 

Fish  and  moth  and  other  species  of  low  order  are 
cast  off  in  the  egg.     Chicks  scramble  out  of  the  shell. 

The  higher  their  grade  in  the  scale  of  organisation 
and  intelligence,  the  more  helpless  and  incapable  young 
creatures  are  to  feed  and  to  fend  for  themselves.  Kittens 
are  born  blind  and  helpless,  but  after  a  few  days  they 
see  and  crawl  abovit.  The  elephant -mother  suckles 
and  safeguards  her  baby-elephant  for  two  whole  years. 

Now,  were  there  no  purpose  in  all  this — ^Were  it  not 
that  such  devotion  to  offspring  serves  as  impulse  and 
spur  to  the  evolution  and  development  of  faculty  in 
parents,  Nature,  in  planning  the  complex  human 
species,  would,  surely,  have  endowed  the  human  infant 
and  child  with  fuller  powers  of  self-preservation. 

Were  there  other  functions  and  aptitudes  the  exercise 
whereof  would  better  stimulate  and  foster  human 
progress,  it  is  inconceivable  that  children  would  be, 
and  would  be  for  so  long,  the  helpless,  feckless,  dependent 
mortals  that  they  are. 


FALLACIES   OF  FEMINISM  17 

For  ten  long  lunar  months,  the  human  babe  is  part 
of  its  mother;  homed  in  the  nest  of  her  body,  warmed 
by  her  warmth,  fed  by  her  blood.  She  breathes  for  it, 
digests  for  it,  assimilates  for  it,  exercises  for  it.  For 
ten  further  lunar  months,  it  is  dependent  upon  her  for 
the  food  by  which  it  lives.  For  nearly  a  year,  save  for 
an  inept  power  of  creeping,  with  but  small  sense  of 
direction,  it  requires  to  be  moved  and  carried  every- 
where. For  years  it  must  be  washed,  dressed,  combed, 
laid  down  to  sleep  at  night,  got  up  in  the  morning, 
taken  for  rides  or  for  walks,  played  with,  bidden? 
chidden;  comforted,  warmed,  cooled;  defended,  cher- 
ished, instructed — in  a  hundred  ways  to  be  gently  and 
progressively  adapted  to  life,  by  way  of  a  more  or  less 
highly-specialised  environment.  Even  when  no  longer 
helpless,  it  must  be  provided  for  in  the  matters  of 
housing,  food,  clothing,  education.  It  must  be  in- 
structed in  a  means  of  livelihood,  and  started  on  its 
young  career. 

Among  the  poorer  classes  the  child  depends  upon  its 
hard-worked  parents  for  a  period  varying  between 
:welve  and  sixteen  years.  In  the  professional  classes, 
:he  young  son  and  daughter  are  not  fully  qualified  for 
ndependent  existence  before  the  ages  of  twenty-three 
)r  twenty-five.  In  ill-health,  in  brain  defect,  and  in 
)ther  incapacities,  parents  must  provide  for  their 
)ffspring  for  life. 

And  seeing  how  the  demands  of  the  young,  and  the 
•esponsQ  and  exactions  of  the  parents  multiply  and 
implify  proportionally  with  the  higher  evolution  of 
Doth,  we  are  forced  to  believe  that  the  small  survival- 
^alue  of  the  child,  owing  to  its  native  unadaptedness 
;o  environment,  is  part  of  The  Plan,  and  that  it  subserves 
lome  high  and  complex  purpose  in  human  development. 


18  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 


VII 

An  essential  obligation  of  Parenthood  is,  that,  i 
order  to  fulfil  this  duly,  the  parents  require  to  under^ 
a  wholly  new  and  intrinsic  adjustment  of  facult; 
Having  arrived  already  at  a  complex  adaptation  to 
complex  civilised  environment,  in  physique  and  chara 
ter,  in  mentality  and  habit,  now,  by  a  revolutionai 
reversal  of  their  human  progress,  they  must  re-ada] 
to  the  simplest  of  all  creatures  and  conditions- 
helpless,  puling  infant  in  a  cradle. 

Where  they  had  had  a  whole  world,  perhaps,  of  ii 
tellectual  interests  and  social  pursuits  to  engage  ther 
now  they  forgather  beside  a  cot  and — according  i 
they  are  human  or  are  not — lose  themselves,  brain  ar 
heart  and  soul,  in  the  puling,  impotent  thing.  The 
make  themselves  eyes  and  ears,  arms  and  legs  for  i 
carriage,  chair  and  bed.  They  gaze,  entranced,  upc 
the  marvel  of  the  opening  and  shutting  of  its  eyes, 
yawns ;  they  tremble  lest  it  dislocate  a  jaw.  It  sneeze 
now  they  shudder  lest  it  may  have  taken  cold, 
gurgles,  and  they  are  transported  to  a  seveni 
heaven. 

Never  has  either  been  equally  fluttered  at  their  reco 
nition  by  an  exalted  personage  as  both  exult  wh( 
flattered  by  the  flicker  of  an  eyelash  that  it  disti] 
guishes  its  father  from  its  mother;  or  either  from  i 
nurse.  Both  perhaps  are  self-contained  and  phil 
sophic  beings,  yet  its  cry  distracts  them;  scatters  the 
composure  to  the  winds.  The  inept  thing  cannot  eve 
tell  them  -vVhat  it  wants.  Its  cry  for  food  is  much  tl 
same  as  is  its  cry  when  it  requires  to  be  laid  down,  < 
lifted  up.  When  its  milk  is  not  sweet  enough,  ii 
inarticulate  fury  is  expressed  in  notes  identical — so  fj 
as  they  can  judge — ^with  those  of  its  impotent  wral 
when  a  pin-point  pricks  it. 


FALLACIES   OF  FEMINISM  19 

But  whatsoever  the  cause,  to  the  winds  the  parental 
composure  is  scattered,  as  hither  and  thither  they 
scurry,  distraught,  seeking  a  reason  and  a  remedy. 
And  this,  of  course,  had  been  their  tjo-ant's  purpose. 
He  had  meant  to  strike  panic  in  his  parents'  hearts. 
He  was  vexed  or  empty,  or  was  otherwise  uneasy.  And 
behold  the  penalties  of  those  who  suffer  him  to  be 
vexed  or  empty,  or  otherwise  uneasy ! 

And  whether  they  are  rough,  hard-working  persbns 
who  have  neither  time  nor  taste  for  fuss  and 
nonsense;  whether  they  are  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  and  Mrs.  Archbishop,  Sir  Isaac  and  Lady 
Newton,  or  the  Emperor  and  Empress  of  Japan,  it 
is  all  the  same  to  Baby.  No  other  uses  have  they 
in  his  absurd  judgment  than  to  obey  his  slightest 
gurgle. 

And  the  wonder  of  the  business  is  that  they  too — 
provided  they  be  normal,  wholesome-minded,  natural- 
hearted  persons — are  of  similar  opinion.  Even  a  Pro- 
fessor of  Archaeology  must  feel  a  twinge  of  some  emotion 
when  his  first  baby  cuts  its  first  tooth.  King  Lion 
himself  suffers  it  with  patience  when  his  cub  scratches 
his  royal  countenance,  or  gets  its  milk-teeth  into  his 
prize-bone. 

The  whole  face  of  the  earth  is  transformed  by  the 
Baby,  indeed.  And  how  much  it  is  transformed  for 
the  better  !  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  it  is  human- 
ised, redeemed.  The  most  grudging  of  curmudgeons 
murmurs  only  a  little  to  surrender  his  place  at  the  fire 
to  The  Baby.  The  thirsty  thief  forbears  to  drink  his 
infant's  milk. 

In  his  great  story.  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp,  Bret 
Harte  has  shown,  and  has  shown  as  probable,  the 
uplifting  and  regenerating  influence  that  "  The  Luck  " 
— its  mother  a  sinner,  its  father.  Heaven  alone  knew 
who  ! — exercised  upon  a  rough  community  of  vicious 
men. 


20  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

"  It  wrastled  wi'  my  finger,"  says  one  in  an  awe 
whisper.  To  cover  sentiment  he  adds,  "  the  durn' 
little  cuss  !  "  But  carefully  he  segregates  the  memb 
sanctified  by  the  tiny,  satin  touch,  from  the  oibn 
fingers  of  his  wicked  hand. 


CHAPTER  II 

INCREASING   DIFFERENCES    BETWEEN   MALE   AND    FEMALE 

SEX-CHARACTERISTICS    AND    FUNCTIONS    ARE    THE 

MAIN   FEATURE    OF   HUMAN   ADVANCE 

"  The  most  beautiful  witness  to  the  Evolution  of  Man  is  the 
Mind  of  a  little  child.  ...  It  was  ages  before  Darwin  or  Lamarck 
or  Lucretius,  that  Maternity,  bending  over  the  hollowed  cradle 
in  the  forest  for  a  first  smile  of  recognition  from  her  babe,  ex- 
pressed the  earliest  trust  in  the  doctrine  of  development.  Every 
mother  since  then  is  an  unconscious  Evolutionist,  and  every 
little  child  a  living  witness  to  Ascent." — Professor  Drummond. 


Tracing  the  attribute  of  Love  to  its  source  in  the 
parental  function,  it  becomes  clear  that  this  function 
cannot  be  dismissed  thus  in  a  phrase. 

There  are  two  parents.  And  the  parts  played  by 
these,  respectively,  not  only  differ  widely  in  their  nature, 
but  they  are  signally  disproportionate  in  their  share  of 
the  labours  involved.  For  while  the  male  bears  the 
brunt  of  the  struggle  with  environment,  for  his  own  and 
for  survival  of  his  mate  and  offspring,  upon  the  female 
falls  the  biological  stress  of  pregnancy  and  lactation, 
and  the  material  cares  of  upbringing. 

The  reproductive  function  of  the  male  is  but  slight  and 
cursory.  With  the  female  lies  the  tax  of  havening  the 
embryo  before  birth,  of  nurturing  it  with  her  blood  and 
substance,  of  suffering  the  drain  it  makes  upon  her  vital 
energy,  the  burden  of  its  weight;  with,  finally,  the 
anguish  and  the  dangers  of  delivery.  And  having  come 
through  all  this,  the  subconscious  and  involuntary 
sacrifice  is  replaced  by  further — but  now  voluntary 
sacrifices.     She  not  only  continues  to  feed  it  with  her 

21 


22  FEMINISM  AND   SEX -EXTINCTION 

living  substance,  but  she  employs  brain  and  wit  and  bodilj 
effort  in  tending,  safeguarding  and  rearing  it. 

Meanwhile  the  sire — among  the  lower  creatures,  a1 
all  events — detaches  himself  with  lordly  indifferenc< 
from  any  portion  in  these  later,  as  he  went  free  of  th( 
earlier  obligations.  He  shares  his  prey  with  her  anc 
with  their  young.  He  defends  them  from  the  natura 
enemies  of  all.  Sometimes  he  condescends  to  play  fo: 
minutes  with  his  cubs.  But  excepting  among  birds 
the  male  parent  takes  little  or  no  part  in  the  upbringing 
of  his  family. 

As  with  Love,  so  with  Fatherhood,  we  take  it  ai 
matter-of-course  that  this  sprang  and  has  evolved  t( 
present  developments  directly  out  of  natural  instinct 
But  as  Love  did  not  evolve  out  of  the  sex-instinct 
neither  did  father-love  evolve  from  a  paternal  instine 
inherent  in  the  lower  animals  and  in  primal  man. 
Of  this.  Professor  Drummond  says  : 

"  The  world  was  now  beginning  to  fill  witl 
Mothers,  but  there  were  no  Fathers,  .  .  .  whiL 
Nature  has  succeeded  in  moulding  a  human  Mothe: 
and  a  human  child,  he  still  wanders  in  the  forest 
a  savage  and  unblessed  soul. 

"  This  time  for  him  is  not  lost.  In  his  own  wa^ 
he  also  is  at  school,  and  learning  lessons  which  wil 
one  day  be  equally  needed  by  humanity.  Th( 
acquisitions  of  the  manly  life  are  as  necessary  tc 
human  character  as  the  virtues  which  gather  theii 
sweetness  by  the  cradle ;  and  these  robuster  element: 
— strength,  courage,  manliness,  endurance,  self 
reliance — could  only  have  been  secured  away  fron 
domestic  cares.  .  .  .  The  Evolution  of  a  Fathei 
is  not  so  beautiful  a  process  as  the  Evolution  of  i 
Mother,  but  it  was  almost  as  formidable  a  problen 
to  attack.  ...  If  Maternity  was  at  a  feeble  leve 
in  the  lower  reaches  of  Nature,  Paternity  waj 
non-existent.  .  .  .  When  we  leave  the  Birds  anc 


SEX-CHARACTERISTICS  23 

pass  on  to  the  Mammals,  the  Fathers  are  nearly  all 
backsliders.  Many  are  not  only  indifferent  to  their 
young,  but  hostile;  and  among  the  Carnivora  the 
Mothers  have  frequently  to  hide  their  little  ones  in 
ease  the  father  eats  them." 

In  place  of  saying,  therefore,  that  Love  sprang  in,  and 
has  developed  from  the  exercise  of  the  parental  function, 
we  must  say  that  Love — in  all  its  higher  aspects — 
sprang  and  has  developed  in  the  maternal  function. 

But  since  every  attribute,  in  order  to  be  conscious 
and  realised,  is  not  only  rooted  but  is  reared  in  living 
function — out  of  what  living  function  did  Mother-love 
evolve?  In  the  exercise  of  what  vital  processes  has  it 
been  fostered  and  furthered  ? 

In  so  far  as  these  involve  sacrifice  of  self  in  the  interests 
of  the  child,  the  maternal  ante-natal  processes  are  pro- 
cesses of  self-surrender.  But  these,  when  once  incurred, 
are  subconscious  and  involuntary.  The  prospective 
mother  has  no  choice  but  to  submit  to  physiological 
exactions. 

And  only  a  few  women — ^those  in  whom  maternal 
love  is  deep  beyond  the  average — ^feel  affection  for  their 
infants  before  birth. 

Since  love  must  have  an  object  upon  which  to  exercise 
its  faculties  and  lavish  its  devotion,  it  is  not,  therefore, 
until  the  babe  is  in  the  mother's  arms  that  the  Love- 
attribute  begins  to  function.  And  then  the  primal  fount 
of  all  conscious  and  voluntary  human  selflessness  and 
sacrifice  springs  afresh  in  the  individual  when,  in  yearn- 
ing toward  the  helpless  being  in  her  arms,  she  wells  with 
tenderness  and  gives  herself  to  be  its  life. 

In  the  altruistic  tender  yearning  of  the  mother  to 
her  babe,  whereat  her  blood  transforms  itself  to  milk, 
Human  Love  first  sprang  and  functioned  consciously. 

Thii  is  my  Body  which  is  given  for  you.  .  .  .  This  is 
my  Blood  .  .  .  which  is  shed  for  you. 

Says  Goethe,  "  There  is  no  outward  sign  of  courtesy 


24  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

that  does  not  rest  on  a  deep  moral  foundation."  H 
might  have  added  "  and  on  a  great  biological  function. 
Every  act  of  voluntary  sacrifice,  every  impulse  of  com 
passion,  mercy,  tenderness,  devotion,  has  had  its  inspir^i 
tion  and  its  source  in  this  which  is  discredited  by  som 
as  being  a  merely  physical,  and  is  despised,  accordingl) 
as  being  an  inferior  process ;  this  mystical  transmutatio: 
of  the  mother's  blood  to  milk,  and  the  self-forgettin 
yearning  wherein  she  yields  herself  as  food  for  offspring 
By  the  evolution,  upon  ever  higher  planes  of  conscious 
ness,  of  this  primarily  instinctive  sacrifice,  not  onl; 
Motherhood  but  Fatherhood  too,  and  the  Love-passioi 
Ibetween  the  sexes  have  been  fructified  and  purified,  an< 
uplifted  down  the  ages.  Other  acts  of  devotion  aris 
out  of  maternal  ministry.  But  this  is  the  intrinsi 
source  of  all. 

Travelling  up  through  all  the  rudimentary  phases  o 
development,  simultaneously  and  side  by  side  with  th 
male  fierce  methods  for  the  Survival  of  Fitness,  there  wa 
evolving  in  the  female,  subconsciously  and  .secretly 
this  sacramental  impulse  which  was  to  inaugurate  a  nev 
era — an  era  wherein  charity  and  ruth  were  to  be  bori 
as  response  to  the  claims  of  Unfitness. 

The  first  woman  who,  of  her  free-will,  gave  her  breas 
to  her  babe  was  the  Mother  of  all  the  Humanities.  Sh( 
it  was  who  prepared  the  way  for  the  coming  of  Christ 
By  her.  Love  entered  first  into  human  consciousness. 

And  by  countless  generations  of  such  willing  tende 
sacrifice  upon  the  part  of  mothers,  human  love  hai 
climbed  out  of  the  darkness  of  blind  subconscioui 
instinct  into  the  Light  of  a  great  transfiguration. 

It  is  weighty  evidence  of  the  evolutionary  impulse 
inherent  in  the  function  of  Lactation,  that  the  develop 
ment  of  this  maternal  trait  engenders  species  so  fa] 
higher  in  organisation  and  morale  than  those  of  creatures 
unequipped  to  suckle  offspring,  as  to  set  the  Mammalia 


SEX-CHARACTERISTICS  25 

in  a  class  by  themselves  in  the  van  of  progressive 
advance.  The  higher  organisation  and  morale  of  such 
result  not  only  from  the  self-surrendering  instinct  in 
the  mothers  of  species,  but  doubtless  also  from  the 
superior  nutrition  promoted  in  the  developing  tissues  of 
the  young  of  species,  by  the  highly-individualised  food 
elements  which  are  secreted  by  the  maternal  living  cells. 
The  vital  significance  of  this  new  potence  in  blood  to 
transform  itself  to  milk  for  sustenance  of  offspring  is 
emphasised  by  the  fact  that  the  Mammalia  are  warm- 
blooded creatures.  While  that  this  new  quickening  of 
Life  by  the  altruistic  parental  instinct  originates  in  the 
female  shows  her  as  medium  of  that  Divine  Influx 
inspiring  Creative  Evolution,  and  evolving  faculty  by 
way  of  living  function. 

II 

The  question  now  arises:  If  Love  and  the  higher 
affections  had  their  origin  in  the  maternal  function, 
how  happens  it  that  man,  in  whom  this  capacity  is 
absent,  and  who  is  devoid,  moreover,  of  an  inherent 
paternal  instinct,  has  come,  notwithstanding,  to  possess 
these  higher  affections  ? 

One  may  answer  off-hand,  with  the  lightness  of  the 
tyro,  that  these  have  been  transmitted  to  him  by 
maternal  inheritance. 

But  complex  biological  problems  are  not  thus  easily 
explained.  Nature  works  by  processes,  not  by  implica- 
tions. And  the  physical  functions  and  the  mental 
attributes  of  the  sexes  are  so  dissimilar,  and  have,  with 
evolution,  so  diverged  by  ever  further  accentuation, 
that  we  must  3eek  for  definite  biological  processes  by 
way  of  which  the  male  has  become  endowed  with,  and 
whereby  his  primal  characteristics  have  been  transformed 
by  the  evolution  in  him  of  the  maternal  instinct — ^under 
guise  of  the  wholly  new  and  alien  trait  of  Fatherhood. 


26  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

A  study  of  Evolution  shows  the  differentiation  and 
intensification  of  Sex-characteristics  to  have  been  the 
main  feature  in  Human  advance,  and  to  have  been 
progressively  achieved  by  incalculable  centuries  of 
increasing  differentiation  and  intensification  of  two 
opposite  orders  of  impulse  and  faculty. 

In  savages  and  in  all  the  less  civilised  races,  the 
personal  and  temperamental  differences  between  the 
sexes  are  but  slight,  and  last  for  no  longer  than  a  few 
years  of  life.  As  with  other  faculties,  Sex-differentiations 
become  ever  further  intensified  and  more  complexly 
defined  as  development  rises  in  the  scale.  Man  becomes 
more  man.  Woman,  more  woman.  Most  notable 
during  the  period  over  which  the  human  organisation 
sustains  its  maximum  of  condition,  these  Sex-char- 
acteristics take  longer  to  arrive  at  their  perfection,  and 
are  longer  and  more  fully  sustained  in  the  higher  races 
and  organisms  than  is  the  case  with  the  lower.  Then, 
with  that  degeneration  of  tissue  which  sets  in  with 
on-coming  age,  the  old  man  becomes  womanish,  the  old 
woman  mannish. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  human  perfection  reaches 
its  climax  in  the  accentuation  of  the  differences  between 
the  Sex-characteristics,  physical  and  mental,  of  the  one 
sex  from  those  of  the  other.  The  best  types  of  men  differ 
far  more  from  the  best  types  of  women  than  inferior 
men  and  women  differ  from  one  another.  In  body  and 
in  attribute,  the  sexes  are  complementary  and  supple- 
mentary. And'  their  dissimilarities  are  the  measure  of 
their  complementary  and  supplementary  values. 

Their  attraction  to  one  another,  their  interest  and 
happiness  in  one  anothers'  company,  are  proportional 
to  the  degree  in  which  members  of  one  sex  supply  for 
members  of  the  other,  sentiment  and  qualities  lacking 
in  their  own.  Mannish  women  and  womanish  men  are 
alike  incapable  of  experiencing  and  inspiring  the  love- 
passion,  which  charms  and  transfigures  life  for  true  man 


SEX-CHARACTERISTICS  27 

and  true  woman.  These  unfortunate,  imperfect  neuter- 
persons,  because  of  the  deficiency  in  them  of  normal  sex 
attributes  and  impulse,  are  shut  out  from  the  richest 
and  sweetest,  most  sacred  emotions  of  Humanity — 
precisely  as  persons  of  defective  brain  are  debarred 
from  the  richer  and  fuller  appreciations  and  joys  of 
consciousness. 

And  yet,  apart  and  distinct  from,  although  at  the 
root  of  this  abnormal  neuterdom,  wherein  the  traits  of 
one  sex  are  so  antagonised  by  those  of  the  other  that  the 
finest  powers  of  both  are  nullified — ^normally,  all  men 
possess  latent  in  them  the  qualities  of  Woman;  all 
women  have  latent  in  them  the  qualities  of  Man.  Other- 
wise, this  third  Neuter-gender — ^mannish  women  and 
womanish  men — could  not  have  come  into  being. 

In  crises  of  life  and  under  other  abnormal  conditions, 
the  dormant  characteristics  of  the  one  sex  are  seen  to 
emerge  in  members  of  the  other,  and  to  become  dominant. 
A  woman,  in  the  face  of  danger,  develops  the  strength, 
the  courage  and  the  material  resource  of  a  man.  A 
man,  when  put  to  it,  reveals  the  gentleness,  patience 
and  psychical  resource  of  a  woman.  And  in  neither  is 
this  substitution  of  alien  traits  imitative,  merely.  That 
it  is  vital  and  intrinsic  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  not  only 
mental  characteristics,  but  the  body  itself  becomes 
transformed.  If  the  circumstances — exposure  to  danger, 
to  hard  and  rough  physical  labours  or  to  mental  exactions 
which  are  the  normal  of  the  male — continue  for  long, 
woman's  physique,  equally  with  her  attributes,  becomes 
increasingly  virile  of  mode. 

A  kindred  metamorphosis  occurs  in  men.  When 
called  upon  to  exercise  for  any  length  of  time  the  functions 
of  a  woman,  beside  a  sick  bed,  for  example — or,  to  state 
it  otherwise,  when  the  male  in  him  no  longer  receives 
the  stimulus  of  the  natural  male  role  and  activities — 
man's  virile  qualities  decline.     He  becomes  emasculate. 

So  too  in  disease.    With  the  vital  powers  at  low  ebb, 


28  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

man's  virility  ebbs  low.  He  grows  soft  and  sensitive, 
uncontrolled  and  emotional,  loses  energy  and  initiative ; 
lapses  in  outlook  and  temperament  from  the  masculine 
normal.  In  abnormal  states  of  physical  development, 
men  are  puerile  or  womanish. 

Women,  as  result  of  like  abnormal  undevelopment,  or 
after  operative  removal  of  reproductive  organs  (propter 
quos  est  mulier)  become  mannish  of  type.  In  extreme 
cases  the  figure  changes  to  a  strong  and  sturdy  maleness, 
the  voice  drops  to  gruffness ;  manners  and  speech  become 
terse  and  abrupt,  the  jaw  squares;  even  moustache  or 
beard  may  develop.  Such  women  lose,  perhaps,  every 
womanly  characteristic;  refinement  of  form,  mental 
delicacy  and  sensitiveness,  emotion,  subtlety.  They 
lapse  to  the  biological  grade,  not  of  cultured,  but  of 
rough  working  men.  In  lesser  degrees  of  sex-extinction, 
such  as  are  seen  in  many  of  our  modern  girls,  de-sexed 
by  masculine  training,  the  subjects  are  boyish  merely; 
lean,  active,  restless,  hipless,  breastless,  lacking  all  those 
fair,  delicate  artistries  of  face  and  form,  as  likewise  the 
complex  sensibility  and  emotionalism  which  are  the 
higher  characteristics  of  their  sex. 


Ill 

These  and  other  singularities  of  the  phenomenon 
indicate  that  man  has,  so  to  speak,  a  woman  concealed 
in  him ;  woman  has  a  man  submerged  in  her.  The  case 
suggests  the  little  Noah  and  his  wife  of  the  toy  weather- 
glass. Under  some  conditions  the  man  in  woman 
emerges  temporarily.  Under  some  conditions  the 
woman  in  man  reveals  herself.  But  the  emergence  in 
the  one  sex  of  the  characteristics  of  the  other,  when 
appreciable  and  permanent,  is  abnormal  and  unpleasing, 
and  is  obviously  degenerative. 

Man  is  at  his  best  when  the  woman  in  him  is  dominated 


SEX-CHARACTERISTICS  29 

by  his  natural  virile  traits.  Woman  is  at  her  best  when 
the  man  in  her  is  sheathed  within  her  native  womanliness. 
This  way,  each  is  a  highly  evolved  and  a  finely- 
specialised  creation. 

Nevertheless,  such  possession,  in  latency,  of  the 
qualities  of  the  other,  not  only  enhances  for  members 
of  both  sexes  the  potence  of  their  own,  inspiring  and 
enriching  these,  but  it  engenders  more  perfect  sympathy 
and  understanding  between  them.  The  woman  in  man 
endues  him  with  intuitive  apprehension  of  the  Woman- 
nature;  of  its  needs  and  modes,  its  disabilities,  its 
sufferings  and  aspirations.  The  man  in  woman  informs 
her  of  the  intrinsic  values  of  his  sterner  calibre,  and  thus 
lends  her  patience  with  his  impatiences,  moves  her 
tenderness  and  care  for  him  in  his  rougher,  more  arduous 
lot,  wins  her  admiration  of  his  enterprises  and  ambitions. 
Moreover,  the  man  in  her  strengthens  and  intelligises 
her  mental  fibre,  stiffens  and  renders  more  stable  and 
effective  her  more  pliant  will  and  softer,  more  delicate 
aptitudes. 

While  she,  in  her  turn,  endows  him  with  her  intrinsic 
mentalities. 

Masculine  intellection,  pure  and  simple,  is  initiative, 
vigorous,  enterprising;  analytical,  logical,  critical;  its 
outlook  rational  and  concrete,  its  disposition  just  and 
honest.  Capable  in  the  degree  of  its  virility,  of  strenuous 
and  sustained  endeavour,  of  keen  concentration  and  close 
application ;  taking  nothing  for  granted,  but  questioning 
and  demanding  proof  of  all  things,  it  is  an  admirable 
executive  agent  of  Mind.  Per  se,  however,  it  is  rational 
and  deductive,  judicial  and  judicious,  rather  than 
inspirational  and  creative.  The  blending  with  it  of  the 
Woman-faculty  in  him  quickens  his  male  brain  by 
contributing  the  emotional  element;  endues  it  with 
intuitive  sensibility,  fructifies  it  with  female  creative- 
ness. 

Thus  it  blossoms  in  Imagination — a  new  talent,  which 


30  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

his  natural  intellectual  energy  and  executive  ability 
enable  him  to  raise  to  highest  issues  in  Inductive  Science 
and  the  creative  Arts. 

Sex,  with  its  phenomena  of  the  characteristics  of 
both  sexes  blended  but,  nevertheless,  distinctive  in  the 
totally  dissimilar  constitution  of  members  of  both, 
presents  an  enigma  which  all  the  thinkers  of  all  the  ages 
have  left  unsolved. 

What  is  its  significance — ^what  its  explanation  ?  How 
has  it  been  possible — ^without  miracle,  but  by  way  of 
biological  sequences  of  form  and  process,  of  function 
and  faculty — for  the  divergent  characteristics,  physical 
and  mental,  of  the  two  sexes  to  have  developed  in  both, 
not  only  without  either  order  of  characteristics  (normally) 
neutralising  those  of  the  other,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
with  both  orders  ever  further  intensifying  their  differ- 
ences in  the  sex  to  which  they  belong  ? 

By  hereditary  transmission.  True  !  But  by  what 
precise  means?  Because  Nature  achieves  her  results 
always  by  the  continuous  operation  of  unerring  Law 
and  intensifying  processes,  not  by  eccentricities  or 
deviations.  When  she  seems  to  us  to  skip  at  random, 
it  means  that  we  have  missed  some  intermediate  foot- 
prints linking  her  progressive  sequences  in  a  long 
unbroken  train. 

This  problem  of  human  duality,  physical  and  psychical, 
has  baffled  not  biologists  only,  but  philosophers,  religion- 
ists and  seers.  It  fills  both  life  and  literature  with 
puzzles,  paradoxes,  incongruities.  It  has  been  the 
source  of  perpetual  misapprehension,  misconception, 
maladministration,  personal  and  ethical. 

It  lies  at  the  root  of  the  whole  Woman  question.  It 
has  supplied  the  motive — and  has  made  the  mischief 
of  the  Feminist  propaganda  and  practice. 

Because,  in  view  of  the  masculine  qualities  latent  in 
women,   allied  with  the  circumstance  that  masculine 


SEX-CHARACTERISTICS  81 

powers  are  those  most  profitable  and  effective  on  the 
plane  alike  of  physics  and  of  economics,  it  has  seemed 
an  inevitable  conclusion  that  these  dormant  male 
potentialities  were  powers  lying  idle  ;  virgin  soil  which, 
tilled  and  cultivated,  would  yield  fruitful  harvest.  And 
this  for  the  benefit  not  of  woman  solely,  but  of  Humanity 
at  large.  Strangely  enough,  the  converse  proposition 
has  not  presented  itself.  A  pity  !  For  it  might  have 
brought  enlightenment.  Because  it  presents  itself 
outright  in  the  form  of  a  patent  absurdity. 

Suppose  a  Man's  Movement  which  should  have  had 
for  aim  the  cult  in  males  of  their  potential  woman- 
qualities  !  Not  for  an  instant  could  the  project  have 
found  footing  as  being  rational,  its  ends  desirable,  or  as 
improving  upon  Nature.  Everywhere  is  pity  or 
contempt  for  the  effeminate  man.  He  is  regarded  as  a 
poor  creature,  neither  one  thing  nor  the  other ;  as  little 
the  peer  of  true  man  as  he  is  notably  an  unworthy 
counterfeit  of  woman. 

Yet  how  is  this?  Is  it  that  we  admit  the  male-sex 
to  be  so  vastly  and  intrinsically  superior  to  the  female 
that  we  are  not  satisfied  for  half  only,  but  demand  that 
the  whole  human  species  shall  be  male  ?  Nevertheless, 
since  masculine  qualities,  although  undeniably  present, 
are  normally  latent  in  women,  they  must  be  inferior  in 
power  and  calibre  to  these  same  qualities  in  men. 
Otherwise,  in  place  of  remaining  in  latency,  they  would 
assert  themselves  like  men.  Woman's  inferior  masculine 
powers,  even  when  developed  to  the  full,  can  equip  her, 
therefore,  to  be  no  more  than  inferior  male ;  "  lesser 
man  "  merely,  in  place  of  being  "  diverse  " — ^the  highly- 
differentiated,  finely-specialised  being  for  which  Nature 
would  seem  to  have  been  shaping  in  her,  during  untold 
8eons  of  progressive  differentiation. 


32  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

IV 

The  prevailing  notion  is  that  these  mascuHne  potenti- 
ahties  dormant  in  women  are  powers  common  to  both 
sexes,  which  have  been  bhghted  in  the  one  by  long 
generations  of  educational  and  avocational  disabilities 
precluding  exercise  and  outlet  for  them.  Or  that  they 
are  powers  which  have  been  dwarfed  by  long  "  sub- 
jection "  of  the  sex  in  maternal  and  domestic  functions 
mainly. 

Consulting  Biology,  we  find  that  such  artificial  re- 
pression of  Faculty  in  the  mother  (even  were  artificially- 
repressed  faculty  transmissible  as  such)  could  in  no  way 
have  limited  itself,  in  succeeding  generations,  to  inheri- 
tance by  daughters.  On  the  contrary,  the  more  we 
learn  of  the  laws  of  Heredity,  the  more  it  is  seen  that 
Faculty  descends  from  mother  to  son,  rather  than  from 
mother  to  daughter.  And  yet,  despite  the  sex-dis- 
abilities, personal  and  social,  which  are  now  condemned 
as  having  precluded  the  mothers  of  earlier  eras  from 
developing  their  masculine  abilities,  such  mothers 
transmitted  masculine  characteristics  in  ever-increasing 
degree  to  successive  generations  of  male  offspring. 

'Whereupon  another  seeming  paradox  confronts  us. 
Namely,  that  the  sons  of  those  earlier  women,  in  whom 
masculine  inherences  were  permitted  to  remain  dormant, 
were  notably  more  virile  of  body  and  mind  than  are 
the  sons  of  latter-day  emancipated  mothers  who  have 
sedulously  cultivated  and  have  fully  exercised  their 
male  proclivities. 

And  now  upsprings  a  further  momentous  considera- 
tion :  Is  this  cause  and  effect  ?  Were  the  sons  of 
women  in  whom  the  potential  male  had  remained 
abeyant,  more  virile  of  body  and  brain  than  are  the  sons 
of  women  who  have  cultivated  masculine  characteristics, 
solely  and  absolutely  because  the  mothers  in  the  latter 
case  had  misappropriated  to  their  own    uses    powers 


SEX-CHARACTERISTICS  33 

that  belonged  by  right  of  heredity  to  sons?  While 
those  other  mothers,  by  retaining  such  in  latency, 
preserved  them  as  a  rich  inheritance  for  male  heirs.  Is 
it  similar,  indeed,  to  the  cases  of  a  mother  who  realises 
and  expends  for  her  own  purposes  her  sons'  financial 
patrimony,  and  of  a  mother  who,  expending  the  interest 
alone  thereof,  retains  the  capital  intact ;  and  is  enabled 
thus  to  pass  it  on  as  heritage  ?  Is  the  power  held 
latent  in  one  generation  the  potential  of  the  generation 
following  ? 

It  may  be  asked  :  Why  should  woman  forgo  posses- 
sion and  exercise  of  faculties  available  to  her,  in  order 
to  transmit  these  to  sons?  One  might  answer  as  in 
respect  of  that  other  patrimony.  If  it  be  true  that  she 
holds  these  powers  in  trust  merely,  they  are  not  hers 
to  spend.  To  expend  them  is  to  despoil  her  sons;  to 
make  paupers  and  bankrupts  of  them,  humanly  speaking. 
Further,  since  daughters  inherit  from  the  father,  the  male 
entail  woman  forbears  to  realise  and  to  exploit  for  her 
own  uses  returns  to  her  sex  in  the  person  of  her  grand- 
daughter— by  paternal  inheritance.  For  the  able  father 
is  the  parent  of  the  able  daughter. 

Thus  Nature  works  with  the  eternal  justice  of  eternal 
reciprocity  between  the  sexes;  making  them  all  the 
while  more  complexly  diverse,  but  nevertheless  more 
closely  interdependent.  So  that  one  sex  can  neither 
progress  nor  can  it  regress  by  itself ;  but  draws  the  other 
onward  with  it,  or  drags  it  back.  Thus,  the  bread  of 
human  heritage  consigned  to  the  stream  of  posterity 
by  one  sex,  for  equipment  and  furtherance  of  the  other, 
returns  to  the  hand  of  the  sex  that  consigned  it. 

If  this  be  so — and  I  hope  to  prove  it  so — ^the  woman 
who  develops  the  potential  male  in  her  defrauds  of  its 
lawful  racial  and  personal  entail  not  only  the  opposite 
sex,  in  the  person  of  her  son,  but  she  defrauds  of  its 
dower  her  own  sex  too,  in  the  person  of  her  grand- 
daughter. 


84  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

Of  the  interesting  and  important  biological  processei 
underlying  the  mystery  of  the  Dual-Sex  constitutioi 
and  its  manifold  phenomena,  I  am  about  to  present  i 
wholly  new  and — I  venture  to  believe — a  wholly  tru( 
and  convincing  elucidation. 

Natura  simplex  est,  said  Newton,  et  sibi  semper  con 
sonans.  (Nature  is  simple  and  always  agrees  witl 
herself.)  Bewilderingly  multiple  in  her  phenomena 
she  is  superbly  simple  in  her  principles.  By  the  opera 
tion  of  her  one  great  Law  of  Gravitation,  she  sustain 
the  mighty  Solar  systems — and  brings  the  apple  to  th 
ground.  By  the  extension,  counterpoise  and  co-opera 
tion  of  one  Primal  Cosmic  Energy — ^with  its  dual  im 
pulses.  Centripetal  and  Centrifugal — she  has  generate* 
all  the  diverse  marvels  of  a  Universe.  And  in  view  c 
her  simplicity  of  Principle,  it  is  conceivable  that  th 
Duality  of  Sex  may  be  an  extension  into  Life  of  tha 
same  principle  of  Duality  which  characterises  the  vaste 
Cosmic  phenomena. 

If  this  be  true,  Man  and  Woman  are  the  comple 
resultant  of  infinitely  many  and  varied  evolutionar 
differentiations  and  associations  of  the  two  modes  c 
Primal  Energy.  If  so,  the  principle  of  Sex  must  hav 
existed  before  Matter;  must  have  been  inherent  i 
Creation  before  Creation  began  to  evolve.  And  if  sc 
Evolution  would  seem  to  have  had  for  its  purpose  th 
ever  further  and  fuller  manifestation  of  these  dual  an 
contrary  inherences  in  terms  of  Life  and  Sex.  Whih 
to  judge  by  effects,  it  has  had  for  its  means  such  eve 
more  intimate  and  intricate  co-operations  of  these  a 
have  resulted  in  the  progressively  diverse  and  comple 
developments  found  to-day  in  Human  Life  and  Huma 
Sex-Characteristics. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   MYSTERY   OF   SEX  AND    SEX-TRANSMISSON 

*'  The  idea  that  the  female  is  naturally  and  really  the  superior 
sex  seems  incredible,  and  only  the  most  liberal  and  emancipated 
minds,  possessed  of  a  large  store  of  biological  information,  are 
capable  of  realising  it." — Professor  Lester  Ward. 


Those  happy  persons  who  do  not  perplex  themselves 
concerning  the  intrinsic  causes  behind  all  physical 
phenomena  see  it  as  only  "  natural  "  that  two  parents 
of  opposite  sex  should  produce  offspring  of  both 
sexes. 

And  yet  it  is  not  only  a  great  mystery,  but,  on  the 
face  of  it,  it  is  an  anomaly  that  a  child  who  may  possess 
an  admixture  of  all  the  physical  and  mental  character- 
istics of  its  two  parents,  bears,  nevertheless,  the  sex  and 
the  sex-characteristics  of  one  only.  Sex,  male  or  female, 
breeds  true  in  nearly  every  case;  the  rare  exceptions 
merely  emphasising  the  rule.  The  mystery  deepens 
when  we  realise  that  every  individual  is  a  product  of 
countless  such  admixtures  of  the  qualities,  throughout 
countless  generations,  of  coimtless  forefathers  and  fore- 
mothers.  And  although  such  a  man  or  woman  may  hark 
back  to  any  one,  or  more,  of  the  traits  of  his  or  her 
innumerable  forbears,  he  or  she,  nevertheless,  "  breeds 
true  "  in  the  factors  of  sex  and  sex-characteristics. 

Long  and  closely  biologists  have  pondered  these  many 
and  involved  problems.  How  is  it,  they  inquire,  that  an 
embryo  bred  of  two  parents  of  opposite  sex  develops 
the  sex  of  one  only  of  these  ?  How  is  it  that  the  mother, 
who  belongs  to  one  sex  only,  produces — ^and  produces 

35 


86         FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

in  about  equal  number — offspring  of  both  ?  The  pheno 
menon  is  expressed,  biologically,  in  the  term,  "  sex 
limited  factor " — an  incalculable  something  in  th^ 
embryo  which  limits  its  sex  to  the  sex  of  one  only  of  it 
parents.  But  the  "  something,"  and  the  method  o 
this  sex-limitation  have  remained  enigmas. 

Sex  is  regarded  by  the  new  Mendelian  school  o 
biologists  as  that  which  is  known  as  a  "  Mendeliai 
factor."  And  to  follow  the  argument  to  its  conclusions 
a  few  simple  words  about  the  Mendelian  theory  of  Here 
dity  are  essential  to  those  unacquainted  therewith. 
^  iti  ^  *  *  * 

About  forty  years  ago,  a  German  monk,  Mendel  b; 
name,  was  struck  by  the  facts  that  in  his  bed  of  edibl 
peas  certain  plants  grew  tall,  while  others  remainc" 
dwarf;  that  the  blossoms  of  certain  plants  were  whit 
always,  while  those  of  others  were  always  coloured.  H 
made  a  number  of  experiments  in  crossing  the  plants 
with  a  view  to  discovering  the  law  of  inheritanc 
by  way  of  its  operation  in  hybrid  varieties.  Briefly 
the  results  of  his  experiments — ^which  have  since  beei 
repeated  and  confirmed  by  many  later  observers — ^wer 
as  follows  : 

There  are  plants  that  are  tall  and  can  transmit  onl; 
Tallness  to  offspring.  There  are  plants  that  are  dwai 
and  can  transmit  only  Dwarfness  to  offspring.  So  toe 
there  are  plants  of  white  blossom  or  of  coloured  blossor 
that  can  transmit,  respectively,  only  White  or  Coloured 
blossoming  to  offspring. 

When  a  Tall  is  crossed  with  a  Dwarf  plant,  howevei 
or  a  Coloured  with  a  White  plant,  strange  to  say,  th 
hybrid  offspring  of  this  cross  shows  one  only  of  thes 
opposite  traits,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other.  No  inter 
mediate,  or  mixed,  forms  are  produced. 

Thus,  a  Tall  crossed  with  a  Dwarf  produces  only  Tails 
Plants  of  Coloured  flower  crossed  with  those  of  Whit 
flower  give  only  Coloured  flowering  varieties.     A  yello\ 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  SEX  37 

and  a  green-seeded  cross  produce  only  yellow-seeded 
plants. 

In  the  cross  between  plants  of  opposite  traits,  one 
set  of  traits  appears  thus,  exclusively,  in  the  hybrid 
offspring.  These  traits — because  they  dominate  growth 
and  development — ^Mendel  styled  "  Dominant."  While 
those  traits  which  are  dominated  by  the  other  and  oppo- 
site traits  and  do  not  appear  in  offspring,  he  styled 
"  Recessive." 

On  further  breeding,  a  new  and  stranger  thing  happens, 
however.  Because  when  such  hybrids — plants  bred  of 
parents  that  had  borne,  respectively,  "  Dominant  "  and 
"  Recessive "  characteristics,  but  with  the  parental 
Dominant  traits  so  overpowering  the  Recessive  traits 
of  the  other  parent  that  these  latter  are  submerged  and 
concealed — ^When  these  hybrids  are  crossed  with  other 
hybrids  like  themselves,  both  the  Dominant  and  the 
Recessive  traits  of  the  original  parents  reappear  in 
offspring.  The  tall  hybrids  resulting  from  the  cross 
between  Tall  and  Dwarf  plants,  when  crossed  with  other 
tall  hybrids  of  similar  origin,  produce  both  Tall  and 
Dwarf  plants.  So  with  Colour,  and  with  the  other 
so-called  "  Contrasted  Traits." 

It  becomes  evident,  therefore,  that  although  the 
Dominant  traits  of  Tallness  and  Colour  overpower  in  the 
growth  and  development  of  the  second  generation  of 
plants,  the  Recessive  traits  of  Dwarfness  and  Whiteness, 
these  latter  traits  are  submerged  only,  and  are  neither 
impaired  in  their  values,  nor  destroyed.  In  the  third 
generation,  under  different  conditions  of  mating,  the 
original  Recessive,  and  submerged,  traits  re-appear, 
and  reveal  themselves  in  offspring-plants  as  the  Dwarf- 
ness or  the  Whiteness  that  had  characterised  their 
grandparents. 

Mendel  assumed  that  such  hybrid  plants — offspring 
of  a  Dominant  and  of  a  Recessive  parent — produce  two 
varieties  of  sex-cells,  or  gametes,  and  that  one  order  of 


88         FEMINISM   AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

cells  contain  the  Dominant  traits  of  the  Dominant  parent, 
while  the  other  order  contain  the  Recessive  traits  of  the 
Recessive  parent. 

But  any  individual  sex-cell,  or  gamete,  cannot  (accord- 
ing to  his  view)  bear  both  Dominant  and  Recessive 
traits.  The  Dominant  traits  and  the  Recessive  traitj 
of  the  respective  parents  he  regarded  as  being  segregated 
absolutely,  in  one  or  in  the  other  set  of  sex-cells  producec 
by  hybrid  varieties.  And  of  these,  the  cells  bearing 
Dominant  traits  are  able  to  transmit  Dominant  trait: 
only  to  offspring;  while  the  cells  bearing  Recessive 
traits  transmit  Recessive  traits  only  to  offspring. 


II 

Now,  Biology  shows  that  plants  and  living  creature 
develop  from  a  single  microscopic  cell,  formed  by  th^ 
union  of  two  half-cells,  of  which  each  half  was  contri 
buted  by  one  of  the  two  parents. 

Clearly  then,  a  hybrid  plant  is  one  that  has  sprunj 
from  the  union  of  two  half-cells,  one  of  which  bore  th 
Dominant  traits  of  one  parent,  while  the  other  bore  th 
Recessive  traits  of  the  other  parent.  But  becaus 
Dominant  traits  overpower  Recessive  traits  in  develop 
ment,  the  cross  between  a  tall  plant  and  a  dwarf  plan 
produces  tall  offspring  only — ^Tallness  being  a  Dominan 
trait  which  overpowers  the  Recessive  trait  of  Dwarfness 
So  too,  the  cross  between  a  plant  bearing  coloured  and  i 
plant  bearing  white  flowers  produces  offspring  bearinj 
coloured  flowers  only — Colour  being  Dominant  over  th 
Recessive  Trait  of  Whiteness. 

But  because  the  Recessive  traits  of  Dwarfness  an( 
of  Whiteness  were  only  overpowered  in  the  plant 
development,  by  the  Dominant  traits  of  Tallnes 
and  Colour,  but  were  neither  lost  nor  impaired  in  stock 
hybrid  plants  that  had  shown  only  Dominant  traits  ii 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  SEX  39 

growth  and  constitution,  produce,  nevertheless,  two 
sorts  of  sex-cells  for  plant-reproduction :  cells  that 
bear  the  Recessive  traits  of  the  one  parent,  and  cells  that 
bear  the  Dominant  traits  of  the  other  parent.  So  that 
in  the  fertilisation  of  one  another  by  such  hybrids,  cells 
bearing  Dominant  traits  mate  with  other  cells  bearing 
Dominant  traits,  and  produce  plants  of  pure  Dominant 
type — Tall  or  Coloured,  like  one  of  the  grandparents. 
While  cells  bearing  Recessive  traits  mate  with  other 
cells  bearing  Recessive  traits,  and  produce  plants  of 
pure  Recessive  type — ^Dwarf  or  White,  like  the  other 
grandparent. 

It  is  seen,  therefore,  that  in  plants,  when  a  cell  bearing 
Dominant  traits  mates  with  one  bearing  Recessive  traits, 
the  Dominant  characteristics  so  overpower  the  Recessive 
that  these  latter  lie  latent,  and  concealed,  in  the  resulting 
plant.  But  when  a  cell  bearing  Recessive  traits  mates 
with  another  cell  bearing  Recessive  traits,  the  resulting 
plant  (its  growth  and  development  not  over-ridden  now 
by  the  more  assertive  Dominant  traits)  is  able  to  develop 
its  Recessive  characteristics. 

:|c  4:  He  4:  *  * 

These  interesting  and  significant  laws  of  plant -heredity 
and  constitution,  discovered  by  Mendel  in  peas,  have 
since  been  found  by  many  expert  observers  to  hold  true 
as  regards  other  species  of  plants;  as  too  in  poultry,  in 
mice,  and  in  rabbits,  and  moreover,  in  the  hereditary 
transmission  of  human  characteristics. 

In  Heredity  and  Variation^  Dr.  Saleeby  points  out 
that  in  the  mating  of  a  black  with  a  white  rabbit,  some 
of  the  offspring  will  be  black  like  one  parent,  some  white 
like  the  other,  and  some  grey — a  blend  of  the  colours  of 
both  parents. 

In  the  last  case,  the  Dominant  trait  of  Blackness, 
derived  from  one  rabbit -parent,  blends  in  the  fur  of 
the  rabbit -offspring  with  the  Recessive  trait  of  Whiteness, 
derived  from  the  other  rabbit-parent;    a  grey  rabbit 


40  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

resulting.  But  that  the  Contrasted  Traits  come  to  no 
more  than  a  temporary  and  partial  compromise  during 
the  life  of  such  a  rabbit-individual,  without  either  of 
the  traits  losing  its  intrinsic  characteristic — Blackness 
and  Whiteness,  respectively — is  proved  by  the  fact  that 
these  grey  rabbit-off spriilg,  on  further  breeding,  produce 
not  grey  rabbits,  but  black  rabbits  and  white  rabbits; 
proving  that  the  Black  trait  and  the  White  trait  in  them 
remained  distinct  and  segregated,  neither  altering  its 
character  in  the  least  degree. 

It  is  as  though  one  should  take  a  spoonful  of  black 
pepper  and  a  spoonful  of  white  salt,  and  thoroughly  mix 
them.  A  drab  "  pepper-and-salt  "  mixture  will  result. 
But  neither  pepper  nor  salt  will  have  changed  its  colour 
or  its  properties  one  iota.  Could  they  be  separated  out 
again,  each  would  be  precisely  as  it  had  been  before 
mixing.  So  it  is  with  the  Dominant  and  the  Recessive 
traits  in  living  organisms.  They  commingle  intimately, 
but  each  retains  its  original  and  intrinsic  quality. 

All  the  diverse  and  beautiful  varieties  of  vegetation 
and  the  loveliness  of  flowers,  in  form  and  colour,  result 
from  multiple  associations  in  hybrid-plants,  of  those 
which  are  kno^vn  as  the  "  Contrasted  Traits  "  of  parent- 
stock. 


Ill 

The  lay  reader  need  not  perplex  himself  with  the 
problems  and  phenomena  of  Mendelism. 

All  he  requires  to  remember  are  its  three  leading  princi- 
ples. Firstly,  that  in  the  world  of  Life,  plant  and  animal, 
living  attributes  are  divided  into  two  contrasting  orders. 
Secondly,  that  of  these  two  orders  of  so-called  "  Con- 
trasted Traits "  ("  Contrasting  Traits "  would  be  a 
fitter  phrase),  the  two  groups  are  as  absolute  and  opposite 
in  character  and  in  significance  as  are  the  plus  and  the 
minus  signs  of  Algebra,  the  Positive  and  the  Negative 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  SEX  41 

potentials  of  Electricity,  the  conditions  of  Light  and 
Darkness,  of  Blackness  and  Whiteness,  of  Heat  and 
Cold.  Thirdly,  that  the  Dominant  order  of  traits  are 
paramount  over  and  extinguish  the  Recessive  order  of 
traits. 

To  sustain  her  equilibrium  by  a  counterpoise  of  dual 
and  contrary  factors,  physical  and  vital.  Nature  must 
preserve  these  factors  absolute  and  unchangeable  as  the 
constitution  and  the  opposite  attraction  of  The  Poles. 
But  in  order  to  produce  her  countless  progressive  varia- 
tions of  form  and  attribute,  physical  and  vital,  she  assem- 
bles these  contrary  factors  in  countless  progressively 
complex  combinations,  co-operations  and  correlations. 

It  is  conceivable,  therefore,  that  the  infinite  gradations 
and  variations  of  form  and  attribute  found  in  the  world 
of  living  creatures  are,  as  in  the  world  of  plants,  pheno- 
mena of  the  ever  further  differentiation  and  more  com- 
plex combination,  in  the  hybrid  offspring  of  tw©  parents, 
of  two  orders  of  Contrasting  Traits,  transmitted  by  the 
respective  parents. 

In  all  their  multiple  associations  and  diverse  develop- 
ments, however,  the  two  Sets  of  Traits  remain  unchanged, 
precisely  as  do  the  individual  elements  of  chemical 
combinations.  Variations  in  species  result,  accordingly, 
not  from  change  in  the  essential  traits,  but  from  changes 
in  the  modes  and  the  degrees  of  the  commingling  of 
these  in  organisms;  and  in  the  modes  and  degrees  of 
their  ever  more  complex  associations  in  such. 

Tallness,  being  an  impulse  toward  extension,  can  never 
be  Dwarf ness,  which  is  an  impulse  toward  contraction. 
Black  can  never  be  White.  Square  can  never  be  Round. 
Yet  two  opposite  traits,  both  influencing  development, 
may  come  to  a  mean,  or  poise,  in  an  individual  organism ; 
as  is  seen  in  the  grey  offspring  of  a  black  rabbit  mated 
with  a  white  rabbit.  But  it  is  a  counterpoise  merely 
of  contrary  factors.  The  traits  of  Blackness  and  White- 
ness remain  absolute  and  xmalterable. 


42  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

If  now,  the  reader  has  grasped  these  leading  principlej 
of  Plant-biology,  he  is  in  a  position  to  follow  the  ne\^ 
application  of  them  to  Human  Biology  which  I  no¥ 
venture  to  present. 

Without  going  into  details  of  physiology,  it  may  b( 
stated  that  the  principles  of  reproduction  are  so  identica 
in  plants  and  living  creatures  as  wholly  to  justify  argu 
ment  from  one  to  the  other.  The  only  differences  ar( 
in  degrees  of  structural  complexity  as  organisms  ris( 
higher  in  the  scale  of  development,  and  demand,  accord 
ingly,  more  complex  organs  and  functions  for  the  mor< 
perfect  manifestation  of  their  characteristics;  as  als( 
for  the  transmission  of  these  to  offspring.  It  may  b( 
repeated,  however,  that  Mendelian  law  is  found  to  hole 
good  in  humans,  both  in  the  hereditary  transmission  o: 
normal  characteristics  and  in  the  hereditary  transmissior 
of  the  abnormal  traits  of  disease  and  degeneracy. 

Increasing  complexities,  structural  and  functional 
are  indispensable  to  the  presentment  of  the  attributes  o: 
the  higher  species,  Man.  But  such  complexities  are 
nevertheless,  continuous  with  and  have  sprung  out  o: 
the  simplicities  of  lower  and  rudimentary  organisms 
precisely  as  the  branches  and  leaves  and  flowers  of  i 
plant  are  continuous  with  and  have  sprung  out  of  it: 
roots.  A  vital  and  important  biological  detail  (to  b( 
considered  later)  is  that  plants  are  not,  as  living  creature; 
are,  differentiated  into  a  right  and  a  left-side,  identica 
in  construction.  Another  is  that  plants  are  self 
fertilising. 

With  the  lower  animals,  plural  births  are  the  rule 
And  in  these,  the  still  crude  and  imperfect  differentiation: 
of  the  Contrasting  Traits  allow  of  piebald  and  other  mode: 
of  chequered  colour  and  amorphous  construction. 

The  higher  the  organism,  the  more  complex  are  th( 
biological  requirements  for  its  pre-natal  development 
as  for  its  post-natal  nurture.  The  functions  of  Parent 
hood,  both  physiological  and  psychological,  are  alwayi 


THE  MYSTERY   OF  SEX  43 

evolving  to  higher  and  more  complex  issues,  therefore, 
as  the  species  to  be  reproduced  and  nurtured  becomes 
more  complex.  In  human  births,  single  offspring  is 
the  normal.  Twin  births  are  comparatively  rare.  And 
that  these  are  abnormal  is  shown  by  twins  being  below 
the  average  always  in  health  or  in  faculty;  usually  in 
both. 


IV 

As  already  mentioned,  Sex  is  regarded  by  the  large 
and  ever-increasing  order  of  the  adherents  of  Mendel  as  a 
"  Mendelian  factor."  But  in  applying  Mendelian  truth 
to  humans,  I  venture  to  think  the  applications  have  not 
been  carried  to  their  ultimate  and  most  momentous 
conclusions. 

Because,  given  the  keynote  to  the  Principle  of  Duality 
in  the  phenomenon  of  the  Contrasting  Traits  found 
manifesting  in  plant-heredity  and  constitution,  the 
duality  of  the  Human  Sexes,  with  their  respective  orders 
of  Contrasting  characteristics,  suggests  itself  as  being 
analogous. 

Human  attributes,  physical  and  mental,  are  seen, 
like  those  of  plants,  to  group  themselves  into  two  dis- 
tinct categories,  the  Male  and  the  Female  sex-character- 
istics, primary  and  secondary.  And  these,  though 
wholly  contrary  in  nature  and  in  trend,  are  found — 
precisely  as  occurs  in  plants — linked  together  in  the 
hybrid  offspring  of  the  two  parents  from  whom  they 
were,  respectively,  derived;  blending  in  a  temporal 
unity,  but  remaining,  nevertheless,  unchanged  in  their 
essential  differences;  coming  to  means  and  counter- 
poises in  individual  organisations,  yet  nevertheless 
preserved  distinct  and  unalloyed  in  these,  as  is  shown 
by  their  emergence,  unaltered,  in  offspring  of  opposite 
sexes. 

As  a  hybrid  plant   is  the   product  of  two   parents 


44  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

characterised  by  opposite  traits — ^Tallness  and  Dwarfness, 
for  example — so,  I  submit,  a  human  creature  is  the 
hybrid  offspring  of  two  parents  characterised  by  opposite 
traits — Maleness  and  Femaleness,  with  the  Sex-traits 
differentiating  one  sex  from  the  other. 

And  at  once  a  solution  of  the  many  baffling  present- 
ments and  problems  of  Sex  presents  itself — of  the  enigma 
of  man  with  Woman  potential  in  him,  of  woman  with 
Man  potential  in  her;  a  key  to  the  mysterious  Duality 
of  human  biology  and  psychology,  with  its  conflict  of 
battling  impulses,  its  harmonies  of  blending  attributes, 
its  innumerable  and  diverse  developments  in  proportions, 
in  means,  in  extremes;  in  normalities,  eccentricities, 
deviations  and  reversions.  And  the  analogy  between 
the  two  orders  of  Traits — in  Plant-life  at  the  lower  end  of 
the  scale  of  species,  and  in  Human  life  and  psychology 
at  the  higher  end — suggests  that  the  ever-increasing 
complexity  of  organisation  and  faculty  which  has 
characterised  Evolutionary  Progress,  has  had  for  aim, 
as  it  has  had  for  method,  the  ever  further  differentiation 
and  more  perfect  segregation,  but,  nevertheless,  the 
ever  closer  and  more  intricate  association  of  the  contrary 
factors  of  Maleness  and  Femaleness. 

In  the  lower  organisms — plant  and  animal — the  two 
groups  of  Traits  are  but  crudely  differentiated  as  charac- 
teristics distinguishing  one  sex  from  the  other.  In 
such  lower  organisms.  Sex-development  is  merely  rudi- 
mentary ;  the  first  f oreshadowings  in  Life  of  two  intrinsic 
orders  of  Essential  Attribute,  the  progressive  evolution 
whereof  reveals  two  contrary  trends  in  physiological  and 
psychical  inherences. 

Like  Light  and  Darkness,  Heat  and  Cold,  Sex  is  a 
phenomenon  of  Dual  states  which  manifest  by  way  of 
relativity.  Without  Maleness,  Femaleness  has  no  signifi- 
cance— ^no  existence,  in  fact.  And  the  converse.  And 
in  the  lower  and  rudimentary  forms  of  existence,  in 
proportion  to  their  degrees  of  undevelopment,  the  dual 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  SEX  45 

states  of  Sex  are  but  faintly  defined.  The  very  lowly 
forms  are  bi-sexual  and  self-fertilising.  While  the  first 
and  simplest  mode  of  reproduction  is  by  cell-division 
merely;  the  principle  of  Sex,  with  its  dual  factors, 
functioning,  but  not  yet  differentiated  into  dual  forms. 
The  evolution  of  Species  and  the  evolution  of  Sex  have 
been  so  absolutely  co -incident  in  biological  progress, 
indeed,  that  we  are  forced  to  perceive  them  as  cause  and 
effect ;  or,  rather,  as  one  and  the  same  thing.  And  the 
evolution  of  Sex  has  meant,  of  course,  the  ever  further 
divergence  and  the  more  complex  specialisation,  in  form 
and  in  function,  of  the  characteristics  of  the  one  sex 
from  those  of  the  other. 


On  still  closer  consideration,  it  appears,  moreover, 
that  the  evolution  of  Sex  has  meant  pre-eminently  the 
evolution  of  the  female  sex — ^the  slow  and  gradual 
emergence  and  development,  in  species,  of  female 
characteristics,  as,  in  course  of  Evolution,  these  have 
freed  themselves  and  have  risen  ever  further  into  evidence 
from  long  subjection  by  the  stronger,  fiercer,  more 
assertive — in  a  word,  the  Dominant — ^traits  of  the  male. 

(A  conclusion  as  singularly  interesting,  I  think,  as  it 
is  instructive,  in  view  of  modern  Feminist  doctrine  and 
aims,  which  make,  not  for  the  culture  and  the  ever 
further  evolutionary  development  of  the  Woman-traits 
in  woman,  but,  on  the  contrary,  for  a  reversion  to  earlier 
cruder  states  of  the  subjection  in  her  of  her  Woman- 
traits  by  those  male  Dominant  ones,  which,  as  the  hybrid 
offspring  of  a  male  and  of  a  female  parent,  every  female 
creature  inherits  from  her  father,  together  with  the 
Woman-traits  she  inherits  from  her  mother.  There  is 
seen  here  the  irony  that  woman  has,  by  long  ages  of 
biological  development,  released  herself  from  sociological 


46         FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

subjection  by  the  male,  only  voluntarily  to  set  the 
Woman  in  herself  in  far  worse  psychological  subjectior 
to  the  male  in  herself.) 

In  the  new  and  profoundly  interesting  light  thrown  hy 
Mendel  on  some  previously  unsolved  problems  oj 
heredity,  the  reason  for  the  long  subjection  of  woman, 
biological  and  sociological,  becomes  clear. 

Because,  given  the  key-notes  of  Tallness  and  Coloui 
as  Dominant  traits,  one  identifies  these,  at  once,  as  traits 
of  Maleness;  the  greater  stature  of  male  creatures  and 
the  richer  colour  of  their  fur  and  plumage  in  the  lowei 
species  pointing  unmistakably  thereto.  Dwarf ness  (oi 
lesser  stature)  and  Whiteness  (or  lesser  colour)  are 
Recessive,  and  are  obviously  Female  traits.  The  plant 
of  Dominant  type,  though  still  bi-sexual,  is  making  foi 
a  male  genus  ;  the  Recessive  type  is  making  for  a  Female 
genus.  White  creatures  are  so  feminine  in  general  effect 
that  it  seems  an  anomaly  when  they  are  males.  The 
converse  is  true  of  black  creatures.  The  black  horse 
is  stubborn  and  restive ;  the  white,  gentle  and  submissive. 

White  poultry  are  prolific  in  egg-production;  white 
cattle  are  good  milkers — a  female  characteristic.  Jersey 
cows  are  both  small  in  size  and  pale  of  colour. 

The  male  sex  stands  presumably  for  Dominance.  And 
his  positive,  or  objective,  traits  overpowering  the 
negative,  or  subjective,  traits  of  Recessiveness,  prevail 
accordingly  in  early  biological  development. 

The  female  sex  stands  for  Recessiveness.  Her  less 
assertive  traits  yield  and  recede  into  the  background 
before  those  of  the  Dominant  male.  In  stature,  in 
strength,  and  in  colour,  and  in  the  allied  mental  attri- 
butes, he  holds  the  foreground  in  form  and  in  function. 
The  reason  being  that  his  role  in  Life  is  adaptation  to 
environment. 

The  male,  therefore,  in  his  masculine  role  of  Adapta- 
tion, with  his  Dominant  traits  making  fiercely  for  the 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  SEX  47 

survival  and  for  the  ever  further  development  of  physical 
fitness — ^until  physical  fitness,  or  Adaptation,  had 
attained  due  degrees  of  ascendancy — was  long  lord  of 
Creation ;  the  female,  his  vassal.  And  this  not  only  in 
life  and  in  action,  but  too  in  the  personal  characteristics 
of  both  sexes.  During  aeons  before  the  Recessive  female- 
traits  were  able  to  come  into  evidence  as  definite  traits, 
they  functioned  as  negations,  merely;  submerged  and 
over-ridden  in  all  female  creatures  by  the  Dominant 
male-traits  they  had  inherited  from  their  sires. 

Primal  physical  development  may  be  said,  thus,  to 
have  derived  its  first  impulse  from  those  fierce  and  fight- 
ing male-proclivities  which  characterised  it  in  the  epoch 
of  that  early  savage  struggle  with  environment  whence 
Species  emerged.  Only  with  further  evolutionary  pro- 
gress, do  the  female  traits  manifest  as  personal  character- 
istics, secure  survival,  and  find  increasing  exercise  and 
sway. 

The  tigress  is  only  less  fierce,  less  strong,  and  less 
savage  than  the  tiger.  Primal  woman  was  only  less 
fierce,  less  strong,  and  less  savage  than  the  male.  It  is 
only,  indeed,  in  the  maternal  function  and  relation  that 
the  female  traits  of  both  tigress  and  primal  woman  awake, 
and  find  justification,  impulse,  and  scope  for  develop- 
ment. And  while  the  material  progress  which  has  led 
to  modern  Civilisation  resulted  from  Adaptation  to, 
and  of,  environment,  and  derived  its  impulse  from  the 
male  proclivities  of  strength,  assertiveness  and  intelligence, 
the  moral  progress  thereof  may  be  said  to  have  derived 
its  impulse  from  the  evolution  of  the  female  sex-charac- 
teristics. Because  the  evolution  of  Woman -traits  has 
meant  the  ever  further  tempering  and  counterpoising 
of  the  fiercely  active  and  aggressive  male  propensities, 
by  the  more  passive  and  self-surrendering  qualities  of 
the  female. 

Judging  the  respective  characteristics  of  the  sexes 
by  their  widely-differing  roles  in  the  most  important  of 


48  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

their  co-operative  living  functions,  the  parental  one — ^th 
sole  function  wherein  the  sexes  of  lower  organisatio] 
co-operate,  indeed — the  respective  attributes  of  Domin 
ance  and  Recessiveness  manifest  clearly  in  these.  Th 
province  of  the  male  being  to  fight  for  mate  and  youn^ 
providing  food,  defending  life — in  order  to  fit  him  fo 
this  struggle  for  racial  survival,  his  traits  of  strengtl 
and  stature  remain  long  paramount,  alike  in  develop 
ment  and  function,  over  those  of  the  female,  as  regard 
his  own  organisation  and  that  of  his  offspring,  both  mal 
and  female.  The  province  of  the  female  being  to  sur 
render  her  powers  to  the  nurture  of  offspring  befor 
birth,  and,  after  birth,  mildly  to  suckle  and  to  tend  it 
helplessness.  Nature  equips  her  to  these  ends ;  inhibiting 
or  negativing,  strength  and  fierceness  in  her  by  th( 
traits  of  Recessiveness. 

Tigress  or  savage  woman,  her  struggle  with  the  rougl 
conditions  of  primal  existence  is  only  less  fierce  and  les 
strenuous  than  her  mate's.  It  demands  the  positiv( 
male-qualities  (which  manifest  first  in  stature,  strengtl 
and  pugnacity)  only  less  in  degree  than  does  his,  there 
fore.  The  negative  female  qualities  which,  manifestin] 
first  in  passivity  and  surrender,  detract  from  her  fierce 
ness  and  activity,  would  have  made  for  extinction  o 
species  had  they  not  been  defended  by  those  of  her  fight 
ing  mate,  as  too  by  the  male-traits  she  herself  ha< 
inherited  from  her  fighting  father.  They  could  onb 
evolve,  accordingly,  precisely  in  proportion  as  they  weri 
sheltered  behind  the  male  dominant  powers.  The  tige 
shelters  his  tigress  only  during  her  maternal  phases 
however.  Her  cubs  brought  forth,  suckled,  reared,  anc 
thrust  into  the  jungle  to  fend  for  themselves,  she  mus 
fight  her  own  battles  for  food  and  existence.  And  he 
brief  maternal  phases  being  all  too  short  for  more  thai 
the  scantest  development  of  female  traits — which  derive 
their  fullest  impulse  in  their  exercise  as  mother-traits— 
she  remains  a  tigress  merely,  and  produces  tiger  offspring 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  SEX  49 

merely,  because  only  tigerishness  secures  survival  in  her 
iomain  of  life  and  attribute. 

With  the  further  advance  of  progressing  species, 
savage  woman  has  evolved  from  savage  brute  to  savage 
woman  by  way  of  such  increasing  shelter  and  protection 
by  her  Dominant  mate  as  have  permitted  the  slow  and 
gradual  evolution  of  the  Recessive  Woman -traits  in  her; 
and  thereby  the  evolution  of  the  Woman-sex.  Her 
maternal  phases  and  the  unfitnesses  of  these  become 
ever  more  prolonged  and  incapacitating;  her  offspring 
demands  ever  longer  periods  of  suckling,  devotion  and 
care,  as  both  she  and  it  rise  higher  in  the  scale  of  organisa- 
tion. Thus,  Sex  has  evolved  in  the  male  by  response  to 
the  ever-increasing  claims  upon  him,  by  the  female 
and  by  offspring,  of  his  traits  of  protective  chivalry  and 
intelligent  effort.  And  Sex  has  evolved  in  the  female  by 
response  to  the  ever-increasing  claims  by  offspring  upon 
her,  of  her  traits  of  devotion  and  ministry. 

The  evolution  of  the  Woman-attributes  has  been 
rendered  possible  only  by  that  protection  accorded  by 
the  male  to  the  female  as  the  due  of  her  maternal  unfit- 
nesses; securing  thus  for  her  and  for  offspring  a  more 
privileged  and  kindlier  environment.  Environment 
which,  evoking  less  of  fight  and  physical  stress,  enabled 
her  inherent  milder,  self-surrendering  Recessive  traits 
to  emerge,  to  unfold,  and  to  function  increasingly  in  life 
and  heredity. 

And  in  the  degree  of  her  advancing  evolution,  the  male 
evolved.  Because,  just  as  in  her  earlier  hybrid  constitu- 
tion, the  Dominant  male-traits  she  had  inherited  from 
her  father,  submerging  the  Recessive  female-traits  she 
had  inherited  from  her  mother,  made  her,  for  long  aeons, 
more  male  than  she  was  female,  so  now,  with  their 
progressive  evolution,  the  Recessive  female-traits  not 
only  made  her  ever  more  woman,  but,  transmitted  in 
ever  fuller  measure  to  her  sons,  increasingly  tempered, 


50  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

modified  and  humanised,  the  mascuUne  fierceness  an 
combativeness  of  these.  Whereby  were  substitute 
arts  of  peace  and  civiUsation  for  those  of  war. 

Thus,  with  advancing  Evolution,  the  female  se: 
characteristics  have  engendered,  in  both  sexes,  qualitii 
of  quietism  and  subordination,  to  temper  those  of  fori 
and  aggression;  amenities  of  gentleness,  forbearani 
and  affection,  to  soften  assertiveness,  turn  the  edge  < 
strife,  and  fructify  intelligence.  Thus,  human  civilis 
tion  has  been  fostered  and  furthered. 

In  the  hybrid  creature  that  every  man  and  woman  is,  a 
grouped  two  sets  of  Contrasting  Traits,  or  Sex-characte 
istics  :  traits  Dominant,  or  male,  and  traits  Recessi^' 
or  female.  And  in  the  complex  human  hybrid,  the 
traits,  ever  increasing  in  complexity  of  constitution  ai 
further  diverging  in  trend,  are  associated  in  ever  mo 
close  and  complex  poise  and  counterpoise  as  both  becor 
more  intensified  and  intelligised. 

Man  is  a  hybrid  in  whom  the  male  Dominant  trai 
derived  from  his  father  prevail  in  impulse  and  develo 
ment  over  the  female  Recessive  traits  derived  from  1 
mother.  Woman  is  a  hybrid  in  whom  the  materr 
Recessive  traits  prevail  in  impulse  and  development  o\ 
the  male  Dominant  traits  she  has  inherited  from  h 
father. 

The  Woman-traits  (which,  as  said,  reach  their  highe 
culmination  in  mother-tTaits),  become  in  man  paterr 
traits;  modified  mother-instincts  which  move  him  n 
only  to  love,  in  addition  to  providing  for  and  protecti 
offspring,  but,  transfiguring  all  his  other  characteristic 
move  him  to  philanthropy,  amity,  tolerance  and  altruij 
in  his  dealings  with  his  fellow-creatures. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ONE  SIDE  OF  BODY  IS  MALE,  THE  OTHER  SIDE  IS  FEMALE 

*'  Oh,  I  must  feel  your  brain  prompt  mine. 
Your  heart  anticipate  my  heart. 
You  must  be  just  before,  in  fine. 

See  and  make  me  see,  for  your  part. 
New  depths  of  the  Divine  !  " 

Robert  Browning. 

I 

On  further  applying  the  Principle  of  Duality,  as 
operating  in  organisation  and  heredity,  strangely  in- 
teresting and  significant  developments  appear. 

Because,  with  the  ever  further  evolution  of  Form 
and  Faculty  as  organisms  have  risen  higher  in  the  scale 
of  life,  the  bodies  of  living  creatures  are  seen  to  have 
become  further  differentiated  into  two  sides ;  a  right  and  a 
left.  Anatomically,  these  two  sides  appear  identical  in 
structure  and  in  function,  although  contrary  in  incidence 
to  one  another.  Each  is  incomplete  and  impotent 
without  the  other.  Nevertheless,  paralysis  and  other 
diseases  show  that  each  is,  as  it  were,  an  entity  totally 
distinct  from  the  other.  One  side  may  be  wholly 
helpless  and  insensitive  while  its  fellow  remains  sound 
and  efficient. 

Complementary  and  supplementary  each  to  the 
other,  both  are,  in  a  sense,  complete.  Further  and 
closer  comparison  of  function  shows,  however,  that 
although  they  co-operate  in  action,  they  are  by  no  means 
identical  in  power  or  aptitude. 

The  right  half  of  the  body  is,  for  both  sexes,  the 
active  and  executive  half ;  quicker  and  stronger,  and  in 
all  ways  more  efficient  on  the  plane  of  physics. 

51 


52  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

The  left  half  is,  relatively,  passive  and  inert,  i 
responsive,  mainly,  to  the  initiative  and  requirement 
of  the  right  half,  by  which  its  powers  are  overshadowe< 
in  every  form  of  direct  activity. 

As  with  the  two  sides  of  the  body,  so  it  is  with  th 
two  halves  of  the  brain,  which  are  at  the  same  time  th 
agencies  of  mentality  and  the  centres  for  recording  th 
sensations  and  for  directing  the  movements  of  the  tW( 
sides  of  the  body.  The  brain-half  which  controls  th 
right  side  is  known  as  "  the  Leading  half."  It  is  th 
agent  in  concrete  intellection,  as  in  physical  activity. 

While,  so  far  as  biologists  and  psychologists  hav 
been  able  to  discover,  the  other  half  of  the  brain  i 
negative  in  function — a  blank,  as  regards  concret 
intelligence  and  nervous  or  muscular  initiative.  Ii 
disease,  it  has  sometimes  been  found  to  undertake,  an< 
to  perform  feebly  and  imperfectly,  sundry  of  the  dutie 
of  its  active  "  Leading "  partner.  But  inert  and  in 
adequate  in  muscular  action,  it  is  negative  in  intellectior 
It  has  been  observed,  however,  that  patients  in  whon 
this  brain-half  is  diseased  show  signs  of  moral  deteriora 
tion.  Yet  whatsoever  its  functions — and  the  fact  tha 
it  does  not  atrophy  nor  degenerate  in  the  marvellou 
structure  and  complexity  which  characterise  brain 
constitution  shows  that  it  functions  duly — its  operation 
are  totally  dissimilar  to,  and  are,  moreover,  wholl; 
overshadowed  by  those  of  its  active,  intelligent  partnei 

Here  again,  as  in  the  two  sides  of  the  body,  appeal 
surely,  the  factors  of  Dominance  and  Recessiveness— 
in  other  words  of  Maleness  and  Femaleness ;  of  strengtl 
and  activity  upon  material  planes,  and  of  inhibitioi 
upon  these. 

Developments  which,  being  in  full  agreement  witl 
one  another  and  with  others,  suggest  that  the  two  order 
of  Sex-characteristics  (derived  from  parents  of  opposit 
sex)  are  centred,  respectively,  in  the  two  sides  of  th 


SIDES   OF  THE  BODY  58 

body,  and  in  the  two  brain-hemispheres  allied,  respec- 
tively, with  these.  One  side  of  the  body,  with  its  allied 
brain-half,  represents  the  paternal  inherences  of  the 
individual;  the  other,  the  maternal.  If  so,  the  right 
side  of  the  body,  with  its  allied  Leading,  or  Dominant, 
brain-half  is,  clearly,  of  male  inherence.  While  the  left 
side,  with  its  allied  Recessive,  or  Dormant,  brain-half 
is  of  female  inherence. 

The  inference  is  further  supported  by  the  fact  that 
the  stronger  right  side  is  rather  larger  and  more  mas- 
culine in  form ;  while  left-side  limbs  are  in  normal  right- 
handed  persons,  more  slender  and  shapely  and  delicate 
— in  a  word  more  womanly — ^than  are  those  of  the  right. 

As  regards  the  face,  from  one  aspect  both  sides  are 
complete,  from  another  aspect  both  are  incomplete, 
without  the  other.  And  in  configuration  and  expres- 
sion, the  two  sides  of  the  face  differ  appreciably;  the 
left  side  being  more  psychical,  emotional  and  subtle — 
in  a  word  again  more  womanly. 

In  most  persons,  the  hands  and  ears  and  eyes  of  one 
side  differ  from  those  of  the  other,  both  in  form  and  in 
function.  In  some  persons  the  differences  are  con- 
siderable. It  happens  occasionally,  indeed,  that  the 
eye  of  one  side  resembles  in  colour  the  eyes  of  one 
parent,  while  the  opposite  eye  bears  the  colour  of  those 
of  the  other  parent. 

Strange  to  say,  there  are,  moreover,  in  the  human 
male,  organs  concerned  with  the  strictly  female  function 
of  lactation. 

Indication  of  primseval  human  hermaphrodites  formed 
one  of  Darwin's  greatest  puzzles,  indeed.  In  his  Descent 
of  Man,  the  following  passage  occurs  : 

"  It  has  been  known  that  in  the  vertebrate 
Kingdom  one  sex  bears  rudiments  of  various 
accessory  parts  appertaining  to  the  reproductive 
system,  which  properly  belong  to  the  other  sex.  .  .  . 
Some  remote  progenitor  of  the  whole  vertebrate 


54         FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

kingdom  appears  to  have  been  hermaphrodite,  o 
androgynous." 
It  escaped  him  as  it  has  escaped  later  biologists  tha 
Man,  the  highest  of  the  vertebrates,  is  still  androgynous 
And  this  inevitably  so,  since,  being  of  bi-sexual  parentage 
the  sex-characteristics  of  both  parents  must  be  presen 
in  him. 

In    The    Evolution    of  Sex,    Professors    Geddes    an( 
Thomson  state  : 

"  Sometimes  a  fish  is  male  on  one  side,  femal 
on  the  other,  or  male  anteriorly  and  female  pos 
teriorly.  .  .  .  Among  invertebrates  the  same  ha 
been  occasionally  observed,  especially  among  buttei 
flies,  where  striking  differences  in  the  colourin 
of  the  wings  on  the  two  sides  have  in  some  case 
been  found  to  correspond  to  an  internal  co-existenc 
of  ovary  and  testes.  .  .  .  The  prettiest  cases  c 
superficial  hermaphrodism  occur  among  insects 
especially  among  moths  and  butterflies,  where  i 
often  happens  that  the  wings  on  one  side  are  thos 
of  the  male,  on  the  other,  those  of  the  female." 


II 

Despite  the  fact  that  Nature  has  evolved  the  comple 
human  races  from  the  single-celled  microscopic  amoeb 
("  Protoplasmic  father  of  Man,"  as  science  has  style 
this),  there  are  those  who  regard  it  as  another  of  numeroi^ 
blunders  on  the  part  of  the  Great  Mother  that  the  lei 
side  of  the  body  is  a  more  or  less  passive  and  powerles 
member.  Accordingly,  the  doctrine  of  Ambidextry  ha 
arisen.  With  the  result  that  its  wiser  exponents  hav 
abandoned  it.  Because  it  has  been  found  that  childre 
trained  on  Ambidextrous  lines  develop  neurotic  symp 
toms.  This  occurs  even  in  cases  in  which  childre: 
naturally  left-handed  are  taught  to  use  the  right  hand 
as  is  normal. 


SIDES   OF  THE  BODY  55 

In  a  lecture  given  before  The  Child-Study  Society 
in  London,  Mr.  P.  B.  Ballard,  London  County-Council 
Inspector  of  Schools,  stated  that  left-handed  bowlers 
send  down  the  ugliest  balls,  left-handed  boxers  deal  the 
most  unexpected  blows — blows  that  hurt  terribly.  To 
be  left-handed,  it  seemed,  was  to  be  not  merely  awkward, 
but  to  be  wicked,  moreover.  Yet  any  attempt  to  inter- 
fere with  a  child's  natural  habit  is  liable  to  make  him 
stammer.  (The  evil  bent  of  left-handed  persons  has 
a  special  significance  in  view  of  my  hypothesis  of  the 
dissimilar  mental  functions  of  the  two  brain-hemispheres. 
The  term  "  sinister  "  expresses  this  bent.  The  inference 
is  that  in  such  transposition  of  the  normal  functions 
of  the  brain -halves,  the  tempering  and  humanising 
influence  of  the  Woman-half  is  counteracted.) 

Of  a  group  of  545  left-handed  children,  1  per  cent,  of 
pure  left-handers  stammered,  against  4*3  per  cent,  of 
399,  in  course  of  being  taught  to  use  the  right  hand, 
Mr.  Ballard  further  stated.  In  another  group  of  207, 
the  figures  were  4*2  per  cent,  and  21*8  per  cent,  respec- 
tively. Six  out  of  ten  left-handed  children  who  had 
been  taught  to  use  the  right  hand  were  practically  cured 
of  stammering  after  having  been  allowed  to  use  the 
left  hand  exclusively  for  eighteen  months.  There  are 
twice  as  many  left-handed  boys  as  left-handed  girls; 
and  stammering  is  twice  as  prevalent  among  boys. 

All  of  which  indicates  normal  differences  in  function 
of  the  two  sides  of  the  body — differences  suggesting 
that,  as  I  have  surmised,  each  is  the  site  and  the  agency 
of  a  principle  totally  unlike  that  of  the  other. 


Ill 

Upon  referring  to  Biology — on  the  processes  whereof 
every  development,  both  physical  and  psychical,  of 
living   creatures   rests — ^this   curious    dual   constitution 


56  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

of  the  body,  together  with  the  problems  of  dual  sex 
transmission  and  inherency,  become  explicable. 

And  the  solutions  are  at  the  same  time  so  simpL 
and  inevitable  as  to  be  the  strongest  possible  confirma 
tion  of  my  thesis. 

As  already  stated,  living  organisms,  offspring  of  tw( 
parents,  derive  half  the  source  of  their  structure  fron 
one  parent,  half  from  the  other. 

All  plants  and  living  creatures  evolve  their  organisa 
tion  from  a  single  microscopic  cell,  precisely  as  Lif< 
itself  evolved  primarily,  and  has  developed  out  of  th( 
single-celled,  microscopic  amoeba.  The  microscopic  eel 
which  develops  into  a  living  creature  is  composed  thui 
of  two  halves,  or  "  gametes,"  to  employ  the  scientific 
term.  One  half  was  contributed  by  the  father  :  th( 
other,  by  the  mother.  The  two  have  united  to  form  ( 
whole  cell.  From  such  a  cell  (zygote),  half  male,  hal 
female,  the  body  of  every  living  organism  has  sprung 

Now,  although  these  two  half-cells  unite  to  form  i 
whole  cell,  exchange  constituents,  and  appear  to  los< 
their  identity  each  in  the  other,  it  is,  in  the  face  of  th< 
strange  dual  constitution  of  the  body,  difficult  to  doub 
that  each  half  actually  retains  its  identity  and  sex 
inherences,  and  develops  along  its  own  lines  (albeit  ir 
close  correlation  with  the  other),  throughout  all  th( 
marvellous,  intricate,  and  complex  processes  of  embryo 
logical  existence,  during  which  the  zygote  is  evolving 
into  a  living  creature,  capable  of  separate  and  individua 
life.  And  the  inherences  of  these  two  halves  are  repre 
sented,  at  birth,  in  the  respective  sides  of  the  body 
each  being,  as  it  were,  a  complete  and  perfect  entity 
although  inseparably  knit  in  one  flesh  to  its  twin.  Anc 
throughout  all  the  further  intricate  and  complex  pro 
cesses  whereby  the  creature  comes  to  maturity,  lives 
reproduces  its  species,  and  dies,  each  half  preserves  its 
individual  inherence  alike  in  constitution  and  in  function 


SIDES   OF  THE  BODY  57 

And  yet  in  the  mystical  unity  of  their  commingHng 
duahty,  they  are  one  flesh. 

Each  of  the  parental  half -cells  contained,  marvellously, 
the  potential  moiety  of  a  living  personality.  But  either, 
alone,  would  have  been  but  an  incomplete  and  valueless 
thing,  had  it  not  become  united  with  the  complementary 
half-cell  required  to  complete  it  structurally,  and  to 
engender  and  energise  its  potentialities.  Nevertheless, 
throughout  all  the  immature  and  the  mature  phases  of 
life,  from  conception  to  birth,  and  from  birth  onward  to 
death,  the  opposite  sides  of  the  body  represent  normally 
the  opposite  sex-inherences  of  their  respective  parents. 
They  are,  in  humans,  the  Man  and  the  Woman — ^two 
in  one — ^that  exist  in  every  living  man  and  woman. 
They  represent  contrary  principles;  they  perform  dif- 
ferent functions;  they  engender  and  energise  dissimilar 
processes.  One  is  the  centre  of  the  Male  character- 
istics, Dominant  upon  the  material  plane;  the  other, 
of  the  Female  characteristics,  Recessive  thereon. 

Normality  and  health  are  the  mean  and  balance,  in 
the  individual,  of  the  complementary  and  supple- 
mentary functions  and  processes  of  the  opposite  sex- 
inherences  of  his,  or  her,  body.  Precisely  as  in  the 
social  economy  the  complementary  and  supplementary 
roles  of  men  and  w^omen  counterpoise  the  aptitudes  and 
determine  the  effectiveness  of  human  life  and  action. 

The  left,  Female-half  of  the  body,  with  its  allied 
half-brain,^  is  inhibitive,  and  engenders  the  evolution 
and  the  preservation,  physical  and  mental,  of  The 
Type ;  sustaining  health  and  vital  power  by  way  of  the 
female  attributes  of  rest  and  conservation. 

The  right,   Male  half,   with  its  allied  half-brain,   is 

^  Owing  to  an  interchange  of  nervous  strands,  the  right  half 
of  the  brain  controls  the  left  half  of  the  body ;  and  the  converse. 
Structui-al  details  which  need  not  be  considered  here,  but  which 
have  clearly  for  purpose  the  closer  and  more  complex  association 
and  co-ordination  of  the  Contrasting  Traits  of  the  two  sides  of 
the  body. 


58  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

executive,  and  energises  the  development  (Adaptation) 
of  The  Type  in  its  relation  to  Environment,  and,  dis- 
bursing and  applying  the  vital  resources,  generates  and 
differentiates  potential  faculty  in  terms  of  living 
function. 


IV 

This  hypothesis  of  the  dual  constitution  and  of  dual 
functions  of  the  two-sided  body  supplies  an  explana- 
tion, equally  simple  and  inevitable,  of  the  parental 
transmission  of  Sex.  Natura  simplex  est,  said  Newton. 
And  Du  Prel,  "  Nature  is  much  more  simple  than  we 
have  any  conception  of." 

Because,  as  Biology  shows,  not  only  does  each  of  the 
two  parents  contribute  to  offspring,  but  there  being 
both  a  right  and  a  left  reproductive  gland  in  members 
of  both  sexes,  the  contribution  either  parent  supplies 
must  have  been  derived  from  one  or  other  of  these 
glands  in  them.  And  if  the  two  sides  of  the  body  are  of 
different  sex-inherence,  it  is  only  logical  to  conclude  that 
the  contribution  the  gland  of  one  side  makes  will  be  of 
different  sex-inherence  from  that  of  the  other. 

Since  all  forms  of  Energy  have  two  modes,  potential 
(or  latent)  and  kinetic  (or  active),  on  the  plane  of  physics, 
this  must  be  true,  of  course,  of  Vital  Energy. 

Life-energy  must  be  present  in  all  living  bodies  in  the 
forms,  respectively,  of  latent  Vital  Energy  smd  functioning 
Vital  Energy — energy  conserved  and  available  for 
functioning,  and  energy  expending  itself  in  the  living 
processes  of  mentality  and  action. 

An  individual  is  able  to  move  his  limbs  by  power  of 
the  potential  motion  stored,  or  latent,  in  the  muscle-cells 
of  his  limbs.  Just  as  a  locomotive -engine  is  enabled  to 
travel  by  power  of  the  potential  motion  stored  in  the 
steam  generated  in  its  boiler.     And  as  in  the  living 


SIDES  OF  THE  BODY  59 

organism,  so  in  the  engine,  the  mechanism  and  the 
processes  that  engender  in  it  the  potential  motion  of 
steam  are  wholly  distinct  from  those  which  convert 
this  potential  motion  into  actual  motion. 

One  is  able  to  think,  by  power  of  the  potential  mentality 
stored,  or  latent,  in  his  brain-cells.  For  not  only  the 
vital  processes  which  sustain  the  life  of  the  organism, 
as  those  too  which  enable  it  to  function  in  terms  of  living 
personality  and  action,  but  brain-power  also  must  exist 
in  the  dual  forms,  respectively,  of  potential  Faculty  and 
functioning  Faculty.  So  too.  Reproductive  power.  In 
all  of  these  appear  again  the  modes  of  Dominance  and 
Recessiveness,  of  powers  positive  and  manifesting,  and 
of  powers  negative  and  latent.  And  since  the  female  sex 
is  characterised  by  traits  of  repose  and  conservation, 
and  the  male  sex  by  traits  of  action,  the  dual  modes  of 
vital,  muscular,  cerebral  and  reproductive  energy  in 
potential,  and  of  vital,  muscular,  cerebral  and  repro- 
ductive energy  in  course  of  generating  function,  range 
themselves  inevitably  on  the  two  sides  of  the  living 
equation  as  Sex-characteristics  differentiating  the  male 
organisation  from  that  of  the  female.  Thus  ranged,  they 
characterise  the  two  sides  of  the  body  as  representing, 
respectively,  a  right,  male  side  which  is  the  central 
agency  in  function,  and  a  left,  female  side,  which  is  the 
reservoir  of  the  potential  of  function. 

If  then  the  female  mode  of  functioning  is  the  Potential, 
or  Recessive,  a  mode  of  latency,  it  is  to  be  inferred  that 
the  male  traits  every  female  creature  inherits  from  her 
father  will,  when  incorporated  in  a  body  of  female 
prepotence,  pass  into  the  potential,  or  Recessive,  mode ; 
and  will  thus  become  inhibited  from  developing  as  male- 
characteristics.  Nevertheless,  this  male  potential  will 
be  preserved  in  that  reproductive  gland  which  repre- 
sents the  paternal  inherences  in  her,  and  will  be  trans- 
mitted, as  her  contribution  to  male  offspring,  in  the 
sex-cells  generated  by  this  gland. 


60         FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

While  the  female  inherences  every  male  derives  from 
his  mother  will,  in  the  presence  of  the  Dominant  male- 
characteristics  he  derives  from  his  father,  retain  their 
latent,  or  Recessive,  mode;  and  will  thus  not  emerge 
as  female  characteristics.  The  female  inherences  will 
be  preserved,  however,  in  that  reproductive  gland 
which  represents  the  maternal  inherences  in  him;  and 
will  be  transmitted  as  his  contribution  to  female 
offspring. 

It  will  be  seen  thus  that,  as,  in  hybrid  plants,  so  in 
hybrid  creatures  of  both  sexes,  cells  of  two  sexes  are 
generated  :  in  the  male,  cells  Dominant  for  maleness 
and  cells  Recessive  for  maleness — female  that  is;  in 
the  female.  Recessive  cells,  prepotent  for  femaleness, 
and  Dominant,  or  male,  cells. 

And  of  these,  the  Dominant  male  sex-cells  contributed 
by  the  male  parent,  mating  with  the  Dominant,  or  male, 
sex-cells  contributed  by  the  female  parent,  male  offspring 
results.  While  the  Recessive  female  sex-cells  contri- 
buted by  the  female  parent,  mating  with  the  Recessive, 
or  female,  sex-cells  contributed  by  the  male  parent, 
female  offspring  results. 

Furthermore,  Dominance  being  paramount  in  develop- 
ment, it  must  be  from  the  Dominant  inherence  imparted 
by  residence  in  a  male  organisation  to  the  potential, 
or  Recessive,  female  Germ-Plasm  that  the  latter  derives 
the  new  developmental  impulse  it  transmits  to  sex-cells. 
While  Recessiveness  being  Life  and  Faculty  in  the 
potential  mode,  it  must  be  from  the  Recessive  inherence 
engendered  in  the  Dominant  male  Germ-Plasm,  by 
residence  in  a  female  organisation,  that  its  Dominance, 
passing  into  latency,  derives  a  new  potential  of  further 
evolutionary  impetus. 

The  differentiation  of  living  creatures  into  two  sexes, 
therefore,  of  bodies  into  two  sides,  of  brains  into  two 
halves,  and  of  Germ-Plasm  into  two  reproductive 
glands,  would  seem  to  have  had  for  object  the  ever 


SIDES   OF  THE  BODY  61 

further  specialisation  and  segregation  in  the  individual, 
for  purposes  alike  of  constitutional  organisation  and  of 
the  evolution  of  Faculty  and  Reproduction,  of  the  two 
Orders  of  Contrasting  Traits,  which  I  have  assumed  to 
be  Maleness  and  Femaleness,  respectively. 

From  this  view-point,  the  female  Sex  and  Sex-traits 
are  Recessive,  or  Potential,  always,  on  the  material 
plane,  and  manifest  increasingly  thereon  only  by  way 
of  ever  more  complex  alliances  with  male-traits ;  which, 
being  positive  on  the  concrete  plane,  equip  the  female 
inherences  for  function  thereon.  Femaleness,  or  Re- 
cessiveness,  on  its  side,  however — being  Life-Energy  in 
the  potential — is  all  the  while  engendering  new  potence 
for  Dominance  to  transform  into  active,  or  functioning, 
power.  While  although  negative,  it  is  equally  potent, 
on  its  side  of  the  equation,  to  alter  the  values  and 
manifestations  of  Dominance.  Just  as  negative  elec- 
tricity inhibits  the  positive  and  destructive  forces  of 
positive  electricity,  although  it  does  not,  of  itself, 
manifest  directly. 

The  Dominant  traits  of  Tallness  and  Strength,  for 
example,  are  direct  and  positive  factors  in  physical 
development.  Dwarf ness  and  Weakness  are  indirect 
and  negative  factors  therein.  Nevertheless,  degrees  of 
Dwarfness  or  of  W^eakness  must  proportionally  reduce 
and  modify  the  tallness  of  Tallness  or  the  power  of 
Strength. 

But  that  Recessiveness  is  not  a  minus  sign  merely, 
as  algebraically  understood — but  is  an  essential  potence 
on  another,  and  a  psychical  plane,  is  shown  by  the  lesser 
height  of  woman  rendering  itself  as  a  Grace ;  her  lesser 
strength  appearing  in  the  new  virtue  of  Gentleness. 

That  the  female  provides,  for  fertilisation,  only  a 
single  sex-cell,  from  the  reproductive  gland  of  one  or 
other  side,  while  the  male  provides  multiple  and  com- 
mingled cells  from  both  sides,  supports  the  view  that  sex- 
cells  derived  from  one  side  are  of  opposite  sex-inherence 


62         FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

to  those  from  the  other  side.  Otherwise,  why  two 
reproductive  glands? 

The  author  of  The  Causation  of  Sex  adduces  evidence 
showing  not  only  that  the  two  glands  are  of  opposite 
sex-inherence,  but,  moreover,  that  normally  they 
function  alternately;  so  that  now  a  cell  of  one,  now, 
of  the  other  sex,  is  produced.  It  is  likely,  however, 
that  function  is  seldom  so  mechanical,  but  that  personal 
constitution  or  nurture  modifies  its  operations. 

That  the  male  cells  are  multiple  in  number  points  to 
such  a  struggle  of  survival-fitness  as  ever  characterises 
the  more  strenuous  male  destiny.  Not,  perhaps,  the 
fittest  as  regards  intrinsic  superiority,  but  that  most 
compatible  with  the  requirements  of  the  Queen-cell  is 
selected  for  mate.  Should  the  Queen-cell  be  of  inferioi 
standard,  therefore,  then  (as  happens  in  life)  not  the 
noblest  of  type,  but  that  most  adapted  to  environment 
secures  racial  survival. 

So  that  here  again,  evolutionary  racial  advance  maj; 
derive  its  impulse  from  the  Female  factor. 

A  singular  phenomenon,  recorded  by  the  biologist, 
Rorig,  and  one  which  materially  supports  my  argument, 
is  that  disease  of  the  ovaries  of  a  female  deer  will  cause 
male  antlers  to  develop  in  her.  Proving  a  male  organisn: 
concealed,  or  held  Recessive,  in  her,  by  power  of  hei 
female  sex-organs  normally  to  inhibit  the  development 
of  her  inherited  male-traits.  A  strange  feature  of  this 
abnormal  occurrence  is  that  disease  of  one  ovary  onl^ 
causes  antlers  to  develop  on  one  side  only — and  this  or 
the  side  opposite  to  that  of  the  diseased  gland. 

On  the  other  hand,  castration  of  male  sheep  of  the 
Merino  breed  (only  the  males  of  which  are  horned] 
occasions  hornlessness. 


SIDES   OF  THE  BODY  63 


V 


Male  traits  being  paramount  on  the  plane  of  concrete 
function,  although  they  exist  (normally)  in  Recessive 
form  in  the  female,  it  is  from  the  male  inherence  of  her 
active  right  side  and  its  allied  brain-half  that  she  derives 
her  concrete  powers  alike  of  body  and  of  brain. 

It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  when  abnormally 
stimulated  by  undue  exercise,  such  male-traits  may 
develop  into  abnormal  dominance. 

The  left  arm  of  woman  is  essentially  the  woman- 
member.  In  its  half -passive  action  of  supporting  her 
infant  for  hours  together,  it  is  stronger  for  this  maternal 
ministration  than  is  the  more  active  and  doughty  right 
arm  of  the  male.  Her  left  hand  is  more  delicate  of  form, 
gentler  and  more  soothing  of  motion  than  her  right  hand 
is.  It  is  the  hand  she  caresses  with.  While  for  direct, 
strong  action — masculine  action,  that  is — the  paternal 
right  half  of  her  is  dominant,  as  in  the  male.  And 
although  in  our  present-day  stages  of  Evolution,  the 
Recessive  Woman -traits  have  emerged  as  definite 
characteristics,  emancipating  themselves  from  subjection 
by  the  Dominant  male-traits,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  their  impulse  and  their  powers  are  yet  but  rudi- 
mentary. Woman  is  still  more  male  than  she  is  female ; 
her  methods  being  more  masculine  still  than  they  are 
womanly.  And  this  in  the  degree  of  her  cruder  racial 
stock,  or  of  the  harder  conditions  (natural  or  artificial) 
of  the  environment  in  which  she  finds  herself,  demand- 
ing more  of  masculine  proclivity  in  her — of  physical 
activity  and  mental  assertiveness — than  of  her  intrinsic 
Woman-qualities  of  emotion  and  ministry. 

Civilisation,  foreshadowing  evolutionary  ideals,  dis- 
countenances, the  fighting  female.  Nevertheless,  the 
cruder  female  fights  still  with  her  male  right  arm,  and 
the  more  cultured  female,  with  tongue  and  tactics. 


64  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

The  intrinsic  Woman-qualities,  whereof  Christianity 
is  the  gospel,  are  yet  in  their  infancy  of  development; 
are  yet  more  ideals  for  which  we  are  shaping  and  waiting 
than  they  are  realised  and  abiding  facts. 

Even  their  own  babes  are  not  secure  from  the  instinct 
of  blows  inherent  in  the  male-muscles  of  their  mothers' 
right  arms,  when  these  are  restrained  neither  by  a 
woman's  tenderness  nor  by  a  man's  chivalry.  Girl- 
babies,  save  those  of  the  rarer  higher  types,  beat  their 
mothers  and  nurses  only  rather  less  frequently  and  less 
fiercely  than  boy-babies  do. 

Later  in  their  life-history,  that  new  impulse  to  the 
evolution  of  the  Woman-traits  which  characterises  their 
development  to  womanhood,  normally  negatives  and 
further  tempers  in  girls  the  male  instincts  of  fight  and 
of  sport.  But  many  of  our  modern  amazons,  brought 
up  like  boys,  are  more  male  than  are  their  brothers. 
The  male  fighting-instinct  which  moved  man  to  invent 
a  club  (destructive)  has  become  so  tempered  by  the 
increasingly  potent  Woman-traits  in  him  that,  save  when 
angry  or  at  war,  he  is  content  to  turn  his  club  into  a 
golf-stick,  a  cricket  bat,  or  tennis  racquet;  his  sword 
into  a  plough-share.  Whereas,  on  the  contrary,  the 
Woman-traits  which  moved  woman  to  invent  the  needle 
(constructive)  are  becoming  so  over-ridden  by  the  male 
in  her  that  modern  woman,  artificially  masculinised, 
abhors  the  needle,  and  is  almost  as  much  dominated  as 
the  other  sex  is  by  the  male  instinct  for  a  weapon  in  the 
hand. 

The  class.  Vertebrates,  would  seem  to  represent  an 
adaptation  to  environment  typically  Male ;  earlier  than 
and  contrary  in  trend  to  that  of  the  Mammalia,  whereof 
the  impulse  was  obviously  Female. 

Increasing  vertebration  was  characterised  by  such 
a  progressive  differentiation  of  Male  from  Female  traits 
as  progressively  segregated  these  in  opposite  sides  of  the 


SIDES  OF  THE  BODY  65 

body;  with  spinal  column  and  spinal  cord  for,  respec- 
tively, physical  and  nervous  central  lines  of  demarca- 
tion. Thus  the  Male  traits  were  enabled  more  and 
more  to  detach  themselves  at  will  from  Female  inhibi- 
tion, and  thereby  increasingly  to  specialise  and  exercise 
those  powers  of  force  and  fierceness  and  activity  by 
way  of  which  species  became  ever  more  individuated; 
aggressive,  intelligent,  efficient,  in  terms  of  Fitness 
for  the  struggle  for  survival. 

Until  that  later  evolution  of  female  adaptation  to 
Unfitness,  in  the  sacrificial  function  of  Lactation, 
inhibiting  and  tempering  the  earlier  male  trend,  engen- 
dered the  yet  higher  order  of  Mammalia. 

(With  that  intuitive  illumination  inspiring  speech, 
men  and  races  lacking  in  virility  are  contemptuously 
described  as  being  "  invertebrate.") 

According  to  this  hypothesis,  the  paternal  (and 
male)  inherences  of  any  mother  may  be  said  to  be 
transmitted  to  the  grandson  in  the  direct  male  line  of  her 
heredity — an  unbroken  line  of  Maleness  reaching  back 
to  its  amoebic  origin.  While  the  maternal  (and  female) 
inherences  of  any  father  are  transmitted,  in  the  direct 
female  line,  to  the  grand-daughter — a  similar  line  of 
continuity.  The  Woman-sex  and  traits  of  the  grand- 
mother remain  thus  for  a  generation  dormant,  or 
Recessive,  in  the  father;  "skipping  a  generation,"  as 
the  phrase  is.  Then,  in  the  third  generation,  they 
re-appear  in  the  grand-daughter ;  by  power  of  a  maternal 
contribution  in  which  the  female  inherence  is  prepotent. 
While  the  male-sex  and  traits  of  the  grandfather  remain 
dormant,  or  potential,  in  the  mother ;  likewise  "  skipping 
a  generation."  Then  they  emerge  in  the  grandson,  by 
power  of  a  male  gamete  evoking  the  inherent  male  in 
them. 


66  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 


VI 

The  attributes  of  the  one  sex  invested  thus  in  the 
other,  although  normally  submerged,  form  neverthelese 
a  valuable  endowment;  suppljdng  supplementary  anc 
complementary  factors  to  counterpoise,  to  energise, 
and  fructify  the  powers  proper  to  the  sex  of  the  in- 
dividual. 

Man  bears  throughout  life  the  Woman-potential  hij 
mother  transmitted  to  him.  But  it  is  not  his  to  realise 
He  bears  it  in  trust  for  his  daughters.  He  transmits  i1 
to  his  daughters,  and  in  them  this  potential,  recovering 
its  woman-impulse,  evolves  to  a  further  degree  o: 
woman-power.     The  like  with  mothers  and  sons. 

All  of  which  is  supported  by  the  Mendelian  doctrin< 
that  the  mother  transmits  "  Femaleness  "  as  a  Dominani 
factor  to  her  daughters  and  as  a  Recessive  factor  to  he: 
sons. 

But  the  method  whereby  this  is  achieved  has  remainec 
a  mystery. 

Professor  Punnett  says  with  regard  to  the  pheno 
menon  : 

"  The    mother   transmits   to    her    daughter   th( 

dominant  faculty  of  femaleness,  but  to  balance  this 

as  it  were,  she  transmits  to  her  sons  another  quality 

which  her   daughters   do   not    receive  .  .  .  amon| 

human  families,  in  respect  to  particular  qualities 

the  sons  tend  to  resemble  their  mothers  more  thai 

their  daughters  do." 

A  striking  illustration  of  such  transmission  by  mothe; 

to  son  of  a  paternally-derived  abnormal  inherence  whic) 

she    herself   does    not    develop,    is    found    in    so-callec 

"  bleeders " ;     persons    who    suffer    from    the    disease 

haemophilia.     The    daughters    of    a    "  bleeder "    fathe 

show  no   symptom  at  all  of  the  affliction,   but  they 


SIDES   OF  THE  BODY  67 

nevertheless,  pass  on  to  their  sons  this  male  heritage 
of  the  grandfather. 

There  are  numerous  other  examples  of  traits  and 
diseases  thus  "  skipping  a  generation  " — in  other  words, 
of  lying  dormant,  or  potential,  merely;  overshadowed 
in  the  constitution  and  psychology  of  the  sex  to  which 
they  do  not  rightly  belong,  but  developing  in  a  suc- 
ceeding generation  in  offspring  of  that  sex  whereof 
they  are  a  natural  trait,  or  (so  to  speak)  a  natural  defect. 

Since  the  woman-half  she  contributes  to  their  hybrid 
constitution  engenders  the  potential  of  their  living 
processes,  the  mother  may  be  regarded  as  still  mothering 
her  children  throughout  development  and  maturity, 
and  to  the  end  of  their  natural  term.  Accounting  for 
that  mystical  sympathy  between  mother  and  child 
which  intuitively  informs  her  of  fatalities  occurring  to 
absent  sons  and  daughters — but  to  sons  pre-eminently. 
Marvellously,  they  remain  one  living  flesh  so  long  as 
life  persists. 

During  the  War,  mothers  at  a  distance  have  known  by 
an  intuitive  flash,  and  have  told  of  the  death  of  sons 
cut  down  in  battle.  One  mother  described  the  sensa- 
tion she  experienced  as  being  precisely  as  though  one 
side  of  her  body  had  been  suddenly  torn  away.  So  too, 
mothers  whose  infants  have  died  during  childbirth  or 
shortly  after,  describe  as  persisting  for  months  subse- 
quently a  sense  as  though  part  of  them  were  dead. 

The  father  too  must  function  in  the  hybrid  living 
constitution.  With  the  immense  difference,  however, 
that  his  part  therein  is  a  factor  of  the  development  of 
traits,  not  of  the  mystical  functioning  of  Life.  A  notable 
feature  of  this  paternal  heritage  is  that  in  women  at 
middle-age  (when  the  wane  of  reproductive  power 
releases  vital  potential  from  maternal  investments) 
not  only  may  masculine  physical  traits  emerge,  but  there 
may  develop  in  them  notable  brain-capacities  inherited 


68         FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

from  the  father.  Capacities  inherent  in  them  previously, 
but  long  inhibited  in  action  by  the  normal  femak 
brain-Recessiveness . 


VII 

Every  higher  evolutionary  differentiation  results 
inevitably  not  only  in  progressive  mutations  in  the  traitj 
of  species,  but,  as  well,  in  variations  of  the  reproductive 
processes  of  such.  When  defects,  physical  or  mental,  are 
not  reproduced  in  later  generations  true  to  Mendeliar 
law,  however,  this  is  not  abnormal,  but  is  beautifully 
normal.  Normality  requires  that  defect — which  is  i 
deviation  from  The  Normal — shall  not  be  transmittec 
in  any  ratio  whatsoever,  but  shall  be  corrected  in  i 
succeeding  generation. 

Moreover,  when  we  realise  the  number  and  the  com 
plexities  of  human  traits,  all  struggling  to  keep  The  Law 
it  is  only  to  be  expected  that  any  single  characteristic 
owing  to  its  sex-inherence,  may  pass  into  the  potential 
or  Recessive,  mode,  and  may  thus  vanish  for  a  genera 
tion.  Further,  by  the  law  of  compensation,  any  trait 
or  determinant,  although  itself  Dominant,  may  b( 
dwarfed  and  submerged  by  some  other  Dominant  trail 
more  assertive  than  itself. 

Suppose  a  father  normally  larger  and  stronger  thai 
the  normally  shorter  and  weaker  mother :  Stature  anc 
strength  being  both  Dominant  and  masculine  traits 
the  traits  of  such  a  father,  dominating  the  developmeni 
of  his  sons,  should  so  over-ride  the  traits  of  lesser  strengtl 
and  stature  of  the  mother  (in  whom  strength  and  statur( 
are  normally  Recessive)  that  his  sons  will  be  tall  anc 
broad  and  strong,  and  mentally  virile.  On  the  othe 
hand,  the  mother's  traits,  prepotent  in  the -developmeni 
of  daughters,  will  inhibit  in  these  and  diminish  th( 
strength  and  stature  of  their  paternal  inherences 
Thus,    the    woman    of    pure    Recessive    (the    essentia 


SIDES   OF  THE  BODY  69 

woman)    type    is    smaller,    more    delicately   organised, 
and  weaker  than  the  male. 

By  such  means,  the  normal  of  the  relative  strength, 
stature,  and  mental  qualifications  of  the  sexes  is  pre- 
served; the  specialised  characteristics  of  both  ever 
further  diverging  in  trend,  while  at  the  same  time 
intensifying  their  intrinsic  attributes. 

Suppose,  however,  a  mother  who  deviates  from  the 
normal  in  having  developed  along  masculine  lines,  and  who 
is,  accordingly,  tall  or  strong  or  mentally  virile  :  Far 
from  supplementing,  in  her  sons,  the  father's  traits  of 
strength  and  stature,  her  sons  will  be  more  or  less 
emasculate  in  mind  or  body,  or  in  both.  Strength  and 
stature  and  virile  mentality  not  being  normal  to  her, 
these  can  only  have  emerged  in  her  and  can  only  have 
been  exercised  by  her  at  cost  of  the  masculine  potential 
she  bore  in  trust  for  male  offspring.  A  woman  who 
wins  golf  or  hockey-matches  may  be  said  therefore  to 
energise  her  muscles  with  the  potential  manhood  of 
possible  sons.  With  their  potential  existence  indeed, 
since  over-strenuous  pursuits  may  sterilise  women 
absolutely  as  regards  male  offspring. 

Thus  it  is  that  muscular  and  otherwise  masculine 
women  produce  weakling  males.  (Giant  women — 
female-Dominants  —  are  incapable  of  reproduction.) 
Tall  mothers  may  produce  tall  sons,  by  transmitting  to 
them  the  single  trait  of  tallness  of  the  maternal  grand- 
father. But  since  tallness  in  woman  is  development 
along  masculine  lines,  and  detracts  from  her  maternal 
power,  the  tall  son  in  such  case  is  likely  to  be  defective 
in  other  manly  traits.  Men  ^re  of  greater  height  than 
women,  mainly  in  consequence  of  greater  length  of  leg. 
The  power  expended  in  the  male  in  length  of  limb  is 
absorbed  in  the  female  into  complex  pelvic  develop- 
ments, wherein  it  is  stored  as  Reproductive  potential. 

The  power  thus  stored  in  latency  reveals  itself  in  the 
amazing  evolution,  as  regards  capacity  and  muscular 


70         FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

equipment,  by  way  of  which  the  maternal  uterus  so 
develops  during  pregnancy  as  to  enable  it  to  cradle  an 
infant  of  9  or  10  lbs.  weight,  and  to  deliver  this  by  output 
of  immense  energy — a  marvel  of  biological  function  and 
mechanism. 

Since  the  male  trait  of  Tallness  may  be  transmitted 
by  woman  from  her  father  to  her  son,  without  mani- 
festing in  herself,  it  is  obviously  waste  of  power  for  her 
to  develop  a  characteristic  she  needs  neither  for  personal 
nor  for  hereditary  purposes.  Whereas,  by  further 
evolving  her  own  woman-traits  of  suppleness  and 
grace,  she  contributes  new  factors  to  those  of  the  male. 
And  so  with  all  the  other  sex-characteristics. 

Mr.  Horace  G.  Regnart,  M.A.,  the  well-known  breeder 
of  pedigree  stock,  states  that  a  bull  of  marked  masculine 
characteristics  sires  daughters  of  marked  feminine 
characteristics.  While  the  feminine  cow  bears  sons  of 
strongly  masculine  type.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
daughters  of  a  "  steery  "  bull  (a  bull  of  de-sexed  type) 
are  themselves  defective  in  female  characteristics,  and 
bear  sons  defective  in  male  characteristics. 


VIII 

Clearly  and  fully  defined,  accordingly,  as  Sex-char- 
acteristics are  in  proportion  as  the  individual  is  of  high 
and  normal  organisation,  obtrusions  in  the  one  sex  of 
the  traits  of  the  other  are  as  much  stigmata  of  abnor- 
mality as  are  cleft-palate,  webbed  feet,  or  other  devia- 
tions from  the  normal.  Because  they  are  reversions 
to  lower  types  of  organisation  in  which  sex  was  less 
highly  differentiated  than  is  the  normal  of  to-day. 

Although,  with  progressive  evolution,  the  Sex-traits 
are  spun  ever  finer  and  finer,  and  are  ever  more  subtly 
and  inextricably  interwoven  with  those  of  the  other, 
normally  the  threads  run  true  and  distinct  as  do  the 
threads  of  warp  and  woof  in  textile  fabric. 


SIDES   OF  THE  BODY  71 

The  ever  finer  spinning  of  the  threads  secures  an  ever 
closer,  subtler  interweaving.  Whereby  the  fabric  of 
human  organisation,  of  character  and  Faculty,  becomes 
ever  firmer  yet  more  supple,  ever  stronger  yet  more 
delicate,  ever  more  intense  and  rich  of  colour,  but 
nevertheless  more  beautifully  harmonised  and  subtilised 
by  half-tones  and  complex  gradations. 

This  is  the  reason  why  the  strongest  and  most  virile 
men  are  the  most  humane ;  the  sternest  are  most  tender ; 
the  greatest  are  most  subtle.  So  inextricably  inter- 
woven with  their  virile  characteristics  are  the  finer 
spun  Woman -potencies,  as  strangely  and  exquisitely 
to  temper  and  sensitise  their  Manhood's  powers. 

And  it  is  why  the  tenderest,  most  womanly  women  are 
the  noblest;  the  gentlest  are  the  most  enduring;  the 
wisest  are  the  sweetest. 

But  no  more  than  Black  can  be  WTiite,  Acid,  Alkaline, 
or  the  Straight  line  a  Circle,  can  Repose  be  Action, 
Sternness  be  Sweetness,  Firmness  be  Softness,  Fierceness 
be  Gentleness;  Assertiveness,  Selflessness;  Boldness, 
Modesty.  Nevertheless,  in  the  hybrid  unfoldment  of 
Contrasting  traits.  Softness  tempering  Fierceness  trans- 
forms it  to  Strength;  Sweetness  tempering  Sternness 
melts  it  to  Mercy ;  Assertiveness  reinforcing  Selflessness 
nerves  it  to  Devotion;  Firmness  preserves  Softness 
from  lapsing  to  Weakness ;  Altruism,  inspiring  Chivalry, 
transfigures  it  to  Heroism.  But  that  Fierceness  and 
Strength,  Sweetness  and  Selflessness,  have  only  intensi- 
fied as,  with  further  evolution,  they  have  extended 
further  into  Life  and  Consciousness,  is  shown  when  they 
tear  themselves  asunder  from  their  counterpoising 
attributes.  Fierceness  is  seen  then  to  be  more  fierce 
in  complex  man — because  fierce  in  so  many  more  and 
deeper  issues  of  Life  and  Consciousness — ^than  is  the 
fierceness  of  the  gorilla,  which  manifests  largely  in  mus- 
cular savagery;  champing  of  jaws,  and  beating  on  its 
breast  as  on  a  drum. 


72         FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

So  too,  the  emotion  of  complex  woman  is  more  deeply 
rooted  in  her,  and  is  more  intense,  than  is  the  instinctive 
emotionalism  of  the  savage  woman  which  expresses 
itself  mainly  in  reflex  movements  and  hysterical  outcries. 

i|c  ^  ^  4:  H:  4c 

Thus  down  the  ages,  man,  by  way  of  Fatherhood,  has 
endowed  woman  ever  further  with  his  developing  traits 
of  strength  and  intelligence.  Woman,  by  way  of  Mother- 
hood, has  endowed  man  with  an  ever  fuller  heritage  of 
her  attributes  of  selflessness  and  intuition. 

So  these  poor  souls — ^the  Man  and  the  Woman  in  all 
men  and  women — ^have  climbed  the  steep  ascent  to- 
gether, hand  in  hand,  toward  the  Light.  Without  the 
other,  neither  could  have  come.  So  tragically  drear 
and  solitary  would  have  been  the  pilgrimage,  save  for 
the  spiritual  converse  of  that  mystical  comrade. 

Only  by  way  of  this  psychical  comradeship,  which 
solaces  the  one  sex  by  the  inspiration  of  the  other,  do 
men  and  women  win  through  the  terrestrial  travail  of 
the  human  destiny. 

The  mystical  Man  (who  is  her  father  in  her)  when 
woman  would  falter  and  fail  in  the  fight,  whispers, 
"  Courage,  dear  Girl,  go  on  !  " 

The  mystical  Woman  (who  is  his  mother  in  him)  goes 
with  her  son  into  the  murk  and  struggle  of  temptation, 
holding  her  lamp  of  The  Good  and  The  True  and  The 
Beautiful  before  his  blinding  eyes. 


CHAPTER  V 

MASCULINE     MOTHERS     PRODUCE    EMASCULATE     SONS     BY 

MISAPPROPRIATING    THE    LIFE-POTENTIAL    OF     MALE 

OFFSPRING 

"  The  truthy  when  it  is  discovered,  is  what  every  one  has  known.'' 

I 

Mendel  found  that  the  hybrid  plants  resulting  from 
his  cross-breedings  of  Dominants  with  Recessives  pro- 
duced, when  mated  with  similar  hybrids,  sex-cells  of 
pure  Dominant  and  sex-cells  of  pure  Recessive  types, 
and,  moreover,  a  proportion  of  sex-cells  of  mixed  type, 
corresponding  to  the  grey  rabbit-offspring  of  a  black 
rabbit  that  has  mated  with  a  white. 

So  too,  are  found  among  humans,  four  types  of  men 
and  women  such  as  might  be  expected  under  my  applica- 
tion of  Mendelian  doctrine :  Homozygotes  for  Traits,  or 
pure  typical  men  and  women — ^Dominant  males  and 
Recessive  females,  respectively;  and  Heterozygotes  for 
Traits,  or  mixed  types — ^Dominant  females  and  Recessive 
males. 

Of  the  pure  Masculine  type,  are  men  who  are  wholly 
male  in  body,  mind  and  bent;  active,  energetic,  enter- 
prising; pioneers  of  material  progress;  State-builders, 
city  -  builders,  trade  -  builders,  financiers,  explorers, 
soldiers,  men  of  affairs.  Of  the  Mixed  type,  are  men 
who,  while  being  virile  of  body  and  mind,  possess 
nevertheless  a  greater  admixture  of  womanly  quality 
than  is  strictly  normal.  These  are  the  artists,  poets, 
writers,  doctors,  priests,  philanthropists. 

Among  women  also,  are  two  kindred  orders;  the 
wholly    womanly — pure    unalloyed    types    of    natural 

73 


74  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

woman,  wife  and  mother,  sister,  friend;  and  womer 
who,  while  being  wholly  womanly  too  in  attribute  and 
trend,  possess,  nevertheless,  underlying  manly  facultief 
which  give  broader  scope  and  effectiveness  to  abstract 
and  impersonal  issues  of  their  own  sex-characteristics 
These  are  the  artists  and  poets  and  writers  who  preseni 
the  Woman  point  of  view.  They  are  the  Florence  Night 
ingales,  the  Charlotte  Brontes,  Mary  Somervilles;  th( 
philanthropists,  reformers,  born  physicians,  teachers 
nurses,  and  so  forth ;  whose  part  it  is  to  mother,  befrienc 
and  inspire  humanity  at  large  rather  than  to  ministei 
to  individuals.  Whose  part  it  is,  as  well,  to  extenc 
the  tender,  purifying  ethics  of  Woman  and  The  Home 
ever  further  and  more  deeply  into  public  life,  public 
work,  and  public  administration. 

Such  men  and  women  possess  the  characteristics  o: 
their  own  sex  fully  differentiated,  but  tinctured  anc 
fructified  by  more  than  a  normal  quotum  of  the  char 
acteristics  of  the  other.  They  are  quite  normal,  how 
ever,  and  are  wholly  invaluable  in  their  contributior 
to  the  world's  affairs.  Admirably  manly  or  womanly 
they  bear  but  little  likeness  to  the  hereditarily- defective 
or  to  the  artificially-manufactured  species — mannisl 
women  and  womanish  men.  They  deviate  from  th( 
essential  Man  and  Woman  types  by  degrees  of  over 
lapping  in  the  higher  mental  attributes.  In  all  th< 
main  characteristics  of  Sex,  physical,  mental  anc 
functional,  they  are  completely  men  and  women.  Th( 
abnormal  mixed  types  are,  on  the  contrary,  more  o: 
less  degenerate,  structurally,  functionally  and  mentally 
These  persons  of  natural  Mixed  Types  are  Nature': 
workers  rather  than  the  parents  of  her  Races.  Th( 
daily  round  is  too  restricted  for  them.  Their  abilitiei 
and  bent  claim  wider  fields.  The  home  cannot  contair 
them.  It  is  too  round  to  fit  their  angles.  They  art 
hampered  by  its  reciprocities,  stifled  by  its  persona 
atmosphere,  restive  beneath  its  obligations.     And  no 


MASCULINE  MOTHERS  75 

seldom  they  succeed  in  making  homes  as  uncomfortable 
for  others  as  they  themselves  find  such. 

These  Heterodox — of  which  mould  Genius  is — are 
indispensable  to  spur  and  quicken  human  progress, 
while  adding  nothing  to  the  personal  evolution  of  the 
Human  Type.  They  advance  the  standards  and  the 
ethics  of  Humanity  by  creating  ideals  in  Art,  in  Litera- 
ture, in  Politics,  in  Reform  and  Philanthropy.  But 
only  too  often  they  fall  short,  in  their  own  lives,  of 
the  standards  and  ideals  they  establish  for  the  world 
at  large. 

The  Advance-guard  of  Faculty,  they  break  new 
ground  of  Mind  and  Morale  for  others  to  cultivate. 
Although  they  themselves  frequently  quarrel  with  life, 
they  make  life  in  general  greater  and  happier  for  their 
fellows.  If  women,  they  possess  much  of  the  initiative 
and  energy,  the  intellect  and  chivalry  of  men.  But 
they  apply  these  to  womanly  ends.  If  men,  they 
possess  much  of  the  insight  and  sjnnpathy,  the  altruism 
and  creativeness  of  women.  But  they  devote  these  to 
manly  achievements. 

Herbert  Spencer  held  that  Genesis  (or  reproductive 
power)  and  Individuation  (or  Self-development)  exist 
in  inverse  ratio.  Which  is  because  individuation 
beyond  the  normal  can  only  be  achieved  by  drawing 
upon  the  vital  potential  of  offspring.  Hence,  these 
strong  individualities  of  Mixed  Type — because  repro- 
ductive power  is  diminished  in  them — but  seldom  trans- 
mit their  abilities  to  offspring.  Genius  is  frequently 
sterile.     Otherwise,  its  children  are  of  inferior  calibre. 

It  is  in  imitation,  doubtless,  of  the  natural  Mixed 
Types — ^which  may  be  described  as  a  normal  deviation 
from  The  Normal — ^that  the  cult  of  the  mannish  woman 
is  being  cruelly  and  disastrously  forced  upon  our  latter- 
day  girls  and  women;  resulting  in  wholly  deplorable 
developments. 


76         FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

The  woman  of  natural  Mixed-type  is  essentiallj; 
womanly  in  aim  and  bent.  She  does  womanly  wort 
with  virile  energy  and  masculine  mental  grip.  Bui 
she  never  (or  seldom)  assumes  male  proclivities  oi 
adopts  male  habits;  crazes  to  wear  trousers,  to  ride 
astraddle,  to  smoke,  spit,  swear,  stride,  talk  slang,  oi 
shoot  living  sentient  creatures.  Nor  does  she  otherwise 
exchange  the  more  highly-evolved  and  delicate  morale 
and  manners  of  woman  for  those  of  the  male.  In  Art, 
in  Literature,  in  Science;  in  Industry  and  Reform,  hei 
aims  and  work  preserve  the  womanly  mode  and  outlook. 


II 

In  consequence  of  doctrine  which,  for  several  genera- 
tions, has  trained  women  to  develop  for  their  own  uses 
the  masculine  potential  belonging  to  sons,  many  of  oui 
present-day  boys  and  girls  are  seen  actually  to  have 
exchanged  their  natural  sex-characteristics.  Boys  are 
born  now,  puny,  neurotic,  and  effeminate;  while  girls 
are  strong  and  male  and  masterful.  And  it  is  precisely 
in  the  families  whereof  the  girls  are  strong  and  male 
and  masterful,  that  the  boys  are  weakly  and  effeminate ; 
the  degenerative  lapse  from  The  Normal  expressing 
itself,  in  both  sexes,  in  terms  of  abnormal  characteristics 
of  the  other  sex. 

That  at  thirteen,  girls  now-a-days  are  taller  and 
heavier  than  boys  of  the  same  age  has  been  established 
by  the  Anthropometrical  Committee  of  the  British 
Association. 

Dr.  J.  J.  Heslop,  after  carefully  observing  the  health 
and  the  physical  growth  of  children  in  fourteen  elemen- 
tary schools  belonging  to  the  Stretford  (Lancashire) 
Education  Authority,  has  published  a  striking  return 
of  his  investigations.  The  following  table  shows  the 
average  height  and  weight  at  this  age  : 


MASCULINE  MOTHERS 


7T 


Height. 

Weight. 

St.  Matthew's  . 

Boys 

4  ft. 

7f  in. 

6  St.     7flb. 

Girls 

4  ft. 

9    in. 

6  St.  lOflb. 

Cornbrook  Park 

Boys 

4  ft. 

8^  in. 

6  St.     0    lb. 

Girls 

4  ft. 

lOJin. 

6  St.     S^lb. 

St.  Anne's 

Boys 

4  ft. 

7    in. 

6  St.     3flb. 

Girls 

4  ft. 

9    in. 

5  St.  lOjlb. 

Trafford  Park  . 

Boys 

4  ft. 

7|in. 

5  St.    4    lb. 

Girls 

4  ft. 

9jin. 

5  St.     8Jlb. 

Gorse  Hill 

Boys 

4  ft. 

Si  in. 

5  St.  10   lb. 

Girls 

4  ft. 

10    in. 

6  St.  11    lb. 

Seymour  Park 

Boys 

4  ft. 

81  in. 

5  St.     0   lb. 

Girls 

4  ft. 

10    in. 

6  St.  11    lb. 

The  most  notable  development  among  girls  takes 
place  between  the  eleventh  and  thirteenth  ybars. 

The  opposite  bias  in  this  abnormal  substitution  of 
alien  sex-traits  is  due  presumably,  in  both  sexes,  to  an 
antagonising  and  neutralising  of  the  qualities  normal 
to  the  one  sex  by  emergence  of  those  of  the  other. 
Thus,  the  boy  is  puny  and  emasculate  because  his 
impoverished  maleness  is  too  feeble  to  dominate  the 
Female  traits  inherent  in  him,  as  is  normal  to  males. 
The  girl  is  big  and  crude  and  masterful  because  her 
impoverished  Womanliness  is  inadequate  to  inhibit 
and  refine  her  inherent  Male  traits. 

The  aims  of  Feminism  are  being  realised  in  unfore- 
seen developments.  Because  in  addition  to  extinguish- 
ing the  most  beautiful  and  inspiring  order  of  human 
qualities,  this  masculinising  of  women  is  burdening  the 
Race  and  deteriorating  type  by  producing  an  ever- 
increasing  number  of  neurotic,  emasculate  men  and 
boys. 


Ill 

The  present-day  Mortality-rate  of  boy-babies  has 
become  increasingly  and  alarmingly  high. 

The  mortality-rate  of  males  is  higher  always  than  is  that 
of  females,  because  of  the  greater  hardships  and  dangers 


78         FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

of  men's  pursuits.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why, 
although,  normally,  boys  are  born  in  greater  number 
(about  1050  to  every  1000  girls)  the  female  (pre-war) 
population  of  England  and  Wales  exceeded  the  male 
population  by  the  huge  majority  of  1,205,311. 

But  the  excess  of  male  over  female  infant-mortality 
has  greatly  increased  of  late  years.  In  1860  it  was 
only  9  per  cent.  In  1913  it  had  leapt  to  the  high 
figure  of  23  per  cent.  And  this  diminishing  vital  power 
of  males  begins  before  birth  even,  180  boys  being  born 
prematurely  as  compared  with  145  girls.  Of  boys 
born,  7  die  from  inborn  physical  defects,  as  compared 
with  6  girls.  While,  before  the  age  of  three  months, 
4  boys  die  to  every  3  girls.  Among  1000  infants  dying 
before  they  are  a  year  old,  only  96  are  girls,  as  com- 
pared with  120  boys.  Recent  statistics  show  that  in 
rural  Westmoreland,  48  boys  under  a  year  old  died, 
while  only  21  girls  of  the  same  age  succumbed.  In 
Wiltshire,  the  ratio  was  135  boys  to  78  girls. 

To  quote  from  a  writer  on  these  startling  statistics 
of  the  Registrar-General : — 

"  Tuberculous    diseases,    convulsions,    intestinal 
troubles,    bronchitis    and    pneumonia,    and    other 
maladies,  all  kill  more  boy  than  girl-infants  in  their 
first   year.     The  figures  are   surprising.     Omitting 
fractions,  we  find  that  among  1000  infants  of  each 
sex  21  boys  die  of  intestinal  troubles  to  17  girls; 
10  boys  die  of  convulsions  to  8  girls;    21  boys  die 
from  bronchitis  and  pneumonia  to  17  girls;    and 
14  boys  from  other  causes  to  11  girls.     Whooping- 
cough  stands  alone,  carrying  off  3*15  girls  to  2*65  boys. 
Even  when  chloroform  or  ether  is  given  for  the  pur- 
poses of  an  operation  it  kills  more  boys  than  girls." 
It  may  be  objected  that,  according  to  my  view,  the 
mortality  of  girls,  bred  of  constitutionally  impoverished 
males,  should  likewise  have  increased.     But  this  high 
mortality    among    boy-infants    and    children    must    so 


MASCULINE  MOTHERS  79 

weed  out  the  weakliest  males  that  many  of  these  do 
not  live  to  become  fathers.  Moreover,  by  developing 
into  abnormal  dominance  the  male  potential  in  her, 
the  mother  de-vitalises  sons  more  than  she  de-vitalises 
daughters. 

Further,  these  crude  hoyden-sisters  of  the  weakly 
boys  fail  rather  in  the  higher  attributes  of  Sex  than 
in  mere  survival-power.  They  survive,  but  they  are 
marred  in  type  by  the  stigmata  of  sex-immaturity  or 
abnormality. 

Increasing  sex-impoverishment  is  bringing  into  vogue — 
almost  as  a  matter  of  routine — ^the  performance  on  male 
infants  of  an  unnatural  (and  a  degenerative)  Jewish 
rite. 


IV 

Of  the  many  theories  advanced  to  explain  the  deter- 
mination of  Sex  in  offspring,  the  true  one  is,  undoubtedly, 
the  relative  parental  power  of  the  respective  parents. 

Normally,  this  being  well-balanced,  the  ratio  of  the 
sexes  is  about  equal;  the  preponderance  being  on  the 
male  side,  however,  owing  to  the  maternal  parental 
potential  being  normally  greater,  because  conserved 
by  reason  of  her  less  onerous  role  in  life.  When  parental 
potential  is  relatively  greater  in  the  father,  female 
offspring  is  born.  When  greater  in  the  mother,  male 
offspring  results.  In  the  families  of  men  notably 
virile,  daughters  preponderate.  In  those  of  women 
notably  womanly,  sons  are  in  the  majority.  (Presuming 
in  such  case  the  parent  of  the  other  sex  to  be  of  average 
potence.) 

The  preponderance  of  male-births  during  War-con- 
ditions is  due  to  the  fact  that  by  far  the  greater  stress 
of  these  conditions,  with  consequent  depletion  of  vital 
reserves,  falls  upon  the  males.  Hence  the  women — 
who  although  depleted  likewise  by  the  increased  demands 


80         FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

upon  them,  are  less  vitally  exhausted  than  the  men  are — 
become  relatively  prepotent  in  parental  potential.  The 
more  virile  men  being  absent  on  military  duty,  more- 
over, the  less  virile  members  of  the  sex  it  is  who  pre- 
ponderate in  the  paternal  role. 

Other  parental  factors,  as  of  age,  health  and  circum- 
stance, which  affect  the  sex  of  offspring,  do  so  indirectly 
by  their  effects  upon  the  relative  vital  and  parental 
potential  of  mother  and  father. 

In  corroboration  of  the  view  that  power  conserved 
in  the  mother  engenders  Maleness  and  masculine  vigour 
in  offspring,  I  have  received  the  following  letter  from 
the  Head-mistress  of  the  village-school  of  Corley : 

"  I  was  much  interested  in  your  article  re  Boy- 
hdbies.  I  think  my  school  here  is  unique,  there 
being  86  children  on  the  roll,  of  whom  57  are  boj^s 
and  29,  girls.  And  of  the  children  in  the  village 
who  will  be  of  age  for  admission  this  year,  7  are 
boys  and  3,  girls. 

"  In  the  village  there  are  several  families  com- 
posed of  boys  only. 

One  family  has       7  boys  and  2  girls. 

)>  >>  >>  ^  >>  »}  ^  5> 

Two  families  have  5     „     „      1  girl  each. 

>»  >>  >>  ^      »>      >>        ■*•      j>      >j 

"  Of  one  family  reckoning  6  boys  (1  dead ;  making 

7  in  all)  the  mother  has  but  one  leg — ^the  othei 

having  been  amputated  when  she   was   fourteen.^ 

None  of  the  mothers  here  (so  far  as  I  can  learn)  dc 


*  I  have  observed  that  lameness  in  women,  by  restricting 
physical  activities  and  thus  conserving  vital  energy,  conduces 
to  male  offspring.  The  fact  may  well  have  been  the  origin  o: 
the  Chinese  custom  of  crippling  the  feet  of  female  children.  Ir 
my  own  professional  practice,  by  proliibiting  all  strenuous  anc 
exhausting  pursuits,  intellectual,  social  or  athletic,  before  anc 
after  marriage,  I  have  succeeded  in  securing  male  offspring  ir 
patients  whose  stock  had  for  generations  given  birth  to  girlj 
only.  In  those  organically  de-sexed  by  male  pursuits,  rest  wil 
not  avail,  of  course. — Author. 


MASCULINE  MOTHERS  81 

work  outside  their  homes ;    except  in  odd  cases,   an 
odd  day's  washing  or  cleaning. 

"  None  do  regular  work  on  farms,  or  otherwise, 
"  All  the  children  are  well-fed,  clean  and  well 
clothed.     Our  Medical   Nurse   says   she   finds   the 
finest   babies  here — of   the  whole   of  her   district. 
For  57  years  the  yearly  returns  in   School  have 
shown  a  great  preponderance  of  boys  over  girls." 
The   writer  contrasts   this   Utopian   order  of   things 
mi\i  her  experience  of  the  rickety  and  otherwise  diseased 
md  defective  states  of  school-children  whose  mothers 
tvere  employed  in  factories. 


It  would  seem  that  the  embryological  development 
)f  the  male  brain  and  nervous  system,  it  is  which 
lemands  more  of  vital  expenditure  on  the  part  of  the 
nother  than  does  that  of  the  female  brain ;  less  elabor- 
itely  differentiated  as  is  this  in  respect  of  concrete 
ntellection  and  physical  adaptation. 

For  this  reason,  not  only  is  more  constitutional 
vitality  on  the  mother's  part  required  for  the  produc- 
ion  of  sons — and  more  particularly  of  virile  sons — but 
he  production  of  male  offspring  entails  more  stress, 
md  exacts  a  greater  toll,  physical  and  psychical,  than 
Iocs  the  ante-natal  nurture  of  the  female  embryo, 
^lothers  who  have  borne  female  children  with  but 
ittle  constitutional  strain  or  suffering  may  be  greatly 
lebilitated,  even  invalided,  during  pregnancy  with  male 
)ffspring.  One  finds  women  permanently  weakened 
n  constitution  and  function,  indeed,  from  the  strain 
)f  producing  a  male.  In  such  cases,  the  male  may  be 
exceptional  of  type.  Or  the  mother  may  be  of  excep- 
ionally  low  vitality. 

It  has  been  argued  that  defect  and  degeneracy,  as 
lare-lip,  cleft-palate,  clubbed  or  webbed-foot,  are  more 


82  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

common  in  the  male  because  he  is  normally  less  highly 
developed  than  the  female  is.  The  contrary  is  obviousl; 
the  case.  In  creating  a  difficult  and  a  simpler  thin^ 
there  will  necessarily  be  more  failures  in  the  difficul 
than  in  the  simpler  product.  Being  nearer  to  Nature 
the  female  is  usually  more  true  to  the  normal  type  o 
species.  But  the  type  is  not  so  fully  differentiated 
or  specialised  in  relation  to  environment,  as  is  th 
male. 

It  is  significant  that  the  female  aphis,  when  its  vita 
potential  is  stimulated  by  summer  heat,  is  able  to  bree 
without  co-operation  of  the  male,  but  breeds  female 
only.  Supporting  not  only  the  view  that  the  femal 
is  the  rootstock  of  species,  while  the  male  is,  so  t 
speak,  an  alien  grafted  upon  it,  but  indicating  toe 
that  the  production  of  females  represents  less  outpu 
of  reproductive  energy,  since  one  sex  alone  is  able  t 
accomplish  this. 

VI 

Absence  both  of  womanly  emotion  and  of  spirituj 
attribute  disqualifies  the  faces  of  the  greater  numbe 
of  our  modern  "  beauties  "  from  being  truly  beautifu 
They  lack  those  last  exquisite  touches  which  psychics 
qualities  bestow;  sweetness,  tenderness,  gaiety,  per 
siveness,  mystery,  mockery,  witchery,  wistfulness,  sui 
render,  resistance,  maidenhood,  motherhood  —  th 
celestial  and  the  terrestrial  melting  into  one  anothe 
like  the  colours  of  the  rainbow. 

Since  evolution  is  advancing  in  some  stock,  moder 
beauty  is,  no  doubt,  of  higher  calibre  than  has  bee 
attained  in  any  previous  epoch.  But  for  the  most  par 
the  faces  of  our  handsome  women  are  pre-eminentl 
pagan — bold,  sophisticated,  clever;  without  sweetnes: 
softness,  imagination,  sensitiveness — in  a  word,  withoi: 
Soul.     The  outlines,  howsoever  fine,  are  hard  and  ant 


MASCULINE  MOTHERS  83 

pathetic  in  their  uncompromising  firmness.  The  eyes 
are  cold  and  critical  and  challenging,  so  that  their 
relentless  gaze  is  sometimes  rather  of  the  nature  of  a 
blow  than  it  is  a  sympathy. 

Owing  to  that  setting  of  the  jaw  which  attends  strong 
muscular  action,  the  shaping  bones  of  the  faces  of 
developing  girls  thicken  and  coarsen,  and  the  naturally 
delicate,  beautiful  contours  of  chin  and  of  cheek  deteri- 
orate to  the  crude  and  heavy  lower  jaws  characteristic 
of  a  very  large  order  of  the  sex  to-day. 

The  weak  receding,  or  the  sharply-pointed  chin  of 
the  over-feminised  type — both  early- Victorian  and 
modern — errs  in  the  other  direction.  To  give  fine 
balance  to  the  face  and  form — as  to  the  mind — ^the 
Male  traits  must  be  duly  represented.  These  broaden 
and  strengthen  the  curves,  and  preserve  them  from 
lapsing  to  narrowness  and  feebleness;  lending  touches 
of  straightness  and  firmness  which  nobly  enhance  the 
graces.  In  excess,  they  mar  and  deface,  however;  as 
is  exemplified  in  the  strong  and  slovenly  features,  with- 
out drawing  or  delicacy,  which  characterise  the  new 
type  of  girl  being  turned  out  by  our  schools  and  colleges, 
most  of  which  make  now-a-days  a  speciality  of  sports. 
Similar  heavy  jaws  and  blunt,  amorphous  features  are 
replacing  in  our  working-girls,  de-sexed  by  masculine 
employments,  the  classic,  nobly-modelled  lineaments 
which  made  our  Anglo-Saxon  Race  once  the  most  beauti- 
ful, as  it  was  the  most  vigorous  and  enterprising,  of  the 
nations.  Such  faces  may  be  deplorably  senseless  for 
the  sense — and  lack  of  sensibility — in  them. 

The  facial  type  of  the  opposite  extreme  is  ultra- 
feminine — a  cameo -like  reversion  to  an  earlier  Victorian 
physiognomy,  to  which  several  generations  of  mothers 
have  failed  to  add  any  new  quality.  But,  unlike  its 
Victorian  prototype,  the  modern  ultra-feminine  face 
lacks  blood  and  emotion,  and  shows  like  a  faded  attenu- 
ation  thereof.     The   cold,   delicate  features,  with   the 


84  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

pinched  nostrils  which,  owing  to  adenoid  obstruction 
have  never  expanded  to  a  full,  inspiring  breath  of  Life 
suggest  further  cameo -comparison ;  as  being  the  daintily 
carven  shell  of  an  extinct  creature. 

So  devitalised  and  neurasthenic  are  many  of  oui 
pretty  young  girls,  that  their  flowerlike  faces,  topping 
over-tall  and  undeveloped  bodies,  suggest  delicate 
blossoms  crowning  long  attenuated,  sapless  stems 
Neither  faces  nor  bodies  are  vitalised  and  athrill  witl 
powers  rooted  in  healthful  organs ;  vivified  by  healthf u 
functions,  and  instinct  with  warm,  iron-rich,  magnetic 
blood.  They  show  that  making  for  beauty  which  ii 
inherent  in  the  Woman-traits,  but  which,  in  latter-da] 
girls,  owing  to  defective  constitutional  vigour  or  t( 
educational,  social  or  industrial  exhaustion,  has  beei 
able  to  realise  itself  only  in  sickly  and  weed-lik( 
development. 

Life  manifests  in  these  neurotics  in  the  form  o 
vivacities  merely;   not  as  vitalities. 

Severed  from  their  natural  roots  in  Life  and  vita 
function,  they  resemble  nothing  more  than  charming 
cut-blossoms  gracefully  fading  on  drawing-room  shelves 

The  truth  is  that  girls  brought  up  on  modern  strenuou; 
methods  skip  the  years  between  16  and  26.  If  youn^ 
and  fresh  at  16,  all  at  once  we  find  them  26  in  con 
stitution  and  in  temperament — a  little  lean,  a  littL 
lined,  a  little  wan,  a  little  shrill,  a  little  chill,  and  onh 
too  often  more  than  a  little  disillusioned  and  cynical— 
in  a  word  already  passSes,  Some  are,  of  course,  ai 
interesting  and  attractive  26,  but  the  fresh,  warm 
vital  and  beautiful  years  from  17  to  27,  the  years  o 
a  natural  woman's  most  charming  bloom  of  mind  anc 
body,  have  dropped  from  their  lives,  like  petals  fron 
roses.  So  that  our  girls  in  their  'teens  require  to  hidi 
the  ravages  of  time  by  every  sort  of  artifice.  And  a 
26  in  years,  they  are  approaching  the  forties  in  con 
stitution  and  temperament;    are  even  keen  on  politics 


MASCULINE  MOTHERS  85 

cards,   finance — resorts,   pre-eminently,  of  materialistic 
middle-age. 

This  blighting  of  young  womanhood,  with  loss  of 
youthful  bloom  and  responsiveness,  it  is  that  has  led 
to  the  decadent  and  demoralising  vogue  of  the  Flapper. 
Since,  beyond  all  things,  men  seek  vital  youth  and 
freshness  in  the  other  sex,  to  find  it  now-a-days,  they 
must  seek  it  in  children. 


VII 

Deplorable  are  the  degenerative  processes  by  way  of 
which  those  noble  natural  characteristics  of  the  Woman- 
sex  which  Nature  has  achieved  by  ages  of  evolutionary 
advance  may  be  observed  to  lapse,  and  are  presently 
all  but  obliterated  from  the  woman  form  and  face. 

Increasingly  the  curves  straighten;  the  conflict 
between  straight  lines  and  curves  occasioning  wrinkles. 
The  jaw  squares.  The  lips  lose  womanly  fullness, 
sweetness,  and  their  natural  colour  and  texture  of  rose- 
leaves;  becoming  thin  and  pale  and  stern.  Shadows 
gather  round  them,  foreshadowing,  it  may  be,  a  mascu- 
line growth  of  hair.  Hair  loses  lustre  and  grows  sparse, 
particularly  above  the  brows.  The  chin  loses  its  feminine 
softness;  rigidity  and  grimness  being  substituted. 
Eyes  lose  fullness,  tenderness,  brilliance,  and  woman's 
normal  melting  expression.  The  glance  grows  chill, 
hard,  shrewd,  direct.  Crowsfeet  mar  the  modelled  lids. 
The  serene,  inspiring  woman-brows  are  furrowed  by 
the  permanent  frown  of  eye-strain  or  of  nervous  tension. 
The  voice  falls  flat  and  metallic,  or  drops  into  gruffness 
and  harshness;  losing  its  delicate  tuneful  inflections, 
its  sympathetic  timbre,  its  joyous  quality.  The  cheeks 
hollow ;  the  white  temples  are  wrecked. 

In  the  faces  of  women  whose  systems  are  functioning 
healthfully,  a  number  of  exquisite  artistries  in  cellular 
texture  of  skin  and  in  tinting  appear;  the  skin  beneath 


86         FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

the  eyes  differing  from  that  of  the  cheeks,  that  of  the 
brows  differing  from  that  of  the  chin,  that  above  the 
mouth  from  that  below,  and  so  forth.  In  women  sub- 
jected to  constitutional  strain,  all  these  exquisite  artistic 
differentiations — product  of  incalculable  evolutionary 
developments — are  obliterated ;  the  skin  over  the  whole 
face  becoming  of  the  same  grain  and  hue,  as  is  normal 
to  the  male.  The  body  becomes  spare  and  sinewy, 
or  set  and  spread;  its  movements  heavy  and  abrupt. 
And  more  and  more  the  hidden  male  emerges  from  the 
wreckage.  The  male  right  arm,  swinging  like  a  pendulum, 
suggests  itself  as  being  the  motive-power  of  the  ungraceful 
mechanism. 

With  the  increasing  maleness  of  physique,  male  mental 
proclivities  develop;  obsessions  to  wear  trolisers,  to 
smoke,  to  stride,  to  kill,  and  otherwise  to  indulge  the 
masculine  bent. 

«  >|c  *  *  ♦  *  . 

It  may  be  objected  that  Beauty  takes  too  high  a 
place  in  the  counsels  of  this  book.  Beauty  is  Normality, 
however.  Nature,  in  her  every  aim  and  handiwork, 
makes  beyond  every  other  thing  for  grace.  Weed  and 
moth,  shell  and  beetle,  humming-bird  and  dragon-fly — 
all  are  lovely  in  technique  and  artistry.  Plainness  and 
uncouthness  in  humans  only  too  often  belie  noble  mind 
or  disposition.  This  results,  however,  from  such  failure 
of  vital  resources  that  the  individual  had  fine  material 
only  to  equip  his  mind,  and  none  left  over  to  adorn  his 
body. 

One  sees  the  converse  too,  where  all  the  available 
potential  of  beauty  has  been  lavished  on  handsome 
exteriors. 

Plainness  is  a  mark  of  abnormality.  The  victim  may 
be  normal  in  other  respects.  But  in  this,  he  or  she  is 
abnormal.  And  more  particularly  she — since  Woman 
is  both  medium  and  Creatrix  of  living  harmony  and 
grace.     So  is  comeliness  declining,  however,  that  one 


MASCULINE  MOTHERS  87 

of  the  specifications  of  a  recent  Baby-Competition  was 
that  beauty  would  not  be  a  necessary  qualification. 

Yet  Beauty  is  the  natural  birthright  and  The  Normal 
of  all  babes  and  children. 


VIII 

The  Male  cult  is  impressed  now  at  the  earliest  age. 
Some  of  our  hapless  little  girls,  in  consequence  of  having 
been  subjected  early  to  strain  of  masculine  drill,  hockey, 
cricket  and  other  rough  and  strenuous  exertions,  are 
more  like  colts  or  smaller-sized  bullocks  in  their  crude 
conformation  and  ungainly  movements,  as  also  in  their 
crude  mentality  and  manners,  than  they  are  like  charming 
human  maids. 

Few  developments  in  life  are  prettier  or  more  engaging 
than  is  a  natural  little  girl.  The  sex  of  her,  with  its 
fair  Woman-attributes,  reveals  itself  early  in  children 
of  high  organisation.  Crowned  by  her  curls,  in  her 
simple  white  frock,  she  is  as  fresh  and  dainty,  as  winsome 
and  elusive  as  a  fairy.  Her  little  Woman-soul  begins 
to  make  for  beauty  ere  ever  she  can  walk.  Ere  ever 
she  can  walk,  she  moves  her  limbs  in  rhythm  of  the 
dance.  She  tries  to  sing.  She  stretches  out  a  tiny 
finger  and  reverently  touches  a  bright  colour — a  blue 
ribbon,  a  gold  button,  a  pink  flower  on  a  chintz.  Set 
her  in  a  field,  she  runs  to  cram  her  hands  with  daisies. 
She  fills,  within  the  House  of  Life,  an  exquisite  small 
niche  that  nothing  else  can  fill. 

Yet  now  they  are  cropping  her  fair  curls,  are  exchang- 
ing her  white  frock  for  masculine  knickers.  They  are 
training  her  soft  limbs  and  exquisite  elastic  movements 
to  the  hard  and  rigid  action  of  the  soldiers'  drill  and 
march;  are  teaching  her  to  stride  her  pony  that  once 
she  sat  as  prettily  and  lightly  as  a  bird;  are  making 
a  hard,  boisterous  tom-boy  of  her,   with  lusty,  hairy 


88  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

limbs  and  uncouth  manners ;  perverting  all  her  natura 
highly- differentiated  delicate  attributes  and  graces  tc 
clumsy  lower-grade  form  and  activities. 

They  have  robbed  her  of  her  Doll,  whose  helplessnesj 
and  wax  perfection  fostered  sentiments  of  worship, 
tenderness  and  ministry  in  her.  They  have  given  hei 
a  whipping-top,  which — ^unlike  the  boy,  who  pleasures 
in  the  skill  and  mechanism  of  its  handling — she  lashes 
with  contorted  features  and  neurotic  spitefulness. 

With  characteristic  scorn  of  physical  disability, 
Feminism  contemns  old  age  as  disease  or  degeneracy — 
a  weakness  to  be  combated  with  latter-day  strenuous- 
ness,  cloaked  by  a  counterfeit  youthfulness,  forced 
exertions  (even  games  !)  simulated  youthful  zests  and 
gaieties. 

Beyond  all  things,  women  are  exhorted  not  to  allow 
themselves  to  "  grow  old  "  as  their  grandmothers  did, 
sitting,  comely  and  tranquil  and  wise,  at  their  quiet 
firesides. 

Yet  the  truth  is,  Age  is  a  natural  beautiful  phase; 
in  its  way,  as  natural,  as  healthful  and  as  beautiful  as 
are  any  of  the  younger  seasons.  Calm  and  stately  as 
the  snows  of  Nature's  winter,  as  Nature's  winter  shows 
us,  old  age  does  not  presage  death — because  there  is  no 
Death.  That  we  call  Death  is  but  a  temporary  Reces- 
sion from  the  Outer  and  Terrestrial  to  the  Inner  and 
Celestial  zone  of  Being.  And  with  the  vital  quietude  and 
longer-sightedness  of  eyes,  come  spiritual  quickening 
and  longer-sightedness  of  mental  view.  So  that  both  eyes 
and  mind  perceive  The  Outer  more  and  more  obscurely, 
focusing  more  and  more  on  The  Remote.  The  stream 
of  life  runs  stilly  for  the  reason  that  it  runs  more  deep ; 
centring  again  to  that  Within  and  Spiritual,  whence  it 
issued  in  Birth,  and  will  issue  again  in  re-Birth. 

Compare   such   serene-faced,  dignified   age,  cause   to 
all  of  reverence  and  tenderness,  for  the  mystery  and 


MASCULINE  MOTHERS  89 

pathos  of  its  wise  and  tranquil  resignation — Compare 
such  with  the  restless,  harried,  malcontent  old  age  of 
modern  counsels  ! 


IX 

Before  the  advent  of  that  admirable  institution, 
the  Eugenics  Education  Society,  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  new  Science  of  Heredity,  as,  too,  of  a  new 
propaganda  of  Race-Culture,  vital  and  illuminating  data, 
not  only  of  supreme  scientific  interest  but,  moreover, 
of  the  greatest  practical  significance,  passed,  for  the 
most  part,  unnoted. 

I  venture  to  believe,  however,  that  Eugenic  propa- 
ganda has  been  too  much  in  the  direction  of  eliminating 
defect  from  the  Race  by  prohibiting  marriage  to  the 
so-called  "  Unfit."  Whereas  the  true  way  of  Racial 
health,  of  normality  and  excellence,  is,  surely,  to  elimi- 
nate from  life  the  many  conditions,  material,  economic, 
and  personal,  which  make  for  Unfitness — ^which  pre- 
clude, indeed,  the  survival  of  little  save  Unfitness. 

For  since  we  are  not  in  the  secret  of  Nature's  aims, 
and  are  wholly  in  the  dark  as  to  the  human  type  for 
which  she  is  aiming,  to  prohibit  parenthood  to  any  but 
the  flagrantly  abnormal,  the  insane  and  imbecile,  the 
epileptic  and  the  hopelessly-diseased,  might  be  to 
quench  the  evolution  of  such  higher  Fitness  as  we  are 
not  qualified  to  foresee.  That  which  shows  like  dis- 
ability in  one  age  may  be  the  incipient  ability  of  a 
later.  In  cruder,  primitive  days,  when  standards  of 
Fitness  were  physical  strength,  rapacity  and  cunning, 
honesty  and  mercy,  and  more  delicate  organisation  of 
body — ^the  starting-points  of  new  routes  of  evolutionary 
development — would  have  been  condemned  as  worthy 
only  of  extermination. 

In  sickly  and  declining  stock  there  may  exist,  more- 


90  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

over,  an  ebbing  vein  of  rare  faculty,  which,  re-vitalised 
by  a  due  potential  of  maternal  re-creative  power,  might 
come  to  throb  with  genius. 

Realising  all  the  factors — ^the  innumerable  lives,  the 
incalculable  personal  traits,  endeavours  and  experiences, 
that  have  gone  to  make  the  Individualism  of  any 
strain  of  stock,  and  realising  that  just  these  factors  of 
Individualism  can  have  occurred  in  one  line  only  of 
human  ascent  and  can  never  be  repeated,  it  becomes 
clear  that  summarily  to  extinguish  any  human  strain, 
by  arbitrary  prohibition,  would  be  to  exterminate  a 
unique  branch  of  the  great  Life-tree,  and  thereby  to 
deprive  the  Race  of  a  specialised  route  of  further  ascent ; 
a  route  which  no  other  stock  could  supply. 

The  fact  that  great  families,  with  great  histories 
and  talents  behind  them,  fall  into  decadence  shows  that 
even  in  decadent  stock  are  inherences  of  greatness 
which  might  be  recruited  to  greatness  again.  While 
apart  from  all  this,  the  right  of  Parenthood,  with  the 
evolutionary  impulse  to  character  and  faculty  conse- 
quent upon  the  exercise  of  parental  functions,  is  the 
birthright  of  every  individual  capable  of  fulfilling  such. 
The  counsel  of  Selective  Parenthood  is  dangerous 
doctrine,  indeed.  Given  Life,  Nature  by  her  methods  of 
Disease  is  able  to  eliminate  stock  too  deteriorate  for, 
or  beside  her  purpose.  But  she  alone  knows  her  pur- 
pose. And  she  alone  can  judge  as  to  what  is  intrinsic 
Fitness  for  Survival. 

Selective  Parenthood  makes,  moreover,  for  the  elimi- 
nation of  those  valuable  object-lessons  of  inherited 
defect  and  disease,  whereby  Nature  points  her  inestim- 
able morals  of  healthy  and  disciplined  living.  For 
evasion,  too,  of  those  penalties  and  burdens  in  the  care 
and  maintenance  of  the  Unfit,  which  a  nation  justly 
incurs  by  such  social  wrongs  and  maladministrations 
as  are  largely  responsible  for  disease  and  defect. 

The   doctrine  of  operative   sterilisation   is  not   only 


MASCULINE  MOTHERS  91 

humanly  repugnant  but,  in  view  of  the  psychological 
import  of  every  physical  function,  it  is  essentially 
evil. 


X 

Some  momentous  morals  of  the  Feminist  trend  are 
pointed  by  the  Insect-world,  which  may  be  regarded 
as  a  devolutionary  back-water,  wherein  Life  is  slowly 
ebbing  toward  extinction  by  fluctuating  out  in  ever 
smaller,  meaner,  drabber,  ineffective,  pulseless  and 
spectral  existences — chill  and  teeming  myriads  un warmed 
by  the  throb  of  emotion,  unillumined  by  the  light  of 
Mind.  Dust  which,  raised  from  dust  by  power  of  Life, 
has  caught  the  trick  of  living,  and  goes  on  living  and 
perpetuating,  without  cause  or  impulse  other  than 
age-old,  time-worn  mechanistic  habit  imparted  by  the 
state  of  living. 

And  in  this  phantom  under-world  of  Decadence,  cast 
by  the  shadow  of  Life  and  peopled  with  distorted 
images  thereof,  the  females  are  Dominant — larger  in 
size,  stronger,  more  active,  more  enterprising  and 
ferocious  than  the  males.  As  in  the  world  of  Vegeta- 
tion, by  way  whereof  Matter  first  quickened  into  Life, 
so  in  this  realm  of  Insectivorce  by  way  of  which  Life 
is  gravitating  back  to  the  inertia  of  Inorganic  Matter, 
in  ever  shallower,  denser  and  more  sluggish  strata,  the 
male  is  seen  as  appanage  and  victim  of  the  female. 

In  the  beehive,  he  appears  as  ineffective  drone  amid 
a  throng  of  strenuous  neuter  female- workers.  And  a 
female  is  his  Queen. 

Significant  again  is  it  that  insect-females  are  seen 
increasingly  to  have  emancipated  themselves  from 
mother-instincts  and  maternal  functions,  as  regards 
nurture  or  affection  for  their  young.  The  single  process 
wherein   the   warring   males   and   snarling   females   of 


92  FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

finer  fierce,  evolving  species  sheathe  their  claws  and 
mute  their  hates  in  a  co-operative,  self-effacing  instinct — 
Reproduction,  here  in  this  disintegrating  world  of 
Devolution,  functions  without  welding  spark,  or  lighting 
gleam  of  parent-altruism.  At  best,  it  is  as  chill,  as 
colourless  and  meticulously  mechanical  as  the  intermin- 
able tickings  of  a  world  of  clockwork.  At  worst,  it  is 
a  repulsive  rapacity  on  the  part  of  females  to  secure 
perpetuation.  And  this  secured,  they  straightway  sting 
the  craven  male  to  death,  or  tear  him  limb  from  limb 
and  ghoulishly  devour  him. 

Queen  Bee  leads  her  vassal  suitors  so  strenuous  and 
dizzying  an  ante-nuptial  dance,  for  privilege  of  mating 
with  her,  that  only  one  survives  to  claim  the  prize; 
the  others  dropping,  dead  and  dying,  in  the  wake  of  her 
murderous  supremacy.  And,  as  with  other  masculine 
and  muscular  females,  her  progeny  are  neuter  working- 
females  (sterile)  and  emasculate  males  (drones). 

As  Feminists  demand  for  human  babes,  the  Bee- 
mother  hands  over  her  offspring  to  be  brought  up  by 
the  State.  While  some  other  insect-mothers,  having 
reposited  their  eggs  (to  serve  as  bombs  that  explode 
and  devastate  their  living  hosts)  straightway  abandon 
them,  and  return  to  the  more  strenuous  and  repulsive 
female-pursuits  of  this  Phantasmagoria-world — a  clock- 
work kingdom  fabricated  of  Life's  debris,  and  drably 
mimicking  the  throb  and  motion  of  its  mechanism  in 
ghoulish  mockeries  and  vacuous  reiterations;  the  while 
it  runs  down  slowly,  ticking  back  to  the  molecular 
vibration  of  mineral  inertia. 

END    OF   BOOK   I 

Note. — Mendelian  and  other  readers  interested  in  the 
more  scientific  aspects  of  the  subject  are  referred  to  an 
Appendix  at  the  end  of  this  volume,  in  which  these  issues 
are  further  considered  and  some  important  evidences 
adduced. 


BOOK  II 

WOMAN'S  PART  IN   HUMAN  DECADENCE 


CHAPTER  I 

DECLINE    AND    FALL    OF    ANCIENT    CIVILISATIONS    DUE    TO 

FEMINISM 

"  This  is  the  function  of  our  and  every  age,  to  grasp  the  know- 
ledge already  existing,  to  make  it  our  own,  and  in  so  doing  to 
develop  it  further  and  raise  it  to  a  higher  level.  In  thus  taking 
it  to  ourselves  we  make  it  different  from  what  it  was." — Hegel. 


Ancient  history  is  depressing  study. 

It  shows  us  peoples  rising  slowly  and  laboriously 
out  of  states  of  barbarism  to  high  degrees  of  culture  and 
enlightenment,  and  then,  more  or  less  suddenly,  falling 
upon  decline;  lapsing  to  total  extinction,  even.  One 
after  another,  we  may  watch  them  climb  the  Evolu- 
tionary Hill,  then  slacken  pace  and  struggle  on  spas- 
modically. Till  presently  we  find  them  steadily  losing 
ground;  slowly  at  first,  but,  gathering  momentum, 
regressing  more  and  more  rapidly,  until  finally  they  are 
seen  racing  headlong  to  destruction. 

Of  some  among  the  proudest  and  the  greatest  Civilisa- 
tions, so  absolute  has  been  their  ultimate  extinction 
that  nothing  more  than  ruined  temples  and  some  statuary 
remain  to  mark  their  quondam  glory. 

Biologists  tell  us  this  is  natural.  Races,  they  say — 
like  individuals — ^have  only  a  certain  life-tenure.  They 
are  born,  develop,  attain  maturity,  lapse  to  old  age 
and  then  die;    just  as  men  do. 

The  analogy  is  not  sound,  however.  Because  although 
individual  men  die,  the  stock  they  leave  behind,  if  duly 
preserved  and  replenished  by  fresh  blood,  may  live 
indefinitely.     Moreover,   such  records  as  remain   show 

95 


96    ,    FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

that  these  past  civilisations  died,  obviously,  not  of 
natural  old  age — but  of  disease.  Natural  old  age  is  sane 
and  wise,  and  self -controlled ;  healthful  in  mind  and 
in  body.  Whereas  the  main  features  characterising  the 
decline  of  these  great  powers,  were  viciousness  and  licen- 
tiousness; physical,  mental  and  moral  corruption. 
Theirs  was  no  passing  in  gradual  waning  of  strength 
and  quiet  dissolution ;  not  even  in  senility.  They  may 
be  described,  on  the  contrary,  as  having  rushed  helter- 
skelter  upon  death  in  full  vigour  of  their  prime.  We  see 
in  them,  indeed,  all  the  vehemence  and  self-destructive 
forces  of  "  sthenic  "  disease — disease  as  it  occurs  in 
strong  men  struck  down  in  full  health.  They  died  in 
riot,  venality,  and  lust,  and  every  other  form  of  vice  and 
evil.  Clearly,  they  died  unnaturally — of  disease,  not 
naturally  of  old  age. 

How  and  why  then  did  this  happen  ?  How  and  why 
should  disease  thus  have  stricken  these  in  mid-career? 
Since  history  shows  the  political  institutions,  the  laws 
and  the  administration  of  many  of  such  mighty  decadents 
to  have  reached  high  levels  of  excellence,  in  respect  of 
justice  and  intelligence,  while  Culture,  Art  and  Industry 
were  likewise  notable  among  them,  the  causes  of  their 
downfall  must  be  looked  for  elsewhere  than  in  their 
sociology. 

And  since  all  human  processes,  sociological  as  well 
as  natural,  have  their  roots  in  Biology,  we  are  led  to 
examine  such  records  as  remain,  for  evidences  of  biological 
failure.  Healthy  and  vigorous  races  do  not  decline  in 
consequence  of  unjust  laws  or  maladministration.  If 
they  are  healthy  and  vigorous,  they  reform  these. 


II 

Investigation  shows  one  striking  feature  as  having 
been  common  to  most  of  these  great  decadences.  In 
nearly  every  case,  the  dominance  and  licence  of  their 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATIONS  97 

women  were  conspicuous.  And  realising  Woman's 
portentous  role  in  Racial  advance,  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
anything  but  that  her  role  must  be  equally  potent  in 
Racial  decline. 

A  nation  becomes  decadent  because  the  individuals 
composing  it  have  become  decadent.  The  individuals 
composing  it  can  only  have  become  progressively  deca- 
dent by  progressive  hereditary  decadences.  And  since 
Woman  is  the  racial  reservoir  and  the  Agency  of  Evolu- 
tion, hereditary  decline  of  individuals  and  nations  must 
have  its  source  in  a  decline  of  mother-power. 

History  confirms  this  view.  It  shows  the  progress 
and  waxing  supremacy  of  these  great  powers  to  have 
been  concurrent  with  rising  levels  of  womanly  character 
and  virtue,  with  high  regard  for  woman  by  man,  with 
high  estimation  and  observance  by  woman  of  the  func- 
tions of  motherhood  and  of  The  Home.  While  neglect 
of  the  home,  contempt  for  and  evasion  of  the  duties  of 
motherhood,  immorality  and  general  licence  among  their 
women  characterised  their  downfall. 

And  comparing  some  modern  developments  with  these 
records  of  Ruin,  one  can  but  be  struck  by  notable  resem- 
blances between  these  latter  and  the  present-day  trend 
of  all  our  greater  civilisations. 

In  the  decline  of  Rome,  the  Roman  women  went  to 
two  extremes.  A  tendency  that  shows  increasingly 
among  our  modern  womanhood.  They  separated  into 
two  main  orders.  "  Blue-stocking  "  and  "  Rake,"  they 
were  then  designated.  "Mannish"  and  "Womanish," 
or  "  Feminist  "  and  "  Ultra-Feminine,"  better  charac- 
terise their  latter-day  presentments. 

In  America,  these  two  orders  of  women  are  known 
as  the  "  College  "  and  the  "  Society  "  types,  respectively. 
The  "  College  "  type  makes  a  cult  of  masculinity  of  body 
and  of  brain.  The  "  Society  "  type  makes  a  cult  of 
feminine  graces  and  social  accomplishments. 


98  FEMINISM   AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

In  the  poorer,  as  in  the  superior  classes  of  all  nations, 
similar  extremes  are  found.  One  order  is  virile  and 
hard-working;  and  for  the  most  part  plain  and  moral. 
The  other  is  womanish  and  pretty;  and  for  the  most 
part  frail. 

With  us — as  with  those  earlier  peoples — ^the  demand 
for  liberty  and  unrestricted  economic  opportunities  for 
women  is  occasioning  contempt  for  and  evasion  of  the 
functions  of  wife  and  of  mother,  emancipation  from  the 
home,  increasing  absorption  in  public  affairs,  fever  for 
pleasure,  lapse  of  womanly  traditions  and  morale.  All 
of  which  developments  passed  rapidly,  in  those  others, 
into  general  laxity,  licence  and  corruption ;  culminating 
finally  in  total  ruin.  With  them,  the  claims  of  Home  and 
of  The  Family  became,  as  they  are  becoming  more  and 
more  with  us,  secondary  merely  and  subsidiary  to  other 
pursuits;  to  personal  ambitions,  public  careers,  to 
pleasures,  excitements,  crazes  for  notoriety.  Woman's 
inherent  erraticism — defect  of  her  intrinsic  spontaneity, 
her  bent  for  novelty  and  strong  sensation — degener- 
ated, under  the  licence  accorded  her  in  ancient  Rome, 
into  the  appalling  orgies  of  The  Bacchanalia;  which 
were  instituted  by  the  sex. 

Women  attended  the  displays  of  gladiators.  They 
watched  the  wild  beasts  tear  their  victims.  They 
themselves  dressed  as  gladiators,  and  held  mimic  com- 
bats.    By  cult  of  muscle,  they  grew  taller  than  the  men. 

Sallust  writes  thus  of  a  notorious  Roman  matron  : 

"  Sempronia  had  committed  many  crimes  of  a  boldness 
worthy  of  a  man.  Blest  alike  in  family  and  beauty,  in 
husband  and  children,  she  was  well-read  in  Greek  and 
Roman  literature;  could  sing,  play  and  dance  more 
gracefully  than  any  honest  woman  need ;  had  many  of 
the  other  accomplishments  of  a  riotous  life.  She  cared 
for  nothing  less  than  for  decency  and  modesty." 

Fifty  years  later,  Seneca  takes  up  the  story  of  a  rapid 
decadence :    "  The  ladies  do  not  reckon  the  years  by  the 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATIONS  99 

number  of  the  Consuls,  but  by  the  number  of  their 
husbands." 

Much  the  same  Hcence,  extravagance  and  viciousness 
of  the  sex  characterised  the  greater  number  of  those 
other  old-world  wreckages. 

The  higher  Woman -attributes  ceased  to  evolve; 
ceased  to  be  exercised;  ceased  to  inspire.  Women 
cultivated  solely,  or  pre-eminently,  the  male-side  of  their 
natures ;  muscle,  intellect,  ambition,  concrete  activities, 
indulgence  of  sex-instincts.  By  power  of  which  mascu- 
line and  alien  proclivities,  they  increasingly  dominated 
the  men,  in  whom  the  virile  traits  had  proportionally 
declined.  Thus,  more  and  more,  the  purifying,  uplifting 
and  inspiring  potence  of  true  Womanhood,  together 
with  the  softening  refinements  of  The  Home,  became 
ever  further  withdrawn  from  the  national  life.  Thus 
corruption  undermined;    and  chaos  finally  engulfed. 

Ill 

Things  were  different  in  Ancient  Greece. 

It  has  been  said  that  Greece  fell  because  she  did  not 
give  her  women  liberty.  For  a  time  comes,  in  the 
development  of  every  nation,  when  its  women  must  be 
freed.  Or  decadence  sets  in  inevitably.  And  some  of 
those  old  civilisations  declined,  undoubtedly,  from  lack 
of  progress  in  this  respect. 

It  would  seem  that  the  first  sips  of  liberty  require 
to  be  administered  to  the  sex  with  caution,  however ;  the 
effects  observed  carefully,  the  doses  increased  warily. 
Otherwise,  impulsive  and  impressionable  as  they  are, 
women  lose  their  heads ;  become  intoxicated,  and  get  out 
of  hand.  And  once  women  get  out  of  hand,  it  is  next  to 
impossible  to  bring  them  again  under  control  (as  was 
seen  in  the  outbreaks  of  Feminist  militancy).  Civilisa- 
tion forbidsthat  men  shall  deal  with  them  as  with  mascu- 
line rebels.    And  fenced  thus  behind  the  privileges  of 


100        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

their  own  sex,  when  armed  with  the  prerogatives  of  the 
other,  they  may  prove  dangerously  difficult  customers. 

In  ancient  Greece,  the  wives  and  mothers  and  the 
other  reputable  women  had  but  little  or  no  freedom. 
They  lived,  for  the  most  part,  in  seclusion;  dull  and 
unintelligent  and  uneventful  lives.  There  was  no  pure, 
wholesome,  and  inspiring  social  life.  The  only  women 
who  were  free  were  the  hetairai,  those  famous  ladies  who 
shed  a  lurid  brilliance  over  the  corruption  and  decline 
of  this  great  State — a  decline  wherewith  they  had,  most 
certainly,  much  to  do.  A  faction  apart  from  the  wives 
and  mothers — although  many  among  them  were  courte- 
sans, they  stood  apart  too  from  the  courtesan  class. 
Women  who  had  found  in  the  unf reed  state  of  the  wife 
and  mother  of  their  epoch,  inadequate  scope  for  their 
impulses  and  talents,  they  broke  away  from  domestic 
conditions,  to  form  a  coterie  of  free  lances — a  cultured, 
brilliant  and  alluring  band  of  renegades,  sought  and 
esteemed  for  their  beauty  and  intelligence  by  all  men; 
aristocrat,  philosopher,  and  pleasure-seeker. 

More  likely  than  that  Greece  fell  because  she  did  not 
emancipate  her  women,  it  is  that  she  fell  because  the 
women  who  emancipated  themselves  abandoned  the 
roles  of  wife,  of  mother,  and  other  reputable  functions. 
For  these  Grecian  hetairai  comprised,  in  the  main,  the 
flower  of  their  generation.  One  sees  them,  indeed,  as 
brilliant  Racial  poison-blossoms,  greedily  appropriating 
and  exploiting  to  their  own  purposes  the  nation's  beauty 
and  the  nation's  talent,  its  aspirations,  potence,  passion — 
without  transmitting  any  of  these  racial  attainments  to 
a  later  generation.  In  place  of  endowing  their  kind 
with  such  nobler  light  and  faculty,  inspiration  and  sweet- 
ness, as  supply  a  people's  evolutionary  impulse,  they 
abandoned  the  home  and  the  sacred  and  spiritualising 
functions  of  true  wifehood,  and  of  the  motherhood  of 
such  higher  living  types  as  are  indispensable  to  lead  a 
nation's  progress. 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATIONS  101 

A  kindred  movement — modified,  for  the  present,  by 
the  more  enlightened  traditions  of  our  Century — is 
foreshadowing  itself  across  the  higher  civilisations  of  our 
day.  More  and  more,  our  better  types  of  women  (the 
misinterpretations  of  the  Feminist  Movement  having 
imparted  a  distorted  bias  and  direction  to  their  powers) 
are  similarly  abandoning  the  Home,  or  are  withdrawing 
their  best  interests  and  talents  from  it;  are  evading 
wholly,  or  are  gravely  restricting  their  maternal  obliga- 
tions to  the  Race;  regarding  children  as  bye-products, 
merely,  of  life — vastly  less  important  than  some  hobby 
or  career.  In  place  of  realising  the  new  generation  as 
the  Vanguard  of  Life  and  Evolution ;  that  which  beyond 
every  other  human  achievement  counts  in  the  Universe. 

Worse  than  this  even,  more  and  more,  everywhere, 
women  are  failing  in  the  maternal  power  of  transmitting 
to  offspring  the  health,  the  beauty,  the  abilities  and 
aspirations  which  are  the  model  and  ideals  of  our  age. 

IV 

A  menace  to  the  Race  more  alarming  than  that  of  the 
hard  and  mannish  woman  (who,  because  of  her  lack  of 
womanly  attractiveness,  is  debarred,  in  considerable 
degree,  from  marriage)  is  another  and  less  ungraciously 
obvious  deviation  from  The  Normal — an  order  of  the 
sex,  modern  and  artificial,  and  rapidly  increasing  in 
number,  over-civilised  and  highly-feminised  both  of 
physique  and  of  temperament,  which  may  be  described 
as  an  Ultra-Feminine,  or,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
Feminist,  as  a  Femininist  order. 

Their  womanhood  but  lightly  rooted  in  neurotic 
systems,  the  women  of  this  sect  are  unstable  and  erratic, 
seeking  distraction  for  their  restless,  ill-balanced  forces, 
in  cards,  crazes,  drugs;,  fads  and  freaks.  Unfitted  for 
wifehood  and  motherhood — some  by  faulty  heredity, 
but  a  far  greater  number  by  educational  strain  and  conse- 


102        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

quent  warp — some  of  these  ultra-feminised  and  frequently 
interesting  creatures  absorb  themselves  feverishly  in 
public  movements;  religious,  social  or  political.  Some 
are  persons  of  irreproachable  morale  and  ideals; 
devoted,  gifted,  wholly  admirable.  And  being  wives  not 
seldom  of  men  as  talented,  it  is  deplorable  that  warp  of 
culture,  unfitting  them  for  motherhood,  should  have 
left  such  to  waste  their  powers  and  aspirations  in  beating 
the  thin  air  merely  of  Utopian  propaganda.  When, 
otherwise,  they  might  have  led  the  true  and  only  vray  of 
Progress  by  endowing  the  Race  with  living  presentments 
and  evolving  treasuries  of  the  parental  ideals  and 
endowments. 

The  greater  her  charm,  the  nobler  her  character  and 
talent,  the  more  the  pity  is  when  woman  is  defective  in 
the  power  to  transmit  her  high  qualities,  or  has  power 
to  transmit  these  in  inferior  degree  only;  thus  sealing 
up  for  ever,  or  gravely  impoverishing  a  vital  spring  of 
living  faculty  and  individualism — a  unique  line  of  Human 
Ascent  which  no  other  stock  can  supply,  and  one  which 
may  have  been  leading  up  to  the  production  of  genius 
such  as  the  world  has  not  yet  Icnown. 

Another — and  quite  different — sub-order  of  this 
neurotic  (and  partially-sterilised)  type,  in  losing  its 
higher  potential  of  motherhood  has  lost  the  racial  instinct 
wherein  personal  virtue  is  rooted.  The  lives  of  these  are 
free  and  irregular.  Not  measures,  but  men,  are  their 
vogue ;  to  serve  as  admirers  of  their  charm  and  talents, 
as  spectators  of  their  temperamental  extravagances. 
Incapable  of  the  emotions  of  love,  they  seek,  are  dis- 
contented, and  seek  further  when  they  do  not  find  in  its 
excitements,  the  joys  and  contentment  that  reside  alone 
in  deep  and  abiding  emotions.  The  poise  and  repose, 
the  charm,  the  refreshment  and  the  inspiration  of  true 
Womanhood  are  lacking  in  them.  They  demand 
increasing  novelty  and  change  of  venue  for  their  ill- 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATIONS  103 

ballasted  powers  and  capricious  sensibilities.  And  this 
precisely  in  proportion  as  they  are  deficient  in  those 
womanly  emotions  and  illusions  which  endue  the  least 
and  simplest  things  with  glamour  and  with  beauty. 

This  type,  which  can  scarcely  be  said  to  live,  but 
merely  to  frolic  through  life,  is  pre-eminently  dangerous 
to  progress.  Because,  while  possessing  the  psychology, 
the  appeal  and  influence  of  women,  some  of  these  have 
cast  off,  utterly,  the  traditions,  the  nobler  aspirations 
and  the  functions  of  the  best  womanhood. 


It  is  universally  admitted  that  a  bad  woman  is  far 
more  wicked  than  a  bad  man  is.  She  is  more  callous, 
ruthless,  wanton  and  debased.  The  irresponsibility 
regarding  concrete  affairs  (innate  in  a  sex  whereof  The 
Concrete  is  only  secondarily  the  province)  makes  her  a 
dangerous  and  a  demoralising  factor  when  her  acquired 
male  brain  and  activities  (for  the  clever,  bad  woman  is 
always  of  masculine  bent)  over-ride  her  own  natural 
aptitudes.  Because  the  powers  she  has  artificially 
acquired — in  substitution  for  her  native  ones — do  not 
alter  her  inherent  constitution  of  a  creature  builded  upon 
instincts;  instincts  which  her  native  higher  qualities 
are  alone  adequate  to  guide  and  inspire.  One  may  acquire 
some  of  the  characteristics  of  an  opposite  sex,  but  never 
the  morale ;  which  is  inborn  and  inherent  to  the  natural 
sex-characteristics . 

Faculty  declines  in  the  inverse  order  of  its  develop- 
ment. The  bloom  and  beauty  of  the  peach  and  of  the 
flower  are  the  last  things  to  come — and  the  first  to  go. 
So,  in  forfeiting  her  womanly  qualities,  woman  forfeits 
earliest  the  best  of  these.  Love  and  purity  and  spiritual 
aspiration  perish  first;  with  the  result  that  the  lower- 
grade  female  Subconscious  emotionalism,  instinct  and 
palpitant  with  animal  impulse,  comes  into  play. 


104        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

Man  requires  to  degenerate  to  far  inferior  levels  than 
is  the  case  with  woman,  before  he  so  loses  his  normal 
rationalism  as  to  forfeit  his  sense  of  proportion  and  of  his 
responsibility  with  regard  to  material  affairs,  and  that 
stern  obligation  to  conform  to  environmental  conditions 
which  has  been  the  impelling  force  of  male  development. 
Irresponsibility  is  in  him  an  acquired — and  a  feminine — 
defect;  not  an  inherent  failing  of  his  sex.  The  very 
basis  of  the  manly  character  is  a  recognition  of  the  male 
responsibility  in  life's  affairs.  It  was  the  impulse  of  man's 
primal  struggle.     It  is  the  mark  of  his  civilised  manhood. 

Irresponsibility  is,  on  the  contrary,  innate  in  woman. 
It  is  part  of  that  spontaneity,  plasticity,  and  versatility 
which  have  engendered  the  racial  evolutionary  muta- 
tions; and  by  way  of  these  have  engendered  the  pro- 
gressive transitions  to  ever  higher  forms.  And  indis- 
pensable as  her  native  mutability  is  in  making  her  the 
agency  of  evolutionary  change,  it  is  an  insecure  and  a 
dangerous  basis  for  too  heavy  a  super-structure  of  male 
characteristics,  physical  or  mental ;  as  also  for  too  heavy 
a  burden  of  male  responsibilities.  It  disqualifies  her 
for  liberty  and  scope  of  action  identical  with  man's,  in 
material  affairs. 

The  further  we  fit  her,  moreover  (beyond  her  normal 
capacity),  for  such  affairs,  by  artificially  equipping  her 
with  masculine  aptitudes,  the  more  we  unfit  her  for  her 
evolutionary  role  of  spontaneous  advance.  Her  chiefest 
values  lie  in  the  spring  and  the  plasticity  which  enable  her 
to  adapt  her  nature  to  the  evolutionary  impulses  of  life 
inherent  in  her ;  and  thereby  to  engender  further  human 
evolution.  For  this,  it  is  important  that  she  shall  not 
be  moulded  on  those  firmer  and  more  definitely  pre- 
scribed lines  of  masculine  development  which  are  indis- 
pensable to  the  pioneering  of  material  progress.  Nor 
should  her  powers  be  equally  differentiated,  or  similarly 
expended.  They  must  be  left,  in  far  greater  degree, 
conserved,  unformulate  and  unadapted. 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATIONS  105 

Normally,  she  is  the  child  of  Nature,  in  whom  (because 
she  is  the  mother  of  the  human  child,  who  shapes  to  the 
maternal  model)  Nature  is  unfolding  the  type  of  our 
Perfecting  Humanity.  She  should  remain,  therefore, 
more  or  less  in  the  native  and  spontaneously  fructifying 
state  conducive  to  evolutionary  unfoldment.  When  she 
adapts  as  closely  to  concrete  conditions  as  it  is  imperative 
for  man  to  do,  not  only  does  she  exhaust  the  potential 
fertility  indispensable  to  the  further  evolution  and  grow^th 
of  racial  faculty,  but  her  powers  lose  that,  mode  of  flux 
which  enables  them  to  tide  to  higher  levels. 

While  man  stands  for  Civilisation,  woman  stands  for 
Nature.  Generatrix  of  Life,  she  is  instinct  with  vital 
impulses.  And  when  these  are  not  expended,  as  is 
normal,  in  the  creation  of  and  ministration  to  living  and 
beloved  beings,  they  generate  warped,  erratic  and  chaotic 
aberrations.  Because,  no  matter  to  what  degree  she 
may  acquire  masculine  characteristics  and  aptitudes,  she 
remains,  at  core,  a  creature  of  instinct;  not  of  reason. 
As  a  creature  of  instinct  she  is  invaluable  to  life — because 
Life  is  moulded  upon  instinct.  But  instinct  and  rational- 
ism function  on  different  planes  of  mentality.  To  over- 
develop rationalism  in  her  is  to  quench  emotionalism  in 
her,  and  the  higher  illumination  of  her  Supra-conscious 
faculties;  thus  rendering  her  the  prey  of  smouldering 
subconscious  impulses  which  burst  fitfully  and  mis- 
chievously into  flame. 

For  Progress,  man  must  be  always  the  leading  half 
and  controller  in  politics  and  civic  affairs.  These  are  his 
province.  His  sex  stands  for  permanence  and  conform- 
ity— and,  accordingly,  for  uniformity.  And  uniformity 
is  the  model  for  Civilisation,  making  as  it  does  for  justice 
and  the  common  good. 

Woman's  non-conformability  adapts  her  admirably 
to  the  personal  relations  of  life,  but  not  to  the  political. 
Man  builds  institutions  and  administers  them  by  more 
or  less  rigid  impersonal  rule.     Woman  transforms  them 


106        FEMINISM  AND   SEX -EXTINCT  ION 

into  homes,  and  humanises  them  by  individual  concessions 
and  exceptions. 

So  the  two  are  supplement  and  complement  in  the 
public  as  in  the  natural  sphere.  But  their  respective 
roles  are  contrary  in  every  mode  and  issue.  Man's 
conformity,  political  and  civic,  is  continually  leavened 
by  the  element  of  non-conformity  and  change  he  inherits 
from  his  mother,  with  her  other  Woman-traits.  But 
in  him,  her  spontaneity  and  impulse  are  so  intelligised 
and  stabilised  by  his  masculine  rationalism  and  bent  for 
order  that,  in  place  of  operating  emotionally  and  spas- 
modically, they  become  tempered  and  restrained.  Under 
his  administration,  material  advance  proceeds  slowly, 
but  surely  and  securely.  His  masculine  intelligence  and 
sense  of  responsibility  cause  him  to  adjust  the  maternal 
evolutionary  impulses, — ^which  he  inherits  as  reformatory 
and  revolutionary  impulses — ^to  the  exigencies  of  practica- 
bility, and  the  requirements  of  circumstance. 

VI 

There  is  no  more  difficult,  or  possibly  mischievous, 
person  than  a  strong  and  clever  woman  whose  over- 
developed masculine  energies  and  abilities  are  controlled 
neither  by  a  man's  reason  and  sense  of  responsibility,  nor 
by  a  woman's  natural  disabilities,  affections  and  re- 
straints. She  is  sometimes  prodigiously  clever ;  adding 
to  her  male  talents  a  woman's  fertility,  versatility, 
adaptability,  complexity  and  intuitiveness.  And  yet 
with  all  their  gifts,  such  women  accomplish  little  but 
harm — alike  to  themselves  and  others. 

Erratic,  fickle,  irrepressible,  they  are  perpetually 
flying  off  at  tangents.  Now  they  are  one  thing  too  much. 
Now  they  are  the  opposite — in  an  equal  extreme. 

Medleys  of  contradictions  and  perversities,  they  are 
no  sooner  repressed  in  one  direction,  or  become  fatigued 
by  the  monotony  of  any  single  line  of  action,  than  they 


ANCIENT   CIVILISATIONS  107 

burst  forth  in  seme  other.  Their  abnormal  mentality 
and  energy,  allied  to  their  innate  impulsiveness  and 
craving  for  change,  impel  them  to  break  loose 
from  those  bonds  of  affection,  of  tradition  and  of  aspira- 
tion, which  are  woman's  safeguards.  There  is  in  the 
nature  of  most  women,  this  dangerous  quicksand  of 
irresponsibility,  which  may,  in  crises,  topple  and  submerge 
the  soundest  structure  of  education  and  of  habit  builded 
over  it.  This  is  seen  in  the  abandon  and  anarchy  of 
the  sex  in  riots  and  in  revolutions. 

Such  women  rebels  become  increasingly  a  law  unto 
themselves,  and  see  no  reason  why  all  others  should 
not  do  likewise.  They  lack  the  masculine  grip  of  con- 
crete principles  to  recognise  that  general  lawlessness 
and  individual  liberty  cannot  co-exist.  Because  where 
every  man  is  free  to  do  as  he  pleases,  no  man  is  free  to  do 
as  he  pleases,  owing  to  some  other  man's  abuse  of  his 
liberty  encroaching  on  that  of  his  neighbours. 

Women  of  this  order  are  the  Cleopatras,  Agrippinas, 
Messalinas  and  the  Catharines  of  Russia ;  the  de  Pompa- 
dours, de  Staels,  Georges  Sands,  and  the  innumerable 
other  self-centred,  unconscionable  female-egotists  whose 
extravagances  shriek  discordant  down  the  ages. 

Lacking  both  a  woman's  morals  and  a  man's  ethics, 
they  are  freaks  of  Nature;  or  are  Frankensteins  of 
abnormal  culture.  When  they  are  not  Empresses,  to 
indulge  in  shameful  licence — ^their  male  abilities  exag- 
gerating their  woman-instincts  to  the  dimensions  of 
megalomanias — ^their  inordinate  ambitions  make  them 
mistresses  of  crowned  heads,  or  of  others  whose  rank  or 
wealth  supplies  their  mistresses  with  means  and  scope 
for  their  unbridled  prodigalities.  Privileged  by  their 
sex  and  by  masculine  favour,  their  lawlessness  protected 
from  its  merited  penalties  by  the  law-abiding  of  their 
fellows,  they  become  intoxicated — ^frequently  insane — as 
result  of  their  successes  and  excesses.  The  famous 
courtesans  have  been  (and  are  still)  for  the  most  part 


108        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

women  of  this  ilk ;  persons  of  steel  brain  and  will,  without 
a  woman's  aspirations  or  emotions  to  soften  their  self- 
centredness ;  nor  a  man's  code  to  discipline  their  wanton- 
ness. They  make  men  the  instruments  and  the  victims 
of  their  feminine  defects,  which  are  all — or  nearly  all — of 
woman  they  possess;  self-consciousness  distorted  to  a 
monstrous  vanity,  emotions  dwarfed  to  greeds  and  lusts. 

One  after  another,  they  exploit  their  victims,  by 
exercise,  precisely,  of  the  same  masculine  business- 
abilities  and  ruthlessness  which  make  men  fraudulent 
company-promoters,  profiteers,  or  sweaters  of  the  poor. 
When  one  has  served  their  purpose,  they  cast  him  off 
for  another.  Cold-blooded,  clever,  and  emotionless, 
although  sometimes  sensual  in  a  fashion  purely  male  (in 
keeping  with  their  other  male  proclivities)  they  are 
adventuresses,  spies,  poisoners,  adultresses,  monsters; 
abiding  reproach  to  a  noble  sex ;  terrible  example  of  the 
fate  awaiting  that  sex,  as  penalty  for  abnormal  develop- 
ment of  masculine  characteristics  beyond  the  capacity  of 
its  Woman-traits  to  counterpoise  and  guide. 

Power,  which  strengthens  and  steadies  all  but  weak 
men,  only  too  often  drives  women  to  destruction.  A 
factor  in  this  is  that  those  privileges  of  their  sex  which 
have  become,  more  or  less,  their  civilised  prerogative, 
preserve  them  from  the  salutary  harsh  and  stern  rebuffs 
which  men  in  like  circumstance  inevitably  encounter. 

If  women  are  to  have  scope  and  authority  identical 
with  men's,  then  they  must  forgo  all  privileges;  must 
come  out  from  their  fence  behind  strong  arms  and 
chivalry  to  meet  masculine  blows  in  the  face,  economic 
and  ethical — if  not  actual,  indeed,  as  Prevost  has 
predicted. 

And  then,  Heaven  help  them — and  men — and  the 
Race  ! 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   EVOLUTION    OF    SEX  IN   ADOLESCENCE 

"  I  am  for  you  and  you  are  for  me, 
Not  only  for  your  own  sake,  but  for  others'  sakes, 
Envelop'd  in  you,  sleep  great  heroes  and  bards, 
They  refuse  to  awake  at  the  touch  of  any  man  but  me.'* 

Walt  Whitman. 

I 

A  French  biologist  has  discovered  that  when  a  female 
oyster  is  starved,  and  its  constitution  thus  deteriorated, 
it  becomes  transformed  into  a  male. 

The  male  oyster  must  be  inferior,  therefore,  in  organ- 
isation to  the  female.  Its  constitutional  potential  is 
less,  since  the  constitutional  potential  of  the  female 
contains  both  its  own,  and  the  potential  of  the  male. 
And  the  lesser,  it  is  admitted,  cannot  contain  the  greater ; 
although  higher  evolutionary  forms,  when  subjected  to 
conditions  which  preclude  them  from  sustaining  these 
their  higher  forms,  may  lapse  to  modes  less  complex. 

Further  and  more  striking  examples  of  such  Sex- 
transformation  are  afforded  by  so-called  "  mules,"  or 
"  neuters,"  which  occur  in  other  species.  A  well-known 
case  is  that  of  a  pea-hen  belonging  to  Lady  Tynte. 
Having  laid  eggs  from  which  chicks  were  raised,  this 
pea-hen,  after  moulting,  developed  feathers  proper  to 
the  other  sex;  appearing  like  a  pied  peacock.  In  the 
third  year  the  same  phenomenon  occurred  in  her;  she 
developed  spurs,  moreover,  resembling  those  of  the  cock. 
She  never  bred  after  this  change  in  her  plumage. 

As  already  mentioned,  kindred  phenomena  of  sex- 
metamorphosis  are  observed  in  women  after  operations 
involving  removal  of  reproductive  glands. 

109 


110       FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

That  the  female  is,  indeed,  a  more  complex  order  of 
organisation  than  the  male,  is  not  to  be  doubted,  since 
masculine  characteristics  emerge  from  it  when  it  lapses 
from  its  normal  of  condition. 

Adolcijcence  as  it  occurs  in  the  boy  and  in  the  girl 
emphasises  this  conclusion. 

To  the  age  of  twelve  or  thereabouts,  the  normal  boy- 
and  girl-child  are  like  enough  to  one  another ;  smooth- 
skinned,  active,  simple  creatures.  The  boy  is,  normally, 
larger,  sturdier,  stronger  and  rougher  than  the  girl. 
But,  save  for  the  cut  of  their  hair  and  of  their  clothes, 
the  two  are  very  similar. 

With  the  transition  to  manhood  and  womanhood, 
respectively,  notable  differences  accrue,  however. 

From  having  been  a  strong,  young,  active,  boy-like 
creature,  now — provided  her  development  be  allowed 
to  take  the  normal  course—the  girl  loses  physical  activity 
and  strength.  A  phase  of  invalidation  sets  in.  Instinct- 
ively, she  no  longer  runs  and  romps.  New  languors 
invest  her  in  mind  and  in  body.  She  is  indisposed  to 
brain-work  or  to  much  exertion.  She  lounges  and  muses. 
Her  mind  is  clouded  with  the  mists  of  awakening  sensi- 
bilities.    She  suffers  from  lassitudes. 

She  becomes  a  complex  of  disabilities,  indeed;  dis- 
abilities which  in  delicate,  sickly  or  over-taxed  girls, 
show  in  chlorosis,  anaemia,  hysteria  and  other  ills. 
Obviously,  profound  changes,  with  re-adjustments  of  her 
constitutional  resources,  are  taking  place  in  her.  And 
most  significant  of  these  is  that  which  shows  like  an 
arrest  of  development,  physical  and  intellectual.  Be- 
cause, normally,  she  develops  but  little  further  along 
direct  lines  of  intellect  and  muscle.  Yet  that  she  is  still 
developing,  and  this  upon  wholly  new — subtler,  higher 
and  more  complex  lines,  is  manifest  at  the  end  of  this 
transition-period  whence  she  emerges,  a  woman. 

Her  developmental  arrest  and  her  disabilities  (result- 


SEX   IN  ADOLESCENCE  111 

ing  from  an  intensification  of  Recessive  processes  in  her) 
are  seen  now  to  have  subserved  a  phase  of  higher  evolu- 
tion. Nature  suddenly  locked  the  door  upon  her 
differentiating  and  escaping  energies,  in  order  that  these 
might  be  conserved  and  knit  into  organisation.  The 
active  muscularity  she  has  lost  reappears  in  the  new 
factors  of  symmetry  and  delicate  modelling  of  limb; 
in  repose  and  grace  of  movement.  The  straight,  slim, 
boy-like  lines  of  the  hoyden  girl  have  evolved  into  the 
curves  and  rounded  suppleness  and  beauties  of  a  woman. 
The  girlish,  agile  and  abrupt  movements  have  passed 
into  a  woman's  poise  and  grace.  The  unformed  features 
of  the  child  have  become  now  delicately  modelled ;  the 
curveless,  emotionless  lips  have  bloomed  into  the  flower- 
like, rosy  fullness  of  a  woman's  mouth;  passionate  and 
tender.  New  mystery  and  brilliance  light  her  eyes. 
Eyes  and  brows  are  charged  with  potencies;  with 
seriousness,  with  modesty,  serenity,  elusiveness.  Hair 
and  hands,  voice  and  expression,  have  become  trans- 
figured by  the  magic  of  a  re-creative  impulse  which  has 
regenerated  her  whole  being. 

So  too  her  brain  development,  arrested  along  lines 
of  concrete  intellection,  is  seen  to  have  evolved  to  higher, 
subtler  forms  of  mentality ;  to  be  instinct  with  delicacy, 
sympathy,  tact,  and  with  that  incalculable  mode  of 
supra-conscious  cerebration  which  is  intuition.  In  so 
far  as  she  is  of  high,  womanly  type,  she  is  now  warm  and 
emotional,  sympathetic,  intuitive ;  consciously  pure,  yet 
delicately  passionate.  From  a  crude  and  sexless  hoyden, 
she  has  evolved  into  an  exquisite  complexity;  invested 
all  round  with  higher  values,  human  and  psychical. 

As  in  their  earliest  beginnings,  however,  so  now  again 
the  Woman-traits  manifest  as  Unfitnesses.  Her  new 
departure  has  actually  undone  in  her  much  that  had 
been  achieved  in  physical  adaptation. 

Biologists,  observing  this  arrest  of  development  in 
the  female,  have  interpreted  it  as  sign  of  an  organisa- 


112        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

tion  inferior  to  that  of  the  male.  In  point  of  fact,  the 
contrary  is  the  case.  Her  arrest  of  development  along 
lines  of  masculine  inherence  no  more  proves  her  inferior 
to  the  male  than  does  the  human  developmental  arrest 
along  lines  of  that  tail  our  ape-progenitor  possessed,  prove 
the  human  inferior  to  the  ape-species. 

This  arrest  of  tail-development  occurred  first  in  the 
female,  doubtless;  being  one  of  those  evolutionary- 
mutations  in  the  direction  of  advance  of  Type  which  are 
engendered  in  her  sex;  and  which  are  characterised  by 
a  conversion  to  higher  potential,  of  differentiations  in 
respect  of  adaptation  to  environment  that  have  been 
achieved  in  the  male.  Conversion  of  male  Fitness  to 
female  Unfitness,  therefore. 

Seeing  that  the  ape  is  vastly  more  adapted  than  is 
man  to  natural  environment,  it  is  obvious  that  the  trend 
of  adaptation  to  environment,  far  from  having  been 
along  lines  of  evolving  ape  to  man,  must  have  been 
always,  on  the  contrary,  impelling  reversion  of  the 
human  to  the  ape-type.  Darwin  relates  how  he  and 
Huxley,  watching  some  boys  bathing,  "  marvelled  over 
the  fact,  seeming  especially  strange  w^ien  they  are  no 
longer  disguised  by  clothes,  that  human  beings  should 
dominate  over  all  other  creatures  and  play  the  wonderful 
part  they  do  on  earth." 

Hugo  de  Vries  says  :  "  Natural  Selection  (whereof 
Adaptation  is  modus  operandi)  .  .  .  does  not  single  out 
the  best  variations,  but  simplj^  destroys  the  larger 
number  of  those  which  are,  from  some  cause  or  other, 
unfit  for  their  present  environment.  In  this  way  it 
keeps  the  strains  up  to  the  required  standard." 

While  Hoffding  states  explicitly  :  "  Adaptation  and 
Progress  are  not  the  same." 

Clearly  there  are  Dual  Principles  operating  in  pro- 
gressive development;  one  adapting  the  organism  to 
environment,  the  other  adapting  it  to  the  Typal  model 
inherent  in  species. 


SEX   IN  ADOLESCENCE  113 


II 

In  the  male  of  stock  impoverished  by  artificial  con- 
ditions of  civilisation,  the  transition  to  manhood  is 
attended  likewise  by  some  languors,  physical  and  mental. 
New  powers  are  being  developed  and  occasion  more  or 
less  strain  upon  the  constitution — a  strain  wherewith  our 
present-day  masters  and  pastors,  in  their  zeal  of  intensive 
culture,  reckon  far  too  little.  In  healthy  boys  this  is 
in  no  way  comparable,  however,  with  the  constitutional 
stress  which  adolescence  causes  in  healthy  girls.  The 
youth  continues  to  wax  in  strength  of  brain  and  body. 
The  arrest,  or  involution,  normal  to  the  girl,  does  not 
occur  in  him. 

While  she  becomes  gentler  and  more  tranquil,  by 
reason  of  a  new  poise  in  her  of  mind  and  body,  he 
becomes  forceful  and  restless  by  reason  of  a  new  release 
in  him  of  energy.  Yet  though  he  gains  in  strength  of 
brain  and  body  by  this  further  differentiation  of  his 
resources  into  concrete  faculty  and  virile  energy,  he 
lapses  notably  in  organisation.  From  the  supple,  fine- 
skinned  boy — clear-eyed,  sweet-voiced,  womanly  almost 
in  refinement  and  comeliness — he  grows  large  and  hard 
and  muscular;  more  or  less  sinewy  and  rough-hewn, 
according  as  he  is,  or  is  not,  manly  of  type.  His  skin 
loses  its  fine  grain  and  smoothness,  becoming  coarser 
and  hirsute;  thus  reverting,  in  degree,  to  the  inferior, 
animal  grade  of  skin.  His  voice  falls  nearly  an  octave, 
lapsing  from  sweetness  and  purity  to  gruffness  and 
volume.  Obviously — although  all  this  being  normal, 
the  male  has  a  virile  charm  and  handsomeness  of  his 
own — man's  is  notably  a  less  highly  and  subtly-evolved 
organisation  than  is  woman's. 

In  the  boy,  is  seen  a  progressive  adaptation  of  body 
and  brain  to  environment,  in  order  to  fit  him  for  his 
man's  task  of  coping  with  and  advancing  the  conditions 


114        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

of  life,  material  and  ethical.  And  for  this,  the  more 
delicate  and  sensitive  woman-physique,  demanding  more 
of  vital  conservation  for  its  upkeep,  would  be  a  handicap. 

Biological  adaptation  for  his  part  in  reproduction 
occurs  too.  But  the  male  development  at  this  epoch  is 
pre-eminently  one  of  adaptation  to  environment ;  equip- 
ping him  with  bone  and  muscle,  brain  and  enterprise, 
aggressiveness,  initiative  and  energy.  Racially  indis- 
pensable as  the  reproductive  function  is  in  him,  it  is 
obviously  incidental  and  subordinate  to  his  general 
development. 

The  girl's  transition  to  womanhood  is  seen,  on  the 
contrary,  to  be  one  almost  entirely  of  adaptation,  physio- 
logical and  psychical,  to  the  functions  of  wifehood  and 
child-bearing.  Her  growth  ceases.  She  loses,  in  place 
of  gaining,  nerve  and  muscle-power.  While,  in  becoming 
emotional,  her  changed  mentality  unfits  far  more  than 
it  fits  her  to  cope  with  life  at  first  hand;  with  life  un- 
adapted,  that  is,  and  herself  unshielded  by  the  male. 
Her  intelligence  at  eighteen  is  normally  less  keen  and 
active — although  of  higher  and  more  subtle  quality  and 
trend — than  it  had  been  at  twelve. 

Indications  of  Nature  which  point  unmistakably  to 
diametrically  different  modes  of  culture  and  of  training 
for  the  sexes,  and,  in  consequence,  to  wholly  different 
applications  of  their  respective  powers  and  aptitudes  in 
every  department  of  life. 

In  the  boy,  the  Male-traits  receive,  with  adolescence, 
a  great  influx  of  energy ;  wholly  dominating  the  Woman- 
traits  which  had  made  him  more  or  less  a  feminine 
creature. 

More  and  more  each  day,  the  potential  virile  in  his 
every  cell  asserts  itself  in  structure  and  in  function; 
dominating  the  Woman-traits  inherent  in  him.  He 
waxes  big  and  strong  of  body;  restless  and  active  of 
mentality.     And  the  less,  within  normal  limits,  virility 


SEX  IN  ADOLESCENCE  115 

has  been  prematurely  forced  in  him  by  too  hard  strain 
of  mind  or  body,  the  better  for  the  evolution  of  his 
manhood.  Unless  the  Woman-traits  have  been  unduly 
drilled  and  hardened  out  of  him,  they  will  now  refine, 
inspire  and  fructify  his  awakening  masculine  powers. 
The  too  hard  struggle  for  existence  put,  by  necessity, 
on  boys  of  the  poorer  classes,  and,  in  the  higher  classes, 
forced  on  sensitive  boys  called  upon,  too  young,  to  fight 
for  survival  in  the  semi-savage  communities  that  public 
schools  are,  hardens  them  too  soon  and  too  summarily, 
and  thus  frustrates  their  best  development. 

It  is  said  that  there  is  no  atrocity  a  boy-community 
will  not  commit. 

In  this  stage  of  development,  the  moral  conscious- 
ness of  the  genus  is  at  low  ebb.  The  accentuation  of 
Male-traits  now  occurring  occasions  a  recrudescence  of 
primal  instincts.  And  the  collective  atmosphere  such 
recrudescence  engenders  in  a  boy-community,  marooned 
in  school-life  apart  from  the  refining,  softening  influences 
of  home  and  womenkind,  is  only  too  often  an  evil 
and  a  demoralising  one.  Boarding-schools  should  be 
abolished;    good  day-schools  substituted. 

More  than  at  any  other  phase  of  his  existence,  the 
masculine  needs  now  the  Woman-influences  from  with- 
out ;  because  the  Woman-traits  within  are,  for  a  period, 
submerged  beneath  a  surge  of  Maleness. 

Notwithstanding  these  obvious  truths,  however,  during 
the  years  when  body  and  mind  should  be  adapting 
gradually,  consciously  and  subconsciously,  to  the  social 
environment  wherein  their  lives  are  to  be  passed; 
when  the  mental  horizon  should  be  expanding  simul- 
taneously with  the  expanding  intelligence,  when  the 
moral  should  be  rising  to  the  new  demands  upon  it, 
boys  are  imprisoned  in  scholastic  institutions,  where 
they  are  hemmed  in  by  routine  and  restrictions,  in  an 
atmosphere  of  puerile  conceptions,  puerile  traditions, 
puerile  conventions  and  associations ;   their  chief  outlet 


116        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

and  respite  the  narrow  rules  and  the  narrowing  absorp- 
tions of  so-called  "  Games,"  supervised  by  martinet 
Games-masters. 

And  then,  when  we  bring  them  to  the  field  of  life, 
we  are  surprised  to  find  many  of  them  unintelligent, 
unadapted,  unadaptable;  resourceless,  inept  and  in- 
competent. Cooped  during  those  impressionable  years 
in  a  wholly  artificial  environment,  when  confronted  by 
the  world  of  living  actualities,  which  is  not  ruled  by 
similar  narrow  restrictions,  nor  shaped  upon  the  artificial 
forms  and  puerile  misconceptions  in  which  their  young 
ductile  natures  have  been  run  and  have  set — ^they  show 
themselves  wholly  unfitted  for  life,  with  its  varied, 
difficult  and  complex  conditions  and  adjustments. 
They  have  become,  in  point  of  fact,  mentally  and  tem- 
peramentally "  provincial." 

The  good  form  which  some  of  them  acquire  is  derived 
less  from  school-ethics  or  training  than  from  an  aristo- 
cratic strain  of  boys  with  whom  they  have  been 
associated.  And  being  acquired,  when  it  is  not  the  form 
of  their  own  social  order,  it  appears  only  too  frequently 
as  a  counterfeit;  engendering  insincerity  and  snobbish- 
ness, and  marring  individuality. 

It  has  seemed  to  me  that,  in  both  sexes,  the  first 
seven  years  of  life — during  which  native  faculty  and 
attribute  are  evolving  at  great  pace — are  a  phase  in 
which  the  Recessive,  or  anabolic,  mode,  conservative  of 
the  resources  and  vitalising  of  the  tissues,  is  in  the 
ascendant.  The  true  child  of  both  sexes  is  normally, 
during  these  years,  a  typification  of  the  Woman-traits ; 
receptive,  plastic,  gentle,  affectionate,  trustful,  intuitive, 
emotional ;  quickly  fatigued,  quickly  recuperative ;  more 
or  less  lovely  and  angelic.  In  this  phase,  native  intuitive 
faculty  makes  children  sometimes  phenomenal ;  lightning 
calculators,  musical  prodigies,  precocious  poets,  artists. 
So  too,  their  marvellously  rapid  apprehension  of  the 


SEX  IN  ADOLESCENCE  117 

complex  meanings  and  implications  of  life  betokens 
Supra-conscious  mentality. 

At  seven  years  old  and  thence  onward  to  fourteen, 
a  male,  and  katabolic,  phase  sets  in.  Phenomenal 
faculty  vanishes.  Concrete  development  of  body,  brain 
and  energy  proceeds  apace.  The  child  becomes  active, 
intelligent,  enterprising,  inquiring.  The  boy  becomes 
appreciably  male;  the  girl  more  or  less  of  a  hoyden, 
more  male,  indeed,  than  she  is  normally  at  any  other 
period  of  her  existence.  Unless,  that  is,  this  hoyden 
phase  is  rendered  permanent  in  her  by  masculine 
training. 

At  fourteen,  with  the  evolution  of  sex,  the  sex  of  boy 
and  girl,  with  its  respective  opposite  modes  of  constitu- 
tion and  of  function,  makes  for  marked  development, 
each  along  its  characteristic  lines. 


Ill 

The  French  have  a  saying  :  La  femme  est  une  malade. 
Woman  is  not,  of  course,  an  invalid.  Nature  does  not 
fashion  invalids.  Woman's  organisation  is  normally 
delicate  and  sensitive  and  highly  strung,  because  of  its 
special  and  complex  sex-differentiation.  She  resembles 
the  child,  in  that  howsoever  healthful  (in  proportion, 
indeed,  as  she  is  normal  and  healthfully  organised)  her 
cells  of  brain  and  body  re-act  resiliently  and  vitally  to 
all  the  agencies,  physical  and  psychical,  about  her. 

This  sensitive  re-activity  is  not  only  a  sign,  it  is,  as 
well,  a  source  of  health.  Because  the  greater  delicacy 
and  sensitiveness  of  organisation  which  characterise 
women  and  children,  resulting  in  their  quick  re-activity 
to  deleterious  conditions,  secure  a  permanently  more 
highly-vitalised  condition  of  body  than  is  the  case  with 
man,  whose  cells  are  less  sensitive,  more  tolerant  of 
fatigue,   of  cold,   and  of  other  injurious   agents.     Im- 


118        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

munity  against  injurious  factors  is  the  parent  of 
degeneracy.  Life  being  re-activity,  in  terms  of  living 
processes,  to  the  factors  of  environment,  such  immunity 
entails  loss  of  vital  re-activity  to  vivifying  as  much  as 
against  deteriorative  factors. 

We  complain  that  Nature,  in  place  of  making  our 
bodies  of  cast  iron,  so  to  speak,  makes  them,  on  the 
contrary,  vulnerable  at  every  point.  The  reason  is, 
surely,  that  the  less  we  are  constituted  like  cast  iron — 
the  more  vital  and  complex,  intelligent  and  responsive, 
our  tissues  are,  accordingly — the  more  conducive  to 
change  and  advance  (because  the  more  sensitively 
re-active  to  subtler  and  psychical  stimuli)  they  are  like- 
wise. We  cannot  be,  at  the  same  time,  hardy  and 
obtuse,  yet  exquisitely  sensitive.  Living  tissue-cells  are 
characterised,  beyond  all  other  developments,  by  a 
range  of  contrasting  abilities.  An  arm  serves  as  softest 
cushion  for  a  child's  head,  or,  by  stiffening  of  its  muscles, 
becomes  rigid  as  steel.  An  eye  that  sees  for  miles  will 
focus  to  a  pin-point.  But  being,  as  we  are,  still  in  the 
making,  our  tissues  necessarily  have  limitations — and 
the  defects,  accordingly,  of  both  their  sets  of  qualities. 
High  sensitiveness  of  function  is  necessarily  attended 
by  corresponding  complexity  and  delicacy  of  structure. 
Such  structural  delicacy  obliges  us  to  adapt  environ- 
ment to  its  complexities.  It  is  thus  an  incentive  to 
progress. 

It  obliges  us,  as  well,  to  moderate  our  activities,  and, 
by  thus  restricting  the  output  of  our  cruder  powers, 
our  resources  are  husbanded  and  directed  into  higher 
channels. 

The  purpose  of  the  complex  differentiations  which 
handicap  the  adolescent  girl  is  obvious.  The  curving 
bones,  the  expanding  pelvis,  the  rounded  contours,  the 
inhibited  muscles,  the  languors  and  recurring  disabilities, 
are  designed  to  restrict  activity,  physical  and  mental. 


SEX  IN  ADOLESCENCE  119 

Physicists  tell  us  that  the  Conservation  of  Motion 
and  the  Conservation  of  Energy  are  one  and  the  same 
thing.  This  must  be  true,  as  well,  of  Vital  Energy. 
The  conservation  of  Vital  Activity  subtends  the  Con- 
servation of  Vital  resources.  The  new  developments  are 
by  no  means  incidental  merely  to  the  new  processes; 
they  ai-e  an  integral  part  of  The  Plan.  In  half-closing 
the  doors  on  avenues  of  active  output,  Nature  conserves 
the  Woman-powers  for  more  intrinsic  use.  Every 
brain  and  body-cell  is  raised  thereby  to  higher  levels  both 
of  constitution  and  of  function. 

As  stored  mechanical  energy  becomes  transformed 
into  the  higher  form  of  electrical  energy,  so  the  power 
stored  in  Woman's  anabolic  cells  is  raised  to  higher 
evolutionary  forms.  Thus  she  becomes  fitted  to  be 
mother  of  the  Child — the  blossom  of  the  Race.  Her 
part  in  the  child  will  contain  the  inherence  of  these  new 
higher  evolutionary  values,  as  the  father's  part  in  it  will 
contain  the  inherence  of  the  concrete  powers  he  has 
developed.  And  while  her  body  spontaneously  raises 
all  its  issues  in  order  to  fit  her  to  be  a  Mother,  so  it 
develops  powers  and  functions  adapting  her  to  serve  as 
soft  environment,  physical  and  attributal,  for  the  rearing 
of  her  cjiild. 

All  this  complex  differentiation  and  evolution  are 
designed,  as  well,  to  adapt  woman  for  the  love-passion, 
and  to  draw  and  bind  her  mate  to  her.  And  Nature  haS 
so  cunningly  interwoven  the  two  plans  and  the  two 
developments  that,  for  the  most  part,  those  physical 
traits  and  emotional  attributes  which  best  qualify  for 
motherhood  most  potently  attract  and  closely  attach 
the  woman's  mate  to  her. 

Woman  is  "  une  malade^^^  because,  throughout  the 
more  than  thirty  years  of  her  potential  maternity,  she 
suffers  periodically  those  which,  biologically  speaking, 
are  minor  childbirths  ;  each  entailing  a  cycle  of  complex 
physiological  processes,  with  more  or  less  considerable 


120        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

constitutional  and  nervous  stress,  debility  and  incapaci- 
tation. Nature  exacts  from  her  this  recurring  toll  to 
Life  and  to  the  Race,  not  only  to  preserve  in  her,  in 
healthful  and  efficient  function,  the  power  and  mechanism 
of  actual  child-bearing,  but  (only  second  in  importance) 
perpetually  to  recruit  her  emotional  womanhood  and 
wifehood. 

When  girls  in  course  of  developing  the  maternal 
function,  with  all  its  attendant  psychical  implications, 
are  strained  by  athletics,  by  over-culture  or  industrial 
exhaustion,  the  vital  resources  are  so  diverted  from  the 
evolution  of  this  function  as  to  cause  incapacitation  in 
them,  partial  or  complete,  for  wifehood,  and  for  the 
bearing  of  sound  and  fine  offspring.  Sterilisation,  abso- 
lute or  partial,  is  induced;  with  dwarfed  structure, 
blighted  emotions  and  warped  instincts.  Even  in  women 
who  have  developed  normally,  disease  or  atrophy  of 
reproductive  organs  may  follow  constitutional  strain  or 
undue  effort. 

Toll  to  Life,  in  genesis  of  potential  lives,  is  exacted 
likewise  from  the  male.  It  is  a  reflex  in  him  of  the  vital 
maternal  function,  inherent  in  his  Woman-side.  And 
this  perpetual  Life-tax  upon  his  energies  so  reduces 
theSe  as  to  temper  his  physical  and  nervous  activities 
and  his  bent  for  individuation,  and  thus  inhibits  him 
from  squandering  his  whole  potential  of  Life-power  in 
volitional  output.  Thus  is  preserved  in  him  that  normal 
proportion  between  Individuation  and  Perpetuation 
which  Herbert  Spencer  describes  as  existing  in  inverse 
ratio  to  one  another. 

Thus  also  is  preserved  in  him  the  normal  mental 
balance  between  the  Male  and  the  Female  departments 
of  his  dual  brain.  Men  muscularly  or  intellectually  over- 
active become  lopsided  and  ineffective;  restless  and 
wasteful  of  their  forces,  chill  and  sterile  of  temperament ; 
having  lost  that  fine  fructifying  calm  wherein  creative 
potential    is    engendered    for    concrete     achievement; 


SEX  IN  ADOLESCENCE  121 

having  lost  also  that  equipoise  of  faculty  whereon  mental 
and  moral  stability  depend. 

:ic  He  4:  3fi  4(  * 

The  Life-tax  levied  on  the  male  is  incomparably  less, 
however,  than  that  exacted  of  the  female. 

IV 

It  is  because  of  their  anabolic  mode  of  tissue-cells, 
less  wasteful  upon  the  material  plane,  that  girls  and 
women  normally  require  less  food  than  boys  and  men 
do.  Notwithstanding  that  their  bodies  are  more  highly 
nourished  than  are  those  of  males.  Healthy  young 
women  continue  to  be  plump  and  pretty,  healthful  and 
active  on  bread-and-butter,  fruits  and  sweetmeats. 
While  mannish  women,  whose  physiology  has  deterior- 
ated to  the  katabolic,  disruptive  and  forceful,  male  mode, 
possess  frequently  the  hungry  appetites  of  men;  not 
only  for  food  but  for  drink.  And  yet  withal,  they  are 
lean  and  for  the  most  part  plain,  and  poorly  nourished. 

With  the  wane  in  her  of  the  anabolic  mode  of  cellular 
conservation,  and  the  release  thereby  of  vital  resources 
which,  sealed  up  in  her  tissue-cells  at  adolescence,  remain 
invested  in  organisation  during  her  years  of  possible 
motherhood,  woman  in  whom  sex  is  not  highly  developed 
reverts  more  or  less  (as  does  the  constitutionally- 
deteriorated  oyster)  to  the  masculine  type.  She  lapses 
to  a  katabolic  metabolism. 

At  middle-age,  accordingly,  provided  she  be  still 
healthy,  she  derives  a  considerable  accession  of  energy, 
physical  and  intellectual.  Now  for  the  first  time 
relieved  of  the  Life-tax  upon  her  resources,  her  powers 
are  released  from  bond,  and  become  more  fully  available 
for  individuation  and  personal  activity. 

At  the  same  time,  with  this  conversion  of  constitutional 
investment  to  the  form  of  current  and  available  energy, 
there  occurs  a  proportional — sometimes  a  very  signal- — 


122        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

impoverishment  of  organisation;  and,  after  a  phase  of 
recrudescent  emotionaHsm,  a  cooling  and  thinning  of 
passional  feeling.  Because  such  realisation  of  invested 
vital  capital  is  inevitably  the  precursor  of  decline. 
Thenceforward  her  cells,  no  longer  sustaining  their  high 
evolutionary  states,  generate  more  of  concrete  energy, 
and  endow  her  with  increased  powers  of  action.  But 
their  conditional  deterioration  is  manifest  in  general 
deterioration  of  physique,  of  looks,  and  frequently  of 
health. 

Not  seldom,  indeed,  when  her  constitutional  reserves 
had  been  previously  depleted  by  over-expenditure, 
physical  or  mental,  the  cell-deterioration  of  this  epoch 
lapses  to  serious  disease  or  disability;  to  rheumatism, 
gout,  cancer  or  other  perverted  forms. 

With  the  constitutional  and  biological  changes  come 
psychical  changes  too.  In  women  in  whom  sex  is  not 
highly-specialised,  middle-age  entails,  with  its  quasi- 
masculine  physical  phase,  quasi-masculine  mental  traits. 
They  may  become  strenuous  and  combative,  sometimes 
difficult  and  domineering.  Perhaps  they  attach  them- 
selves to  political  and  ethical  "  anti  "-movements,  as 
arena  for  their  new  combativeness,  their  augmented 
intellection,  and  increased  physical  activity. 

In  the  most  womanly  of  women  also  (as  in  men  at 
a  later  epoch)  there  occurs  at  this  period  a  natural 
transposition  of  the  parental  traits  of  Altruism  and 
Chivalry  to  the  impersonal  plane;  moving  them  to 
mother  and  father  the  world  in  general,  by  way  of 
Charity,  Philanthropy,  Reform. 


Is  it  not  waste  of  power  and  faculty,  is  asked,  for  able 
and  cultured  women  to  permit  their  development, 
physical  and  mental,  to  adapt  to  the  simple  require- 
ments of  a  nursery? 


SEX  IN  ADOLESCENCE  123 

Uncultured  and  more  or  less  brainless  women  of  an 
inferior  class,  it  is  said,  should  be  adequate,  surely,  to  cope 
with  the  minds  and  the  needs  of  these  immature  beings. 

Immature  they  are,  in  truth.  But  they  are  never- 
theless strangely  complex;  exquisitely  sensitive.  And 
they  are  men  and  women  in  the  making — or  the  marring. 
Behind  the  eyes  of  any  child  that  looks  at  you  in  dumb 
and  wistful  impotence  to  express  itself,  to  defend  itself, 
to  provide  and  to  care  for  itself,  may  lie  the  mind,  in  bud, 
of  a  Shakespeare,  of  a  Newton,  of  a  Shelley ;  of  a  Florence 
Nightingale,  a  Mrs.  Somerville,  a  Charlotte  Bronte. 

How  the  most  ordinary  child,  indeed,  of  cultured 
parents  suffers  acutely  in  feeling,  and  deteriorates  in 
mind  and  character  under  the  regime  of  blundering 
rebuffs,  scoldings  and  misapprehensions,  he  meets  at 
every  turn  in  the  nursery  ruled  by  a  crude,  hard  woman 
of  the  labouring  classes  ! 

How,  when  they  have  grown  older  in  years  but  are 
still  only  young  in  understanding,  all  youth  suffers  from 
the  shallow  motherhood  that  was  kind,  maybe,  and  help- 
ful to  it  in  its  childhood,  but  fails  it  utterly  in  the  stress 
and  difficulties  of  its  teens  ! 

True  motherhood  is  the  greatest  of  the  Creative  Arts ; 
Mother-craft,  the  most  vital  and  complex  of  the  Sciences. 
Life  has  never  received  more  than  a  tithe  of  that  which 
Nature  destined  for  it,  owing  to  lack  of  mother-nurture. 
Genius  has  never  fruited  to  full  bloom  and  potence, 
because  the  mothers  have  so  seldom  realised  the  greatness 
of  their  task. 

Nearly  all  the  records  of  childhood  that  writers  have 
given  us  are  annals  of  bewildered  mental  suffering  and 
of  moral  torture,  which  have  left  their  evil  mark  in 
injured  health  or  warped  mentality — ^not  seldom  in 
both. 

The  home,  with  all  the  intuitive  wisdoms,  the  powers  and 
sympathies  and  the  maternal  ministry  of  a  true  mother, 


124        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

is  indispensable  to  the  nurture  of  Individualism,   and 
thereby  to  the  evolution  of  human  character  and  faculty. 

The  true  home  is  the  temple  of  the  soul.  Souls  are 
exquisitely  sensitive,  infinitely  shy.  And  only  in  the 
warm  and  fostering  atmosphere  of  kindred  beings  do 
they  find  courage  to  unfold  in  living  attribute.  Every 
home  should  be  a  unique  environment,  pre-eminently 
specialised  and  adapted  to  the  evolution  of  the  young 
and  tender  nursling-individualities  shaping  in  it.  To 
uproot  these  prematurely  from  their  native  soil  and 
transplant  them  in  an  alien  one,  is  to  blight  nascent 
talent  and  to  warp  character.  For  the  reason  that  it 
necessitates  too  early  individuation,  with  precocious 
development  of  self-protective  and  other  qualities  of 
worldly  expedience. 

To  plant  out  the  shivering,  exquisitely  sensitive  seed- 
ling, the  human  Babe,  in  the  chill,  communal  atmosphere 
of  a  Creche  or  other  institution,  is  as  inhuman  a  social 
crime  as  it  is  an  inhuman  social  crime  to  defraud  its 
mother  of  her  highest  evolutionary  impulse  and  function 
in  the  nurture  of  her  little  one — a  responsibility  she  has 
incurred,  a  privilege  she  has  earned  by  right  of  her 
maternity. 

In  her  nursery,  the  mind  of  woman  opens  new  windows 
of  illumination,  glimpses  new  vistas  of  thought  and 
emotion,  higher  and  lovelier  apprehensions  of  the  pro- 
founder  meanings  of  Life.  In  her  nursery,  her  eyes  learn 
tenderness,  her  voice  sweet  jnodulation,  her  speech  new 
purity  and  fondness. 

In  good  and  happy  homes  where  young  persons,  in 
place  of  being  banished  to  schools,  grow  up  in  the  natural 
bracing  and  inspiring  atmosphere  of  parental  influence 
and  affection.  Sex  evolves  new  issues,  in  those  attrac- 
tions and  sympathies  of  its  Contrasting  Traits  which 
are  evoked  by  the  relations  of  mother  and  son,  of  father 
and  daughter,  of  brother  and  sister. 

Under  modern  conditions,  in  which  children  and  young 


SEX   IN  ADOLESCENCE  125 

persons  renew  intermittent  acquaintance  merely  with 
parents  and  brothers  and  sisters  during  brief  hoHday 
visits — returning  home,  with  every  added  term  of  absence, 
more  and  more  strangers  to  their  kin,  their  personali- 
ties and  interests  increasingly  detached  from  those  of 
the  home  circle — such  potent  and  inspiring  developments 
of  sex  are  vanishing. 

A  wide  gulf,  truly,  separates  from  their  fathers  these 
modern  self-centred,  self-opinionated  young  sports- 
women and  over-academised  girls.  The  charming  filial 
relation,  engendering  new  and  tender  sex-amenities  in 
the  daughter's  hero-worship  and  reliance  on  the  man- 
hood of  her  sire,  in  the  father's  protective  chivalry  and 
recruital  of  his  youth  in  the  company  and  interests  of 
his  young  daughter,  is  waning  toward  extinction.  The 
vast  majority  of  fathers  feel  dismally  constrained,  in- 
deed, and  out  of  countenance  in  the  presence  of  their 
girls — so  smart  and  sophisticated,  so  superior,  critical 
and  self-sufficing  are  our  latter-day  school  and  college- 
maidens.  For  the  most  part,  their  own  daughters  are 
the  last  among  womenkind  to  whom  men  turn,  to  reap 
something  of  the  freshness  and  fairness  of  the  younger 
generation  they  have  sown  and  laboured  for. 

While  the  up-to-date  mother  aspires  to  no  higher  or 
more  beautiful  place  in  her  boy's  life  and  affections  than 
that  of  "  good  chum  !  " 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   EXTINCTION   OF   SEX  IN   ADOLESCENCE 

"  We  may  outrun, 
By  violent  swiftness,  that  which  we  run  at, 
And  lose  by  over-running." 

Shakespeare. 

I 

How  now,  in  detail,  does  the  Feminist  creed  lend 
p  itself  to  the  biological  developments  and  indications  of 
I    Nature  described  in  the  last  chapter  ? 

Unfortunately,  as  already  intimated,  it  ignores, 
/  violently  combats  at  every  turn,  and  only  too  frequently 
/     wholly  frustrates  them. 

/  Feminist  leaders  have  shown  themselves  deplorably 

\       indifferent  alike  to  biological  and  to  sociological  law. 

\      Losing  sight  of  the  truth  that  the  intrinsic  and  eternal 

\    function  of  Humanity  is  Parenthood — and  more  par- 

\  ticularly  Motherhood — they  have  made,   all  along  the 

/  line,  not  for  the  true  emancipation  of  woman  but  for 

\    \  her  commercialisation,  merely. 

The  economic  viewpoint  has  obsessed  them  wholly. 
Not  to  free  woman  from  disabilities  under  which  her 
womanhood,  her  wifehood,  and  her  motherhood  were 
suffering,  but  to  convert  her  powers  into  industrial  and 
marketable  commodities  has  been  the  aim.  That  higher 
ideals  are  bound  up  with  economics,  is  true.  The  rights 
of  honest  self-support  and  adequate  wage,  leading  to 
kindlier,  healthier  and  happier  life-conditions,  are,  by 
improving  constitution  and  character,  important  assets 
on  the  side  of  Evolution.  But  by  far  the  most  urgent 
and   important    consideration   in    economics,    as   these 

126 


SEX-EXTINCTION  IN  ADOLESCENCE      127 

affect  women,  is  the  fundamental  biological  principle 
that,  because  their  greatest  of  all  values  lie  in  their 
evolutionary  and  racial  endowments,  rather  than  in 
their  concrete  and  commercial  efficiencies,  the  sex 
requires  and  is  entitled  to  such  more  lenient  and  privi- 
leged social  and  industrial  adjustments  as  admit  of 
due  quota  of  its  vital  resources,  physical  and  mental, 
remaining  conserved  in  the  potential.  In  place  of  these 
being  differentiated  and  expended  to  the  degree  natural 
to  man,  and  exacted  of  him  by  his  prescribed  role  in 
progress. 

In  direct  and  violent  opposition  to  Nature,  the 
Feminist  system  does  everything  possible,  however,  to 
frustrate  that  normal  phase  of  arrest  along  lines  of  con- 
crete development  whereon  the  higher  evolution  of 
woman — and  in  woman,  of  the  Race — depends.  Just 
at  the  age  when  Nature  locks  the  door  upon  her  con- 
stitutional resources,  for  the  purpose  of  evolving  these 
to  higher  organisation,  the  schools  and  industries  do  a 
strenuous  best  to  keep  the  door  forcibly  open,  and  to 
wrest  the  resources  from  the  storehouse  of  potential. 
With  a  view  to  fitting  woman  to  compete  with  the  male, 
in  whom  such  arrest  of  individuation,  in  the  racial 
interests,  is  occurring  to  vastly  less  degree. 

In  all  ways,  the  natural  languors  and  disabilities  of 
the  girl's  adolescent  phase  are  vigorously  combated. 
The  unfortunate  young  developing  creature  is  exhorted, 
spurred — compelled  by  rigid  rule,  indeed  (whatsoever 
her  physiological  disabilities),  to  take  her  part  in 
strenuous  exertions ;  hard  drill,  cricket,  hockey,  football ; 
with  the  aim  of  developing  masculine  muscles  where 
feminine  muscles  should  be.  At  the  same  time,  her 
brain  is  forced,  crammed  and  exploited  by  perpetual 
mental  tasks ;  by  competitive  examinations,  or  by  some 
or  another  strain  of  specialism,  intellectual  or  industrial. 
The  result  is  that  she  is  forcibly  precluded  from  evolving 
to  those  higher,  subtler  modes  of  body  and  of  mind, 


128        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

which  are  the  essence,  the  charm  and  the  inspiration  of 
the  sex ;   and  the  model  of  the  Race  to  be. 

Our  school-girls  and  work-girls,  in  whose  already 
impoverished,  or  degenerate,  bodies  this  battle  for  their 
resources  between  Nature  and  Culture  (or  Indus- 
trialism) is  waged — ^the  one  to  make  them  normal,  the 
other  to  make  them  abnormal — are  all  more  or  less  in 
states  of  disease;  are  chlorotic,  anaemic,  neurotic, 
dyspeptic,  hysterical;  or  suffer  from  ailments  special 
to  their  sex.  While  some  are  sturdy  and  florid  and 
buxom  (prematurely  middle-aged),  more  are  neurasthenic 
and  attenuated,  ill-nourished,  spectacled,  breastless, 
hipless,  pale  or  pimply ;  are  restless,  emotionless,  joyless, 
cynical,  discontented.  In  but  few  are  found  the  thrill 
and  joy,  the  pulse  and  spring  and  natural  enthusiasms 
of  healthy,  happy  young  creatures  in  the  dawn  and 
grace  of  maidenhood.  Such  as  are  charming  and  pretty 
possess  these  natural  woman-characteristics  only  too 
often  in  fragile  and  weed-like  form.  The  constitutional 
degeneracy  of  some  shows  in  precocious  sex-develop- 
ment— all  precocity  being  degeneracy,  development  too 
rapid  and  exhaustive,  and  entailing  therefore  flimsy  and 
unstable  tissue-cells,  faulty  functioning  and  premature 
decline. 

A  proportion,  one  is  thankful  to  say,  are  normal  and 
healthful  and  charming,  endowed  with  the  attributes 
and  graces,  personal  and  mental,  for  which  Nature  is 
shaping  in  the  sex.  Others  are,  biologically  speaking, 
mere  lamentable  "  spoiled  copies  " ;  amazons  of  the 
hockey,  football,  tennis  or  hunting-fields,  only  just  dis- 
tinguishable in  general  characteristics  from  the  male, 
and  lacking  more  or  less  wholly  in  womanly  psychology 
and  aptitude,  and  in  all  the  fairer  and  nobler  attributes 
of  their  sex.  Still  others,  although  handsome  and  finely 
female  of  physique,  are  "  splendidly  null  "  in  respect 
of  the  emotions,  and  of  the  other  subtler  and  psychical 
developments  of  natural  womanhood. 


SEX-EXTINCTION  IN  ADOLESCENCE      129 

The  Greeks,  with  their  intuitive  apprehension,  pour- 
trayed  both  Athene,  goddess  of  Intellect,  and  Artemis, 
goddess  of  Sports,  as  sexless,  passionless,  unwedded  and 
childless;  scorners  of  men,  devoid  of  all  womanly 
impulse  and  sentiment.  (Strangely  enough,  as  though 
anticipating  the  argument  of  this  book,  Athene  is  de- 
scribed as  having  sprung,  in  full  life,  from  her  father's 
brain.  While  Scripture  tells  of  Eve  derived  from  Adam's 
side.) 

In  The  New  System  of  Gyncecology,  the  latest  and 
most  authoritative  treatise  by  eminent  specialists  in 
women's  diseases,  the  following  passage  occurs,  under 
heading,  "  Derangement  of  the  Sex-Characteristics  "  : 

"It  is  our  belief  that  the  more  truly  feminine  a 
woman  is,  psychically  and  physically,  in  instinct  and  in 
performance,  so  much  the  more  complete  and  normal 
will  be  the  functions  of  her  mind  and  body.  We  have 
already  alluded  to  inverted  instincts.  And  in  the 
perversion  of  functions  and  characteristics  (physical 
phenomena)  we  may  observe  all  grades  from  almost 
complete  masculinity  in  appearance,  with  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  feminine  functions,  to  the  lesser  degrees  of 
disordered  function  and  characteristics." 


II 

Nature  is  so  complex,  yet  so  subtly  consistent  in  her 
workings,  that  the  neuter-state  shows  in  the  faces  of 
many  of  our  women  as  the  typical  look  of  the  mule — 
cross  between  horse  and  ass,  a  creature  incapable  of 
reproduction.  In  the  eyes  of  young  women  of  strenuous 
pursuits — academic,  industrial,  or  athletic,  this  char- 
acteristic sterile  glint,  part  boldness,  part  antagonism, 
is  common. 

The  normal  condition  of  woman  is  attended  by  the 
normal  expression  of  woman.  The  womanly  biology 
entails  the  womanly  psychology.     And  modesty  is  one 


130        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

of  the  natural  female  secondary  Sex-characteristics, 
attendant  upon  healthy  structural  development  and 
function.  The  hard,  bold  glance — ^the  "  mule  "-look — 
of  some  masculine  girls  and  women  by  no  means  neces- 
sarily implies  conscious  immodesty.  It  is  mainly 
biological  and  subconscious;  sign  of  an  attribute 
missing,  as  result  of  deterioration  of  the  function  in 
which  the  attribute  is  normally  rooted. 

With  reduced  values  of  that  Reproductive  function 
it  is  modesty's  province  to  defend,  the  attribute  of 
modesty  declines. 

The  girls  and  women  of  old  Sparta,  as  ignorant  of 
biology  as  women  are  to-day,  made  a  cult  of  athletics — 
good  and  zealous,  but  mistaken  patriots ! — for  the 
express  purpose  of  mothering  a  fine,  athletic  race. 
These  high  and  praiseworthy  aims  failed  signally.  For 
Sparta,  with  all  her  zeal  of  racial  improvement  (so 
drastic  in  its  methods  that  she  killed  her  weakly  girl- 
infants)  fell  upon  decline  and  degeneracy.  Noble 
civilisation  that  she  had  been,  she  died  in  decadent 
corruption. 

And  showing  the  relation  between  athletic  pursuits 
and  extinction  of  womanly  qualities,  the  Spartan  cult 
of  Maleness  led  to  such  decay  of  modesty  that  it  became 
the  custom  for  women  to  run  with  the  men  in  The  Games, 
naked  as  they.  A  custom  that  sprang  less  from  actual 
immodesty  than  from  lapse  of  that  normal  Sex-specialisa- 
tion, whence  arises  the  normal  sex-consciousness  which 
engenders  wholesome  reserve  between  the  sexes.  Modern 
developments  of  a  similar  extinction  of  womanly 
modesty  are  seen  in  the  conduct  of  latter-day  girls  and 
women  in  public  parks  and  elsewhere ;  in  the  unseemly 
familiarities  of  mixed  bathing ;  in  the  decadent,  unduly- 
familiar  or  frankly  indecent  dances,  and  the  frankly 
indecent  modes  of  dress  just  now  in  vogue.  As  too  in 
that    so-called   "  candour "    which   permits   women   of 


SEX-EXTINCTION  IN  ADOLESCENCE      131 

culture  to  talk  openly  of  the  most  intimate  physiological 
functions,  and,  without  sense  of  shame,  to  discuss  across 
the  dinner-table  prurient  scandals  and  other  unsavoury 
topics. 

The  mystery  of  the  creative  powers  of  Life  occulted 
in  her  has  ever  invested  woman,  for  man,  with  glamour 
and  reverence,  enhancing  a  thousandfold  her  charm  and 
appeal  to  his  chivalry  and  tenderness.  In  stripping 
herself  of  womanly  reserve  and  dignity,  alike  in  de- 
meanour and  dress,  she  shatters  her  mystery  for  him 
and  forfeits  her  supremest  claim  upon  his  manhood; 
while  robbing  him  of  his  fairest  illusions  and  most 
inspiring  incentives. 


in 

In  cases  of  sex-transformation  in  the  lower  creatures, 
the  lapse  to  a  masculine  type  is  found  to  be  accompanied 
by  atrophy  of  reproductive  glands.  As  recorded  in  a 
previous  chapter,  investigations  by  Rorig  show  that 
when  the  ovaries  of  female  deer  atrophy  from  any  cause, 
male  antlers  develop. 

Mannish  sex-characteristics  in  women  are  as  abnormal 
and  as  unnatural,  and  arise  from  a  similar  cause  as  do 
male  antlers  in  female  deer. 

With  the  wane  of  parental  power,  normal  to  middle- 
age,  there  occurs  a  like — but  in  such  case  a  natural — 
atrophy  of  glands.  And  this  it  is  that  causes  some 
women  to  acquire  masculine  traits  at  this  epoch. 

Degrees,  greater  or  less,  of  such  a  decline  (natural 
to  middle-aged  women)  are  being  artificially,  and 
prematurely,  induced  in  our  girls  and  young  women. 
Some  of  them  become  actually  sterilised,  and  are  wholly 
incapable  of  reproduction.  The  greater  number  are 
only  partially  sterilised.  They  are  capable  still  of  being 
mothers.  But  the  function,  in  place  of  being  the  crown 
and  the  fulfilment  of  their  natures,  is  a  disability;    is 


132        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

more  or  less  of  a  morbid  process,  indeed.  And  their 
offspring  are  more  or  less  deteriorate.  Not  a  few,  after 
marriage — called  upon  to  fulfil  functions  the  resources 
whereof  have  been  sapped  by  other  and  abnormal 
activities — become  invalids;  a  number  require  surgical 
treatment. 

Non-development,  similar  atrophy,  or  other  deteriora- 
tion of  the  mammary  glands  precludes  the  vast  majority 
of  our  young  mothers  from  nourishing  their  babes — a 
deplorable  injury  to  these  as  well  as  to  the  mothers 
themselves;  physical  and  psychical  function  being 
closely  and  subtly  allied. 

Women  who  fence  or  play  hockey  and  other  rough 
games  during  girlhood,  become,  owing  to  such  degenera- 
tive atrophy,  incapacitated  for  lactation. 

The  following  is  an  interesting  example  of  the  manner 
in  which  cruder  and  lower-grade  power  may  be  increased 
at  the  cost  of  higher  faculties.  A  patient  told  me  that, 
having  been  naturally  a  poor  walker — ^two  miles  having 
been  her  limit — she  had  determined  to  train  herself 
out  of  this  which  she  regarded  as  an  infirmity.  Accord- 
ingly, by  persistent  practice,  she  succeeded  in  raising 
her  walking-power  to  ten  miles  daily.  She  mentioned 
incidentally — seeing  no  relation  of  cause  and  effect — 
that,  for  several  years  (the  years  during  which  her 
walking-powers  had  been  increasing)  she  had  become 
progressively  deaf. 

That  she  had  been,  in  point  of  fact,  sapping  the  potential 
of  the  complex,  invaluable  faculty  of  hearing,  in  order 
to  equip  her  leg-muscles,  was  confirmed  for  me  a  few 
weeks  later,  when  I  read  of  a  number  of  cyclists,  who, 
after  one  of  those  deplorable  pacing-exhibitions  common 
to-day,  came  in,  one  and  all,  stone  deaf  :  a  consequence 
of  nervous  strain.  The  deafness  in  these  cases  passed 
off  with  rest.  But  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  from 
such  temporary  functional  depletions  frequently  re- 
curring, permanent  structural  deterioration  must  result 


SEX-EXTINCTION  IN  ADOLESCENCE      133 

inevitably.  Thus  it  is  that  over-use,  in  sports  and  games, 
of  the  muscles  of  shoulder  and  chest,  occasions  atrophy 
of  mammary  glands. 

By  no  other  way  than  by  artificially  inducing  in 
them  a  premature  (partial)  climacteric,  by  perverting 
their  young  organisations  to  the  quasi-masculine  type 
of  the  middle-aged  woman,  and  thereby  releasing,  for 
available  output,  power  which  should  have  remained 
conserved  for  many  years  in  organisation,  can  women  be 
fitted  for  masculine  pursuits.  And  such  sterilisation, 
where  it  is  not  producing  actually  diseased  and  de- 
generate offspring,  is  producing  a  pitiful  race  of  pallid 
and  enfeebled  babes  and  children;  dyspeptic  and 
spectacled,  adenoid-afflicted,  unchildlike  and  generally 
deteriorate. 

That  other  factors  contribute  to  the  wave  of  Racial 
decline  now  menacing  our  modern  civilisations,  great 
and  small,  is  true.  Yet  mothers  of  fine  vital  potential 
are  able  to  counteract  and  to  minimise  the  effects  of 
constitutional  disease  in  the  other  parent  to  degrees 
but  little  realised.  Because  such  mothers  are  so 
lamentably  rare. 


IV 

It  is  the  natural  release  of  vital  forces,  consequent 
upon  the  normal  wane  of  mother-power  at  middle-age, 
that  has  been  mainly  responsible  for  the  errors  of  the 
Woman's  Movement. 

In  all  its  aims  and  methods  it  has  been  essentially 
a  Middle-aged  Woman's  movement.  There  are  no  young 
ideals  in  it ;  no  concessions  to  youth,  to  love,  to  gracious- 
ness  or  sentiment ;  none  to  wifehood  or  to  motherhood. 
It  has  been,  for  the  most  part,  a  grim,  dour  striving 
after  neuter  standards,  neuter  models,  neuter  efficiencies, 
neuter  lives  and  neuter  recompenses. 


134        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

Identity  of  brain  and  muscle,  of  aims  and  claims,  of 
games  and  avocations;  equal  rights  and  equal  work 
and  equal  pay  have  been  the  watchwords  of  its  pro- 
paganda. "  Fair  play  and  no  privileges  !  "  its  promoters 
rigorously  demand  for  these  poor  weedy  girl-neurotics 
who,  beyond  all  else,  require  industrial  concessions  and 
the  human  clemency  of  adequate  rest  and  leisure,  to 
allow  of  normal  and  healthful  development  of  their 
growing  brains  and  bodies. 

Pioneered  by  strenuous,  middle-aged  women — ^with 
the  best  intentions,  be  it  said — Feminists  have  adopted 
the  fatal  policy  of  sternly  impressing  the  model  of  their 
own  quasi-masculine  middle-age  as  the  standard  of 
youthful  development.  Without,  for  a  moment,  sus- 
pecting that  such  wresting  of  male  energies  and 
efficiencies  from  its  young  women-victims  has  inevitably 
entailed  upon  them  degrees  of  that  climacteric  of 
womanhood  which  is  the  herald  of  decline.  On  the  con- 
trary, this  middle-aged,  quasi-masculine  state,  because 
of  its  release  of  power  for  sterner  purposes,  has  been  hailed 
as  a  triumph  of  Emancipation  and  of  higher  education ; 
proof  positive  that  woman  is  not  man — only  because 
she  has  lacked  opportunity  to  become  so. 

In  point  of  fact,  these  unfortunate  young  creatures 
have  been,  and  are  being  all  the  while  ever  further 
despoiled  of  their  youth,  of  their  sex,  and  their  fair 
heritage  of  life  and  happiness,  of  function  and  of  faculty. 
And  the  Race  has  been  robbed  of  priceless  living  wealth 
in  human  health  and  capability. 

The  breasts  of  these  despoiled  have  shrunk,  in  place 
of  blossoming.  There  are  no  founts  of  altruistic  life  in 
them.  Never  will  they  be  capable  of  nurturing  babes, 
or  of  contributing  their  mysterious  due  to  psychical 
attribute.  The  pelvis  remains  narrow  and  puerile. 
Never  can  it  serve  as  hostel  for  a  babe  of  normal,  healthful 
type. 

In  the  vast  majority  of  modern  girls  and  women,  the 


SEX-EXTINCTION   IN  ADOLESCENCE      135 

reproductive    organs    are     structurally    immature    or 
functionally  defective. 

Dr.  Gaillard  Thomas,  an  eminent  American  gynaeco- 
logist, estimated,  some  years  since,  that  only  about 
4  per  cent,  of  American  women  proper  were  physio- 
logically fitted  to  become  wives  and  mothers. 

The  United  States  have  been  and  are  all  the  while 
deriving  fresh  influx  of  vigour  and  vitality  in  stock, 
from  the  continuous  immigration  of  simpler  and  more 
vitalised  peoples.  But  American  women  proper  have 
never  recovered  from  the  strain  and  hardships  of  adapt- 
ation to  a  new  environment,  which  settlers  in  alien 
and  undeveloped  countries  necessarily  encounter;  the 
deteriorative  influences  whereof  are  shown  in  con- 
stitutional impoverishment  of  the  parent-stock.  This  is 
true,  as  well,  of  our  Colonial  kin.  Not  only  the  strain 
of  acclimatisation,  but  too  the  hard  and  rough  life- 
conditions  women  have  to  cope  with  in  undeveloped 
lands  are  responsible  for  the  constitutionally- debilitated, 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  for  the  rawer  and  less  highly- 
organised  racial  types  found  in  new  settlements. 

In  the  United  States,  moreover,  the  standards  of 
culture  and  of  training  are  pre-eminently  artificial. 
Democratic  sentiment  and  material  prosperity  induce 
persons  of  working-class  biological  organisation  to 
over-tax  their  children's  brains  and  constitutions  by 
forcing  these  to  the  educational  standards  and  culture 
of  stock  that  has  evolved,  by  generations  of  higher 
nurture,  to  higher  evolutionary  grades.  The  "  newly- 
rich,"  eager  for  their  families  to  profit  (as  they  regard 
it)  by  opportunities  denied  themselves,  invariably 
commit  this  radical  error  of  over-estimating  academic 
education  and  social  accomplishment.  They  fail  to 
realise  that  one  can  no  more  attain  culture  than  one  can 
acquire  breeding  in  a  single  generation.  It  takes  three 
generations  of  culture — of  comparative  ease  and  freedom 
from  the  strain  of  industrial  labour  and  living— to  evolve 


186       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

the  crude  muscular  arm  of  a  working  woman  into  the 
shapely,  refined  arm  of  a  gentlewoman.  And  so  it  nmst 
be  with  brains.  In  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty,  a 
'Varsity  education  serves  as  irreparable  injury  rather 
than  as  benefit  to  a  working-class  youth,  depleting 
health  or  warping  character  as  it  inevitably  does. 

The  strain  of  living  above  the  evolutionary  level  is 
exhaustive  and  harmful,  physically  and  mentally,  both 
to  individuals  and  to  stock.  The  prudence  of  appor- 
tioning education  to  the  grade  of  evolutionary  develop- 
ment is  strikingly  shown  in  the  cases  of  negroes,  who, 
when  over-taxed  by  the  education  normal  to  white 
races,  not  seldom  become  blind  or  consumptive.  And 
always  the  morale  deteriorates.  The  forcing  upon  our 
own  labouring-classes  of  an  education  above  that  suited 
to  their  natural  powders  has  contributed  largely  to 
the  constitutional  deterioration  and  the  neurasthenia 
common  among  them  to-day. 

One  of  the  factors  of  modern  Labour -unrest,  indeed,  is 
the  physical  unfitness  of  debilitated  and  neurotic  work- 
ing-men to  cope  capably  and  cheerfully  with  the  tasks 
of  earlier  and  sturdier  generations. 

The  urgent  need  of  all  our  over-civilised  races  is  not 
more  education  but  more  native  faculty. 

Every  form  of  disease  and  degeneracy,  physical  and 
mental,  is  rampant.  A  well-known  authority  on  brain- 
diseases  warns  us  that  if  mental  defectiveness  continues 
to  increase  at  its  present  rapid  pace,  soon  we  shall  be 
unable  to  support  the  asylums  required  to  accommodate 
and  segregate  the  unfortunate  victims  thereof.  They 
must  remain  at  large — to  perpetuate  and  multiply 
indefinitely  their  terrible  afflictions. 

Yet  how  is  it  possible  that  such  weedy,  half-sterilised 
creatures  as  are  so  many  of  our  modern  mothers,  should 
bear  sound  and  sane  and  vigorous  offspring  ? 

Inherited  debilitation  and  defect  are  further  aggra- 
vated by  present-day  educational  methods. 


SEX-EXTINCTION   IN  ADOLESCENCE      137 

T)ur  modern  rendering  of  the  training  of  the  young 
is  the  straining  of  the  young. 

Developing  creatures  should  never  be  allowed  to 
over-iise  function  or  faculty.  Because  to  over-tire  an 
immatiu'e  faculty  is  to  deplete  its  vital  resources  of 
development.  Nor  should  young  developing  creatures 
be  permitted  to  do  anything  too  strenuously  or  for  too 
long  a  time.  Narrowness  and  mental  warp  result 
inevitably  from  too  early  and  too  long  periods  of  con- 
centration in  one  direction,  of  the  ductile  shaping  brain. 

In  defiance,  nevertheless,  of  this  first  principle  of 
rearing,  boys  and  girls,  after  the  morning's  brain-work, 
are  kept  at  strenuous  games  for  hours  in  succession. 

Body  and  mind,  after  having  been  cramped  between 
the  covers  of  text- books,  now  are  cramped  within  the 
narrow  rules  and  rigid  form  of  such  miscalled  "  games," 
supervised  by  over-keen  experts — the  whole  business 
exacting  sustained  muscular  tension,  temperamental 
excitement  and  competitive  nervous  strain.  The  powers 
are  stretched  to  win  some  goal,  in  place  of  being  unbent 
in  leisure  and  in  pleasure.  True  play  is  spontaneous 
enjoyment  of  the  moment,  not  fierce  concentration 
upon  goals.  This  latter  induces  excitement,  which  may 
be  pleasurable,  but  it  entails  its  tax  in  reactionary 
exhaustion.  Because  of  the  spur  of  competition  in 
them,  sports  and  games,  as  now  rendered,  act  as  powerful 
nerve-stimulants  that  deplete  and  waste  the  vital 
powers. 

School-boys  and  school-girls  live,  for  the  most  part, 
in  alternating  states,  of  high  tension  in  sports  and 
reactionary  languors  from  the  heart  and  nervous  strain 
resulting  therefrom. 

Since  sports  and  atliletics  became  a  cult,  heart- 
diseases  have  increased  by  50  per  cent.  We  complain 
that  our  young  men  are  limp  and  unintelligent,  lacking 
in  initiative  and  enterprise.  Apart  from  the  serious 
circumstance  that,   mentally,   they  have  been  trained 


138        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

for  cricket,  not  for  life,  most  of  them  (to  employ  their 
own  phrase)  have  "  gone  stale "  in  heart  and  brain, 
in  consequence  of  forced  athletics,  long  before  they 
come  to  the  momentous  business  of  living.  Even  their 
muscles  have  wasted,  in  place  of  developing.  With  the 
result  that  instead  of  being  finely-built  and  graceful, 
numbers  of  our  youths  are  stiff,  stoop-shouldered  and 
abnormally  attenuated. 

Education  should  aim  at  keeping  young  persons  fresh 
and  unstrained;  charged  with  vital  energies  for  growth 
of  mind  and  body,  filled  with  zest  and  enthusiasm  for 
the  career  before  them. 

Everywhere,  mothers  deplore  bitterly  that  they  can 
obtain  neither  duty,  obedience,  nor  affection  from  their 
girls.  Many  will  not  mend  their  clothes  even;  refuse 
so  slight  a  domestic  concession  as  to  arrange  flowers 
for  the  home.  Lacking  the  morbid  excitement  of  com- 
petitive rough  games,  an  abnormal  craving  for  which 
has  been  artificially  created,  and  home-tastes  extin- 
guished, at  school,  modern  girls  are  bored  and  dis- 
affected save  when  indulging  in  sports  or  in  other  excite- 
ments. The  more  delicate,  sympathetic,  and  humanising 
amenities  have  no  appeal  for  them. 

All  the  subtler,  vital  and  inspiring  impulses  of  natural 
womanhood  have  been  rudely  smothered  in  tussles  of  big 
muscles,  in  sensational  crazes  for  making  hockey-goals, 
and  similar  crude  aims,  quite  alien  to  natural  girlhood. 
The  recurring  stimulus  of  such,  in  addition  to  over- 
developing male  muscles  and  proclivities  in  them, 
creates  both  the  habit  and  the  craving  for  excitement; 
effects  pernicious  and  demoralising  as  are  those  of  all 
habitual  strong  nerve-excitants. 

It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  cumulative  effect 
of  habit  upon  disposition — and  this  particularly  upon 
the  plastic,  shaping  dispositions  of  young  girls. 

Youth  is  at  the  mercy  of  its  pastors  and  its  masters, 


SEX-EXTINCTION   IN  ADOLESCENCE      139 

to  spoil  or  to  foster  its  best  growth.  We  feed  the  bodies 
and  cram  the  brains  of  our  young  people,  while,  in 
sending  them  away  from  the  home  which  is  their  natural 
environment,  we  starve  and  dwarf  their  emotions  and 
affections;  giving  these  nothing  to  evoke,  nothing  to 
nurture  them.  The  abnormal  cold-heartedness  and  self- 
absorption  latter-day  mothers  bewail  in  their  girls  are 
the  inevitable  outcome  of  their  unnatural  upbringing. 

The  spectacle  of  young  women,  with  set  jaws,  eyes 
strained  tensely  on  a  ball,  a  fierce  battle-look  gripping 
their  features,  their  hands  clutching  some  or  other 
implement,  their  arms  engaged  in  striking  and  beating, 
their  legs  disposed  in  coarse  ungainly  attitudes,  is  an 
object-lesson  in  all  that  is  ugly  in  action  and  unwomanly 
in  mode.  The  so-called  "  tennis-grin,"  which  on  many 
women's  faces  does  duty  for  smile,  shows  how  the 
muscular  tension  of  forceful  effort  permanently  mars 
higher  attribute.  So  too,  the  proverbial  quarrelsome- 
ness of  tennis -playing  women  results  from  the  combative 
habit  of  mind.  Light  and  exhilarating,  in  place  of 
strenuous  competitive  exercises,  enable  girls  to  develop 
their  womanhood  in  healthy  structure,  efficient  function, 
and  beauty  of  body  and  mind.  Dancing — ^the  poetry 
of  motion — particularly  conduces  to  health  and  to 
grace.  True  dancing,  that  is,  not  the  acrobatics  of  the 
professional  dancer,  which  result  in  coarsened  ugly 
limbs  and  stilted  action. 

There  is  a  well-known  Girls  college  which  makes 
pre-eminently  for  the  cult  of  Mannishness. 

And  here  are  seen,  absorbed  in  fierce  contest  dui;ing 
the  exhausting  heat  of  summer  afternoons,  grim-visaged 
maidens  of  sinewy  build,  hard  and  tough  and  set  as 
working-women  in  the  forties;  some  with  brawny 
throats,  square  shoulders  and  stern  loins  that  would 
do  credit  to  a  prize-ring.  All  of  which  masculine 
developments  are  stigmata  of  abnormal  Sex-transforma- 


140       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

tion  precisely  similar  in  origin  to  male  antlers  in  female- 
deer;  namely,  deterioration  of  important  sex-glands, 
with  consequent  obliteration  of  the  secondary  Sex- 
characteristics  arising  normally  out  of  the  functional 
efficiency  of  these. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  "  hardening  "  process  for 
children  succeeds  in  rearing  sturdy  families,  by  killing 
off  those  of  more  delicate  (and  higher)  organisation. 
And  this  and  other  such  latter-day  schools  earn  a  reputa- 
tion for  rearing  amazons,  by  so  breaking  the  health  and 
constitution  of  their  more  delicately-constituted  mem- 
bers that  these  are  compelled  to  withdraw.  Following 
the  rule  that  healthy  bodies  rebel  in  terms  of  illness 
against  deteriorative  conditions,  it  is  the  normal  and 
healthfully-constituted  girls  who  fail  beneath  such 
injurious  strain.  While  organisations  less  sound  of 
constitutional  morale,  in  place  of  sustaining  their  typal 
ideals,  conform  to  these  deteriorative  methods,  and 
degenerate  from  higher  to  lower-grade  standards  of 
structure  and  function.  Precisely  as  happens  to  minds 
when  exposed  to  demoralising  influences. 

And  to  what  end  is  it  all  ?  The  training  of  modern 
young  persons  should  fit  them  for  Twentieth-Century 
existence  in  all  its  varied,  complex  and  psychical 
developments.  Yet  now-a-days  we  train  our  girls  as 
though  their  destiny  were  carpet -beating  or  the 
forge,  rather  than  the  higher  human  amenities.  It  is 
not  surprising,  therefore,  that  they  frequently  play 
hockey  with  the  higher  amenities.  So  impressionable 
and  mimetic  the  sex  is,  and  such  its  bent  toward  ex- 
tremes, that  women  trained  to  Sports  comport  them- 
selves in  after-life  as  though  playing  a  competitive  game. 
A  mental  warp  which  has  been  one  of  the  sources  of 
latter-day  strenuousness,  as  too  of  that  fierce  social 
rivalry  which  is  wrecking  older  and  fairer  ideals  and 
methods  of  friendship  and  hospitality. 

Over-development  of  the  large  and  cruder  muscles 


SEX-EXTINCTION  IN  ADOLESCENCE      141 

dwarfs  those  smaller  and  more  delicate  ones  which  adapt 
to  the  softer  and  subtler  departments  of  faculty.  And 
while  despoiling  these  smaller  muscles  which  subtend 
gentle  and  delicate  artistries,  the  crude  larger  ones, 
hypertrophied  by  athletic  activities,  become  alike  a 
burden  and  a  curse  to  their  possessor.  Because  not  only 
is  their  upkeep  a  continual  and  a  superfluous  tax  upon 
her  vital  powers,  but  their  hunger  for  continued  function 
in  further  such  crude  activities  afflicts  her  with  turbulent 
impulses,  for  which  the  more  civilised  vocations  supply 
no  scope.  The  militant  Feminist  movement  was  as 
much  an  explosion  of  suppressed  muscularity  in  young 
women  deprived  of  other  outlet  for  accumulated  muscle- 
steam,  as  it  was  an  ebullition  of  masculine  mentality 
on  the  part  of  its  leaders. 

Hysteria  and  other  neuroses,  obsessing  hobbies  and 
crazes,  are,  more  often  than  not,  morbid  and  distressing 
consequences  of  habits  acquired  at  school  and  college, 
of  developing  abnormal  high-pressures  of  muscular  and 
nervous  energy.  Masculine  war-occupations  have  simi- 
larly evoked  male  muscularity  and  mentality  in  women. 
So  that — War  over — they  find  it  well-nigh  unendurable 
to  return  to  the  more  refined  and  humanising  womanly 
employments  of  their  pre-war  days.  While  on  the  other 
hand,  employers  are  bewailing  the  rough  and  coarsened 
manners,  personality  and  speech,  as  too  the  clumsy 
movements  and  ineptitudes  of  domestic  servants,  nurses 
and  others,  de-sexed  by  War-work  in  respect  of  the 
higher  qualities  and  efficiencies  of  their  sex.  Many  of 
these  sturdy  motor-drivers,  lusty  W.A.A.Cs.  and  strap- 
ping Land-girls  have  lost  all  taste  as  well  as  aptitude 
for  the  finer  arts  of  life  and  of  the  home.  Efficient  in 
the  handling  of  plough  or  gun  or  lorry,  woe  to  the 
hapless  babe  or  invalid  subjected  to  their  hard,  forceful 
touch  ! 


142        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 


Language  is  scarcely  emphatic  enough  to  characterise 
the  painful  (and  insane)  exhibitions  of  Public-school 
and  College  "  Sports,"  in  which  boys  and  young  men, 
whose  vital  forces  are  needed  beyond  all  things  for 
development,  may  be  seen  with  faces  whereon  is  neither 
joy  of  action  nor  pride  of  achievement,  but  only  the 
pained  rigidity  of  supreme  heart  and  nervous  strain, 
as  they  strive  for  goals  that  are  no  test  of  true  physical 
fitness,  but,  on  the  contrary,  prove  physical  lopsidedness. 

In  confirmation  whereof  is  the  fact  that  many  such 
athletes  die  young,  and  die  suddenly.  Or  they  live 
the  years  when  men  should  be  still  in  their  prime — 
valetudinarian  and  hypochondriac.  The  secret  of  health 
and  nervous  power  is  the  constitutional  capacity  to 
store  reserves  of  vital  energy,  for  expenditure  as  required. 
Exhausting  sports  in  youth  engender  habits  of  over- 
expenditure  thereof. 

Trials  of  skill  and  of  strength  are  admirable  spurs 
to  development  and  self -discipline.  But  these  should 
make  for  excellence  in  that  fine  poise  of  Mind  and 
Muscle  which  is  the  hall-mark  of  human  achievement, 
not  for  extremes  of  crude  brute-force  (muscle  being  the 
lowest  grade  of  human  powers)  which  strain  the  living 
mechanism;  and,  straining,  leave  inevitably  weak  and 
warped  links,  when  not  actually  snapped  ones  therein. 
The  human  body  is  a  marvellous  and  delicate  psycho- 
logical instrument,  not  a  mere  muscular  implement. 
When  the  hearts  of  boys  are  "  sounded  "  after  com- 
petitive sports,  "murmurs"  are  heard;  showing 
valvular  incompetency.  Temporary  in  the  majority  of 
cases,  but  none  the  less  indicative  of  gravely-weakened 
states  which  can  but  permanently  injure  the  fine-spun 
valvular  apparatus.  "  Dilated  hearts  "  caused  numbers 
of  our  "  fine  young  athletes  "  to  be  rejected  as  unfit  for 
military  duty. 


SEX-EXTINCTION  IN  ADOLESCENCE      143 

Young  men  "  in  training  "  suffer  from  albuminuria, 
showing  serious  derangement  of  the  kidney-function; 
derangement  which  inevitably  entails  such  permanent 
structural  deterioration  as  lapses  readily,  in  after  years, 
to  grave  disease. 

The  fallacy  that  the  excitement  of  games  distracts 
the  attention  of  youth  from  the  processes  of  sex-develop- 
ment has  been  disproved.  While  all  athletic  boys  are 
not  vicious,  it  is  now  recognised  that  the  most  vicious 
are  the  athletic.  The  languors  of  body  and  mind 
reactionary  upon  the  exciting  strain  of  games  are  un- 
wholesome languors;  and  breed  unwholesome  self- 
absorptions.  A  fresh  and  active  imagination,  to  keep 
the  mind  interested  at  every  turn,  is  the  best  of  all  safe- 
guards. It  is  in  the  imagination,  moreover,  that  higher 
moral  and  ideals  arise. 

It  has  been  said  that  "  the  battle  of  Waterloo  was  won 
on  the  playing-fields  of  Eton."  It  was  far  more  likely 
won  in  the  pages  of  Jack  the  Giant  Killer !  Because 
in  war,  as  in  most  other  things,  moral  is  more  potent 
than  muscle.  There  is,  it  is  true,  a  moral  of  Games. 
But  its  outlook  and  its  application  are  both  contracted 
of  range  and  artificial  of  form.  Games  are  useful  in 
forming  habits  and  in  exercising  faculties  of  co-operation 
in  concerted  action.  But  being  played  in  company 
with  others,  and  played  in  obedience  to  rule  and  regula- 
tion, they  allow  no  scope  for  the  development  of  in- 
dividualism in  mind  or  character,  initiative  or  resource — 
outside  the  narrow  boundaries  of  cricket-pitch  or  foot- 
ball field. 

By  perpetual  absorption  of  the  powers  in  the  move- 
ments of  a  ball,  the  mind  becomes  contracted  and  set 
in  puerile  mould,  during  years  when  it  should  be  germinat- 
ing and  expanding  in  response  to  the  countless  varied 
and  inspiring  stimuli  and  factors  of  natural  environ- 
ment. Over-keenness  in  sports  destroys  the  sense  of 
beauty,  love  of  art  and  love  of  Nature. 


144        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

The  grey  matter  of  the  brain — ^the  medium  of  Mind 
— wherein  arise  imagination,  inspiration  and  those 
noble  talents  and  the  noble  dreams  of  enterprise  which 
make  for  noble  lives — ^this  highest  and  most  complex 
of  the  human  tissue-cells  becomes  starved  and  atrophied 
from  continued  waste  of  brain-resources  by  those  lower- 
grade  cerebral  motor-tracts  which  control  and  energise 
the  muscles. 

The  popular  impression,  both  lay  and  medical,  that 
muscular  exertion  supplies  rest  to  the  brain  and  recu- 
peration to  the  nervous  system,  is  a  sad  delusion.  One 
cannot  raise  a  finger  without  expending  brain  and 
nervous  force,  the  muscles  being  implements  by  way  of 
which  the  brain  transforms  purpose  into  action — being 
6ram -implements  therefore.  So  that  brains — and  par- 
ticularly young  brains — unduly  taxed  by  muscular 
activities  are  robbed  of  power  to  develop  or  to  function 
in  their  intellectual  and  other  higher  departments. 

If  my  hypothesis  be  true,  and  the  right  side  of  the  body 
with  its  allied  brain-hemisphere  is  the  executive  and 
expenditure  side,  while  the  left  is  the  Life  and  asset 
side,  it  is  obvious  that  excessive  brain-work,  or  Sports, 
for  which  the  executive  power  is  supplied  by  this  right 
side  and  its  allied  brain  half,  must  necessarily  deplete 
and  exhaust  the  left  side,  which  is  the  power-house  and 
reservoir  of  Life  and  Mind  whence  the  executive  half 
derives  its  mental,  nervous  and  vital  potential. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  such  cai^ful  economy 
of  the  powers  is  superfluous  in  truly  healthful  and 
normally  vigorous  males.  But  latter-day  stock  has 
been,  for  the  most  part,  so  far  depleted  by  generations 
of  neglect  of  natural  law  as  to  require  the  strictest 
husbandry  of  its  vital  expenditure,  in  order  to  apportion 
its  means  to  the  best  all-round  advantage. 

Object-lessons    in    such    extremes    of    athleticism    as 


SEX-EXTINCTION   IN  ADOLESCENCE     145 

destroy  the  normal  balance  of  the  counter-poising  Sex- 
traits  have  been  supplied  by  War. 

The  faces — as  the  natures — of  some  of  our  soldiers 
have  become  crude,  coarse  and  deteriorate  in  intelligence, 
others  abnormally  harsh  and  fierce;  the  softer  human 
qualities  having  been  trampled  out  of  them  by  stress 
of  mJlitarism,  some  to  degrees  of  brutalisation  and 
criminality,  even.  While  a  very  great  number  show 
lined  and  haggard  from  heart  or  nervous  strain. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  WOMAN  BRAIN  :     ITS  POWERS  AND  DISABILITIES 

"  My  state  is  like  the  lightning^ a  light — 
Now  it  shines  forth,  and  now  His  gone  from  sight. 
At  times,  amid  the  heavens  I  find  my  seat  ; 
At  others,  I  am  lower  than  my  feet. '' 

Sa'di  (Persian  poet). 


Of  what  order  is  this  Woman-half  of  Mind  which 
Feminism  seeks  to  extinguish  ? 

y^  •!•  •!•  sp  n*  5^ 

The  cerebral  processes  appreciable  upon  the  Outer 
plane,  and  calculable  by  Science,  represent  no  more  than 
a  tithe  of  brain-activities.  They  are  but  a  single  highly- 
specialised  focus  of  brain-functioning. 

Behind  concrete  Volition,  Intellection,  and  Action, 
are  the  silent,  ceaseless,  inner  and  incalculable  workings 
of  innumerable  brain-cells  concerned  with  the  mysterious 
constitution  and  metabolism  of  Life,  and  its  strange, 
potent  relation  and  correlation  with  Mind  and  with 
environment;  concerned  with  character  and  attribute 
and  impulse;  with  ancestral  vestiges  and  personal 
experience;  with  memories  and  instincts;  with  an 
infinitude  of  occulted  and  imperishable  records  of 
previous  terrestrial  existences,  perhaps ;  concerned,  in  a 
word,  with  all  the  secret  springs  and  complex  potences 
of  Individuality;  which  differentiates  every  thought, 
emotion  and  action  of  any  human  person  from  those  of 
every  other. 

And  in  these  recondite  mysteries  fructifying  in  a 
hundred  million  bi-sexual  brain-cells,  it  may  be  that  the 

146 


THE  WOMAN  BRAIN  147 

subtle  counter  and  inter-operations  of  the  Man  and 
Woman-traits  find  their  highest  activities,  and  make  for 
their  supremest  issues. 

Every  man  and  woman  is  to  every  other  a  Sealed 
Book,  whereof  no  more  than  a  few  pages  have  been 
glimpsed — even  by  those  nearest  and  dearest.  We  are 
Sealed  Books  to  ourselves,  indeed,  because  we  do  not 
know  the  language  we  are  written  in.  For  of  all  the 
muted  mysteries  spinning  ceaselessly  within  the  silent- 
functioning  cells  of  twin  brain-hemispheres,  Science 
affords  us  but  the  scantest  and  most  sketchy  information. 
That  the  grey  matter  coating  the  brain-convolutions 
is  the  site  of  mentality ;  that  the  higher  the  intelligence, 
the  deeper  and  more  intricate  these  convolutions  are; 
that  disease  of  a  certain  area  destroys  the  power  of 
speech ;  while  disease  of  some  other  occasions  paralysis 
of  this  or  that  group  of  muscles,  loss  of  sensation  in  this 
or  that  tract  of  skin.  Baldly  it  states  that  a  portion  of 
a  certain  convolution  controls  a  certain  movement  of  a 
hand.  But  the  thousand  and  one  emotions  and  incen- 
tives prompting  such  movement,  and  differentiating  the 
resulting  action  across  the  extensive  range  between  the 
noblest  benefaction  and  the  blackest  murder,  baffle 
every  scientific  method. 

The  processes  of  Mind  and  Impulse  occur  on  planes 
we  have  no  means  of  penetrating,  possess  no  appliances 
whereby  to  estimate  the  ethereal  undulations  thereof. 

What  are  we?  Who  are  we?  Whence  are  we? 
Whither  do  we  go  ? 

All  is  locked  within  the  occulted  silence  of  our  hundred 
million  brain-cells;  each  of  which  holds  and  keeps  its 
own  intrinsic  secret ;  each  the  mysterious  record,  it  may 
be,  of  one  of  those  countless  experiences,  forms  and 
phases,  ancestral  or  individual,  whereof  every  living 
person  is  the  last  resultant.  But  the  Twin-hemispheres, 
face  to  face  within  the  skull,  like  opposite  pages  of  a  book, 
are  key  to  one  another ;  one  page  written  in  the  mystical 


148       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

language  of  The  Past  and  Future,  the  other  in  the  con- 
crete language  of  The  Present. 


II 

Is  that  which  I  surmise  to  be  the  Woman — and 
emotional  half  of  brain,  the  site  of  the  mysterious  pro- 
vince known  as  The  Subconsciousness,  into  the  strange 
powers  and  phenomena  whereof  scientists  are  now  be- 
ginning to  inquire  ? 

Is  it  the  seat  of  that  which  Myers  designated  "  The 
Subliminal  Consciousness,"  but  which  might  well  be 
called  the  Supra-Consciousness,  because,  in  the  regions 
of  its  higher  functioning,  it  cognises  things  beyond 
power  of  Concrete  Consciousness  to  apprehend;  intui- 
tions, premonitions,  apparitions,  telepathic  messages  ? 

Is  it  medium  of  those  inherences  and  that  sub-intelli- 
gent emotionalism  known  as  Instinct ;  which  may  be 
regarded  as  the  implanted  religion  of  rudimentary  organ- 
isms, leading  them  upward  in  blind  subconscious  obedi- 
ence, at  sacrifice  of  their  self-interests  and  disposition  ? 

Respecting  the  regeneration  of  the  crystalline  lens 
of  the  eye  of  a  Triton,  Bergson  says  : 

"  Whether  we  will  or  no,  we  must  appeal  to  some 
inner  directing  principle  in  order  to  account  for  this 
convergence  of  effects.^^ 

May  it  not  be  that  this  brain-half — seemingly  function- 
less,  albeit  as  marvellously  constructed  and  constituted 
as  its  fellow- half — is,  in  its  merely  organic  departments, 
the  agency  of  such  an  "  inner  principle,"  engendering  the 
vital  potentials  of  Life  and  Evolution,  of  health,  of 
nervous  recuperation  and  of  biological  repair  ?  While 
in  its  departments  of  Mind,  it  functions  as  instinct,  as 
intuition,  as  inspiration,  aspiration ;  serves  as  the  subtly 
receptive  medium  by  way  of  which  The  Divine  Influx 
wells  in  human  attribute;  whereby  Divine  Revelation 
is  communicated  to  the  concrete  brain-half,  for  interpre- 


THE  WOMAN  BRAIN  149 

tation  in  speech  and  in  writing.  Bergson  says  also  : 
"  The  consciousness  of  a  Hving  being  may  be  defined 
as  an  arithmetical  difference  between  potential  and 
realised  activity.  It  measures  the  interval  between 
representation  and  action."     (Duality  is  indicated.) 

The  trait  essentially  distinguishing  the  human  from 
the  brute-mind,  is  Intelligent  Purpose.  And  Purpose  is 
the  product  of  Impulse  (or  Instinct)  and  Reason,  (or 
Concrete  Intelligence).  (Duality  again.)  Impulse  is  an 
emotion  and  is  feminine.  Reason  is  masculine.  Intelli- 
gent Purpose  may  well  be,  therefore,  a  resultant  of  the 
co-operation  of  the  feminine  half  of  the  brain,  which 
supplies  Impulse,  with  the  masculine  half,  which  supplies 
Reason. 

Instinct,  Professor  James,  the  American  psychologist, 
has  pointed  out,  exists  independently  of  any  recognition 
of  its  purpose.  While  Reason  exists  apart  from  instinct 
— apart  therefore  from  the  emotional  impulse  which  gives 
it  the  personal  motive-power  to  become  pm'pose.  Thus, 
either  mode  of  brain  without  the  other  to  supplement 
it  would  be  incapable  of  function. 

/Se/Z-consciousness  requires  two  departments  of  Con- 
sciousness— each  of  which  is  aware  of  the  other.  So  that 
a  man  may  judge  and  restrain  impulses  in  himself 
that  are  contrary  to  reason  and  expedience,  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  may  choose  to  sacrifice  both  reason  and  self- 
interest  to  emotional  impulse,  noble  and  uplifting,  or 
ignoble  and  debasing.     ' 

Describing  Intellect  as  characterised  by  a  natural 
inability  to  comprehend  Life,  Professor  Bergson  further 
says  :  "  Instinct,  on  the  contrary,  is  moulded  on  the 
very  form  of  Life.  ...  If  the  consciousness  that 
slumbers  in  it  should  awake,  if  it  were  wound  up  into 
knowledge  instead  of  being  wound  off  into  action,  if  we 
could  ask  and  it  could  reply,  it  would  give  up  to  us  the 
most  intimate  secrets  of  Life." 


150        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

Again  Duality  of  mental  processes  is  inferred.  As  too 
in  the  following  passage : 

"  Instinct  is  sympathy.  If  this  sympathy  could 
extend  its  object  and  also  reflect  upon  itself,  it  would 
give  us  the  key  to  vital  operations — just  as  intelligence, 
developed  and  disciplined,  guides  us  into  Matter.  .  .  . 
Intelligence,  by  means  of  science  .  .  .  brings  us,  and 
moreover  only  claims  to  bring  us,  a  translation  of  Life 
in  terms  of  inertia.  .  .  .  But  it  is  to  the  very  inwardness 
of  Life  that  Intuition  leads  us — by  Intuition  I  mean 
instinct  that  has  become  disinterested,  self-conscious, 
capable  of  reflecting  upon  its  object  and  of  enlarging  it 
indefinitely." 


Ill 

The  phenomena  of  Hypnotism  seem  to  set  the  Duality 
of  cerebral  processes  beyond  dispute. 

Dr.  George  H.  Savage,  Consulting  Physician  and  late 

Lecturer  on  Mental  diseases  at  Guy's  Hospital,  in  his 

Harveian  Oration,  October  1909,  testified  as  follows  to 

the  strangeness  and  authenticity  of  hypnotic  evidences  : 

"  Wishing   to    follow   our   great   master   in   not 

accepting  anything  without  personal  investigation, 

I  took  advantage  of  the  opportunity  offered  by 

Dr.   Wright,  to  test  some  of  the  points  of  most 

importance  to  which  I  have  referred. 

"  A  gentleman,  an  engineer,  who  had  been 
relieved  by  treatment  by  Dr.  Wright,  was  willing 
to  allow  him  to  demonstrate  the  various  stages  of 
hypnotism  and  their  effects.  .  .  .  He  was  asked 
to  sit  down  and  talk  quietly  about  his  relation- 
ship to  hypnotism.  Then  he  was  told  to  go  to 
sleep.  A  few  passes  being  made  over  his  head, 
he  slowly  closed  his  eyes,  and  in  less  than  a  minute 
he  was  sleeping  placidly.     By  the  gentle  stroking 


THE  WOMAN  BRAIN  151 

of  his  left  arm  this  was  rendered  inflexible.  The 
pulse  was  in  no  way  affected ;  pupils  were  equal,  but 
rather  larger  than  before  he  slept,  and  were  sluggish. 
He  was  slowly  aroused  (it  being  well  always  to  recall 
the  subject  slowly).  After  a  talk  on  general  matters 
he  stated  that  he  had  no  sense  of  fatigue  in  the  arm, 
nor  any  recollection  of  anything  said  and  done  during 
the  period  of  hypnosis. 

"  He  was  again,  in  a  similar  way,  sent  to  sleep. 
It  was  then  suggested  that  at  the  end  of  seven  min- 
utes he  should  lose  all  power  and  sensibility  in  his 
right  side.  He  was  roused,  given  a  cigarette,  which 
he  smoked  while  he  talked,  having  no  knowledge 
of  the  suggestion  which  had  been  made.  About 
five  minutes  after  he  had  been  roused,  his  right  arm 
fell  useless  by  his  side,  he  passing  at  the  same  time  into 
a  partial  stage  of  hypnosis.  This  is  common  when  a 
post-hypnotic  suggestion  is  being  carried  out.  The 
whole  of  the  right  side,  including  the  face,  was  in- 
sensitive ;  the  pupils  were  smaller  and  inactive. 
He  was  again  slowly  aroused,  and  resumed  smoking, 
having  no  feeling  of  oppression,  or  recollection  of 
anything  which  had  been  said  or  done.  He  was 
later  again  hypnotised,  and  in  that  condition  he 
was  asked  what  had  been  done  formerly.  After 
some  hesitation,  he,  in  part,  recalled  the  facts. 

"  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  though  constantly 
the  acts  performed  during  hypnosis  are  not  recalled 
when  awake,  they  are  fully  remembered  on  a  second 
hypnosis.  We  tested  his  emotional  side  by  getting 
him  to  recall  scenes  in  a  comic  opera,  at  which  he 
heartily  laughed  but  had  no  knowledge  of  on  waking. 
While  unconscious,  it  was  suggested  that  when  he 
woke  he  should  remark  upon  a  strong  odour  of 
violets.  He  was  awakened  and  offered  a  cigarette ; 
but,  looking  about  the  room,  he  asked  whence  the 
strong  smell  of  violets  came. 


152       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

"  I  inquired  as  to  the  revival  of  long-past  impres- 
sions, and  it  seems  that  occurrences  which  took  place 
before  his  present  memory  existed,  had  been  revived 
and  verified.  But  still  more  interesting  was  his 
experience  in  reference  to  a  mathematical  formula 
which  he  had  forgotten.  Being  hypnotised,  he 
dictated  it,  and  though  when  once  more  awake  he 
did  not  remember  it,  when  shown  what  he  had  just 
dictated  he  recognised  it  as  the  lost  formula.  This, 
of  course,  is  in  a  way  parallel  to  the  solution  of 
difficult  problems  during  sleep." 

Be  it  observed  that  when  at  the  end  of  seven  minutes 
(as  had  been  "  suggested  "  to  him  should  happen)  the 
subject  lost  all  power  and  sensibility  in  his  right  side  and 
"  his  right  arm  fell  useless  by  his  side,^^  he  passed  "  at 
the  same  time  into  a  partial  state  of  hypnosis.  This  is 
common,^^  Dr.  Savage  adds,  "  when  a  post-hypnotic  sugges- 
tion is  being  carried  out." 

Here  is  strong  corroboration  of  my  argument  that  the 
right  side  of  the  body,  with  its  allied  half -brain,  is  the 
agent  of  Material  Consciousness,  of  muscular  action  and 
of  physical  sensation,  and  that  it  operates  normally  in 
fencing  in  the  higher  faculties  of  Mind  from  the  outer 
plane  of  concrete  happenings,  as  also  of  interpreting 
them  upon  this  plane. 

Hypnosis  is  induced  by  devices  occasioning  muscular 
exhaustion,  and  thus  temporarily  paralysing  "  voluntary 
muscles  " — muscles,  that  is,  which  are  under  conscious 
control.  It  is  induced  as  well  (as  in  the  case  cited)  by 
stroking,  and  thus  putting  to  sleep  the  sensory  nerves — 
nerves  which  define  the  patient's  consciousness  of  his 
material  personality.  It  would  seem  that  by  such  inhi- 
bition, or  paralysis,  of  the  perceptions  of  the  outer  con- 
sciousness, faculties  of  Subconsciousness — even  of  Supra- 
consciousness — are  exposed,  so  that  Mind  itself  may  be 
dealt  with  direct. 


THE  WOMAN  BRAIN  158 

Every   form   of   insensibility   is    closely    allied    with 
muscular  relaxation  or  paralysis. 


IV 

Examples  of  the  operation  of  the  Supra-conscious 
faculties  upon  the  concrete  plane  are  supplied  by  the 
marvellous  feats  of  "  lightning  calculators." 

The  most  intricate  mathematical  problems — calcula- 
tions that  would  call  for  lengthy  and  complicated  intel- 
lectual processes  on  the  part  of  expert  mathematicians  to 
work  out  by  ordinary  methods — are  solved  instantane- 
ously by  the  genius  of  such  natural  "  calculators."  You 
cannot  puzzle  them ;  you  cannot  baffle  them.  Scarcely 
have  you  stated  your  problem  than  they  have  calmly 
presented  you  with  the  solution.  As  Maeterlinck  records 
in  his  interesting  book,  The  Unknown  Guest,  this  genius 
for  figures  developed  in  Colbourn  and  Safford  at  the  age 
of  six,  in  Mangiamele  at  ten,  in  Gauss  and  Whateley  at 
three.  All  that  and  more  than  expert  mathematicians 
laboriously  acquire  by  decades  of  study  and  practice, 
these  boy-prodigies  achieved  by  way  of  native  faculty. 
Such  have  not  the  slightest  notion  how  they  arrive  at 
their  results.  These  are  obtained  automatically — are 
products  of  unconscious  cerebration. 

Maeterlinck  observes  of  this,  that  the  resultant 
"  appears  to  rise,  infallible  and  ready-done,  from  a  sort 
of  eternal  and  cosmic  reservoir  wherein  the  answer  to 
every  question  lies  dormant." 

What  is  this  "  eternal  and  cosmic  reservoir  "  if  it  be 
not  Mind,  or  Supra-consciousness,  as  distinguished  from 
conscious  intellection — a  native  intuitive,  but  undifferen- 
tiate, or  potential,  consciousness  which  holds  the  answer, 
"  infallible  and  ready-done,"  to  every  question. 

Truth  Is.  There  is  but  one  solution — ^the  true  one — 
of  a  mathematical  or  any  other  problem  of  exact  science. 

A  significant  fact  is  that  such  prodigy  boys  generally 


154        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

lose  their  mysterious  faculty  "  at  the  moment  when  the 
possessor  begins  to  go  to  school.''^  So  soon,  that  is,  as 
he  develops  the  power  of  conscious  brain-processes — 
the  power  to  work  out  his  problems  by  concrete  methods 
— his  native  supra-conscious  gift  of  solving  them  spon- 
taneously fails. 

Intuition,  the  woman-mode  of  arriving  at  conclu- 
sions, lightning  quick  and  true  without  reason  or  reflec- 
tion, is  a  kindred  potency  of  Mind.  *'  When  a  man," 
says  a  French  writer,  "  has  laboriously  climbed  a  stair- 
case, he  is  sure  to  find  a  woman  at  the  top — although  she 
will  be  unable  to  say  how  she  came  there  !  " 

He  did  not  add  the  further  truth,  that — as  with  the 
prodigy  boys — the  more  you  educate  her  to  come  at 
her  conclusions  by  processes  of  intellection,  the  more 
you  rob  her  of  her  native  woman-gift  of  divination. 

With  the  rising  level  of  Faculty  engendered  by  pro- 
gressive evolution,  woman's  powers  of  intellection  have 
developed  too. 

While  her  own  mental  attributes  are  themselves  of  a 
very  high  order,  and  give  to  her  mentality  an  inductive 
subtlety  and  illumination  lacking  in  that  of  the  male. 
And  this  high  quality  of  brain  it  is  that  is  now  being 
extinguished  in  her  by  straining  her  to  masculine 
standards. 

Progress  awaits,  indeed,  the  new  and  quickening 
impulse  Life  and  Faculty  should  derive  from  the  Woman- 
mind  fostered  along  its  own  inherent  lines — to  supple- 
ment the  mind  of  man.  For  as  Bergson  says,  "it  is  to 
the  very  inwardness  of  Life  that  Intuition  leads  us." 

And  Intuition  is  the  woman-mode  of  Mind. 

5(C  S)C  ^ .  •1^  •«*  H* 

The  women  intellectuals  who  have  done  great  work 
have  been  women  who  inherited  talents  so  far  above  the 
average,  as  spontaneously  to  have  reached  high  mental 
levels,  without  need  to  have  sacrificed  those  womanly 
traits  which  gave  the  noblest  values  to  such  work. 


THE  WOMAN  BRAIN  155 

The  woman  of  average  brain,  however,  attains  the 
intellectual  standards  of  the  man  of  average  brain  only 
at  cost  of  her  health,  of  her  emotions,  or  of  her  morale. 


Herbert  Spencer  said  profoundly,  "  Mind  is  as  deep 
as  the  viscera.^ ^  Indicating  it  as  being  vital  and  intrinsic, 
at  one  with  the  occulted  sources  of  Life. 

Mind  is  of  an  order  of  mentality  wholly  different  from 
that  of  Intelligence  or  Intellect.  Mind  is  of  the  nature  of 
Emotion.  It  is  personal,  is  sympathy,  is  divination.  It 
is  the  cerebration  of  the  Soul. 

The  Soul,  or  essential  Individuality,  must  abide  amid 
infinitely  delicate  and  delicately  infinite  brain-cells 
attuned  to  those  spiritual  vibrations  whereof  Mind  is 
the  reflex.  And  if  Mind  is  Emotion,  the  Woman  brain- 
half,  which  is  the  department  of  human  emotion,  must 
be  the  mainspring  of  the  human  mind. 

Great  intellect,  pure  and  simple,  may  exist  in  man  or 
woman  without  or  with  only  a  fractional  leaven  of 
Mind.  This  is  seen  in  the  abstractions  of  scientists, 
mathematicians,  statisticians,  physicists,  astronomers, 
financiers,  and  others.  Such  brains  are  special  organs  of 
a  high  order  of  Intellection,  clear,  calculating  and  pre- 
cise of  observation  and  reflection;  rational,  deductive; 
admirable  in  their  unswerving  rectitude,  pitiless  in  their 
impregnable  emotionlessness ;  rejecting  all  but  incontest- 
able evidences,  scrupulously  aggregating  and  faithfully 
interpreting  their  dry  bones  of  numbers  and  data  and 
vestiges — skeletons  of  Life  long  since  extinct,  or  scaffold- 
ings of  Life  that  lives  and  moves  and  laughs  and  wxeps, 
and  bears  no  more  semblance  to  their  bloodless  tabula- 
tions of  its  modes  and  processes  than  warm,  creative 
Mother-Earth  resembles  the  geological  strata  they 
describe  in  her;  or  than  a  beautiful  flower-garden 
blooms  in  botanical  treatises;    or  than  living  men  and 


156        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

women  are  pourtrayed  in  text-books  of  Anatomy  and 
Physiology. 

Many  men  of  Science — and  all  the  great  ones — have 
been  men  of  Mind  as  well  as  of  Intellect.  But  the 
intellectual  processes  of  Abstract  Science  are  no  more 
operations  of  Mind  than  the  paths  by  which  we  climb 
to  sun-illumined  peaks  are  the  Light  upon  those  peaks. 
Mind  is  Spiritual  Illumination — a  glimmering  of  The 
Infinite,  reflected  in  the  higliest  and  most  subtle  order 
of  the  brain-cells.  Rays  from  it  are  deflected  toward 
the  concrete,  to  function  as  Intellection.  But  these  rays 
enter  the  brain  at  a  different  angle  from  that  of  Mind- 
rays. 

Like  woman  its  medium.  Mind  is  inspirational,  way- 
ward and  elusive.  It  comes  we  know  not  whence.  It 
goes  we  know  not  whither.  Receptive,  intuitive,  crea- 
tive, colourful,  it  may  be  unwitting  of  Astronomy,  yet 
it  roams  amid  the  stars.  Ignorant  of  Geology,  in  it 
Immortal,  the  dry-bones  of  The  Past  become  immortal 
— arise  eternally  in  everlasting  re-creation.  Its  Biology 
is  in  the  lives  and  loves,  the  hopes  and  fears,  the  throes 
and  tears  of  human  souls  and  stories.  It  inspires  the 
poet,  priest,  historian,  romancist,  artist;  the  seer  and 
statesman;  the  philosopher  and  wondering  child.  It 
exalts  the  humble  and  meek.  It  may  be  lacking  in 
the  cleverest  and  most  learned  of  men.  It  is  found  in 
the  most  ignorant  and  simple  women;  in  whom  it 
is  dumb,  however,  failing  the  intellectual  talent  of 
expression. 

VI 

The  Woman  brain-half  being  medium,  in  its  higher 
region,  of  that  Supra-conscious  emotionalism  which 
engenders  Mind,  and  in  its  lower  region,  of  that  Sub- 
conscious  emotionalism  which  engenders  vital  impulse 
in  the  body,  woman's  range  of  mentality  is  wider  than 


THE  WOMAN  BRAIN  157 

is  that  of  man ;  extending  both  higher  and  lower  in  its 
opposite  reaches. 

But  because  her  IntelHgent  Consciousness  is  not  in- 
herent in  her  own  brain-half,  but  is  supplied  by  her 
borrowed  masculine  brain-half,  her  intelligence  is  more 
superficial,  is  weaker  and  less  deep  and  strong  of  grip 
than  is  his.  And  when  the  gap  between  her  upper  and 
her  lower  registers  is  not  .duly  bridged  and  stabilised 
by  an  efficient  middle-register  of  male-intelligence,  she 
tends  toward  two  extremes  of  mentality,  both  of  which 
are  emotional.  Thus  she  lives  on  the  plane  of  her 
highest  emotional  impulses.  Or  she  lives  on  the  plane 
of  her  senses.  Some  women  act  and  re-act  perpetually 
between  these  two  extremes. 

In  her  highest  Supra-reaches,  she  is  athrill  with  Supra- 
faculties.  In  her  lowest  Sub-registeT,  she  is  instinct 
and  palpitant  with  the  colour,  the  magnetic  vibrations 
and  the  blind  forces  of  Matter,  which  her  vital  processes 
are  evolving  into  Life. 

Extremes  which  are  shown,  at  the  one  end,  in  the  reason- 
less animal  emotionalism  of  hysteria,  with  its  abandon 
of  control,  its  inco-ordinated  muscular  movements, 
its  senseless  weepings,  cries  and  laughter;  at  the  other 
end,  in  catalepsy,  in  which  she  exists  detached  from 
earth  and  its  material  needs  and  consciousness,  sub- 
sisting, it  may  be  for  weeks  together,  without  food  or 
drink,  withdra^vn  into  the  Inner,  and  potential,  zones 
of  Life  and  Mind.  So  that,  no  longer  subject  to  limita- 
tions of  Matter,  she  perceives  without  aid  of  the  senses, 
apprehends  without  aid  of  intelligence,  discerns  without 
help  of  the  eyes,  hears  without  instrumentality  of  ears. 
And  Time  and  Space  no  longer  circumscribing  her  essen- 
tial faculties,  she  visions  happenings  at  the  Antipodes, 
overhears  whispers  across  a  Continent,  recalls  The  Past, 
foretells  The  Future. 

It  is  because  of  the  potence   of   the  Subconscious 


158        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

medium  in  her,  instinct  with  the  magnetic  forces  of 
Evolving  Matter,  that,  in  her  intelhgence,  she  shows  as 
more  materiahstic  than  man  is,  although  warmer  and 
more  quickened  in  her  feelings. 

Living  personalities  and  issues  mean  to  her  more 
than  intellectual  abstractions  do.  She  is  more  material- 
istic because  she  cares  more  for  the  things  that  matter  1 
The  puddings  which  in  her  children's  young  bodies  will 
be  transmuted  into  living  flesh  and  function,  are  to  her 
of  more  significance  than  the  Isosceles  Triangle  is. 

(All  that  is  true  of  the  Woman  brain-half  must  be  true 
of  the  Woman  brain-half  in  man.  In  him,  however, 
his  own  hemisphere  dominates  the  bent  and  faculty  of 
its  female  counterpart.) 

It  is  in  the  emotional  impressionability  of  the  Sub- 
consciousness that  habit,  good  and  bad,  is  formed. 
Hence  woman's  native  susceptibility  to  her  environment 
— a  susceptibility  which  renders  indispensable  due  pro- 
tection of  her  mind  and  nature  during  years  when  habits 
of  thought  and  of  conduct  are  shaping  in  her.  Normal 
man,  whose  emotionalism  is  (like  woman's  intelligence) 
a  borrowed  faculty,  differs  essentially  from  her  in  this. 
His  intelligence  is  inherent  and  more  stably  rooted.  He 
is  far  less  mimetic,  far  less  a  creature  of  circumstance. 
His  firmer  will  and  stronger  intellect  enable  him  to 
rise  superior  to  environmental  conditions,  to  shake 
himself  free  alike  of  habit  and  of  circumstance;  his 
pioneering  spirit  disposing  him  to  new  departures. 

VII 

Dual  Personality,  Catalepsy,  Epilepsy,  Shock,  In- 
sanity, Chorea  are  explicable  as  effects  of  abnormal  dis- 
sociations or  inherent  discrepant  relations  between  the 
two  brain-hemispheres,  which  represent,  respectively. 
Conscious  (or  objective)  Intelligence,  and  Subconscious- 
ness (which  is  subjective). 


THE  WOMAN  BRAIN  159 

Such  discrepancy  occasioning  confusion  between  the 
two  planes  of  mentaHty,  perception  becomes  so  bhirred 
that,  as  in  insanity,  subjective  impressions  are  perceived 
as  objective  fact.  And  some  idea  or  spectre  of  his  own 
mind  becoming  thus  objective,  and  being  seen  out  of 
all  perspective  with  the  facts  and  conditions  of  every- 
day life,  the  patient  may  be  so  haunted  and  dominated 
thereby  that  not  only  his  mentality,  but  his  actions  too 
may  take  distorted  shape. 

While  the  Conscious  Brain-half  is  a  lens  that  focuses 
the  Concrete,  the  iSw&conscious  Brain-half  is  a  highly- 
sensitised  mirror  (or  retina)  that  reflects  and  retains,  in 
terms  of  potential  Memory,  all  impressions  and  experi- 
ences. It  becomes  charged  thus  with  a  medley  of 
"Strange  and  incongruous  imprints,  which,  so  long  as  the 
lens  keeps  these  submerged  and  subconscious — because 
unfocused  on  the  plane  of  consciousness — do  not  obtrude 
upon  mentality.  Flaws  or  failures  in  the  lens  of  reason 
allowing  certain  imprints  to  emerge,  these  become  fixed 
ideas  and  obsessions. 

It  is  by  way  of  the  Subconsciousness,  that  the  hyp- 
notist impresses  "  suggestion.'* 

Clairvoyants  and  other  "  mediums  "  employ  crystal- 
gazing  and  other  devices  in  order  to  fatigue,  and  thus 
to  paralyse  or  inhibit  the  visual  function  on  the  outer 
plane  of  Sight.  By  such  means,  the  Subconscious  visual 
faculty  comes  into  operation,  and  sets  them  en  rapport 
with  their  client's  subconscious  mentality.  This  becom- 
ing objective  to  them,  those  endowed  with  the  gift  of 
"  Second-Sight  "  (a  faculty  not  to  be  denied)  are  able 
to  visualise  in  it  misty  impressions  of  the  subjects' 
character,  thoughts  and  circumstances.  Those  rare 
clairvoyants  who  are  able  to  establish  rapport  with  their 
client's  Supra-consciousness  may  catch  glimmerings  of 
future  events,  even.  Because  Supra-conscious  Mind, 
being  Supra-Natural,  is  not  bounded  by  the  limitations 


160        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

of  The  Natural,  in  respect  of  Time  and  Space.  In  it,  that 
which  Was  still  Is,  and  that  which  Is-to-be  already  Has 
Been. 

"  Spiritists  "  who  see  or  hear  phenomena  they  attri- 
bute to  "  spirits  "  are  (when  such  are  genuine)  for  the 
most  part  visualising  or  overhearing  phenomena  6f 
their  own  (or  of  some  other's)  Subconsciousness,  which, 
owing  to  errors  of  refraction  in  the  lens  of  Consciousness, 
have  become  objective  to  them. 

It  may  well  be  by  way  of  magnetic  vibrations  com- 
municated to  Ether  by  the  Supra  or  the  ♦S'w&conscious- 
ness,  that  apparitions  and  telepathic  impressions  are 
transmitted  from  the  brain  of  one  person  to  that  of 
another.  So  too,  apparitions  seen  of  persons  lately  dead, 
and  so-called  spiritist  "  communications  "  with  these, 
may  be  (when  genuine)  phenomena  of  such  etheric  vibra- 
tions communicated  to  the  Supra  or  the  Subconscious- 
ness of  a  living  person,  and  apprehended  by  him  in  the 
objective  forms  of  "  ghosts  "  or  "  voices." 

Kindred  vital  and  powerful  electric  vibrations  emanat- 
ing, at  the  moment  of  death,  from  the  Subconsciousness 
of  victims  murdered,  may  so  charge  the  etheric  element 
of  houses  and  localities  as  to  be  communicable,  for  long 
periods  afterwards,  to  the  Subconscious  mentality  of' 
"  sensitives,"  which  serves  thus  as  "  wireless  receiver." 
Such  sensitives  derive  the  impression  that  the  scene  of 
the  tragedy  is  haunted  by  the  actual  "  spirit  "  of  the 
murdered. 

It  is  as  incredible,  of  course,  that  an  immortal  soul 
should  be  chained  to  the  scene  of  the  violent  death  of 
a  mortal  body  as  it  is  incredible  that  a  "  spirit  "  should 
be  at  the  call  of  a  "  medium,"  who — perhaps,  for  a  fee — 
should  be  able,  at  will,  to  summon  it  back  to  the  plane  of 
concrete  conditions,  in  order  that  it  might  talk  (for  the 
most  part)  irrelevant  nonsense. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  to  be  believed  that,  for  a  brief 


THE  WOMAN  BRAIN  161 

period  after  death,  a  spiritual  entity  may  remain  suffi- 
ciently in  touch  with  the  material  plane  as  to  be  able, 
by  way  of  those  Etheric  undulations  continuous  through 
all  the  planes  of  Being,  to  manifest  its  existence  to  one 
in  close  sympathy  with  it. 

VIII 

In  an  article  by  me,  "  Is  Man  an  Electrical  Organism  ?  " 
which  appeared  in  The  Nineteenth  Century,  July,  1914,  I 
showed — on  the  evidence  of  careful  and  delicate  experi- 
ments by  an  electrical  expert — that  the  two  sides  of 
the  body  (and  presumably  of  the  brain)  are  of  different 
electrical  potential.  The  active,  right  side  is  positively 
electrified,  while  the  passive,  left  side  is  negatively 
electrified. 

Mental  Telepathy  and  Telaesthesia  prove,  surely,  that 
brain  and  nerve-currents  are  electrical — one  brain- 
hemisphere  operating  as  transmitter,  the  other  as 
receiver.  Since  Nature  employs  one  Law  only  to 
suspend  the  mighty  solar  systems  of  the  Universe  and  to 
bring  an  apple  to  the  ground,  is  it  credible  that  she 
should  employ  two  laws  for  "  Wireless  "  and  for  Human 
telegraphy,  respectively? 

The  Hibernation  both  of  animal  and  vegetative  organ- 
isms shows  two  poles  of  vital  function;  Life  and  Con- 
sciousness passing  into  the  Recessive,  or  potential,  mode 
during  such  winter-sleep.     Plants  sleep  by  night. 

Is  Sleep  a  recession  merely  from  the  state  of  Conscious- 
ness to  the  potential  states  of  Sub-  and  Supra-conscious- 
ness?  And  do  these  two  states  alternate  normally  in 
the  opposite  halves  of  the  brain,  concurrently  with  the 
alternation  of  Day  and  Night  ?  Night-blindness  suggests 
such  an  alternation  in  the  dual  factors  of  Vision — which 
comprises  the  intrinsic /act/ %  of  Vision  and  the  concrete 
function  of  visualising  the  external.  Every  concrete 
function  normally  wanes  with  the  waning  of  Day. 


162        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

Hence  increasing  drowsiness,  passing  into  Sleep. 

Morning  and  evening  mentality  differ  greatly.  Intellect, 
reason  and  physical  activity  are  paramount  during  the 
day.  Emotion  and  imagination  intensify  with  the 
approach  of  night. 

Is  this  an  alternation  in  function  of  the  Male  and  Female 
brain-hemispheres,  coincident  with  the  alternation  of  the 
dual  luminaries  of  our  earth — the  positive,  unchanging 
Dominant  Sun ;  the  changeful  Moon,  with  her  Recessive 
phases  and  her  mystical  influences  upon  Life  and  Mind  ? 
The  ante-natal  life  of  the  embryo  is  set  in  terms  of 
lunar  months.  The  word  "  lunatic  "  expresses  the  effects 
of  lunar  phases  on  persons  of  unstable  mentality. 

Whence  do  we  derive  our  daily  influx  of  Life  ?  Though 
we  have  sunk  to  rest  with  dissolution  in  our  bones,  we 
awake  re-charged  with  powers  of  living — a  phenomenon 
for  which  Science  has  no  explanation. 

Life  does  not  originate  in  vital  processes;  vital  pro- 
cesses originate  in  Life.  Do  we,  in  sleep,  when  processes 
have  exhausted  our  daily  influx  of  Life-power,  recruit 
this  again  from  a  psychical  source  ?  Are  living  processes 
the  wick  of  a  lamp  which  is  filled  with  the  Spirit  of  Life 
at  each  recurring  dawn,  spent  by  the  day's  endeavour, 
and  re-filled  again  with  the  following  dawn  ? 

Failure  of  sleep  kills  more  swiftly  than  starvation. 
And  drug-insensibility  will  not  preserve  life  unless 
natural  sleep  supervene. 

If  nervous  energy  is  a  complex  form  of  electrical 
energy,  then  the  brain  in  which  this  is  stored  is  an 
electrical  dynamo.  Is  this  dynamo  re-charged  during 
sleep  from  some  Occult  Power-station? 

Since,  in  every  equation  of  Science,  an  unknown  factor 
reveals  itself,  why  not  candidly  confess  this  to  be  a 
Spiritual  factor  ? 

Spirit  is  no  more  a  hypothetical  medium  than  Ether 
is.     And  Science  has  been  forced  to  assume  the  existence 


THE   WOMAN  BRAIN  163 

of  Ether,  as  a  basis  for  its  calculations.  Ether  and  Spirit 
are  conceivably  the  same  medium  manifesting  on  dif- 
ferent planes — the  one  of  Physics,  the  other  of  Mind. 


IX 

According  to  Professor  Clarapede  : 

"  The  intellect  appears  only  as  a  makeshift,  an 
instrument  which  betrays  that  the  organism  is  not 
adapted  to  its  environment,  a  mode  of  expression 
which  reveals  a  state  of  impotence." 

A  saying  which  supports  three  clauses  of  my  hypo- 
thesis :  First,  that  the  brain,  with  its  tributary  spinal- 
nervous  system,  is  an  instrument  of  Consciousness  wholly 
differentiated  from,  and  supplementary  to  the  organism 
of  Life.  Secondly,  that  it  is  an  instrument  designed 
for  the  adaptation  of  the  organism  to  environment  (the 
role  I  have  assigned,  throughout,  to  the  male).  Thirdly, 
that  the  organism  of  Life  is  not  itself  adapted  to  its 
environment,  and  that,  accordingly.  Adaptation  to 
Environment  cannot  be  regarded  as  the  impulse  of 
Evolutionary  development,  since  the  living  organism 
has  so  far  failed  to  adapt  itself  to  environment  that  it 
requires  a  highly  specialised  instrument  to  serve  as 
medium  between  itself  and  its  surroundings. 

That  Intellect — being  an  instrument  by  way  of  which 
Life  is  adapted  to  environment,  as  also,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  way  of  which  environment  is  adapted  to  Life — 
is  a  makeshift  that  "  reveals  a  state  of  impotence  "  is 
not  to  be  admitted,  however,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  it 
is  an  instrument  which  preserves  Life  from  developing 
along  the  lines  of  its  environment ;  an  adaptation  which 
would  necessarily  involve  lapse  from  typal  ideals. 

Intelligence  taught  man,  in  place  of  so  adapting  to 
environment  as  to  have  developed  the  fist  of  a  gorilla 
(which  at  a  blow  can  crack  a  human  skull),  to  arm  him- 


164        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

self  with  a  club.  And  by  thus  adapting  environment  to 
his  evolutionary  requirements,  he  conserved  his  resources 
and  applied  them  to  development  along  higher  lines. 
Such  impotence  as  may  be,  arises  out  of  the  undevelop- 
ment  of  a  rudimentary  organism.  Of  an  organism  in 
course  of  development,  however.  In  the  meanwhile, 
both  man  and  woman  are  provided,  in  their  hybrid  con- 
stitution, with  the  "  makeshift "  of  an  instrument  of 
opposite  sex,  which  supplies  both  with  the  powers  neither 
has  yet  developed  in  himself  or  herself;  but  without 
which  neither  is  able  to  exist  or  to  function. 

Hybrid  Humanity  is  still  amphibious;  a  creature 
living  between  two  planes,  the  Without  and  the  Within, 
the  Material  and  the  Spiritual.  And  like  all  amphibious 
creatures,  the  human  species  is,  in  a  measure,  clumsy 
and  imperfect.  Because  while  fitted  still  with  organs 
and  faculties  that  have  adapted  to  a  lower  plane,  it 
possesses  likewise  organs  and  faculties  that  are  adapting 
to  a  higher.  Its  powers  thus  handicapped  by  requiring 
to  engender  the  vital  potential  and  the  developmental 
power  to  equip  it  with  two  orders  of  implement,  neither 
order  has  attained  perfection  of  construction  or  of 
function.  And  both  ministering  to  the  requirements  of 
the  other,  necessarily  hamper  the  operations  and  mask 
the  characteristics  of  the  other. 

The  two  sexes  are  making  all  the  while  for  higher 
development,  each  along  routes  of  its  contrary  trend. 
Man  develops  human  faculty  in  the  direction  of  the 
Outer  and  material  plane  of  Being.  Woman  develops 
it  in  the  direction  of  the  Inner  and  psychical  plane. 

Man  transmits  to  woman  a  brain-hemisphere  and 
powers  ever  further  increased  and  intensified  in  their 
relation  to  the  concrete.  Woman  transmits  to  man  a 
brain-hemisphere  ever  further  indrawn  and  illumined 
in  respect  of  the  emotional  and  intrinsic.  Woman's  brain- 
hemisphere,   adapting  to  its  concrete  fellow,   becomes 


THE  WOMAN  BRAIN  165 

increasingly  empowered  to  manifest,  upon  the  outer 
plane,  its  own  essential  Woman-traits  in  Life  and  Con- 
sciousness. Man's  brain-hemisphere,  adapting  to  its 
diviner  fellow,  becomes  increasingly  illumined  and 
inspired  thereby  to  leaven  and  exalt  its  concrete  outlook 
and  activities. 

Man's  brain,  by  way  of  its  responsive  adaptation  to 
the  brain  of  woman  interior  to  it  in  the  zone  of  Mind, 
becomes  thus  ever  more  sympathetically  intelligent, 
or  intuitive,  in  respect  of  human  life  and  conditions,  of 
Science  and  the  Arts ;  while  losing  nothing  of  its  Domi- 
nance and  concrete  power,  but  interpreting  its  operations 
in  terms  of  a  pro  founder  and  a  nobler  Chivalry.  Woman's 
brain  becomes  ever  more  intelligently  sympathetic  and 
practically  helpful ;  losing  nothing  of  its  Recessiveness, 
or  emotional  impulse,  but,  on  the  contrary,  intensifying 
all  its  Woman-attributes  by  extending  the  range  and  the 
operations  of  these  in  terms  of  a  profounder  and  a 
nobler  Altruism. 

1*  •p  T*  n*  I*  *p 

Because  of  their  hybrid  constitution,  there  is  neces- 
sarily a  borderland,  alike  of  faculty  and  function,  wherein 
the  organisation  and  the  characteristics  of  the  sexes  merge 
and  approximate  one  another's  trend  and  traits.  This 
borderland  represents,  however,  the  crudest  and  least 
differentiated  department  of  the  personal  and  mental 
powers  of  both.  It  is  a  zone  of  Neuterdom,  and  marks  a 
grade  of  rudimentary  organisation  in  which  the  Sex- 
characteristics  have  not  yet  sufficiently  diverged  in 
development,  as  clearly  and  finely  to  differentiate  them- 
selves as  traits  of  pure  and  unalloyed  type. 

The  cruder  the  species  or  the  evolutionary  stage  of 
species,  the  less  Sex  is  specialised  in  it. 


CHAPTER  V 

MALE     AND     FEMALE     SEX-INSTINCTS     AND     MORALE    DIA- 
METRICALLY DIFFERENT 

"  In  conjunction  with  any  other  beings  hut  men,  women  would 
have  been  angels  ;  hut  with  men  they  are  ju^t  women,  which  when 
all  is  said  and  done,  is  much  the  same  thing."' — De  Livry. 


Among  many  other  misconceptions  with  regard  to 
Sex-characteristics,  is  the  modern  teaching  that  the 
sex-instinct  is  identical  in  men  and  women. 

Ignoring  the  truth  that  a  higher  moral  code  is  the 
mark  of  psychical  superiority,  and  moreover  that  the 
exaction  of  it  from  women,  under  social  penalty,  has 
done  more  than  any  other  thing  to  purify  and  to  exalt 
the  woman-character,  impassioned  fallacy  now  sees  this 
higher  standard  demanded  of  the  sex  as  a  stigma  of 
inferiority,  and  as  an  injustice.  Accordingly  it  preaches 
equal  liberty  in  this  as  in  other  respects.  The  trend 
toward  equalisation  is  unfortunately  (but  inevitably) 
in  the  direction  of  lowering  the  woman-code  rather  than 
of  raising  man's. 

No  falser  or  more  disastrous  doctrine  could  be  pro- 
mulgated. As  in  all  its  other  attributes  and  functions, 
so  in  this,  the  woman-nature  differs  wholly  from  that 
of  the  male.  The  primal  male  sex -instinct  was  one  of 
tyranny  and  subjugation.  There  was  no  element  of 
affection  in  it,  and  its  bent  was  toward  promiscuity. 
In  the  primal  female,  the  instinct  as  an  initiative  impulse 
was  non-existent.  The  surrender  was  to  fear,  and  to 
habit  engendered  by  fear.     Fondness  for  her  mate  came 

166    ' 


SEX-INSTINCTS  167 

to  woman  by  way  of  her  love  for  his  child,  a  source 
essentially  monogamous  in  trend. 

Physical  passion  in  woman  is  derived  from  the  Male- 
traits  in  her.  It  is,  accordingly,  a  borrowed,  not  an 
inherent  instinct.  And  in  all  natural  women,  passion 
is  secondary  to  love ;  love  belonging  to  her  own  intrinsic 
nature.  Because  of  its  heritage,  there  is,  in  a  true 
woman's  love,  always  a  maternal  altruistic  element : 
unselfish,  ministering,  devoted.  Love  has  come  to  be 
intensified  in  her  by  fire  of  passion  and  by  force  of 
personal  attraction.  It  is  no  longer  a  mere  meek 
surrender,  with  fear  for  spur  and  maternity  for  solace. 
In  proportion  as  she  is  of  high  organisation,  it  has 
become  a  complex  of  mind  and  emotion  and  sense; 
intense  and  vital.  But  always,  in  proportion  as  she  is 
womanly,  her  own  way  of  loving — ^the  way  of  devotion 
and  tenderness — is  ascendant  over  passion. 

In  man,  howsoever  it  be  leavened  by  the  higher  love, 
passion  dominates.  When  in  woman  passion  dominates 
love,  she  is  loving  with  the  Male-traits  in  her — not  as 
woman.  And  in  the  measure  wherein  she  falls  short 
of  the  womanly  monogamous  ideal,  she  is  less  woman 
than  she  is  male. 

Mr.  Justice  Hannen,  for  long  President  of  the  Divorce 
Court — and  a  subtle  expert  in  women — observed  that 
it  was  not  the  passionate,  warm-eyed  women  who 
figured  most  before  him,  but,  in  far  greater  number, 
the  cold-blooded,  greedy  and  emotionless.  Because  for 
one  woman  who  succumbs  to  love  or  passion,  twenty 
transgress  from  motives  of  vanity  or  gain ;  or  from  mere 
frivolous  craving  for  excitement. 

It  is  the  sexless  women  who  are  most  immoral,  for 
the  same  reason  that  some  dyspeptics  are  always  hungry. 
Persons  of  healthy  digestion  eat,  and  are  satisfied.  The 
healthfully-sexed  love,  and  are  content.  The  emotion- 
less woman  is  for  ever  seeking  in  novelty,  emotions  she 
lacks  the  emotion  to  feel.     Such  women  exploit  passion 


168        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

for  vanity,  for  distraction,  or  for  the  primal  male- 
instinct  of  subjugation.  Their  desire  for  a  lover  is  less 
a  sentiment  than  it  is  of  the  nature  of  that  craving  for 
drink,  or  for  drugs,  or  for  dress,  which  many  of  this 
order  also  indulge.  All  are  megalomanias — natural 
instincts  distorted  to  vices  by  warp  of  abnormal  self- 
centredness. 

With  its  foundations  laid  in  instinct,  its  organic 
emotionalism,  its  streak  of  mental  irresponsibility,  and 
its  hunger  for  approbation,  the  Woman-nature,  when 
lacking  in  the  higher  Woman-traits  of  affection  and 
selflessness,  or  when  these  are  not  duly  absorbed  in  the 
natural  interests  and  functions  of  the  sex,  may  degenerate 
to  a  very  ugly  thing. 

Some  of  our  latter-day  "  smart "  young  married 
women,  childless  or  with  one  or  two  children  consigned 
to  hirelings,  their  passions  excited  by  marriage  and  not 
duly  assuaged  by  maternity,  their  impulses  unchastened 
and  their  powers  unexpended  in  affection  and  care  for 
the  family,  seek  outlet  and  distraction  in  promiscuous 
philanderings,  in  intrigue  or  in  vice. 

Human  faculty  and  impulse  diverted  from  their 
normal  channels  readily  find  crooked  and  dangerous 
courses. 

In  the  fourth  year  of  War,  the  Prussian  Protestant 
State-Church  declared  that  "  immorality  among  German 
women  has  attained  such  a  degree  that  the  very  founda- 
tions of  Society  are  threatened."  This  and  kindred 
developments  in  other  War-ridden  countries  are  not  due 
to  women  having  changed  their  natures,  but  are  the 
outcome  of  conditions  so  altered  as  to  have  released 
them  from  the  wholesome  disciplinary  exercise  of  their 
accustomed  duties,  relaxing  thus  the  salutary  curbs  of 
habit  and  convention.  Child  of  Nature  that  she  is, 
woman  is  a  born  rebel ;  for  ever  in  revolt  against  the 
law  and  order  and  restraints  which  man  has  imposed 
as    indispensable    to    Progress.     W^hereas    men    abhor, 


SEX-INSTINCTS  169 

women  exult  in  crises  and  upheavals.  Because  these 
serve  for  outlet  to  their  restive  emotionalism  and  supply- 
scope  for  exotic  sensation,  while  at  the  same  time  giving 
them  temporary  mastery  over  the  male — who  is  always 
at  a  disadvantage  in  exhibitions  of  feeling. 

And  this  temperamental  erraticism  is  valuably  dis- 
ciplined by  the  masculine  bent  for  rule  and  method, 
and  normally  finds  admirable  safety-valves  in  wifely, 
housewifely,  and  motherly  functions. 

II 

To  advocate  a  moral  standard  higher  for  women  than 
for  men  is  regarded  now  as  reactionary  and  regressive. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  certain  that  beyond  all  the  other 
virtues,  personal  purity  is  essentially  the  highest,  and 
is  racially  the  most  valuable  of  all  the  Woman-qualities. 
Lapses  in  the  other  sex  are  in  no  way  comparable,  as 
regards  moral,  biological,  or  sociological  significance, 
with  kindred  lapses  in  woman.  Because  of  her  native 
non-conformability,  once  she  has  deviated  from  the 
monogamous  code,  she  is  dangerously  likely  never  after 
to  conform  to  it.  (It  is  a  truism  that  The  woman  who 
has  one,  has  many  lovers.)  Her  non-conformity  requires, 
accordingly,  to  be  protected  by  a  social  ordinance  more 
rigid  than  is  that  of  man.  Man  being  less  complex  of 
psychology,  moreover,  that  which  in  him  is  merely 
biological  is  vice  in  woman.  The  fact  alone  that  the 
male  is  able  to  employ  the  sex-function  as  a  weapon 
of  brutality  (as  in  violation)  proves  him  totally  dissimilar 
to  woman  in  this  relation. 

Man  disperses ;  Woman  absorbs.  And  the  consistency 
of  Nature  is  such  that  these  two  diametrically-opposite 
biological  modes  in  reproduction  are  reflected  on  the 
planes  of  mind  and  impulse.  The  diametrical  difference 
of  the  modes  disposes  outright  of  the  Feminist  demand 
for  identical  moral  codes  for  the  sexes ;  the  sex-functions 


170        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

of  the  two  being  so  intrinsically  contrary  in  method  and 
inherence,  with  correspondingly  signal  differences  in 
moral  impulse  and  significance. 

Biologically,  the  masculine  function  concludes  with 
its  fulfilment.  Whereas  the  feminine  function  begins 
mainly  therewith,  and  continues  thence  onward  to  operate 
in  an  ever-deepening,  broadening,  and  intensifying  tide 
of  issues ;  biological  and  psychological.  And  so  potent 
and  subtle  is  Nature's  consistency  with  regard  to  this 
primary  and  vital  function  of  woman  in  Life,  that 
whether  or  not  biological  issue  results,  psychological 
issues  do  inevitably.  Woman's  mode  and  mood  of 
receptiveness  in  this  mysterious  union  so  operate  that, 
in  her  surrender,  she  admits  to  the  inmost  sanctuary  of 
her  being  an  alien  presence — which  remains  with  her  till 
death.  Fade  as  it  may  from  her  consciousness,  it  remains, 
nevertheless,  impressed  for  ever  after  on  the  vibrant 
records  of  her  sensitive  Subconsciousness,  as  vitally  as 
in  the  hour  of  her  surrender.  And  underlying  mind  and 
character  and  conduct  ever  after,  it  for  ever  after 
contributes  its  quota  to  these. 

Because  of  the  vivifying  potence  of  her  creative 
womanhood — ^the  function  whereof  is  to  engender  Life — 
the  stranger  admitted  to  her  citadel  becomes  endued 
with  Life,  and  takes  up  his  abode  with  her  to  the  end 
of  her  natural  term.  For  this  reason,  the  adulterous 
woman  is  adulterous  in  a  sense  impossible  to  man — 
adulterous  in  both  a  vital  and  an  intrinsic  psychical 
sense  that  is  revolting. 

With  the  increasing  intensification  in  the  male,  with 
advancing  evolution,  of  his  inherited  Woman-traits,  he 
has  become  ever  further  endowed  with  Woman's  Sub- 
and  Supra-conscious  faculties.  So  that  the  function 
which  was,  in  its  primal  moral,  but  brief  and  cursory, 
ending  summarily  with  its  biological  fulfilment,  has 
become  increasingly  endued  in  him  with  the  vital 
emotionalism,  and  accordingly  with  the  moral  signifi- 


SEX-INSTINCTS  171 

cance  inherent  to  the  Woman-nature.  If  his  experi- 
ences fade  more  quickly  from  his  consciousness  than 
hers  do,  they  remain  nevertheless  (in  the  degree  of  his 
psychical  development)  potent  still  in  his  Subconscious- 
ness— as  possibly  adulterating  and  debasing  factors. 
But  since  his  Subconscious  emotionalism  is  an  acquired 
and  not  an  inherent  part  of  his  male  mentality,  it  is  a 
medium  vastly  less  sensitised  and  operative  in  him  than 
it  is  in  her;    of  whom  it  is  the  very  basis  of  her  being. 

This  is  no  apology,  of  course,  for  masculine  aberration, 
but  a  counsel  of  feminine  virtue — a  counsel  making 
indirectly,  therefore,  but  none  the  less  surely  for  mascu- 
line virtue  also.  The  reasons  for  chastity  in  the  one 
sex  differ  diametrically  from  those  which  should  be  the 
motive  thereof  in  the  other,  however. 

Chivalry  and  Prostitution  are  incompatible. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  deterioration  of 
the  woman-organisation  and  temperament  conduces 
greatly  to  masculine  promiscuity.  Not  only  because 
this  entails  loss  of  power  to  charm  and  bind  the  mate, 
but  because  with  the  sex-immaturity,  on  the  one  hand 
of  the  over-Feminised  type,  on  the  other,  of  the  Mannish 
woman,  women  lose,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  the 
natural  power  of  one  sex  to  assuage  passion  in  the 
other. 

Man  is  deteriorated,  moreover,  by  moral  and  psychical 
deterioration  in  that  sex  whence  moral  impulse  springs, 
because,  in  such  case,  the  appeal  of  woman  ceases  to 
be,  as  is  normal,  to  the  emotional  and  chivalrous  in  him, 
but  evokes,  on  the  contrary,  biological  instinct  mainly, 
or  merely. 

It  is  well-established  truth  that  her  first  lover  (or 
her  husband,  supposing  she  had  loved  him)  retains  a 
unique  hold  upon  a  woman's  mind  throughout  her 
after-life — his   personality  or  memory   dominating  her 


172        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

imagination  as  no  later-comer  is  able  to  do.  This  is 
because  that  first  enters  into  possession  of  both  Conscious- 
ness and  Subconsciousness  while  the  tablets  of  these 
are  still  virgin  and  unblotted.  This  first  impresses 
himself,  therefore,  clearly  and  strongly  defined  upon 
her  exquisitely-sensitised  tablets  of  remembrance. 

Latter-day  young  girls,  permitted  the  injurious 
licence  of  free  and  unchaperoned  association  with  the 
other  sex,  even  when  they  come  to  marriage,  inviolate, 
have,  many  of  them,  passed  through  experiences  which 
so  have  blurred  and  sullied  their  young  highly-impres- 
sionable temperament  and  senses  as  to  have  despoiled 
these  of  that  fair  purity  and  freshness  indispensable 
alike  to  potent  impressions  and  to  deep  attachments. 
In  natural  woman  who  has  arrived  at  womanhood  with- 
out premature  arousing  of  the  senses,  soul  and  sense 
are  at  fine  poise,  and  respond  in  vital  unison  to  love. 
In  girls  whose  innocence  and  conduct  have  not  been 
duly  safeguarded,  the  prematurely-excited  senses  have 
become  detached  from  the  soul — from  the  higher 
emotions,  that  is.  With  the  result  that  this  fine  poise 
of  mind  and  body,  which  is  the  Hall-mark  of  Woman- 
development,  and  whence  romantic  passion  issues,  has 
been  irretrievably  lost. 

The  same  is  true,  in  degree,  of  young  men.  They  too 
deteriorate  when  biological  instinct  is  dissociated  in 
them  from  the  higher  impulses  of  passion.  But  in  men, 
the  poise,  being  less  delicate,  is  not  only  less  readily 
lost,  but  it  is  more  readily  recovered.  In  this,  as  in 
other  things,  the  normal  male  makes  for  means;  while 
woman's  bent  is  toward  extremes.  Further,  physical 
passion  being  normally  far  stronger  in  him,  and  initiative 
in  impulse — whereas  in  her  it  is  mainly  responsive — the 
senses  assert  sway  over  him  spontaneously.  While  in 
natural  girls  these  lie  more  or  less  dormant,  unless 
artificially  roused,  or  until  aroused  in  natural  response 
to  love. 


SEX-INSTINCTS  173 

Early  philanderings  (more  serious  than  boy-and-girl 
comradeship  and  innocent  flirtation)  prevent  women 
not  only  from  ever  attaining  their  highest  levels  of 
organisation  and  temperament,  but  they  destroy  effec- 
tually their  power  to  love  profoundly  and  whole- 
heartedly. They  rob  them,  accordingly,  of  the  greatest 
transfiguring  potence  and  happiness  of  life. 


Ill 

Odious  and  startling  evidence  that  because  of  woman's 
vital  emotionalism  and  sensitive  psychology,  her  nature 
retains  ineffaceable  vestiges  of  all  that  has  happened  to 
her,  is  the  fact  that  a  woman's  children  by  a  second 
husband  may  resemble  her  first  husband  far  more  than 
they  resemble  their  father.  A  significant  and  repulsive 
adulteration  of  type,  and  one  so  intrinsic  that  a  woman 
who  had  been  previously  wife  to  a  negro  or  a  Chinaman 
will  present  her  second  husband,  typically  European, 
with  offspring  of  negroid  or  of  Mongolian  type.  That 
husbands  and  wives  come  to  resemble  one  another  in 
physiognomy  and  characteristics,  is  further  indication 
of  the  subtle  and  potent  temperamental  fusion  and 
implications  of  the  mysterious  sex-union. 

The  adulteration  of  type  which  may  thus  repulsively 
mar  the  offspring  of  women  twice-mated  is  seen,  at  first 
hand,  in  that  adulteration  of  personality  which  results 
from  sex-promiscuity.  Not  only  is  the  individuality 
both  of  mind  and  character  obliterated,  but  the  indi- 
viduality both  of  form  and  feature  is  obliterated  too. 
The  features  of  persons  of  irregular  life  become  blurred 
and  more  or  less  mongrel;  character  and  expression  so 
degenerating  as  to  produce  eventually  that  which  has 
been  styled  a  "  composite  face  " — the  face  resulting 
when  a  number  of  portraits  of  different  persons  are 
printed  one  over  another  on  the  same  photographic 
plate. 


174       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

The  degree  to  which  in  the  sex-union — howsoever 
Hghtly  entered  on — ^they  twain  become  intrinsically  and 
remain  irrevocably  one,  in  the  vital  records  of  indi- 
vidualism and  character,  is  wholly  unsuspected.  But 
in  this — which  is  a  complex  phenomenon  of  Hypnosis — 
indelible  undying  images,  such  as  are  impressed  upon 
the  Subconscious  mind  in  every  other  form  of  Hypnosis, 
remain  impressed  thereon;  to  inspire  and  fructify,  or 
to  weaken  and  vitiate  natxire  and  faculty. 

That  vigilant  supervision  of  her  young  daughters 
for  which  the  early  Victorian  mother  is  now  decried, 
secured  a  purity  of  racial  type,  in  fine  physique  and 
constitution,  in  notable  talent  and  enterprise,  in  rare 
womanly  beauty  and  virile  handsomeness,  which  proves 
the  unique  potentialities  inherent  in  our  Anglo-Saxon 
stock.  No  merely  material  service  a  woman  can  render 
to  the  State  approaches  in  value  the  all-potent  one  of 
safeguarding  the  virtue  of  its  young  daughters. 

Each  sex  has  its  own  morale  to  sustain.  And  personal 
virtue  is  woman's.  The  desire  for  equal  liberty  in  this 
respect  is  added  proof  of  the  ascendancy,  in  modern 
women,  of  Male  over  their  own  natural  Woman-traits. 
It  springs  not  from  an  intensification  of  passion,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  from  a  waning  of  that  power  to  love 
which  holds  a  woman  true  to  one  mate. 

Last  and  most  cogent  of  reasons  :  In  view  of  those 
long  centuries  of  suffering  and  aspiration,  by  way  of 
which  the  evolution  of  the  Woman-traits  of  love  and 
purity  has  been  achieved  in  blood  and  tears — albeit  the 
monogamous  ideal  is  far  yet  from  attainment — beyond 
all  else,  the  sex  should  strive  toward  this,  both  personally 
and  socially. 

It  is  the  soul  of  Love  and  Life,  the  impulse  of  Human 
advance.  With  decline  of  this  ideal,  the  emotions 
cease  to  centre  in  the  Home  and  Family,  and  civilisation 
relapses  to  barbarism. 


SEX-INSTINCTS  175 


IV 


Ellen  Key,  in  Love  and  Marriage,  observes  :  "  Few 
propositions  are  so  lacking  in  proof  as  that  monogamy 
is  the  form  of  sexual  life  which  is  indispensable  to  the 
vitality  and  culture  of  nations."  And  further  :  "  all 
the  progress  that  is  ascribed  to  Christian  civilisation 
has  taken  place  while  monogamy  was  indeed  the  law, 
but  polygamy  the  custom." 

She  overlooks  the  portentous  truth  that  a  law  is  the 
expression  of  a  general  aspiration  toward  an  ideal  for 
which  a  people  is  striving.  That  a  law  is  broken  proves 
that  the  higher  in  man  moves  him  to  set  a  standard 
beyond  his  power — or  beside  his  inclination — to  sustain 
undeviatingly.  Yet  although  he  may  not  act  up  to  it 
undeviatingly,  it  stands,  nevertheless,  for  the  ideal  he 
realises  that  he  should  reach. 

Abolition  of  a  good  and  elevating  law  proves,  therefore, 
not  only  the  serious  lapse  of  a  community  from  an 
established  standard  of  conduct,  but  it  inevitably  lowers 
the  level  of  conduct  by  removing  barriers — self-respect 
and  self-restraint,  public  opinion  and  so  forth — standing 
in  the  way  of  laxity.  Despite  the  death-penalty, 
murders  are  committed.  But  were  the  death-penalty 
to  be  abolished,  murder  would  increase  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  The  human  mind  is  strangely  susceptible. 
And  the  power  of  habits  acquired  under  fear  of  penalties 
is  an  invaluable  force  for  good.  The  higher  minds  of  a 
community  evolve  and  establish  codes  for  lesser  minds 
to  shape  by.  And  undoubtedly  the  subconscious  as 
well  as  the  conscious  shaping  toward  such  standards 
furthers  development  in  the  directions  thereof.  To 
make  honesty  a  matter  of  personal  choice,  with  no 
penalties  attaching  to  theft,  would  be  in  itself  an  incentive 
to  theft. 

Comparison  with  polygamous  countries,  of  countries 
in  which  monogamy  is  the  law,  refutes  straightway  Miss 


176       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

Key's  discredit  of  monogamy ;  showing  the  polygamous 
unciviUsed,  unenhghtened,  unprogressive,  subject  to 
monogamous  races,  and  in  every  sense,  both  materially 
and  morally  decadent.  And  if,  with  a  notion  of  estab- 
lishing equality  in  all  things  between  the  sexes  by 
emancipating  woman  from  the  higher  moral  code, 
leasehold  marriage  or  other  forms  of  wedded  laxity 
should  be  substituted — not  only  would  national  purity, 
but  personal  character  and  happiness  too  would  suffer 
grievously. 

If  men  have  not  kept  the  monogamous  law,  the 
instinct  of  jealousy,  reinforced  by  repugnance  to  sup- 
porting alien  offspring,  has  seen  to  it  that  wives  should 
trespass  as  seldom,  at  all  events,  as  was  possible  to  be 
guarded  against.  Custom  and  public  opinion,  furthered 
by  personal  fear  and  fear  of  divorce,  have  all  con- 
tributed toward  advancing  ideals  of  womanly  honour 
and  conduct.  And  from  monogamous  mothers — whether 
voluntarily  or  involuntarily  so — progress  has  derived 
immense  impulse.  Apart  from  biological  considerations, 
the  benefit  to  the  family  of  the  mother's  influence 
centred  in  her  home  and  kept  from  straying  thence, 
either  by  her  own  aspirations,  by  public  opinion,  or  by 
fear  of  the  husband,  has  been  incalculable. 

During  and  since  the  War,  crime  among  children  has 
increased  by  50  per  cent.,  largely  owing  to  absence  of 
mothers  from  their  homes,  working  or  drinking,  or 
otherwise  dissipating,  while  their  children  have  been 
left  to  run  wild  in  the  streets. 

Our  reformatories  are  full  to  overflowing  with  these 
neglected  unfortunates;  deprived  thus  of  the  haven 
of  homes  and  maternal  control.  As  a  man  is  respon- 
sible to  the  State  for  the  support  of  his  family,  so  a 
woman  should  be  held  responsible  to  the  State  for  the 
proper  care  and  supervision  of  its  future  citizens,  who, 
without  due  care  and  disciplinary  influence,  become  a 
burden  and  scourge  to  the  community. 


SEX-INSTINCTS  177 

In  all  these  vitally-momentous  issues,  let  us  free 
our  minds  alike  of  sex-bias  and  false  sentiment,  in  order 
that  we  may  see  clearly,  and  may  act  honestly  and 
wisely  in  the  interests  not  only  of  women  themselves, 
but  in  those  of  the  Race. 


The  sex-instinct  in  woman  having  had  its  origin  in 
surrender,  retains  much  still  of  this  primal  element. 
And  both  middle-class  men  of  lower  evolutionary  grade, 
and  men  of  the  working  classes,  exercise  still,  to  con- 
siderable degree,  the  brute-trait  of  terrorism  over 
women — moral  rather  than  physical  terrorism. 

In  rescuing  young  girls  from  molestation  in  the 
streets,  one  may  see  in  them  the  panic  of  such  intimida- 
tion. They  are  pale  and  trembling,  with  pupils  widely 
dilated.  In  full  daylight,  it  may  be  in  a  crowded 
thoroughfare,  with  police  at  hand,  primal  instinctive 
emotionalism  paralyses  reason,  resource  and  will-power. 
Weak-minded  women,  who  lack  their  due  share  of 
masculine  combativeness  to  stiffen  resistance  in  them, 
frequently  marry,  or  otherwise  yield  to  such  men,  far 
more  because  they  are  afraid  than  because  they  are 
fond  of  them.  And  the  terrorism  husbands  .have 
exercised  over  wives  has  nerved  wives  against  the 
terrorism  exercised  over  them  by  other  men;  and  has 
thus  served  to  protect  them  from  their  own  weaknesses. 

The  Woman-traits,  always  at  a  disadvantage  in 
concrete  affairs  against  superior  strength,  have  been 
buttressed  thus  and  coerced — often  cruelly  and  tyran- 
nously,  'tis  true.  But  they  have  nevertheless  been 
greatly  furthered  in  development  by  a  mate  who,  if 
he  did  not  recognise  the  higher  calibre  of  woman's 
nature,  nor  himself  aspired  to  the  code  he  exacted  from 
her,  recognised,  at  all  events,  that  this  higher  code  he 
exacted  of  her  was  that  best  adapted  to  progress.  Thus 
has  poor  mortality  been  beaten  and  shapen  on  the  anvils 


178        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

of  compulsion  and  exigency.     And  always  the  woman 
has  most  suffered — ^to  be  beautiful  of  nature. 

Were  it  not  that  an  advance-guard  of  higher  and 
chivalrous  men  stand,  by  force  of  the  laws  they  have 
made,  between  women  and  the  lower  and  coarser  mascu- 
line orders,  no  woman's  life  would  be  worth  the  living 
because  of  perpetual  affront.  With  existing  laws, 
indeed,  which  protect  even  the  most  degraded  of  the 
sex,  the  women  of  the  poorer  classes  are  everywhere 
subject  to  insult  and  unseemly  jest,  open  or  covert. 
Because  to  many  men  of  crude  order,  the  eternal  mystery 
of  Sex  shows  mainly  as  subject  for  levity.  The  crass 
and  unimaginative  frequently  deride  thus  things  too  high 
for  their  dense  understanding. 

Women  have  come  to  take  their  chivalrous  protec- 
tion by  law  as  mere  matter-of-course,  precisely  as  they 
take  it  as  matter-of-course  that  men  should  labour,  and 
should  endow  them  with  the  benefits  of  their  industry. 
These  things  are  by  no  means  matter-of-course,  how- 
ever, but  are  matter  of  chivalry — chivalry  so  innate  as 
to  have  become  convention. 

It  would  be  occasion  for  laughter,  were  it  not  cause 
for  profoundest  regret,  that  the  hypertrophy  of  male- 
traits  in  woman  has  engendered  to-day  a  sex-antagonism 
which  has  set  her  in  open  revolt  against  man,  from 
whom,  if  she  has  suffered  and  suffers,  and  will  continue 
to  suffer  at  the  hands  of  his  defects,  she  nevertheless 
derives,  and  has  always  derived  from  his  chivalries  her 
most  gracious  human  privileges. 

That  the  obligations  and  the  recompenses  of  the 
sexes  are  reciprocal,  is  true.  It  is  equally  true,  however, 
that  the  choice  has  lain  with  men  to  have  ignored  the 
nobler  issues  of  the  compact.  As  the  seraglio -imprisoned 
women  of  the  less  manly  and  progressive  peoples  prove. 

All  our  civilisation,  with  its  complex  sociological, 
intellectual,  and  moral  developments,  rests  on  a  basis 
of  Force.  Men  must  still  prove  their  right  to  each  and 
all  of  their  laboriously-won  achievements  by  arms  and  the 


SEX-INSTINCTS  179 

valours  of  war.  In  peace,  the  laws — which  alone  make 
life  tolerable — rest  equally  upon  the  powers  of  masculine 
will  and  strength  to  inflict  due  punishment  for  violation 
thereof. 

And  laws  having  been  made  by  men,  it  was  clearly 
optional  with  them  to  have  left  women  unprotected,  or 
far  less  protected  than  the  other  sex ;  in  place  of  having 
extended  special  protection  to  their  more  delicate 
attributes. 

In  safeguarding  women  in  general,  men  safeguard 
their  own  individual  women,  of  course.  Human  motive 
is  involved ;  is  the  product  of  a  number  of  factors.  That 
this  is  so  is  reason  for  eliminating  no  single  one  of  these 
factors,  lest  the  resultant  undergo  a  wholly  unexpected 
and  disastrous  transformation. 

The  Plan  sets  most  women  at  the  mercy  of  most  men, 
by  reason  of  the  greater  physical  strength  of  males,  and 
by  temptation  of  their  more  urgent  sex-instinct.  In 
view  of  her  inherent  disabilities,  it  would  have  seemed, 
a  'priori,  that  no  woman  could  in  ruder  days  have 
attained  to  womanhood,  inviolate. 

And  yet  that  her  very  disabilities  have  served  for  her 
increasing  protection  is  shown  by  the  fact  of  her  increas- 
ing protection  as,  with  the  evolution  of  her  higher 
organisation,  her  disabilities  have  intensified. 

Civilised  woman,  with  her  more  delicate  organisation, 
is  far  more  defenceless  than  was  savage  woman.  But 
in  response  to  the  claims  of  her  increasing  defenceless- 
ness,  the  instinctive  chivalry  of  the  stronger  male,  her 
natural  protector,  has  become  progressively  the  intelli- 
gent and  moral  chivalry  of  higher  man.  No  strength 
or  capability  of  woman's  own  to  defend  herself  could 
so  have  served  her ;  nor  could  so  have  served  the  other 
sex  for  fine  incentive. 

To  free  woman  of  her  highly  specialised  and  inspiring 
disabilities  by  substituting  in  her,  powers,  muscular  and 
mental,  that  would  fit  her  to  meet  the  male  on  equal 
terms,  would  be  to  frustrate  the  method  of  the  male 


180        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

evolutionary  ascent,  by  eliminating  the  humanising  and 
uplifting  appeal  to  his  manhood  of  these  her  inspiring 
unfitnesses. 

The  deplorable  decadence  in  masculine  regard  for 
and  bearing  toward  women,  which  has  resulted  in 
direct  proportion  as  the  sex  has  substituted  male  effici- 
encies for  womanly  ineptitudes,  serves  for  one  of  many 
other  valuable  object-lessons  of  the  War. 


VI 

Among  other  Feminist  fallacies,  the  demi-mondaine 
has  come  to  be  regarded  as  victim  merely,  on  the  one 
hand,  of  an  unjust,  man-administered  economic  system, 
on  the  other,  of  masculine  libertinism.  The  truth  is 
that  the  vast  majority  of  immoral  women  are  under 
no  compulsion,  but  voluntarily  adopt  this  mode  of  life 
either  to  escape  work,  or  because  of  a  natural  vicious 
proclivity.  A  number  are  mental  defectives;  some 
actually  feeble-minded,  others  only  morally  deficient. 

It  must  always  be  remembered,  moreover,  that, 
biologically  speaking,  the  separation  of  the  genus  woman 
into  the  folds,  respectively,  of  sheep  and  goats  is  of 
signal  racial  and  social  service.  That  some  goats  are 
in  the  sheep-fold,  some  lambs  among  the  goats,  is  not 
to  be  denied.  Fatalities,  injustices,  and  incongruities 
are  inevitable  to  all  broad  human  classifications.  In 
the  main,  however,  the  women  who  resist  temptation 
and  remain  virtuous  are  obviously  better  fitted  to  be 
the  wives  and  mothers  of  the  Race  than  are  they  who  fall. 

And  although  this  is  not,  of  course,  the  calculated 
purpose  of  this  lamentable  under-world,  the  rough 
division  of  the  sex  thereby  into  two  main  classes  has 
been  of  service,  by  supplying  a  sociological  backwater 
wherein  the  worst  of  our  racial  derelicts — mental  and 
moral  defectives — are  segregated;  and  are  precluded, 
for  the  most  part,  from  perpetuating  their  mental  and 
moral  defectiveness. 


SEX-INSTINCTS  181 

Women,  like  men,  must  uphold  and  battle  for  their 
standards  in  the  teeth  of  circumstance.  The  most 
notable  types  of  parasite-women,  selfish,  slothful,  worth- 
less, venal,  vicious,  whose  standards  are  jewels  and 
clothes,  their  goals  luxury  and  pleasure  and  the  evasion 
of  all  that  is  difficult  and  distasteful  in  life,  are  found 
among  the  aristocratic  and  the  plutocratic  orders ;  safely 
secured  against  economic  necessity  or  lack  of  scope 
and  outlet  for  their  powers. 

The  Feminist  fallacy  that  prostitution  is  almost 
entirely  a  product  of  male  economics  has  been  strikingly 
refuted,  too,  by  War-conditions,  which  opened  numerous 
well-remunerated  employments  for  the  sex.  Yet,  coin- 
cident with  a  sad  deficit  of  women  to  fill  these,  prostitu- 
tion has  waxed  rampant. 

Wise  and  discreet  were  those  early  Victorians,  with 
their  uncompromising  ostracism  of  loose  women.  Apart 
altogether  from  such  salutary  expression  of  their  con- 
demnation of  impure  living,  they  were  vastly  too  clever 
and  far-seeing  to  admit  persons  of  notoriously  evil 
habit,  peeress  or  actress,  to  association  with  their  clean 
young  girls,  as  modern  mothers  do;  to  meet  and  to 
mix  freely  with  them  socially  or  at  Charity  Bazaars, 
on  Flag-Days,  and  so  forth.  With  the  result  that  girls 
all  the  world  over  have  become  increasingly  lax  and 
decadent  in  tone  and  manner,  in  dress  and  morale,  from 
confusion  of  their  young  standards  by  social  tolerance 
and  recognition  of  such  persons,  as  also  from  corruption 
by  demoralising  contact  with  and  observation  of  such. 

Intolerance  ?     Pharisaism  ?     By  no  means  ! 

The  strong  and  straight,  uncompromising  moral 
standards  of  its  women  serve  as  landmarks  of,  and 
impulse  to  a  nation's  progress.  Clear  and  definite  lines 
of  demarcation  between  good  and  evil,  between  possible 
and  impossible  modes  of  conduct,  point  the  moral  of 
advance,  and  turn  the  scale  in  the  upward  direction  for 
the  weak,  the  hesitating,  and  the  imitative. 

Dread  of  consequences  went  far,  in  less  sophisticated 


182       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

days,  to  safeguard  and  foster  womanly  virtue.  Modern 
expedients  have,  unfortunately,  removed  all  cause  for 
fear  in  this  relation;  permitting  an  impunity  of  action 
demoralising  to  the  weak  in  will  or  principle,  who  require 
every  possible  aid  and  check  to  guide  them  aright.  In 
simpler  days,  girls  who  had  lapsed  were  steadied  and 
strengthened  in  character  and  self-restraint  by  the 
compulsion  to  support,  as  too  by  their  natural  fond- 
ness for  the  unwanted  child.  Now  the  first  step — 
having  cost  them  nothing — predisposes  to  further  back- 
slidings.  And  both  character  and  self-control  degenerate 
increasingly. 


VII 

To  weaken  the  marriage-bond  by  setting  it  for  a  term 
of  years  only,  or  by  making  it  terminable  by  consent, 
would  virtually  destroy  marriage  and  family-life.  The 
fact  that  the  bond  would  not  be  binding  would  make 
persons  more  careless  even  than  they  are  at  present  in 
selection  of  the  mate,  and  would  thus  multiply  the 
number  of  mis-matings.  Which  would  be  still  further 
to  deteriorate  species,  since  the  finer  types  of  children 
are  born  only  of  well-mated  parents. 

The  finality  of  the  bond,  if  it  does  not  always  prevent 
one  or  both  from  meeting  some  other  they  prefer,  pre- 
vents the  scrupulous,  at  all  events,  from  seeking  such. 
Or  having  found,  it  keeps  many  from  fostering  and  from 
yielding  to  temptation.  Were  marriage  terminable,  or, 
as  is  sometimes  proposed,  were  it  abolished  wholly,  and 
love  the  only  bond  between  the  sexes,  there  would  be 
no  confidence,  no  sense  of  security  between  the  partners, 
no  stability  of  family  life;  no  centring  of  interests  in 
this,  and  but  small  endeavour  to  retain  affections 
which  for  the  many  could  be  easily  replaced — and 
replaced,  moreover,  with  the  zest  of  novelty.  On  the 
contrary,  a  curse  of  unrest  would  afilict  the  vast  majority 
of  married  folk  with  the  unsettling — ^mayhap  with  the 


SEX-INSTINCTS  183 

alluring — prospect  of  meeting  their  further  "  Fate  " ; 
perhaps  their  second,  possibly  their  third,  it  might  be, 
their  seventh  "  Fate." 

Only  the  few  are  strong  enough  of  heart  or  stable 
enough  of  character  to  remain  steadfast  for  a  lifetime 
in  any  undertaking,  unless  bound  stringently  thereto 
by  authorised  obligations,  incentives,  and  penalties. 
Only  the  few  are  deep  enough  of  nature  to  love  for  a 
lifetime ;  or  are  deep  enough  of  nature  to  love  so  intensely 
as  to  justify  altering  the  marriage-code  in  order  to  spare 
these  few  suffering.  The  wane  of  nine  out  of  ten  honey- 
moons impresses  the  value  of  an  inflexible  decree  that 
declines  to  reckon  with  disillusion,  but  sternly  bids  the 
disillusioned  take  up  their  burden  and  make  the  best 
of  it.  And  having  no  choice,  many  do  this  and  make  a 
success  of  it — on  new,  and,  it  may  be,  on  far  higher 
lines  than  those  they  had  set  out  upon. 

That  but  few  love  so  deeply  as  to  love  for  life  by  no 
means  implies  that  marriage  for  less  than  a  lifetime 
should  be  substituted.  It  shows,  on  the  contrary,  that 
the  majority  of  persons  would  prove  as  incapable  of 
loving  No.  Two  for  long  as  they  had  been  incapable 
of  loving  No.  One;  or  as  they  would  be  incapable  of 
loving  No.  Three,  or  No.  Ten.  A  bond  that  rivets  them 
for  life  to  No.  One  therefore,  and  entails  loss  or  suffering 
when  they  fail  to  abide  by  it,  is  safeguard  for  them 
against  such  a  succession  of  loves  as  would  be  as  demoral- 
ising to  the  individual  as  it  must  be  destructive  of 
society. 

Examples  of  this  tendency  to  amorous  licence  have 
been  furnished  by  the  complications  of  War-"  widows," 
who,  on  report  of  the  death  of  soldier-husbands,  re- 
married in  unseemly  haste — only  to  find  the  husband 
return.  So  too,  by  the  widespread  infidelity  of  wives 
to  absent  soldier-husbands.  If  the  grave  and  moving 
circumstance  of  a  husband  facing  death  or  mutilation 
in  the  trenches,  for  his  country's  defence,  was  not  grave 
nor  moving  enough  to  keep  his  wife  faithful  to  him, 


184        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

then  we  should  congratulate  ourselves  upon  a  marriage- 
law  which,  by  exacting  penalties  whereby  such  a  wife 
suffers  material  damage,  supplies  the  only  argument 
likely  to  stiffen  the  morale  of  so  light-minded  and 
callous  a  creature. 

Nothing  less  binding  than  a  lifelong  contract  is 
coercive  enough  or  is  sufficiently  chastening  to  bridle 
woman's  native  changefulness  and  curb  her  instinctive 
emotionalism.  The  realisation  that  there  is  no  way 
out  of  a  situation  is  her  finest  incentive  to  nobility. 
She  bruises  her  impulses  against  the  iron  of  circum- 
stance, and  the  essences  of  her  intrinsic  Woman-soul 
distil  in  patience  and  in  sweetness.  Under  the  harrow 
of  sacrifice,  she  feels  herself  martyred.  And  yet  without 
the  sense  of  martyrdom,  as  may  be  also  without  the 
conditions  thereof,  no  true  woman  is  ever  wholly  content 
that  she  is  fulfilling  her  destiny. 

Ellen  Key  writes  of  "  all  the  impurity  that  the  sexual 
life  shuts  up  within  the  whited  sepulchre  of  legal  marriage, ^^ 
She  falls  here  into  the  common  error  of  assuming  such 
evil  to  be  restricted  solely  to  the  state  of  marriage. 
Whereas  the  higher  interests,  the  duties  and  affections 
of  the  family  life — purifying  and  inspiring  influences 
lacking  in  unsanctioned  unions — make  inevitably  for 
the  uplifting  of  the  relation.  That  some  husbands  and 
wives  fall  short  of  the  pure  intensity  of  passion  possible 
to  some  others  between  whom  love  is  the  sole  bond, 
is  true,  of  course.  But  as  are  most  other  human  develop- 
ments, this  is  a  matter  of  the  character  of  individuals 
rather  than  of  the  terms  of  the  bond  uniting  them. 
Certainly,  high  and  tender  passion  is  scarcely  to  be 
expected  in  a  union  for  no  better  reason  than  that  this 
is  illicit. 


VIII 

Were  life  designed  for  happiness  and  pleasure  merely, 
the  case  would  be  different.    Were  one  life  our  sole 


SEX-INSTINCTS  185 

portion,  it  might  be  different  too.  Having  one  life  only, 
we  might  be  justified  in  claiming  for  it  the  joy  of  the 
best  love  available.  An  unhappy  or  a  less  than  happy 
marriage  is  only  one,  however,  of  the  many  expedients 
for  the  evolution  of  faculty. 

If  the  evolution  of  the  individual  progresses  by  way 
of  countless  earth-existences  strung  upon  a  thread  of 
spiritual  continuity,  one  life  is  but  a  brief  and  single 
page  of  everybody's  great  Life-serial.  That  is,  doubt- 
less, why  all  feel  their  lot  to  be  an  episode  merely — 
unexplained,  and  incomplete,  rather  than  a  finished 
story.  And  in  our  innumerable  pages  and  innumerable 
episodes,  we  must  resign  ourselves  to  sundry  matrimonial 
vicissitudes. 

Says  the  author  of  The  World-Soul,  "  The  more 
function  is  specialised  in  either  sex  the  less  able  either 
is  to  stand  alone."  This  is  argument  for  further  and 
fuller  specialisation  of  their  respective  functions,  in  both 
sexes,  because  so  great  is  the  happiness  of  fulfilling  for 
that  other  his  or  her  great  need  of  us,  and  of  being 
blessed  by  that  other  in  our  own  need.  But  too,  it  raises 
the  voluntary  surrender  of  such  happiness  for  honour's 
sake,  for  holiness'  sake,  for  God's  sake,  or  for  children's 
sake,  to  the  height  of  a  renunciation  which  transfigures 
human  life  and  character,  and  proportionally  ennobles 
both. 

That  both  man  and  woman  should  be  entitled  to 
divorce  for  infidelity,  for  incorrigible  drunkenness, 
criminality  or  insanity  on  the  part  of  the  mate,  would 
be  just  and  reasonable  clauses  in  the  marriage-code. 
Because,  apart  from  the  unmerited  cruelty  and  shame  of 
such  bondages,  is  the  risk  of  entailing  degenerate  off- 
spring. Otherwise,  it  appears  that  relaxation  of  the 
Divorce-Law  would  result  in  evils  far  worse  than  any 
it  would  remedy.  And  these  evils  would  re-act  inevitably 
far  more  cruelly — both  temperamentally  and  materially — 
upon  women  and  children  than  upon  men. 

The  conjugal  and  the  paternal  instincts  being  traits 


186        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

the  sex  has  acquired  by  long  ages  of  developmental 
progress,  for  men  to  lose  these  would  be  as  easy  as  the 
loss  would  be  degenerative  to  themselves  and  to  those 
others.  Folly  to  suppose  that  having  reached  a  certain 
stage  of  human  character-building,  we  can,  with  im- 
punity, kick  away  the  foundations  whereon  our  house 
of  evolution  has  been  raised;  and  on  which  it  must 
rest  for  all  time. 

The  irrevocability  of  the  marriage-contract  is  woman's 
greatest  security.  Realisation  of  that  sex-lawlessness 
which  is  an  innate  Male-trait — relic  of  the  promiscuous 
and  cursory  nature  of  the  primal  male-instinct — should 
set  us  on  guard  against  weakening,  in  the  least  degree, 
this  covenant,  which  is  the  best  among  those  privileges 
whereby  man,  in  the  teeth  of  his  inherent  instincts, 
has  chivalrously  protected  woman  and  the  family.  In 
the  teeth  of  these,  he  has  applied  his  natural  intelligent 
bent  for  Conformity  in  concrete  affairs  to  the  repression 
and  regulation  of  his  impulses  by  the  institution  of 
Marriage.  And  this — the  apotheosis  of  masculine  con- 
formity to  the  exactions  of  Progress — is  now  menaced 
by  the  native  Non-conformity  of  woman,  exploited  by 
Feminism. 

It  is  notable  that  men  are  but  seldom  truly  fond  of, 
nor  are  they  faithful  to  the  wife  who  works  outside  the 
home.  In  France,  where  the  clever,  industrious  wife 
of  the  middle  and  lower  classes  is  more  a  business- 
partner  than  she  is  a  wife,  conjugal  fidelity  is  not 
expected. 

Not  only  is  a  house  without  a  woman  in  it  to  devote 
her  best  interests  and  powers  to  the  arts  of  home- 
making,  not  a  home,  but  the  bond  of  that  fraction  of 
interest  and  affection  left  over  to  her  from  her  work 
outside  it  is  a  thing  too  slight  to  bind  her  husband  to 
her.  He  finds  no  difficulty  in  substituting — should 
he  seek  this — a  haven  with  more  atmosphere  of  home 
and  sentiment  in  it,  companionship  with  more  of  tern- 


SEX-INSTINCTS  187 

perament  in  it,  more  resiliency  and  freshness,  than  that 
of  the  industrious  and  wage-earning,  but  fatigued  and 
jaded  working- wife. 

The  children  of  such  a  union — if  such  there  be — 
supply  no  bond  either  to  draw  together  and  unite  their 
parents.  Children  reared  by  servants,  without  under- 
standing or  affection,  are  but  seldom  affectionate 
or  charming.  Moreover,  the  children  of  hard-working 
mothers  are  but  seldom  true  children.  They  bring  to  the 
home  nothing  of  the  freshness,  the  vitality  or  charm  of 
natural  childhood. 

If  father  and  mother  possess  aesthetic  sensibilities, 
these  are  offended  probably  by  the  plainness  and  the 
lack  of  graces  in  their  offspring — bye-products  merely 
of  their  economic  assiduities.  Perhaps  the  big  spectacles 
through  which  the  young  eyes  gaze  forth  like  doleful 
prisoners  from  behind  bars,  make  them  feel  strangely 
uncomfortable ;  as  in  the  presence  of  weird  and  reproach- 
ful intelligences. 

Neither  derives  interest  or  joy  enough  from  the 
family  circle  to  repay  them  for  their  parental  obligations 
and  responsibilities. 

IX 

Love  between  the  sexes,  being  a  need  alike  of  souls 
and  biogenesis,  is  regarded  by  some  as  reason  enough 
in  itself  for  relaxing  the  Marriage-law — even  for  the 
abolition  of  Marriage;  making  affection  the  sole  bond 
between  the  lovers. 

We  cannot,  logically,  abolish  the  legal  contract  uniting 
two  persons  in  marriage,  however,  without  at  the  same 
time  abolishing  every  other  form  of  legal  contract,  and 
the  legal  liabilities  thereof.  Logically,  we  cannot  make 
conjugal  duty  and  family  responsibility  mere  matters 
of  personal  conscience,  unless  we  are  assured  that  the 
human  species  has  reached  such  a  phase  of  moral 
integrity  as  to   need  no  other  incentive  than  its  own 


188        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

integrity  to  secure  fulfilment  of  its  obligations,  moral 
and  material.  If  we  abolish  the  legal  factor  in  marriage, 
to  be  consistent  we  must  abolish  the  legal  factor  in  busi- 
ness partnerships  and  in  all  other  sociological  compacts. 
We  must  make  the  payment  of  rent,  of  rates  and  taxes, 
of  tradesmen's  bills  and  so  forth,  debts  of  conscience  and 
of  honour  merely ;  for  the  discharge  whereof  conscience 
and  honour  must  alone  suffice. 

It  may  be  objected  that  these  are  purely  material 
obligations,  while  the  bond  between  the  sexes  is  an 
emotional  one.  And  yet — Have  we  reached  such  a 
stage  of  development  that  emotional  considerations 
are  more  binding  on  us  than  material  ones  are  ? 

Moreover,  if  we  are  to  make  love  the  sole  bond — 
clearly  the  waning  of  love  must  release  from  the  bondage. 
Further,  when  we  sift  out  the  purely  emotional  element 
in  the  vast  majority  of  unions,  we  shall  find  it  but  a 
very  slender  factor  among  other  more  binding  reci- 
procities. Certainly  a  far  more  slender  thread  to  trust 
to  in  the  safeguarding  of  a  contract  than  is,  for  example, 
the  factor  of  commercial  honesty.  Commercial  honesty 
is  not,  perhaps,  a  conspicuous  virtue  of  the  times. 
Nevertheless,  the  sense  of  honesty  in  business  is  a  good 
deal  stronger  in  most  men  than  is  their  sense  of  honour 
with  regard  to  love.  And  their  sense  of  honour  in  love 
has  developed  mainly  as  a  direct  consequence  of  tliose 
legal  compulsions  and  responsibilities  of  love  which 
have  been  exacted  and  fostered  by  the  legality  of  marriage. 

How  many  men  are  there,  for  example,  who,  having 
come  to  care  for  some  other,  hold  themselves  bound 
in  the  least  by  an  illicit  tie ;  howsoever  much  they  may 
have  cared  at  one  time  for  the  woman  in  the  case? 
Lightly  come — ^lightly  go  !  And  if  the  terms,  marriage 
and  love,  are  by  no  means  necessarily  synonymous,  it 
has  been,  nevertheless,  greatly  by  way  of  the  obstacles 
and  compulsions  and  the  social  penalties  attaching  to 
violation  of  the  marriage  vows  that  the  love-passion 
has  been  purified  and  uplifted  out  of  the  barbarism  of 


SEX-INSTINCTS  189 

mere  instinct  and  promiscuity,  into  the  graces  of  emotion 
and  the  virtues  of  monogamy. 

Had  any  man  and  woman,  reciprocally  attracted  at 
their  first  meeting,  been  free  always  to  have  carried  this 
attraction  straightway  to  its  biological  conclusion,  the 
sex-relation  would  be  still  the  merely  physiological  inci- 
dent it  was  in  primal  forests.  The  circumstance  that 
such  attraction  has  been  debarred  from  ready  con- 
summation by  the  obligations  and  the  obstacles  engen- 
dered by  a  recognised  and  legalised  bond  between  the 
sexes,  has  been  debarred,  moreover,  in  innumerable 
cases,  by  one  of  the  attracted  couple  being  subject  to 
this  bond — all  of  this  has  preserved  the  nascent  emotion 
from  straightway  relapsing  to  the  basic  level  whence  it 
sprang,  and  1ms  fostered  the  evolution  of  love  in  the 
higher  reaches  of  emotion ;  of  imagination,  of  controlled 
and  chastened  passion. 

It  may  be  said  that  modern  men  and  women,  loving 
one  another  with  the  more  highly-evolved  passion  of 
our  enlightened  epoch,  would  love  as  devotedly  and 
would  remain  as  constant  in  an  illicit  as  in  a  legalised 
union.  If  so,  such  constancy  would  be  an  echo  mainly 
of  the  long-dignified  state  of  wedded  constancy;  and 
the  greatest  of  all  tributes  to  the  values  of  this.  Never- 
theless— For  how  long  after  the  clarion-note  of  aspira- 
tion sounded  by  Marriage  should  have  ceased  to  vibrate, 
would  the  echo  of  it  last  ? 

Should  woman,  in  her  short-sighted  efforts  to  "  emanci- 
pate "  herself  still  further,  release  herself  wholly  (as  she 
now  inclines  to  do)  from  the  marriage-bond,  she  will 
have  thrown  back  in  man's  face  the  very  tenderest 
guerdon  of  his  worth  and  of  his  high  regard  for  her. 
And  she  will  have  destroyed,  at  a  blow,  his  most  vital 
incentive  to  further  advance,  her  own  and  her  children's 
most  powerful  safeguard,  and  the  main  buttress  not 
alone  of  national  but,  as  well,  of  Natural  human  progress. 


V 


CHAPTER  VI 

FEMINIST    DOCTRINE    AND    PRACTICE    DISASTROUS    TO 
INFANT-LIFE   AND    HUMAN   FACULTY 

"  A  hundred  men  may  m,dke  an  encampment,  but  it  takes  a 
woman  to  make  a  horns.'' — Chinese  Proverb. 

I 

The  paths  alike  of  progress  and  of  happiness  He, 
obviously,  in  the  ever  further  dignifying  and  enhance- 
ment of  the  functions  of  home  and  of  wifehood,  by 
way  of  every  further  interest  and  charm  that  higher, 
fairer  Womanhood  confers. 

The  chief  cause  of  latter-day  conjugal  unrest  and 
disaffection  is  to  be  found — not  in  the  natural  state  of 
marriage,  but  in  a  decline  of  those  personal  traits  which 
make  for  happiness  therein.  Girls  brought  up  as  now, 
without  home-interests  or  training,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, with  mainly  self-realising  and  self-absorbing  aims 
and  pursuits,  are  deficient  not  only  in  domestic  apti- 
tudes but  lamentably  also  in  emotional  qualities.  And 
the  home-life  without  the  emotions  to  give  values  to 
it,  is  like  a  fine  air  played  on  the  keyboard  of  a  piano 
from  which  have  been  removed  the  strings  that  trans- 
form the  movements  of  the  fingers  into  melody. 

So  keenly  self-centred  the  majority  of  women  have 
become,  so  bent  upon  their  hobbies  and  careers,  as  to 
have  lost  nearly  all  of  that  sympathetic  adaptiveness 
natural  to  woman,  which  enables  her  to  forget — and 
to  forget  with  pleasure — her  own  in  the  personality 
and  interests  of  others. 

How  eagerly  latter-day  girls  seek  refuge  from  their 

190 


DISASTROUS  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE       191 

boredom  in  the  tennis-court,  the  Bridge-table,  the 
dance,  or  in  some  other  mode  of  direct  action  which 
entails  but  little  temperamental  tax  or  output  I 

To  such  degree  the  sexes  are  now  drilled  to  the  samci 
standards,  interests,  and  points-of-view,  that  neither  i 
brings  to  the  other  any  new  thing,  of  freshness,  of 
colour,  or  of  inspiration.  The  interchange  is  only  too 
often  a  competitive  struggle,  indeed,  as  to  which  shall 
know  (or  shall  appear  to  know)  more  than  the  other 
knows  (or  appears  to  know)  of  topics  equally  trite  to 
both.  There  is  little  or  nothing  of  the  zest  and  glamour 
of  a  delightful  picnic  of  two ;  whereat  each  keeps  pro- 
ducing some  new  and  unexpected  thing  to  supplement 
the  new  and  unexpected  of  the  other.  Modern  woman 
has  no  novelty  in  language  even  for  her  mate,  but  deals 
him  back  his  own  slang — a  vernacular  which  among 
women  of  the  working-classes  not  seldom  takes  the 
forms  of  blasphemy  and  obscenity,  wholly  disqualifying 
for  the  rearing  of  children.  As,  indeed,  do  the  coarse 
and  vulgar  phrases  in  vogue  now  among  the  cultured 
of  the  sex.  In  view  of  woman's  native  faculty  of  music 
and  her  subtle  aptitude  for  naming  (as  for  nick-naming), 
one  cannot  doubt  that  she  it  was  who  mothered  Lan- 
guage. Yet  now-a-days,  adopting  virile  lingo,  her 
"  rotten,"  "  stick-it,"  and  the  like  are  murdering  the 
infant  of  her  quondam  genius.  And  what  genius  it 
was,  that  gave  birth  to  our  surpassing  mother-tongue  1 

In  case  of  engagement  between  a  young  man  and  his 
bored  one — whom,  by  the  way,  although  he  may  suspect 
that  the  relation  is,  not  all  that  it  might  be,  he  never  sus- 
pects of  being  bored — manlike,  he  trusts  to  marriage  "  to 
put  everything  right."  Yet  although  the  newly-wedded 
more  and  more  relieve  themselves  of  the  strain  of  a 
honeymoon,  with  its  unmitigated  (or  inimitable)  com- 
pany of  two,  a  month  or  six  weeks  of  wedlock  find 
most  young  modern  couples  wofuUy  at  cross-purposes. 


192        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

Possession  has  freed  the  man  of  the  obhgation  to  woo. 
And  when  the  wooing — which  had  engendered  for  the 
woman  a  flattering  and  intoxicating  sense  of  being  a 
coveted  prize — comes  to  a  more  or  less  abrupt  ending, 
she  feels  herself  defrauded. 

He  too  !  Because  while  Courtship  is  man's  affair, 
Marriage  is  woman's.  And  where  love  is  not,  to  recruit 
and  quicken  passion  and  to  take  the  place  of  novelty, 
the  wane  of  honeymoons  is  sad  indeed. 

(There  are  faults  and  failings  on  the  bridegroom's 
part,  'tis  true.  That  belongs  to  another  story,  how- 
ever. Sufficient  for  these  pages  is  the  unpleasing  task 
of  holding  a  mirror  to  the  faults  of  a  single  sex.) 

It  should  be  remembered  that  men,  for  the  most 
part,  are  not  eager  to  marry.  Considering  the  nature 
of  the  bond,  with  its  lifelong  obligations,  responsi- 
bilities and  sacrifices,  this  is  little  to  be  wondered  at. 
A  week  after  marriage  a  wife  may  be  crippled  by  an 
accident,  may  become  insane;  or  may  otherwise  be 
thrown,  more  or  less  a  burden,  on  her  husband's  hands. 
Or  she  may  develop  disagreeable  and  wholly  uncon- 
genial traits.  In  spite  of  which,  even  though  they  wreck 
his  happiness,  he  will  have  bound  himself  to  her — and 
will  have  bound  himself  to  maintain  her — till  death 
them  parts. 

He  too,  of  course,  may  turn  out  wholly  unsatis- 
factory. That  belongs  likewise  to  the  other  story. 
But  from  the  material  standpoint,  the  onus  of  support 
which  falls  on  him,  and  which,  in  the  case  of  an  in- 
valided or  of  an  obnoxious  wife,  may  prove  nothing 
but  a  carking  care,  makes  the  liabilities  unequal. 

It  is,  doubtless,  because  of  these  his  greater  material 
obligations  and  responsibilities,  that  passion  has  been 
planned  to  beset  man  more  urgently  than  woman. 
And  had  Church  and  State  not  taken  advantage  of  his 
inherent,  chivalrous  instinct,  and  so  turned  it  to  account, 
both  for  his  own  moral  uplifting  and  for  the  founding 


DISASTROUS  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE       198 

and  maintenance  of  the  family,  woman  and  society — 
and  man,  accordingly — would  have  remained  at  very 
low  grades  of  development. 

II 

Among  other  "  wrongs  "  resented  by  women  is  that 
his  obligation  and  his  economic  means  to  support  a 
wife  have  endowed  the  male,  in  the  majority  of  cases, 
with  the  lordly  prerogative  of  selecting  his  mate.  On 
her  side,  while  having  much  to  gain  materially  by 
marriage,  unless  she  is  unusually  attractive  she  has  but 
little  range  of  choice. 

/  And  yet  this  masculine  prerogative  of  selection  has 
served  as  the  strongest  incentive  to  the  culture  both  of 
higher  attribute  and  charm  in  woman.  Failing  that 
economic  struggle  which  has  been  man's  spur  to 
development,  this  incentive  has  operated  vastly  to  her 
benefit;  inducing  her  parents  to  educate  and  to  en- 
hance her  gifts,  and  influencing  her  to  do  the  like  for 
herself..    A    proportion   of   women    have    always    been 

\  self-supporting,  of  course.  But  their  work  has  been 
mainly  in  fields  of  unskilled  labour,  and  has  lacked, 
accordingly,  the  stimulus  of  competition.  The  goal  of 
marriage  has  not  only  supplied  thus  the  element  of 
emulation,  but  it  has  turned  Woman-culture  in  the 
direction  of  developing  personal  traits  and  morale, 
rather  than  industrial  or  professional  specialisations. 
And  this  has  been  the  right  direction,  seeing  that  the 
role  of  the  sex  is  one  demanding  personal  qualities  and 
virtues  rather  than  economic  technicalities. 

As  regards  human  values,  it  is  a  higher  privilege  to 
be  a  charming  personality  than  to  be  a  successful  stock- 
broker. So  that  in  this,  as  in  other  things,  woman  has 
been  privileged  by  her  disabilities. 


1- 


1/  ^ 


194       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 


III 

An  ever-increasing  number  of  working-class  girls,  on 
leaving  school,  enter  a  work-shop,  a  factory,  or  an 
office,  and  spend  their  time  and  powers  in  minor 
mechanical  tasks ;  gumming  labels  on  jam-pots,  making 
match-boxes  or  tags  for  boot-laces,  addressing  envelopes, 
and  other  such  employments,  deadening  to  female  in- 
telligence, impulse  and  temperament.  Their  minds  and 
natures  become  too  warped  and  narrowed  to  adapt 
later,  with  ease  and  interest,  to  the  many  and  varied 
intelligent  functions  of  the  home.  They  escape  thence, 
accordingly,  after  a  few  months  or  years  of  marriage 
(supposing  them  to  have  given  up  their  industrial  tasks 
for  a  space  even),  and  abandoning  home  and  children, 
return  to  the  old  narrow,  mechanical  routine,  to  which 
alone  their  poor  stultified  brains  have  been  shaped. 
In  the  education  of  girls,  the  Subconscious  mimetic 
element  in  their  impressionable  natures  should  be  borne 
in  mind.  It  may  be  turned  to  excellent,  as  to  disastrous 
account. 

M.  Vologotsky,  head  of  the  Omsk  Government,  has 
called  attention  to  a  significant  phenomenon  of  modern 
Russian  life — namely,  that  the  women  take  no  interest 
in  their  homes.  This  he  attributes  to  their  low  states 
of  culture.  Could  they  but  be  persuaded  to  become 
"  house-proud  " — with  all  that  this  means  and  entails 
— he  considers  that  the  task  of  the  Regeneration  of  this 
vast  unhappy,  although  singularly  gifted,  people  would 
be  greatly  furthered. 

Constitutional  deterioration,  inherited  or  acquired, 
entailing  defective  sex-development,  causes  many  young 
working-women  to  be  deficient  in  the  maternal  instinct, 
whence  spring  fondness  for  and  interest  in  children. 
The  same  defective  sex-development,  disqualifying  them 
for  wifehood,  results  in  the  vast  majority  of  working- 


DISASTROUS   FEMINIST   DOCTRINE       195 

class  wives  lapsing,  after  a  few  years  of  marriage  with 
normal,  virile  young  men,  into  haggard,  neurasthenic 
wrecks. 

The  whole  of  this  vital  and  important  department 
of  the  woman-organisation  is  not  only  ignored  in  so 
far  as  scope  for  normal  development  is  concerned,  but, 
despised  as  subserving  inferior  and  "  merely  physical  " 
functions,  every  other  capacity  and  aptitude  is  fostered 
or  forced  at  the  expense  of  constitutional  reserves  and 
resources  which  belong,  by  rights  of  Life  and  Love,  to 
this.  With  the  result  that  the  vast  majority  of  modern 
women  are  physically  unfitted  for,  as  an  increasing 
number  are  temperamentally  averse  to  the  sex-relation 
—fons  et  origo  of  Life. 


IV 

To  such  degree  the  doctrine  of  Expedience  and  Self- 
for-S  elf -solely  has  spread  that  there  are  women  who 
seek  now  to  escape  wholly  the  natural  pangs  of  child- 
birth. Such  persuade  their  doctors  to  induce  labour  a 
month  or  more  before  term ;  in  order  that  the  smaller- 
sized  infant  may  be  born  with  less  discomfort  to  them- 
selves. Others  restrict  their  diet  or  abstain  from  certain 
foods,  in  order  that  the  babe,  starved  thus  and  ill- 
nourished  before  birth,  shall  be  soft  and  frail  and  easier 
of  delivery.  Dread  of  pain  at  whatsoever  cost  to  the 
future  of  a  human  being — and  that  being  their  own 
child — actuates  these  unnatural  and  pusillanimous 
practices. 

It  is  becoming  a  vogue  for  expectant  mothers  of  the 
wealthier  classes  to  enter  Maternity-Homes,  where,  in 
luxurious  surroundings,  they  are  enabled,  under  spinal 
anaesthesia  (Twilight  Sleep),  to  conclude  their  mother- 
function  without  suffering  or  inconvenience;  lying  in  a 
torpor  of  crass  insensibility  while  the  greatest  of  Human 
Events  is  taking  place  in  them.     Meantime,  the  sensitive 


196        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

infant-body  is  dosed  with  the  powerful  drug  circulating 
in  the  maternal  blood. 

But — whither  is  all  this  trending  ?  Can  we  believe  that 
true  intelligence  and  progress  consist  in  grasping  greedily 
all  the  pleasures  and  the  privileges  to  be  had  from  life, 
and  basely  shirking  all  the  hardships  ?  Can  we  believe 
that — suffering  and  effort  being  the  laws  alike  of  Life 
and  Progress,  and  the  rungs  whereby  we  have  climbed 
the  Evolutionary  ladder — we  can  continue  to  climb  when, 
with  short-sighted  selfishness,  we  shall  have  stripped 
the  ladder  of  its  rungs  ?  The  humane  use  of  chloroform 
duly  assuages  the  worst  pangs.  While  the  fine  courage, 
fortitude  and  sweetness  wherewith  the  soul  of  woman 
fares  forth  naturally  upon  her  Great  Adventure,  to 
meet  this  the  Apotheosis  of  human  pain,  prove  and 
still  further  enhance  her  nobility.  Even  weak  and 
flimsy  women  rise  to  greatness  at  this  crisis.  Powers 
they  had  never  glimmered  in  themselves  emerge  and 
armour  them,  and — be  it  remembered — leave  eternal 
records  upon  mind  and  character;  striking  spiritual 
roots  still  deeper  into  living  function. 


With  characteristic  Feminist  materialism,  Olive 
Schreiner  lightly  dismisses  Maternity  as  a  merely 
"  passive  "  form  of  labour. 

Heaven  save  the  mark  !  Is  it  passive  so  to  equip 
a  microscopic  cell  with  living  human  powers  and  aspira- 
tions that,  within  the  space  of  months,  it  makes  that 
miraculous  pilgrimage  of  the  pre-natal  evolutionary 
ascent  whereby  it  becomes  Man  ?  Passive — so  to  serve 
for  living  environment  to  this  developing  organism 
as  to  supply  it  with  the  multiple,  complex  and  diverse 
elements,  material  and  vital,  biological  and  psychical, 
required  for  the  manifold  needs  and  adjustments  of  its 
evolving  life  and  faculties  ? 


DISASTROUS  FEMINIST   DOCTRINE       197 

During  the  ante-natal  months  of  this  miraculous 
Ascent,  the  embryo  "  climbs  its  genealogical  tree,"  as 
biologists  style  it.  That  is  to  say,  it  passes,  in  turn, 
through  all  the  countless  evolutionary  phases  of  all 
the  countless  evolutionary  ages  whereof  Humanity  is 
the  culminating  product.  Fashioning  out  of  form- 
lessness, slowly  it  attains  to  form.  Shaping,  shaping, 
ever  marvellously  shaping,  it  evolves,  in  succession, 
through  fish,  amphibian  and  other  rudimentary  life- 
grades.  Climbing,  climbing,  ever  marvellously  climbing, 
day  by  day,  to  nobler  heights,  it  is  transformed  at  last 
to  human  shape ;  lower  human  first,  then  higher  human, 
and  finally  to  the  highest  human  possible  to  its  stock, 
its  parentage,  and  the  resources,  physical  and  psychical, 
available  to  it. 

It  is  the  most  stupendous  miracle  in  Nature;  a 
miracle  so  sacred  and  so  tender  that  every  man  in 
passing  an  expectant  mother  should  mentally  bow  the 
knee.  Individually,  socially,  morally — she  may  be  a 
person  of  but  small  significance.  But  because  of  the 
mystery  of  Life  enshrined  within  her,  she  is  a  living 
Testament  of  Evolution.  The  pregnant  woman  is, 
moreover,  pregnant  with  the  destiny  of  Races. 

During  those  ten  lunar  months  there  is  enacted  in 
the  tender  darkness  of  the  mother's  womb  the  whole 
wonderful  drama  of  the  Human  transfiguration.  With 
lightning  swiftness,  the  evolving  babe  climbs  in  the 
footsteps  that  its  countless  ancestors  had  trod,  in  forms 
innumerable,  along  the  route  interminable  of  the  Human 
Advent.  In  flashes  of  progressive,  infinitesimal  tran- 
sitions, through  incalculable  phases  and  mutations,  the 
single  cell  of  double  parentage  unfolds  the  marvel 
occulted  in  it.  Until  at  last,  the  living  product  stands 
triumphant  on  the  topmost  branch  of  its  genealogical 
tree,  a  perfect  human  babe  awaiting  birth-;  the  last 
achievement  of  its  Race,  the  latest  and  most  perfect 
bud  of  its  hereditary  stock. 


198        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

In  so  far  as  all  this  occurs  subconsciously  within  the 
mother,  the  materialist  may  lightly  dismiss  the  evolu- 
tionary marvel  as  a  "  passive  "  form  of  labour.  But 
although  subconscious,  these  unceasing  processes  de- 
mand inevitably  such  proportional  vital  potential  and 
activities  on  her  part  from  whom  the  powers  energising 
it  are  derived,  as  to  be  a  continued  tax  and  strain  upon 
her  strength  and  health.  There  are  women  who  feel 
this  strain  but  little.  A  rare  few  of  these  because  they 
are  so  richly  endowed  with  maternal  potence  that  the 
subconscious  processes  have  remained,  as  Nature 
doubtless  intended,  for  the  most  part  subconscious 
and  painless.  Far  more  often,  however,  when  Maternity 
exacts  but  little  from  the  mother,  it  is  because  she  is 
contributing  but  little  to  the  child.  I  have  observed  that 
the  finer  a  child  in  physique  and  in  brain,  the  greater 
the  stress  and  disability  the  mother  had  suffered  prior 
to  its  birth. 


VI 

Indifferent,  notwithstanding,  to  all  the  vital  activities 
and  psychical  evolutions  taking  place  within  the  mys- 
terious laboratory  of  the  mother's  body;  reckless  of  the 
circumstance  that  any  interference  with,  or  hampering 
of  the  least  of  these  must  inevitably  jar,  and  warp,  the 
delicate  complexes  of  infantine  development,  we  scruple 
not  to  strain  and  burden,  to  harass  and  deplete,  the 
prospective  mother  even  further  by  strenuous  bread- 
winning.  Her  whole  physiology  and  psychology  are 
profoundly  altered  by  her  momentous  condition;  by 
the  new  adjustments  to  the  needs  of  the  developing 
babe,  of  the  maternal  circulation  and  digestion,  assimi- 
lation and  elimination,  mentality  and  intricate  nervous 
constitution  and  processes.  Fatigue,  noise,  turmoil, 
effort,  shock — any  one  or  all  of  these  which  are  in- 
separable from  industrial  employment — cannot  but  in- 


DISASTROUS   FEMINIST   DOCTRINE       199 

juriously  re-act  upon  the  delicate  evolutions  mysteriously 
occurring  in  her. 

The  infant  brain  is  complete  at  birth.  From  its 
lowest  to  its  highest  departments,  all  the  marvel  of 
exquisitely-delicate  construction  and  association  of  its 
complex  cells  is  achieved  pre-natally.  And  according 
or  not  as  her  vital  powers  have  been  rich  and  otherwise 
unexpended,  and  according  or  not  as  the  embryological 
processes  of  development  have  occurred  in  quietude 
and  freedom  from  strain  upon  the  mother's  part,  will 
be  the  quality  for  life,  in  vigour  and  in  sanity,  of  her 
child's  intelligence  and  character. 


VII 

In  view  of  those  lower  biological  grades  through  which 
the  embryo  passes  before  arriving  at  the  human  stage, 
it  is  inevitable  that  maternal  over-fatigue,  shock  or  undue 
effort  may  arrest  its  physical  development  temporarily 
upon  any  of  these  lower  levels.  And  such  arrest  must 
inevitably  entail  some  warp  or  bias  of  a  lower  animal 
phase;  which  may  so  impress  itself  permanently  on 
embryonic  development  as  to  detract  more  or  less  gravely 
from  the  final  transition. 

It  is,  doubtless,  for  this  reason  that  many  modern 
humans  show  in  their  configuration,  degrees  of  reversion 
to  ape,  sheep,  fish  and  other  lower  species. 

Shock  or  nervous  perturbation  in  the  expectant 
mother  may  occasion,  in  the  babe,  appalling  mon- 
strosity, or  such  minor  defects  as  cleft-palate,  hare-lip, 
and  other  deformities.  Showing  the  vital  and — inevit- 
ably— the  psychological  effects  on  offspring,  for  good  or 
for  evil,  of  maternal  conditions  and  impressions. 

The  Germans  record  that  of  infants  born  during  the 
war,  a  number  are  gravely  degenerate  of  type,  an  infant- 
degeneracy  attributed  by  some  to  the  creed  of  Hate 
obsessing    German    mothers.    The    same    phenomenon 


200        FEMINISM   AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

is  seen  however  in  the  offspring  of  mothers  exhausted 
by  rehgious  preachings  and  marchings,  in  furtherance 
of  their  creed  of  Christian  Love. 

For  Biology  recognises  no  Theology  except  its  own — 
that  of  Evolution. 

At  a  representative  meeting  of  London  doctors,  it 
was  stated  recently  that  the  number  of  imbecile  infants 
now  coming  into  existence  with  us  is  no  less  than 
appalling. 

A  medical  wiseacre  has  adventured  the  amazing 
dictum  that  Every  infant  is  horn  healthy !  He  might, 
with  equal  truth,  have  said  that  every  infant  is  born 
wealthy,  or  is  born  a  Chinaman.  Some  infants  are  born 
alive,  a  great  number  are  born  dead.  And  between 
those  born  alive  and  healthy  and  the  still-born,  lie 
all  the  infinite  gradations  of  ♦constitutional  condition 
between  life  and  health,  between  disease  and  death. 

One  child  inherits  from  its  parents  a  tuberculous 
tendency ;  another  a  neurotic,  another  a  strain  of 
alcoholism  or  other  taint.  One  is  born  blind  or  a  hope- 
less idiot ;  another  with  hare-lip  or  clubbed-foot ;  another 
with  congenital  heart-disease.  One  babe  is  born  with  a 
beautiful  head;  all  its  brain-faculties  nobly  developed 
and  splendidly  balanced.  Another  is  born  headless, 
or  with  a  skull  which,  from  crown  to  brows,  is  a  rapid 
descent — showing  lack  of  all  the  brain-powers  involved 
in  higher  mentality;,  is  born,  in  short,  of  criminal 
inherency. 

The  degrees  in  which  individuals  strive  against  in- 
herited tendencies  differ  greatly,  as  do  the  life-con- 
ditions wherein  their  will  and  moral  power  are  tested — 
to  make  or  to  break  them.  Man  is  not,  of  course,  the 
creature  merely  of  his  heredity  or  of  his  environment. 
But  he  whose  mother  has  equipped  him  with  physical 
defects  instead  of  with  qualities,  even  though  he  fight 
against   his   disabilities,   is   obviously   handicapped   for 


DISASTROUS  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE       201 

the  life-struggle.  A  great  musician  may  charm  fine 
music  from  a  poor  fiddle,  but  in  no  degree  so  fine  as  he 
will  bring  out  of  a  more  perfect  instrument. 

VIII 

A  phenomenon  which  has  baffled  vital  statisticians 
is  a  curious  relation  between  the  Birth-rate  and  Infant- 
Mortality.  A  high  birth-rate  is  found  to  be  associated 
with  a  high  rate  of  infant -mortality ;  while  with  a  lower 
birth-rate,  the  death-rate  among  infants  and  children 
decreases. 

Long  and  careful  observation  has  left  me  in  no  doubt 
as  to  the  cause  of  this  phenomenon.  Which  is,  that 
under  strain  of  disease,  of  industrial  exhaustion  or  strenu- 
ous activities  of  any  sort,  but  particularly  as  result  of 
the  constitutional  drain  entailed  by  pregnancy,  mothers 
may  so  draw  upon  the  vital  powers  of  their  children 
in  order  to  recruit  their  own,  as  to  occasion  fatal  illness 
in  their  families. 

The  evil  is  so  great  in  its  effects,  not  only  upon  the 
health  and  constitution  of  the  rising  generation,  but,  as 
well,  upon  the  physical  and  mental  development  thereof, 
that  such  maternal  depletion  is,  I  am  assured,  a  cause  of 
widespread  disease  among  children;  of  infantile  para- 
lysis, degeneracy  and  mortality.  It  is  reason  enough, 
in  all  conscience,  to  call  for  the  legalised  prohibition 
of  all  mothers  with  young  families  from  engaging  in 
professional  or  industrial  employment. 

Because  although  such  depletion  of  her  children's 
health  is  graver  in  degree  during  a  mother's  pregnancy, 
at  all  times  over-worked,  sickly,  or  strenuous  women 
recruit  their  powers  from  the  constitutional  resources 
of  others.  Only,  indeed,  by  such  depletion  of  their 
neighbours  can  many  of  our  present-day  neurotic,  over- 
active women  (some  of  them  with  ill-nourished  bodies 
and  feeble  assimilation,  but  with,  nevertheless,  indefatig- 
able energies)  contrive  to  keep  going. 


202       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

Strong-willed,  self-centred  women,  keen  in  pursuit  of 
business,  athletics  or  pleasure,  will,  by  sapping  the 
nervous  forces  of  these,  keep  all  the  members  of  their 
households — husband,  children,  servants — more  or  less 
de-vitalised,  neurasthenic  and  characterless;  one  or 
more  actually  invalided,  perhaps. 

If  nervous  energy  is,  indeed,  a  complex  form  of 
electrical  energy,  this  nervous  interchange  is  intelligible ; 
obeying  the  law  that  bodies  under-charged  with  elec- 
tricity charge  themselves  from  bodies  more  highly 
charged,  until  equilibrium  is  established. 

Who  among  doctors  does  not  know  the  wan  and  list- 
less, semi-paralytic  babes  that  working-mothers — and 
most  particularly  pregnant  working-mothers — bring  to 
the  consulting-room?  The  hapless  victims  lie  limply, 
or  sit  hunched  upon  the  woman's  lap,  nerveless,  wasted, 
apathetic;  faces  white  and  hopeless,  abdomen  lax  and 
tumid;  the  blenched  limbs  soft  as  butter,  weak  and 
dangling.  They  are  suffering,  perhaps,  from  some 
specific  ailment,  bronchitis,  paralysis,  gastric  or  intes- 
tinal troubles;  perhaps  only  from  mysterious  wasting 
and  inanition.  Not  seldom  there  is  an  elder  child  too, 
white  and  weak  and  fretful,  and  the  subject  of  "  infan- 
tilism " ;  growth  stunted,  development  arrested.  Such 
children,  in  their  mental  hebetude  and  physical  degener- 
acy, suggest  a  degree  of  cretinism.  And  in  the  sugges- 
tion, a  possible  cause  appears  for  the  cretinous  offspring 
of  the  hard-living,  over-worked  mothers  of  Swiss 
cantons. 


IX 

Drummond  says  of  Motherhood  : 

"  Even  on  its  physical  side  .  .  .  this  was  the  most 
stupendous  task  Evolution  ever  undertook.'''^ 

While  on  the  pyschical  side,  we  see  that  Nature  has 
made  infancy  and  childhood  increasingly  helpless   as 


DISASTROUS  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE       203 

species  advances  in  evolutionary  values,  in  order  to  call 
forth  increasingly  intelligent,  and  sympathetic  response 
and  resource  in  the  mother.  Feminism  in  unmaking 
the  mother,  is  undoing  the  labours  of  countless  ages  of 
evolutionary  advance.  The  intensifying  mentality  of 
woman,  destined  for  the  more  subtly  intelligent  and 
sympathetic  nurture  of  the  Race's  increasingly  valuable 
and  complex  offspring,  is  being  diverted,  more  and  more, 
by  Feminist  counsel  and  practice  from  human  and  vital 
into  merely  economic  channels. 

Life  is  so  constituted  that  its  most  cruel  disabilities 
and  evils  are  borne  inevitably  by  the  children  in  the  van 
of  the  Great  March.  These  hapless  ones  it  is — soft  buds 
pushing  from  the  Human  Tree — that  bear  the  brunt  of 
the  evolutionary  impulse. 

In  the  main,  the  very  finest  children  of  The  Poor 
succumb.  Because  the  higher  the  organism,  the  more 
complex  and  delicately-fitted  to  its  vital  needs  its  life- 
conditions  require  to  be.  Briars  flourish  where  rose- 
trees  die.  Degenerate  children  struggle  through  where 
better  types  go  under.  We  are  not  ready,  it  is  true,  for 
exotic  humans.  But  we  need  urgently,  indeed,  all  the 
healthy,  intelligent,  well-balanced  stock  we  can  produce. 
A  certain  uniformity  of  type  is  secured  by  the  expedi- 
ents of  Natural  Selection ;  by  that  continual  correction 
of  premature  evolutionary  unfoldment  which  results 
from  the  checks  and  prunings  of  developmental  exigencies 
— in  the  necessary  acclimatisation  and  adaptation  of 
the  young  and  tender  organism  to  environment.  And 
Nature  herself  provides  all  the  checks  and  prunings 
required,  in  her  tests  of  teething,  of  measles,  and  the 
other  diseases  and  trials  of  infancy  and  childhood. 

The  respiration-curves  and  the  brain  pulse-waves  of 
young  infants  show  serious  disturbance  as  result  of 
sudden  loud  noises.  The  consequent  nervous  jar  per- 
turbs both  breathing  and  circulation. 

The  whole  organisation  of  an  infant  is  so  delicate  and 


204       FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

is  so  subtly  balanced  as  to  require  the  gentlest  possible 
treatment.  One  sees  on  the  faces  of  infants  and  ,young 
children  a  chronic  look  of  painful  expectancy.  Their 
brows  are  knitted  as  though  to  brace  their  hyper-sensi- 
tive systems  for  the  next  distressing  shock.  Women 
accustomed  to  hard,  laborious  work  (or  sports)  lose 
power  to  adjust  their  movements  to  these  delicate  needs. 
And  when,  unkind  and  impatient,  they  fly  at  the  un- 
fortunates and  shake  or  beat  or  scold  them  violently, 
they  have  no  suspicion  that  for  hours  afterwards,  perhaps 
for  days,  the  children's  nervous  systems  may  be  so  shat- 
tered and  disorganised,  digestion  and  assimilative  powers 
so  impaired,  as  to  interfere  gravely  with  growth  and 
development.  Degrees  of  "  shock,"  akin  to  shell- 
shock,  result  from  such  maternal  violence  and  chronic 
terrorism  ;  occasioning  feeble  -  mindedness,  morbid 
timidity,  mental  hebetude  and,  moreover,  subconscious 
impressions,  which,  later  in  life,  may  emerge  as  obses- 
sions, or  as  other  forms  of  insanity.  Fear  is  the  most 
shattering  and  paralysing  of  the  emotions.  Yet  not  only 
brought  up  by  hand,  the  majority  of  our  little  ones  are 
brought  up  by  violent  hand. 

All  day  long  and  during  every  moment  of  it,  a  thousand 
delicate  processes  of  growth  and  unfoldment  and  of 
intricate  adjustments  are  going  on  mysteriously  within 
the  shaping  brain  and  body  of  a  child.  Subconsciously, 
these  are  a  continued  tax  and  strain ;  making  him  hyper- 
sensitive, irritable,  cross,  perhaps,  for  causes  that  appear 
inadequate.  A  child  is  like  a  convalescent,  in  that  he 
uses  up  rapidly  for  growth  and  development  all  the 
nutritive  material  and  vital  energy  at  his  disposal.  This 
is  true  of  healthy,  well-nurtured  children.  What  then 
of  these  child-martyrs  of  The  Poor,  who  in  addition  to 
the  strain  of  growth,  are  ill-fed,  poisoned  by  unsuitable 
foods;  are  sickly,  rickety,  bronchitic,  dyspeptic, 
syphilitic,  phthisical  ?  Nevertheless,  all  the  maternal 
care  these  miserables  receive  are  such  rough  dregs  of 


DISASTROUS  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE       205 

kindness  and  of  patience  as  may  be  left  over  from  the 
toil  of  their  working-mothers'  hard,  exhausting  days. 

It  is  no  less  than  monstrous  that  our  laws  allow  the 
nation's  babes  and  children — ^to  whom  are  due  all  the 
best  resources  of  maternal  care  and  tenderness  and  duly- 
trained  maternal  powers — to  be  thus  martyred.  As  sub- 
stitute for  the  home  and  for  their  mothers — which  are 
every  child's  birthright — more  and  more,  infants  and 
young  children  are  consigned  now  to  Creches;  chill 
institutions  of  alien  atmosphere,  alien  surroundings,  alien 
nurses,  where,  unmothered,  they  are  ciphers  among 
other  unmothered  alien  ciphers.  Yet  babies  and  young 
children  are  so  pathetically  constituted  that  they  prefer 
blows  from  their  mothers  to  caresses  from  strangers. 


The  life-story  written  in  the  faces  of  the  great  majority 
of  our  Twentieth-Century  babes  and  children  is  a  terrible 
one,  in  its  revelation  of  tortured  helplessness,  hopeless 
resignation,  unnatural  fortitude,  blank  despair.  See 
them  sunk,  limp  and  dejected,  in  their  prams  or  go-carts, 
eyes  staring  forward  on  the  dreary  waste  their  lives 
are;  limbs  dangling,  like  those  of  toys  with  broken 
springs. 

In  cities,  mothers,  ignorant  of  the  shock  and  injury 
which  noise  and  turmoil  inflict  upon  these  sensitive 
brains  and  nerves,  wheel  them  amid  jostling  crowds — 
in  order  that  they  themselves  may  enjoy  the  excite- 
ments of  the  shops.  At  the  low  level  of  their  prams, 
they  breathe  air  vitiated  by  the  passers-by ;  are  in  the 
exhausting  whirl  and  press  of  swirling  nerve-currents. 
In  their  poor  ill -made  carriages,  they  are  jerked  abruptly, 
now  up,  now  down,  at  every  kerb ;  with  no  more  care  or 
tenderness  than  though  they  were  baskets  of  clothes. 
They  sit  patient,  leaden,  apathetic ;  cruelly  strapped  for 


206        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

hours  together  in  one  position;  neither  pulse  of  health 
nor  spirit  in  them. 

In  cold  weather,  their  heads  but  thinly  thatched  with 
hair  are  bare.  So  too  their  limbs;  though  warmth  is 
life  to  young,  developing  creatures.  In  hot  weather, 
the  sun  beats  mercilessly  down  upon  their  hatlessness, 
their  exquisitely-sensitive  brains  but  slightly  shielded 
by  their  thin  un-ossified  skulls.  Degrees  of  sunstroke, 
with  lifelong  injury  to  health  and  faculty,  occur.  They 
knit  their  pale  brows  in  fruitless  attempt  to  defend  their 
weak  eyes  from  the  glare.  Many  keep  their  lids  close 
shut,  to  protect  both  eyes  and  brain  from  the  nerve- 
shattering  solar  rays,  which  are  far  too  powerful  to  be 
allowed  to  fall,  untempered,  upon  an  infant's  highly- 
sensitive  body.  With  closed  eyes,  the  poor  things  miss 
all  the  joys  of  their  ride ;  the  colour  and  movement  about 
them,  and  the  spurs  to  intelligence  these  should  supply. 
Their  unobservant  mothers  and  nurses  suppose  them 
to  be  sleeping  ! 

Children  old  enough  to  walk  are  walked  to  stages — 
sometimes  to  extremes  of  exhaustion.  You  may  see 
them  dragging  heavily  along,  with  wan,  exhausted  faces ; 
peevish  and  cross,  and  scolded  and  shaken  and  slapped 
for  being  peevish  and  cross.  Exhaustion  from  such 
over-fatigue  will  keep  a  child  below  par  for  days ;  check- 
ing its  growth  and  development — to  say  nothing  of  its 
happiness.  Children  derive  but  little  benefit  from  their 
holiday  changes  to  sea  or  country,  because  of  the  exer- 
tions forced  upon  them,  or  the  too  strenuous  play  to 
which  they  are  exhorted. 

Children  who  go  bare-headed  suffer,  in  large  number, 
from  eye-strain,  with  resulting  permanent  frown.  As 
too,  from  ear-ache  and  from  ear-diseases ;  from  headache 
and  toothache.  In  as  many  as  75  per  cent,  of  school- 
children, vision  is  defective. 

The  obsessing  aim  of  many  mothers  is  to  "  harden  " 


DISASTROUS  FEMINIST   DOCTRINE       207 

their  children.  Yet  no  more  than  a  clay  model  in  the 
shaping  may  be  hardened  and  set,  should  the  process 
be  applied  to  children  in  the  shaping. 

Healthy  children  are  inevitably  delicate  children, 
because  of  that  highly-sensitive  re-activity  to  surround- 
ings which  not  only  characterises  but  conduces  to  the 
developmental  state.  (Such  delicacy  must  not  be  con- 
fused with  sickliness.)  The  finer  the  organisation  the 
longer  it  takes  (within  normal  limits)  to  come  to  full 
growth.  Our  greatest  men  and  women  were  delicate  in 
youth.  Hardy  children  are  always  of  inferior  type — 
for  the  most  part,  plain  and  shrewd  and  unimaginative, 
insensitive,  unlovable.  They  have  matured  (have 
adapted  to  environment,  that  is)  precociously.  Evolu- 
tion of  higher  faculty  has  been  prematurely  arrested  in 
them. 

Modern  children  are  described  as  "  super-children," 
for  their  abnormal  sharpness  and  worldly  perspicacity. 
They  are  merely  precocious,  which  is  to  say,  they  have 
missed  their  childhood.  And  too  early  development 
entails  inevitably  early  decline.  Not  only  America, 
but  England  now  has  produced  a  grey-haired  boy  of 
ten! 

No  less  amazing  than  it  is  lamentable  is  the  light 
neglect  by  the  majority  of  cultured  mothers,  of  their 
grave  maternal  obligations.  From  earliest  infancy,  they 
hand  over  their  children,  body  and  soul,  to  the  ignor- 
ance, the  carelessness,  the  cruelty  (not  seldom  to  the 
viciousness  even),  of  stranger-women  of  the  uncultured 
classes ;  women  of  whose  character  and  disposition  they 
know  nothing,  and  who  are  only  too  often  unfitted  by 
nature,  by  upbringing,  and  by  habit  for  this  most  delicate, 
difficult  and  important  of  all  human  tasks. 

It  is  by  no  means  uncommon  to  find  prostitutes,  grown 
too  old  for  a  trade  that  has  vitiated  every  cell  and  secre- 
tion of  their  bodies  (to  say  nothing  of  mental  vitiation). 


208        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EIXTINCTION 

officiating  in  the  capacity  of  nursemaid  to  children  of 
culture. 

Every  child  is  a  new  creation,  with  a  highly  specialised 
organisation  of  mind  and  of  body.  For  the  nurture  and 
best  development  of  these,  are  required  high  degrees  of 
intelligence,  of  understanding  and  of  sympathy  in  treat- 
ment. To  realise  its  idiosyncrasies,  constitutional  and 
temperamental,  and  to  adapt  to  these  in  its  rearing  and 
surroundings,  with  respect  to  diet,  exercise,  play,  sleep, 
moral  supervision  and  discipline,  demand  intuitive  per- 
ceptiveness,  intelligent  discrimination,  and  practical 
resource  such  as  no  other  department  of  life  demands — 
or  is  worth. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  mothers  who  can  afford  to 
shelve  their  duty  upon  paid  substitutes  abandon  the  most 
complex  and  sensitive,  the  most  beautiful  and  valuable, 
and  moreover,  the  most  helpless  thing  in  Nature — ^the 
mind  of  a  child — ^to  be  shaped  and  coloured,  during  all 
the  most  impressionable  years  of  its  development,  by 
persons  with  neither  aptitude  nor  faculty  for  this 
supremely  complex  and  difficult  function.  In  place  of 
so  adapting  its  environment  to  the  child-organism  as  to 
enable  it,  fenced  within  the  tender  mother-fold,  to  enjoy 
to  the  full  and  to  develop  to  the  full  the  lovely,  inspiring 
beliefs  and  illusions  of  natural  childhood,  latter-day 
mothers  now  cruelly  rob  their  little  ones  of  this  fructify- 
ing phase,  by  prematurely  forcing  worldly  knowledge 
and  distrusts  upon  them,  in  precocious  adjustment  to 
mature  view-points  and  conditions  from  which  they 
should  be  carefully  secluded. 

In  that  mysterious  Mind-department,  the  Subcon- 
sciousness, with  its  highly  sensitised  brain-tablets,  every 
smallest  happening  of  a  lifetime — scenes,  experiences, 
mental  impressions — are  photographed,  to  be  stored 
for  ever  after  as  ineffaceable  records.  And  though, 
perhaps,  wholly  forgotten,  these  subconscious  records 
nevertheless   colour   and   influence  for  ever  after  every 


DISASTROUS   FEMINIST  DOCTRINE       209 

thought  and  impulse  and  action.  Sometimes  they  flash 
up  as  memories.     They  can  be  recalled  under  hypnotism. 

The  young  mind  is  like  an  unfurnished  house.  The 
rooms  are  empty.  There  are  no  pictures  on  the  walls. 
But  its  unblotted,  exquisitely-sensitised  spaces  are 
ceaselessly  filming  indelible  records  of  everything  seen 
and  felt  and  apprehended.  One  impression  may  cor- 
rect, or  may  distort,  others.  Or  that  right  point-of- 
view  which  is  judgment  may  focus  all  impressions  in  the 
true  perspective  which  reveals  their  true  values  and 
proportions.  But  until  such  judgment  has  been  formed 
by  mental  development,  it  is  vitally  important  that  all 
the  impressions  absorbed  by  young  minds,  whether  of 
their  life-conditions  and  associates,  of  books  or  of  plays, 
shall  be  fair  and  simple  and  wholesome. 

Thus,  the  foundations  of  mind  and  of  character  are 
laid  in  clean,  intelligising  and  uplifting  influences. 


XI 

While  we  deplore,  as  appalling,  that  during  the  first 
fifteen  months  of  War,  109,725  of  our  fighting  men  were 
killed  or  died,  the  returns  of  the  Registrar-General  show 
that  during  the  twelve  months  of  the  peace  preceding 
War,  there  died  140,957  of  the  nation's  children,  at  less 
than  five  years  old;  95,608  of  these  at  less  than  a 
year  old. 

Consider  it !  War,  with  its  destructive  engines  of 
bomb  and  shell,  more  or  less  swiftly  and  painlessly  kills 
just  over  a  hundred  thousand  men,  in  the  course  of 
fifteen  months.  Peace,  with  its  destructive  trans- 
gressions against  Nature,  kills  in  less  time  a  far  greater 
number  of  defenceless  babes  and  children,  by  slow  and 
more  or  less  torturing  forms  of  disease.  Babies,  even 
when  unhealthy,  come  into  existence  endowed  with  a 
certain  Life-potential.  And  they  struggle  hard  and 
painfully  to  live.     It  is  amazing  to  see  the  odds  against 


210        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

which  the  poor  things  battle;  and  battle  successfully. 
It  is  only  the  fearfulness  of  the  odds  to  which  most  of 
them  are  subjected  that  succeeds  in  killing  them. 

Pain  and  suffering  are  spurs  to  adult  development. 
In  children  they  are  as  needlessly  cruel  as  they  are 
permanently  injurious.  Far  from  fitting,  they  unfit 
them  for  life. 

The  ratio  of  mortality  is  no  guide,  of  course,  to  the 
immeasurable  injuries  wrought  to  mind  and  body  by 
these  same  fearful  odds  upon  the  children  who  survive  ; 
and  who  survive,  maimed,  diseased,  degenerate,  to  live 
out  lives  of  disability,  of  joylessness  and  ineffectiveness. 

It  will  be  said — and  said  truly — that  much  of  this 
high  infant-mortality  results,  not  from  maternal  omis- 
sions, but  from  paternal  commissions.  Well,  that 
alas  !  is  another  of  the  terrible  wrongs  against  children 
which  lie  at  the  door  of  the  sex.  Were  there  not  women 
whose  lives  are  passed  in  engendering  and  transmitting 
the  direst  of  all  the  diseases  human  evil  has  bred,  the 
hapless  imbecile  and  paralytic,  the  blind,  the  deaf,  the 
ulcerous,  the  slowly-wasting,  tortured  little  ones  who  fill 
our  asylums  and  hospitals  would  not  be. 

At  every  turn  the  truth  is  more  and  more  impressed, 
that  the  fate  of  Humanity  rests,  in  some  or  other  form, 
with  its  women.  Woman  is  Redeemer;  or  she  is  De- 
stroyer. Because,  while  man's  province  is  the  material, 
with  its  roots  in  temporal  things,  woman's  province 
is  the  vital,  with  its  roots  and  stem  and  blossom  in 
functioning  Life. 

The  burning  wrongs  of  women  ?  Alas !  what  are 
they  beside  the  burning  wrongs  of  helpless  babes  and 
children  ? 

*  *  4!  «  ♦  ♦ 

XII 

An  anomaly  of  Feminism  is  the  admission,  on  the  one 
hand,    that    Motherhood   was    woman's   most  valuable 


DISASTROUS  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE       211 

function,  and  her  greatest  claim  on  the  community  in 
days  of  barbarism,  and  the  denial,  on  the  other,  that  it 
is  her  most  important  function  in  civilisation. 

The  illogic  of  the  position  is  patent. 

That  the  production  of  savages  should  be  primitive 
woman's  chiefest  claim  to  honour;  while  the  produc- 
tion of  highly-evolved  and  complex  human  beings  should 
be  civilised  woman's  least. 

The  potence  and  the  values  of  fine  motherhood  are 
proven  by  the  fact  that  every  great,  or  good,  or  clever 
man  or  wom.an  has  been  the  child  of  a  great,  or  good, 
or  clever  mother.  Not  of  one  who  has  made  her  mark 
in  the  world  of  affairs.  Such,  for  the  most  part,  have 
not  reproduced  at  all.  And  when  they  have  been 
mothers  their  children  have  been  notably  of  inferior 
calibre. 

On  the  other  hand,  bad  men  and  bad  women  have 
in  nearly  every  instance  been  sons  or  daughters  of  bad 
women. 

Examples  innumerable  might  be  cited  to  show  that 
both  genius  and  moral  greatness  are  variations  (muta- 
tions) of  the  human  species  which  have  their  origin  in 
mother-genius  and  greatness. 

Great  scientists,  it  has  been  noted,  have  been  sons  of 
women  characterised  by  intense  love  of  Truth.  The 
love  of  Truth  in  the  mother — for  Truth's  sake — became 
in  the  executive,  concrete  mentality  of  the  son  an 
intuitive  apprehension  of  the  truths  of  Science,  and  an 
eager  and  indomitable  aspiration  to  render  these  in 
terms  of  intellection. 

•I*  I*  •!•  •»*  T*  m* 

Shall  woman  leave  to  man  no  field  at  all  of  natural 
supremacy  ?  Shall  she  not  be  content  with  her  beautiful 
part  as  generatrix  of  Faculty,  but  must  seek  to  be 
exponent  too  ? 

That  all  women  do  not  marry — cahnot  marry,  indeed, 


212       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

because  of  their  preponderance  in  number  over  the  other 
sex — is  no  reason  for  dissembhng  the  truth  that  in 
wifehood  and  motherhood  He  woman's  most  vital  and 
valuable  roles. 

Nor  is  it  warrant  for  training  the  whole  sex  as  though 
none  were  destined  to  fulfil  this,  their  natural  arid 
noblest — if  not  always,  their  happiest  vocation. 

XIII 

Feminism  repudiates,  froni  time  to  time,  the  charge 
against  it  of  belittling  Motherhood.  Yet  how  can  it 
profess  to  credit  the  maternal  function  with  due  values 
or  significance  when  it  denies  the  obligations  and  respon- 
sibilities thereof,  asks  no  economic  concessions  for  it  ? 
And  when,  in  place  of  demanding  privileges  indispensable 
to  its  exercise  and  complete  fulfilment,  it  makes  no 
distinction,  in  respect  of  work  and  the  worker,  between 
childless  and  unmarried  women  and  mothers  and  expec- 
tant mothers  ?  And  this  despite  the  fact  that,  for  a 
period  of  eighteen  months  at  very  least,  the  mother's 
best  vital  resources  belong  by  rights,  biological  and  moral, 
to  each  babe  she  produces — nine  for  the  pre-natal 
building  of  its  body  and  brain,  and  nine  for  lactation. 

Her  moral  obligation  to  nurse,  and  the  criminality  of 
her  omission  when  able  to  do  so,  have  been  emphasised 
as  follows  by  Sir  J.  Crichton-Browne  : 

"  Dr.  Robertson,  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Birmingham  has  shown  that  while  the  infant- 
mortality  of  breast-fed  infants  is  7*8  yer  1000 
births,  that  of  infants  receiving  no  breast-milk  is 
232  per  1000.  And  Sir  Arthur  Newsholme,  Medical 
Adviser  to  the  Local  Government  Board,  has  shown 
that  the  probability  of  death  from  epidemic 
diarrhoea  is  54  times  greater  among  infants  fed  on 
cow^s  milk  than  among  those  fed  on  breast -milk, 
and  150  times  greater  amongst  infants  fed  on 
condensed  milk. 


DISASTROUS  FEMINIST   DOCTRINE       213 

"  But  it  is  not  merely  in  a  high  infant  death-rate 

that  the   evil   effects  of  the   want  of  breast-milk 

stand  confessed.     Where  it  does  not  kill  it  often 

maims,  and  is  responsible  for  malnutrition,  rickets, 

tuberculosis,  and  a  multiplicity  of  ailments.    Every 

doctor  is  familiar  with  the  alabaster  babies,  flabby, 

limp,  languid,  and  painfully  pallid,  who  have  never 

tasted  their  natural  nutriment." 

Dr.  Truby  King  records  the  interesting  fact  that  the 

finest  calf-skin,  known  as  Paris  Calf,  is  obtained  from 

calves  reared  by  their  mothers,  in  order  to  provide  the 

finest  veal  for  Paris.     So  supple  and  smooth-haired  and 

superior  is  the  skin  of  these  mother-suckled  creatures 

that  dealers  are  able  to  distinguish  it  at  once  from  the 

skin  of  calves  that  have  been  artificially  fed. 

About  this,  Mr.  Horace  G.  Regnart  kindly  supplies  me 
with  the  following  significant  data  : 

"  If  we  feed  a  calf,  '  on  the  bucket,'  the  calf's  coat 
loses  its  shine  and  becomes  dull.  We  say  it  is  *  dead.' 
A  couple  of  days  is  sufficient  to  deaden  the  coat.  And  it 
takes  three  weeks  or  a  month  '  on  a  cow '  to  get  the 
gloss  back.  A  quart  of  milk  direct  from  the  cow  is  as 
good  as  a  gallon  of  milk  out  of  a  bucket. 

"  We  do  not  attempt  to  feed  our  female  calves  so 
well  as  we  feed  the  bulls.  It  is  too  costly.  Our  heifers 
are  put  on  '  the  bucket '  when  three  days  old.  I  buy 
a  cow  to  rear  my  bull-calves  on.  I  once  reared  a  bull 
on  '  the  bucket '  satisfactorily.  But  I  gave  him  twelve 
gallons  of  new  milk  every  day  after  he  was  five  months 
old,  and  kept  it  up  till  he  was  fourteen  months.  One 
cow  that  gives  three  gallons  does  a  calf  just  as  well  as 
twelve  gallons  via  the  bucket,  and  is  much  cheaper.  Some 
crack  bulls  have  three  and  four  five-gallon  cows  at  once, 
and  go  to  Shows  with  all  their  nurses  in  attendance. 

"  Once  I  reared  a  bull  as  we  rear  the  heifers.  But  he 
was  a  failure.  His  daughters  are  only  half  the  size  they 
ought  to  be." 


214       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-p:XTINCTION 

(An  example  of  direct  developmental  inheritance — in 
terms  of  deterioration — from  father  to  daughter.) 


XIV 

Comparing  a  calf  with  a  human  baby,  it  becomes  self- 
evident  that  the  diet  suited  for  the  large,  crude  creature 
which  trots  about  on  four  legs  shortly  after  birth  must 
be  wholly  unsuited  to  the  delicate  digestion  and  the 
subtle  psychological  needs  of  the  small  and  complex, 
highly-organised  hmnan  infant,  which  remains  so  long 
a  helpless  infant. 

The  all-important  proteid  of  every  order  of  creature 
differs  from  that  of  every  other.  Before  any  form  of 
alien  proteid  can  be  built  into  the  body  of  a  living  organ- 
ism, the  digestion  and  assimilation  of  this  creature  must 
first  have  laboriously  disintegrated  and  reconstructed  it 
to  the  form  of  its  own  individual  proteid. 

The  Irish  tradition  that  persons  not  nursed  during 
infancy  by  their  mothers  are  beings  without  souls  has 
much  to  justify  it.  Even  the  ill-nourished,  sickly  babes 
of  working-mothers  have  .an  essentially  human  look  in 
eyes  and  features,  possess  far  more  of  nervous  power, 
and  are  of  appreciably  higher  and  more  intelligent 
psychology  than  are  the  bottle-fed  infants  of  the 
cultured. 

The  bottle-fed  start  handicapped  for  life,  both  in 
constitution  and  mentality.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  all 
great  men  and  women  have  been  suckled  by  their  mothers 
or  have  come  of  stock  thus  humanly  nurtured.  That 
they  were  thus  humanly  nurtured  during  their  momen- 
tous first  nine  months  of  life,  is  the  reason,  doubtless, 
why  so  many  of  our  greatest  men  have  sprung  from 
humble  origin. 

The  incapacity  of  a  mother  to  nourish  the  babe  she 
has  borne  should  be  known  for  a  mark  of  degeneracy — 


DISASTROUS   FEMINIST   DOCTRINE       215 

sign,  too,  that  she  was  unfitted  to  have  borne  a  child, 
because  deficient  in  the  vital  reserve  requisite  to  carry 
her  maternal  function  to  its  normal  biological  and 
psychological  conclusion.  Just  as  a  statesman  or  a 
general  would  be  held  unfitted  for  his  function,  if  he 
should  lack  the  physical  and  mental  enterprise  to  com- 
plete his  national  undertakings. 

That  for  the  nine  months  preceding  its  birth  the 
infant  obtains  its  nourishment  directly  from  its  mother's 
blood,  and  for  nine  months  after  birth  it  obtains  this, 
normally,  from  her  milk — her  digestive  processes  having 
so  assimilated  the  originally  brute  and  vegetable  pro- 
teids  of  her  food  that  these  are  now  human  proteids, 
and  are  ready,  therefore,  to  be  built  into  the  infant's 
body  with  the  least  possible  tax  upon  its  own  assimilative 
powers — proves  a  number  of  important  facts. 

First :  that  an  infant's  digestive  powers  remain, 
normally,  for  nine  months  after  birth,  in  a  more  or 
less  embryonic  state;  slowly  and  gradually  developing 
capacity  to  convert  the  products  of  the  brute  and  vege- 
table kingdoms  into  forms  suitable  for  building  into  its 
human  organisation.  (Just  as  we  see  the  digestive 
organs  of  the  child  progressively  developing  power  to 
assimilate  an  adult  dietary.) 

Secondly  :  that  the  infant's  digestion  remains  thus 
undeveloped  obviously  in  order  that  as  little  as  possible 
of  its  vital  power  may  be  expended  in  the  complex 
processes  of  assimilation,  all  available  vital-power  being 
urgently  required  for  its  exhaustingly  rapid  brain-  and 
body-building. 

Thirdly :  that  where  an  artificial  diet  forces  pre- 
cocious development  upon  the  infant-digestion — since  all 
precocity  is  degeneracy,  all  the  organs  concerned  in 
digestion  will  be,  necessarily,  more  or  less  structurally 
defective  and  functionally  inefficient;  as  a  consequence 
of  not  having  been  permitted  time  and  rest  to  develop 


216       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

slowly  and  stably  over  the  normal  allotted  period. 
(Proof  is  supplied  by  the  premature  development  of 
teeth,  which  occurs  in  artificially-fed  babies  some  months 
before  dentition  is  normally  due.  And  these  teeth  and 
those  that  succeed  them  are  of  such  perishable  structure 
that  present-day  children  need  perpetual  dental  repairs.) 

Fourthly  :  that  such  misapplication  of  vital  resources 
for  the  premature  development  and  abnormal  functions 
of  precocious  digestive  organs  entails  inevitably  cor- 
responding loss  of  vital  power  for  general  development. 

Fifthly — and  by  no  means  lastly,  but  perhaps  most 
important  of  all :  that  since  the  infant-digestion  is  quite 
incapable  of  properly  converting  brute  and  vegetable- 
proteids  into  human  proteid,  infants  artificially  fed  must 
necessarily  build  into  their  brains  and  bodies  lower-grade 
proteids — and  proteids  so  imperfectly  assimilated  as  to 
be  something  less  than  human,  and,  accordingly,  more 
or  less  brute  or  vegetable  still  in  their  inherences.  And 
since  all  living  cells  and  tissues  reproduce  upon  the  plan 
of  the  parent -cells  and  tissues  they  were  derived  from, 
it  is  clear  that  the  abnormal  cells  and  tissues  constructed 
of  these  half-brute,  or  half-vegetable  proteids  must  be 
abnormal ;  unstable  and  degenerate,  and  prone  to  lapse 
readily  to  still  further  degrees  of  deterioration  and 
disease. 

Hence  a  source  of  our  neurotic,  neurasthenic,  adenoid- 
afflicted,  mentally-defective  and  otherwise  diseased 
children.  Hence  too  the  increasing  criminality — which 
is  animality,  of  course — ^that  characterises  a  considerable 
proportion  of  the  rising  generation. 

Each  further  generation  artificially  fed  in  infancy 
can  but  deviate  still  further  from  the  Human  Normal, 
becoming  ever  less  human;  brain  and  body-cells  repro- 
ducing themselves,  throughout  life,  on  the  plan  of  their 
infant-construction  of  half-brute  or  half- vegetable  pro- 
teids. .  One  sees  the  ox  in  the  dull,  soulless  eyes,  in  the 
bovine  flesh,  the  stolid  faces,  and  in  the  crude  animal 


DISASTROUS  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE       217 

natures  of  many  modern  little  ones,  to  whom  calf-diet 
was  fed  before  they  had  developed  the  digestive  power 
of  transforming  this  into  substance  highly  vitalised 
enough  for  human  brain  and  body-building.  And  the 
less  their  systems  have  rebelled  against  and  have 
rejected,  but,  on  the  contrary,  have  conformed  to  and 
have  thriven  upon  such  brute-diet,  the  cruder  are  their 
organisations.  Of  this  order  are  the  insensate  child- 
monsters  who  win  prizes  at  Baby-shows. 

To  one  who  realises  that,  of  all  the  powers  of  Woman, 
the  ability  to  nurse  her  babe  is  second  in  importance 
only  to  her  first  and  vital  function  of  producing  it,  the 
cry  and  clamour  and  impassioned  fallacy  that  have 
swirled  around  the  trivial  detail  of  her  Suffrage-disabili- 
ties show  grotesque  beside  the  human  tragedy  of  her 
increasing  biological  disability  and  her  increasing 
psychical  aversion  to  fulfil  this  indispensable  and  sacred 
mother-office.  To  despise  which,  as  being  a  function 
woman  possesses  in  common  with  the  humbler  creatures, 
is  as  narrow-sighted  as  it  would  be  to  scorn  the  genius 
of  Shakespeare  because  both  dog  and  pig,  poor  things  ! 
possess  brains.  Moreover,  in  forfeiting  this  maternal 
faculty,  woman  reverts  to  the  mode  of  those  crude 
rudimentary  species  below  the  Mammalia. 

".  .  .Each  mother*  8  breast 
Feeds  a  flower  of  blue,  beyond  all  blessing  blest.** 

Notwithstanding  all  this.  Feminism,-  in  its  grim 
materialism,  blind  to  the  mystical  beauty  of  Life  and  the 
sacredness  of  Individuality,  regards  women  mainly  as 
parts  of  an  economic  machinery.  And  to  serve  as 
such,  it  standardises  all  in  body,  mind  and  aptitude,  to 
economic  ends ;  the  young  and  tender  girls  whose  shap- 
ing frames  are  shaping  to  become  the  mystical  looms  of 
evolving  Humanity;  the  young  wives  in  whom  love 
and  marriage  have  set  mysterious  processes  in  motion; 


218        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

the  young  pregnant  mothers  in  whom  the  shuttle  of 
Life  is  already  marvellously  flying,  interweaving  the 
luminous  threads  of  a  soul  with  a  body  of  flesh. 

Nature  made  women  ministrants  of  Love  and  Life,  for 
the  creation  of  an  ever  more  healthful  and  efficient,  a 
nobler  and  more  joyous  Humanity.  Feminism  degrades 
them  to  the  status  of  industrial  mechanisms,  whereof 
the  commercial  products  are  the  chiefest  values,  and 
children  no  more  than  bye-products. 

And  what  bye-products  they  are  !  God  help  them  ! — 
Who  alone  can  help  them — ^this  pathetic  rubble  of 
pallid,  sickly,  suffering,  and  dejected  infant-  and  child- 
Life  ;  the  violet-hued  babies,  with  their  dull  eyes  glazed 
by  misery,  their  leaden,  half-paralysed  limbs ;  the  blind 
and  crippled,  halt  and  deaf,  the  imbecile  and  feeble- 
minded children,  apathetic,  neurasthenic,  joyless;  as 
too,  on  the  other  hand,  the  low-browed,  sturdy  and  soul- 
less, or  the  debased  and  evil— All  the  generation  of 
degeneracy  which  our  deteriorate  and  enfeebled  looms 
of  womanhood  are  grinding  out  to-day. 

Though  shut  from  sight  and  thought,  in  the  prisons, 
hospitals  and  other  institutions  of  our  modern  civilisa- 
tions is  an  ever-swelling,  ever-rising,  further-menacing 
tide  of  diseased,  defective,  insane  and  criminal  mankind, 
product  of  ours  and  of  those  others'  violations  of 
Natural  Law;  clogging  the  River  of  Life,  choking  the 
Springs  of  Evolution,  damming  the  current  of  Progress. 


CHAPTER  VII 

FEMINIST     DOCTRINE     AND     PRACTICE     DESTRUCTIVE     OF 
WOMANLY   ATTRIBUTES,    MORALE   AND    PROGRESS 

*'  A  woman  versed  in  that  finest  of  all  fine  arts,  the  beautifying 
of  daily  life." 


In  Woman  and  Labour ,  Miss  Schreiner  laments  as 
follows,  picturesquely  but  speciously  :  "  Our  spinning- 
wheels  are  all  broken;  in  a  thousand  huge  buildings 
steam-driven  looms,  guided  by  a  few  hundred  thousands 
of  hands  (often  those  of  men)  produce  the  clothings  of 
half  the  world ;  and  we  dare  no  longer  say,  proudly,  as 
of  old,  that  we  and  we  alone  clothe  our  peoples  !  " 

A  scene  is  conjured  of  brute-men  with  clubs  savagely 
attacking  and  destroying  hapless  women's  innocent 
spinning-wheels,  as  Mrs.  Arkwright  ruthlessly  destroyed 
her  husband's  cherished  models.  Yet  who,  regarding 
the  subject  dispassionately,  sees  cause  for  anything  but 
gladness  that  modern  woman  has  not  still  to  spin  the 
linen  of  her  household  and  the  garments  of  its  members — 
for  anything  but  thankfulness  for  that  intelligent  male- 
brain  which  carried  the  woman-invention  of  the  needle 
to  its  higher  adaptations  in  the  weaving  and  the  sewing- 
machine?  Who  can  justly  regret  that  the  taking  over 
by  men,  in  factories,  of  wholesale  brewings  and  bakings, 
jam-makings,  and  so  forth,  has  relieved  the  other  sex 
of  ceaseless  drudgeries ;  and  in  so  relieving  it  of  drudgeries 
of  house-keeping  has  left  it  free  to  develop  the  higher  and 
the  more  intellectual  arts  of  home-making  ? 

"  Slowly  but  determinedly,  as  the  old  fields  of  labour 

219 


220        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

close  up  and  are  submerged  behind  us,  we  demand  entrance 
into  the  new^  Miss  Schreiner  affirms.  And  to  emphasise 
our  determination,  the  demand  is  printed  in  her  book, 
as  I  have  reproduced  it,  in  Italics. 

Losing  sight  altogether  of  the  inestimable  benefits  to 
woman  secured  by  the  intervention  of  men  between  her 
and  the  hardest  and  the  most  debasing  employments, 
she  further  protests,  "  any  attempt  to  divide  the  occupa- 
tions in  which  male  and  female  intellects  and  wills 
should  be  employed,  must  be  to  attempt  a  purely 
artificial  and  arbitrary  division." 

"  Our  cry  is.  We  lake  all  labour  for  our  province  !  " 

Nevertheless,  clever  and  intuitive  woman  as  she  is, 
she  confesses  (now  the  Italics  are  mine),  "  It  may  be  with 
sexes  as  with  races,  the  subtlest  physical  differences  between 
them  may  have  their  fine  mental  correlatives.''*  And  yet, 
oh  why,  having  come  upon  so  promising  a  vein  of  truth, 
did  she  not  follow  it  to  its  logical  conclusions,  and  find 
in  it  all  the  answers  to  her  extremist  demands,  and, 
with  these,  the  refutations  of  her  Feminist  plea  and 
claims  ? 

Men  and  women  are  unlike  not  only  in  "  the  subtlest 
physical  differences ,''  which  "  may  have  their  fine  mental 
correlatives''  They  are  unlike  in  the  most  obvious  and 
basic  facts  of  physical  constitution  and  of  biological 
function.  And  these  must  inevitably  entail  mental  and 
temperamental  correlatives  more  intrinsic  and  farther 
reaching  even  than  the  subtler  physical  differences  she 
recognises  as  being  possibly  modifying  factors  in  psychical 
aptitude. 

Advocating  soldiering  even  for  the  sex,  Miss  Schreiner 
says  :  "...  Undoubtedly,  it  has  not  been  only  the 
peasant-girl  of  France,  who  has  carried  latent  and  hid 
within  her  person  the  gifts  that  make  the  supreme 
general." 

Here  is  fallacy  again.     Joan  of  Arc  was,  beyond  all 


DESTRUCTIVE  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE     221 

things,  woman.  Not  the  man  in  her,  but  the  woman  in 
her,  and  her  Supra-conscious  womanly  attributes  it  was 
which  (inspiring  her  by  way  of  mystical  voices  and 
visions)  impelled  her  so  to  transcend  her  woman-nature 
that  without  knowledge  of  arts  military  or  of  strategic 
science,  as,  too,  without  experience,  she  was  able,  by 
intuitive  prescience,  to  lead  her  compatriots  to  victory. 
For  the  soldiers,  perceiving  the  Light  in  her  face,  followed 
in  awed  confidence  whithersoever  she  led. 

In  earlier  days  of  civilisation,  this  intuitive  and  vision- 
ary faculty  of  woman  was  recognised  and  honoured. 


II 

In  The  Human  Woman,  Lady  Grove  presents  a  wholly 
contrary  view  to  Miss  Schreiner's. 

With  her,  woman  suffers  less  in  being  shut  out  from 
the  labour-market  than  in  having  been  driven  from  the 
home. 

"The  woman  has  been  driven  from  her  home 
into  the  labour-market.  The  fact  of  82  per  cent, 
of  the  women  of  this  country  working  for  their 
living  is  an  ugly  rebuff  to  the  pretty  platitudes 
about  the  home,"  she  says. 

"  .  .  .  The  stupendous  mistake  that  has  been 
made  up  to  now  is  in  supposing  that  it  is  men's 
judgment  only  that  should  decide  questions,  and 
hence  the  hopeless  state  of  unravelled  misery 
existing  in  the  world,  side  by  side  with  all  the 
wealth  and  wonders  of  the  age. 

"If  we  examine  the  conditions  of  the  working- 
classes,  after  years  and  yea^rs  of  male  legislation, 
what  a  hideous  set  of  conditions  we  find.  Intem- 
perance, bad-housing  and  the  cruel  struggle  for 
existence  among  the  poorer  classes.  And  yet  we 
spend  over  £22,000,000  annually  on  the  education 
of  these  people.     Surely  there  is  something  wrong 


222        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

somewhere.     What  is  it  that  we,  seeing  this  condi- 
tion of  things  at  our  very  door,  have,  as  women, 
to  be  so  grateful  for  in  male  legislation  ?  " 
The  writer  fails  wholly  to  perceive  that  these  factors 
she  deplores  as  due  to  defective  masculine  legislation 
are  effects  less  of  faulty  measures  than  of  faulty  Human- 
ity.    Measures  are  the  gauge  of  the  men  who  frame 
them.     And  men  are  very  much  the  measure  of  the 
mothers   who   bore  them.     Those   which   she   properly 
characterises  as  the  "  hideous  "  conditions  of  the  working- 
classes,    "  intemperance,    bad-housing    and    the    cruel 
struggle   for    existence "    are   circumstances    legislation 
cannot  remedy  unless  the  hearts  of  legislators  are  moved 
to  do  this,  and  their  hands  are  empowered,  moreover, 
to  do  it,  by  the  collective  will  of  those  they  represent. 

Except  all  are  content  to  subordinate  their  personal 
interests  to  the  general  welfare,  and  to  improve  their 
personal  morale  for  their  own  and  for  the  common  good. 
Acts  of  Parliament  can  do  but  little.  Drunkenness  can 
be  penalised  by  legislation,  difficulties  put  in  the  way  of 
obtaining  drink.  But  intemperance  can  be  effectually 
stamped  out  only  by  individual  men  and  women  so 
rising  to  higher  levels  of  thought  and  self-control  as 
voluntarily  to  become  sober;  or  by  men  and  women  so 
improving  in  brain  and  constitution  that  the  craving  for 
drink — now  recognised  as  a  disease — no  longer  obsesses 
them. 

Acts  of  Parliament  may  condemn  insanitary  and 
defective  dwellings,  may  compel  landlords  to  repair 
them  to  degrees  of  decency  and  comfort ;  may  pull  them 
down  and  build  others  in  their  stead.  But  none  of  these 
measures  will  eradicate  the  bad  housing  of  dirty  and 
comfortless,  or  of  demoralised  and  demoralising  homes. 
The  best  house  possible  becomes  bad  housing  for  its 
occupants  when  the  woman  at  the  head  of  it  fails  to  do 
her  duty  therein,  in  consequence  of  industrial  labour 


DESTRUCTIVE  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE     223 

which  leaves  her  neither  time  nor  energy  to  make  a 
clean,  well-ordered,  cosy  and  inspiring  home  of  it;  or 
because  her  own  idleness  or  ignorance,  her  drunkenness 
or  worthlessness,  results  in  her  neglect  of  it.  Human 
conditions,  like  human  measures,  result  from  the  per- 
sonalities, good  or  bad,  capable  or  incapable,  of  those 
who  create  them. 


Ill 

The  Feminist's  faith  in  the  masculine  prerogative  of 
Legislation,  as  being  a  possible  panacea — had  she  but  part 
in  it — for  every  ill  beneath  the  sun,  is  one  of  her  gravest 
disqualifications  for  taking  part  therein. 

Legislators  who  are  over-confident  in  the  efficacy  of 
The  Law  express  their  over-confidence  in  terms  of 
premature  and  unduly -coercive  legislation.  Procedure 
which,  more  often  than  not,  frustrates  the  ends  to  which 
it  was  designed^  by  the  methods  taken  to  secure  these. 
Progress  is  personal,  moreover.  It  is  the  sum  of  the 
advance  of  individuals.  Legislation  is  the  statutory 
formulation  of  public  opinion ;  it  is  not  the  source  of  this. 
It  merely  crystallises  public  opinion.  But  before 
crystallisation  of  thought  (as  of  chemical)  sets  in,  satura- 
tion-point must  first  have  been  reached  throughout  the 
medium  wherein  it  occurs. 

Were  any  other  development  required  to  show  the 
utter  inadequacy  of  Legislation  to  attain  its  ends — when 
not  reinforced  by  personal  co-operation  and  initiative — 
this  has  been  supplied  in  that  latter-day  demoralisation 
of  young  girls,  the  consequences  whereof  will  be  vastly 
more  baneful  and  farther-reaching  in  contributing  to 
national  decline  than  even  that  other  dire  factor  of  the 
flower  of  our  virile  youth  struck  down  before  its  prime. 

Girls  are  fully  protected  by  law  to  the  age  of  sixteen. 
Yet  many  of  the  demoralised  girls  seen  consorting  freely 
with  Tommy  or  Reggie,  according  to  their  class,  are  well 


224        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

below  that  age.  Legislation  is  powerless,  however, 
failing  parental  vigilance  and  co-operation  to  invoke  its 
aid.  Nevertheless,  with  its  characteristic  blind  confi- 
dence in  the  male  prerogative  of  Law,  Feminism  now 
advocates  raising  "  the  age  of  consent  "  to  eighteen.  But 
to  do  this  would  no  more  protect  the  girl  under  eighteen 
than  the  existing  law  protects  the  girl  under  sixteen — 
or,  for  that  matter,  protects  the  girl  of  twelve.  Law 
can  do  little  or  nothing  unless,  as  happens  so  seldom 
and  happens  too  late,  parents  requisition  its  assistance 
for  menace  or  for  punishment.  Mothers  themselves 
should  see  to  it  that  their  little  daughters  have  neither 
temptation  nor  opportunity  to  consent  to  their  own 
ruin. 

IV 

We  saw  lately  a  militant  rising  of  women  against  men 
and  their  laws;  the  object  being  to  compel  concessions 
from  the  male  by  way  of  violence.  And  so  short- 
sighted were  the  leaders  of  this  Movement  that  not  only 
did  they  seek  to  prove  their  right  to  make  laws,  by 
breaking  them,  but  they  showed  themselves  ignorant 
of  the  first  rudiments  of  combat  by  electing  to  fight  the 
enemy  with  his  own  weapon — that  weapon  of  Force 
which  is  man's  especial  Fitness  and  Woman's  Unfitness. 
Woman's  Unfitnesses  have  prevailed,  it  is  true,  in  the 
counsels  of  progress,  but,  obviously,  they  have  not 
prevailed,  nor  can  they  ever  prevail  by  being  pitted 
directly  against  masculine  strengths.  Her  way  of 
supremacy  is  one  by  far  more  subtle  and  sublime. 

The  leaders  of  Militancy  seem  never  to  have  suspected, 
moreover,  that  while  they  were  demanding  to  be  liberated 
from  all  womanly  privileges,  they  were,  nevertheless, 
waging  their  deplorable  skirmishes  from  behind  a  strong 
wall  of  such  privileges.  Men  who  should  have  adopted 
such  tactics  would  have  received  but  short  and  scant 
shrift. 


DESTRUCTIVE   FEMINIST   DOCTRINE     225 

Were  the  sex  to   be  confronted,   indeed,   with  that 

"  Fair  field  and  no  favour  !  "  for  which  some  members  of 

it  are  so  clamorous,  these  would  find  it  a  grievously 

di^erent  thing  from  the  privilege  they  paint  it. 

/   Marcel  Prevost  has  said  that  when  men  find  women 

/  competing  with  them  in  fields  of  Labour,  to   degrees 

injurious   to    masculine   interests,    they   will   turn   and 

I  strike  them  in  the  face.     There  are  indications  to  the 

\  contrary,  however.     Among  decadent  races  and  savages, 

\the  emasculate  sons  of  deteriorate  mothers  assert  their 

masculine  authority  otherwise. 

Far  from  combating  their  women's  right  to  work, 
they  force  them  to  work — and  to  work  in  support  of  the 
males  ! 

More  and  more  every  day,  civilised  men,  indeed, 
released  by  working-wives  from  their  natural  obligation 
to  maintain  the  family,  are  seen  so  to  have  lapsed  from 
their  sense  of  virile  responsibility  as  to  be  coming  further 
and  further  to  shelve  upon  such  working-wives  the  burden 
of  the  family  support.  Among  the  labouring  and  artisan 
classes,  the  wife's  contribution  to  the  exchequer  leaves 
the  husband  more  money  to  spend  on  drink  or  on 
gambling ;  or  on  both.  In  superior  classes,  too,  it  leaves 
husbands  with  more  money  to  spend  pn  amusement — 
of  one  sort  or  another. 
/  Responsibility  and  effort  are  natural  spurs  to  mas- 
culine development.  Relieve  the  male  of  these  and  he 
degenerates.  As  woman  released  from  child-bearing 
and  the  duties  entailed  by  the  family,  degenerates 
rapidly.  We  can  no  more  improve  on  The  Plan  than 
we  can  improve  without  each  and  every  appointed 
.  factor  of  it. 


V 

Another  disastrous  blunder  of  Feminism  is  to  make 
for  equal  wage  for  men  and  women. 


226        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

The  higher  wage  of  men  springs,  economically,  from 
the  fact  that  the  industrial  output  of  women  is,  normally, 
less  than  that  of  men.  But  there  is  a  deeper,  and  a 
biological  significance  involved.  Which  is,  that  men's 
greater  output  of  work  results  from  more  of  their  energy 
of  brain  and  body  being  available  to  them  for  work, 
because  far  less  of  their  vital  power  is  locked-up  in  them 
for  Race-perpetuation  and  nurture.  There  is  the 
implication  also  that  man  being  the  natural  bread- 
winner of  the  family,  his  wage  should  suffice  for  its 
support. 

A  system  of  equal  wages  for  the  sexes  would  press 
as  cruelly  upon  women  as  it  would  be  disastrous  to  the 
Race.  Because  it  would  compel  woman,  despite  the 
biological  disabilities  that  handicap  her  economically, 
to  force  her  powers  to  masculine  standards  of  work  and 
output.  It  would,  moreover,  by  qualifying  her  to 
support  the  family,  serve  as  cogent  excuse  for  her 
husband  to  shirk  his  bounden  duty. 

The  crux  of  the  demand  for  equal  pay  for  equal  work 
is  that,  because  of  her  natural  lesser  strength  and 
endurance,  when  a  woman  is  doing  work  identical  in 
nature  and  equal  in  quantum  to  that  of  a  man,  it  means 
that  she  is  doing  more  than  a  woman's  work,  and  is  over- 
taxing and  injuring  her  constitution,  therefore;  or  it 
means  that  he  is  doing  less  than  a  man's  work,  and  is 
"  slacking,"  therefore. 

A  further  important  issue  is  that  when  rendered  too 
easy  by  both  husband  and  wife  earning  wage,  marriage 
is  entered  upon  far  too  lightly,  and  at  too  early  and 
irresponsible  ages,  than  happens  when  the  whole  burden 
of  support  rests  with  the  man.  Moreover,  in  such  case 
masculine  selection  makes  only  too  often  for  economic 
rather  than  for  human  values  in  the  wife.  A  man  upon 
whom  is  to  fall  the  whole  tax  of  supporting  the  home  and 
the  family  regards  marriage  more  seriously,  and  delays 
it  until  he  is  more  mature  of  years  and  of  settled  position. 


DESTRUCTIVE  FEMINIST   DOCTRINE     227 

Moreover,  he  chooses  more  carefully.  And  the  Race 
benefits  proportionally. 

In  manufacturing  towns,  with  opportunity  for  both 
husband  and  wife  earning  wage,  boy-and-girl  marriages, 
feckless,  discordant  homes,  and  sickly  degenerate, 
neglected  children  are  the  rule. 

That  women  should  be  paid  for  work  they  do,  a  salary 
enabling  them  to  live  honestly  and  in  comfort,  goes 
without  saying.  Economics  should  be  adjusted  on  a 
far  higher  basis  than  that  mainly  of  a  competitive 
struggle  which  allows  the  employer  to  fix  wages  less 
according  to  the  value  of  work  done,  than  by  the  number 
of  persons  at  his  mercy,  who,  in  their  eagerness  to  live, 
will  undersell  their  values  and  thus  cheapen  labour. 
Nevertheless  economics  have,  in  a  degree,  adapted 
to  the  evolutionary  trend.  Because,  in  the  main, 
the  more  skilled  and  difficult  tasks  are  more  highly 
remunerated  than  the  less  skilled,  and  are  performed 
by  the  more  fit.  And  not  only  are  these  better  qualified 
to  expend  such  higher  remuneration  intelligently,  and 
with  benefit  to  themselves  and  to  the  community, 
but  they  are  able  to  secure  thereby  those  better  con- 
ditions which  are  the  due  and  the  need  of  families  higher 
in  the  scale  of  humanity,  and  requiring,  therefore,  higher 
conditions  of  nurture. 

The  cases  of  colliers  and  of  other  rough-grade 
humans  who  earn  wage  beyond  their  mental  calibre 
to  expend  intelligently,  show  how  an  income  too  large 
for  its  possessor  leads  to  coarse  and  demoralising 
extravagances,  rather  than  to  personal  happiness  or 
elevation.  (The  like  is  true  of  many  plutocrats.)  War 
has  shown  us  boys'  lives  wrecked  by  the  same  factor. 
No  greater  fallacy  exists  than  that  of  supposing  progress 
to  lie  in  freeing  persons  from  all  disabilities — poverty, 
and  other  restrictive  conditions. 

Wives  should  be  legally  entitled  to  a  just  proportion 
of  their  husband's  income,  as  a  right,  not  merely  as  dole. 


228        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

This,  in  recognition  of  their  invaluable  work  in  home- 
making,  and  of  their  invaluable  service  to  the  State 
in  producing  and  rearing  worthy  citizens  for  it. 


VI 

Masculine  legislation,  making  all  the  while,  in  the 
face  of  economic  difficulties,  for  the  ever  further  release 
of  women  and  children  from  the  more  laborious  and 
debasing  tasks,  has  made  compulsory,  in  their  own  and 
in  the  interests  of  their  unborn  infants,  a  month  of 
respite  for  expectant  mothers,  and  a  further  month  for 
mothers  after  delivery.  Extending  thus  to  these  poor 
victims — beasts  of  the  burden  of  toil,  and  beasts  of  the 
burden  of  sex — a  mercy  and  consideration  wholly 
lacking  in  the  Feminist  propaganda.  For  this  latter 
repudiates  indignantly  all  need  for  concession  or  privilege 
to  wifehood  or  to  motherhood,  equally  with  womanhood. 

To  justify  the  claim  for  equality  in  all  things,  women 
must  be  forced,  at  all  cost,  to  identical  standards  of  work 
and  production.  To  ask  privileges  and  concessions 
would  be  to  confess,  in  the  sex,  weaknesses  and  dis- 
abilities that  must  disqualify  it  from  economic  identity 
with  the  other. 

Far,  indeed,  from  such  vain-glorious  and  disastrous 
straining  for  equality,  the  leaders  of  the  Woman's 
Movement  should,  before  all  else,  have  demanded 
insistently  still  further  industrial  concessions  and  privi- 
leges for  a  sex  handicapped  for  industry,  by  Nature. 
First  and  foremost,  they  should  come  into  the  open  and 
boldly  proclaim — what  it  is  useless  to  deny,  indeed — 
that  in  the  function  of  parenthood,  at  all  events,  men 
and  women  are  wholly  dissimilar.  They  should  reject 
outright  all  tinkerings  and  half-measures  for  relief  of 
this  great  human  disability,  whereof  one  sex  only  bears 
the  stress  and  burden  for  the  benefit  of  both,  and  for 
survival  of  nations  and  races. 


DESTRUCTIVE  FEMINIST   DOCTRINE     229 

Not  only  for  the  pitiful  respite  of  a  month  before  and 
a  month  after  the  birth  of  her  child,  should  the  mother 
be  prohibited  from  industrial  labour.  By  that  time 
all  the  damage  will  have  been  done.  The  power  that 
should  have  been  put  into  the  evolution  of  her  infant 
will  have  been  put  into  the  revolutions  of  a  lathe.  The 
life-potential  that  should  have  gone  to  build  its  living 
bone  and  brain  and  muscle  will  have  gone  to  feed  the 
life  of  a  machine.  The  breath  she  will  have  drawn  for 
it  will  have  been  contaminated  by  the  dust  and  fumes 
of  toil.  Its  poor  nascent  brain  and  faculties  will  have 
been  dulled  and  depleted,  stupefied  and  vitiated  by  the 
stress  and  turmoil  of  its  mother's  labours.  Only  the 
dregs  of  the  maternal  powers  will  have  been  invested  in 
the  Race.  The  finest  and  most  valuable  will  have  gone 
to  swell  the  balance-sheets  of  Capital. 

The  trumpet-cry  of  The  Woman's  Movement  should 
be,  indeed,  The  Absolute  Prohibition  of  young  Wives  and 
Mothers  from  all  Industrial  and  Professional  employment! 

Such  a  prohibition,  by  lessening  the  competition  of 
the  labour-market,  and  by  thus  increasing  the  value  of 
labour  (which  the  flood  of  female  industry  inevitably 
cheapens)  would  automatically  so  increase  the  wage  of 
men  as  to  make  of  these  true  living  wage,  sufficient  for 
the  maintenance  of  home  and  family.  Such  a  prohibi- 
tion would,  moreover,  so  diminish  the  competitive 
pressure  among  women  as  to  make  it  possible  for  un- 
married women,  the  future  wives  and  mothers,  as  well 
as  for  the  older  spinsters  and  widows,  to  select  in  every 
fitting  trade  and  industry,  work  suited  to  the  lesser 
strength  and  endurance  of  the  female  brain  and 
body. 


VII 

Nothing   has  characterised  the  Feminist  Movement 
throughout  so  much  as  lack  of  knowledge  of  human 


230        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

nature  (both  masculine  and  feminine),  lack  of  prevision 
to  foresee  the  trend  of  new  developments,  lack  of 
intuitive  apprehension  to  gauge  the  issues  of  such  trend. 
Its  leaders  have  never  suspected,  accordingly,  that,  in 
propaganda  and  in  practice,  they  have  been  tampering 
with  a  great  biological  ordinance ;  and  that,  in  obliterat- 
ing women's  Sex-characteristics,  they  have  been  destroy- 
ing that  counterpoise  of  human  powers  and  faculties 
whereon  progress  and  permanence  rest,  and  that  morale 
which  is  the  inspiration  of  advance. 

Regarding  their  own  masculine  Rationalism  as  the 
ideal  and  standard  for  all  women,  they  have  believed  it 
possible  to  shape  all  women  successfully  thereto.  Nature 
is  not  to  be  thwarted,  however.  And  when  we  destroy 
the  balance  of  the  Normal,  abnormal  developments — 
gravely  mischievous  and  singularly  difficult  to  deal 
with — crop  up  and  require  to  be  dealt  with.  One  may 
raise  the  familiar  cry  that  some  modern  developments 
are  due  to  our  being  in  "  a  transition  stage."  But  from 
that  remote  day  when  Nature  first  evolved  us  as  a  race 
of  amcehce,  further  to  evolve  into  the  human  species, 
we  have  been  always  in  "  transition  stages."  Normal 
transition  upwards  is  so  slow  an  impulse  as  to  be  well- 
nigh  imperceptible,  however.  Rapid  change  invariably 
betokens  regression — descent  being  vastly  easier  and 
swifter  in  movement  than  ascent  is. 

Deplorably  mistaken  has  been  a  doctrine  of  Emancipa- 
tion which,  by  disparaging  the  arts  domestic,  has  sent 
out  young  girls  and  women,  indiscriminately,  from  the 
sphere  domestic,  to  de-sexing  and  demoralising  work  in 
factories  and  businesses;  and  has  engendered  the  race 
of  stunted,  precocious,  bold-eyed,  cigarette-smoking, 
free-living  working-girls  who  fill  our  streets;  many 
tricked  out  like  cocottes,  eyes  roving  after  men,  impu- 
dence upon  their  tongues,  their  poor  brains  vitiated 
by  vulgar  rag-times  and  cinema-scenes  of  vice  and 
suggestiveness. 


DESTRUCTIVE  FEMINIST   DOCTRINE     231 

Some  of  our  working-girls  are  charming-looking, 
pretty-mannered,  pure  of  thought  and  life,  of  course. 
A  small  minority — alas,  how  small ! — are  normal  of 
development  and  sound  of  constitution.  But  these  are 
not  the  average.  And  it  is  the  average  with  which  a 
nation  has  to  reckon. 

Emphatically,  men  are  not  as  women.  In  body  and 
in  mind  they  are  by  nature  rougher,  tougher,  and  vastly 
less  impressionable.  A  regime  that  makes  a  boy  will 
wreck  a  girl.  Of  more  sensitive  calibre,  she  requires 
more  kindly,  protective  conditions,  moral  and  industrial, 
than  does  he.  Notwithstanding  which,  little  girls  now 
run  the  streets  and  take  their  chances  as  they  may — 
in  capacities  of  over-burdened  errand-girl,  telegraph- 
messenger,  and  otherwise — at  ages  when  their  developing 
womanhood  requires  due  care  of  nurture,  moral  super- 
vision, and  freedom  from  physical  strain.  Sedentary 
occupations  are  a  natural  need  of  their  sex,  moreover, 
as  is  indicated  by  the  breadth  and  weight  of  the  female 
pelvis  and  hips,  as  too  by  the  delicate  adjustments  of 
those  important  reproductive  organs,  the  future  products 
whereof  are  of  inestimably  higher  national  values  than 
are  the  industrial  assets  of  these  poor  children's  labour. 
As  Girl-guides  and  so  forth,  young  girls  parade  our 
towns  in  meretricious  (albeit  hideous)  uniform ;  develop- 
ing thereby  that  love  of  publicity  and  of  unwholesome 
excitement  to  which  the  sex  is  prone.  Small  girls  just 
fresh  from  school  are  even  now  employed  in  barbers' 
shops  to  shave  men;  destroying  thus  in  them,  at  the 
outset  of  life,  that  natural  diffidence  and  reserve  toward 
the  other  sex  which  are  the  first  defences  of  womanly 
honour. 

In  demanding  absolute  emancipation,  industrial  and 
personal.  Feminists  had  no  other  thought  but  that  such 
new  liberty  would  have  widened  woman's  scope  for 
usefulness,  for  happiness,  for  self-development.  Yet 
what  has  been  the  outcome  of  it  all  ?     For  one  who  has 


282        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

used  her  new  freedom  for  the  ends  designed,  very  many 
more  have  used  it  to  their  serious  injury ;  only  too  many 
to  their  moral  downfall. 

Already  everywhere  such  liberty  has  fast  degenerated 
into  licence.  Our  girls  were  no  sooner  emancipated 
by  their  mothers  from  the  usually  wholesome — if  some- 
times too  severe — control  of  their  fathers,  than  straight- 
way they  have  emancipated  themselves  from  the 
indispensable  maternal  rule.  Strict  supervision  and 
guidance  in  a  world  they  are  ignorant  of — or  if  sophisti- 
cated are  in  far  worse  case — are  essential  to  the  well- 
being,  physical  and  moral,  of  the  young  and  immature. 

Young  girls,  on  first  discovering  their  attraction  for 
the  other  sex,  become  intoxicated  by  the  sense  of  their 
new  dangerously-alluring  power,  and  lose  their  heads. 
Beyond  all  things,  they  require  at  this  phase  a  mother's 
strict  and  careful  supervision,  with  sympathy  and  firm 
control ;  to  tide  them  over  their  perilous  phase,  and  thus 
to  preserve  them  from  consequences  of  their  ignorance 
or  folly,  or  from  those  of  a  pernicious  bent.  Neverthe- 
less, young  girls  of  every  class  are  granted  now  disastrous 
latitudes  of  thought  and  action.  The  vigilant  chaperon- 
age  indispensable  to  protect  them  from  the  biological 
impulses — which  they  mistake  for  "  love  " — of  the 
careless  or  vicious  young  men  to  whom  (equally  with  the 
chivalrous  and  honourable)  modern  mothers  abandon 
their  daughters,  has  become  a  dead-letter.  The  girl 
only  just  in  her  teens  is  free  to  play  fast-and-loose  with 
boys  and  men — as  too  with  life,  before  she  has  learned 
the  merest  rudiments  of  living.  All  too  soon  she  learns 
her  lesson.  And  becoming  precociously  sophisticated — 
only  too  often  precociously  vicious — her  nature  and 
future  are  wrecked  at  the  outset.  Because  nothing 
wrecks  a  woman's  disposition  so  effectually  as  sex- 
precocity  does.  Sex  is  the  very  pivot  of  her  nature. 
On  this  she  swings  up — or  down.  And  early  habit 
decides  her  bent. 


DESTRUCTIVE  FEMINIST   DOCTRINE     238 

That  many  of  these  cigarette-smoking,  decadent 
young  creatures  are  no  worse  than  impudent,  feather- 
brained and  misguided,  does  not  save  the  licence  allowed 
them  from  being  as  harmful  to  physical  as  it  is  perilous 
to  moral  health;  nor  from  the  experiences  resulting 
from  such  licence  wholly  unfitting  the  majority  for  later 
wholesome  restraint,  and  for  purer  and  fairer  ideals 
of  womanly  conduct  and  living. 

For  much  of  this  Feminism  is  gravely  to  blame.  Not 
only  because  it  has  led  to  the  absorption  of  the  mothers 
in  outside  pursuits,  as  being  of  greater  importance  than 
the  fulfilment  of  their  maternal  duties  and  responsi- 
bilities to  their  young  daughters,  but  because,  too,  the 
partial  sterilisation  of  girls,  by  masculine  training  and 
habits,  in  robbing  them  of  womanly  qualities,  robs  them 
of  natural  reserve  and  modesty,  and  of  the  other  more 
delicate  instincts  and  aspirations  of  their  sex. 

Significant,  truly,  of  latter-day  maternal  neglect  of 
young  daughters  was  the  disclosure  by  a  doctor,  in  a 
recent  British  Medical  Journal^  that  of  a  hundred  men 
infected  with  venereal  diseases,  more  than  seventy  had 
contracted  disease  from  "  amateur  flappers."  Yet  as 
with  a  child  badly  burned  by  playing  with  fire,  we  blame 
the  mother  or  guardian  who  exposed  it  to  danger  of  thus 
injuring  itself  for  life,  so  the  mothers  of  these  unfortunate 
girls  were  to  blame  for  gross  neglect  of  their  duty  to 
safeguard  these  young  lives. 

Nature  avenges  her  betrayed  girls,  however.  For 
medical  authority  shows  that  these  youthful  unfortunates 
transmit  disease  in  its  most  virulent  and  destructive 
forms.  It  is  as  though  all  the  vital  potential  of  their 
developing  womanhood  is  perverted  to  a  malign  poison, 
charged  with  the  forces  of  their  blasted  youth. 

^  l|C  j|C  9fC  ^  ^ 

The  Victorian,  who  brought  up  her  daughters  to  marry 
in  ignorance  of  biological  fact,  went  to  the  other  extreme. 


234        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

But  it  was  a  far  less  harmful  one  than  that  in  vogue 
to-day. 

Like  that  of  the  child,  the  immature,  susceptible 
mind  of  a  girl,  incapable  of  apprehending  the  sex-factor 
in  its  true  perspective  with  the  other  factors  of  life, 
becomes  unduly  dominated  by  consideration  thereof 
when  too  early  instructed.  She  is  far  better  left,  for 
so  long  as  is  practicable,  ignorant  or  hazy  concerning 
this  vital  phenomenon,  in  place  of  being  fully  informed, 
as  girls  are  now-a-days.  So  that  they  know  all  that  there 
is  to  be  known  about  sex — except  its  seriousness  and 
sacredness.  And  divorced  from  the  seriousness  and 
sacredness  of  Love  and  Birth — which  mere  knowledge 
of  biological  fact  is  wholly  inadequate  to  impart — such 
knowledge  of  fact  presents  a  crude  and  bald  distortion 
of  the  truth;  only  too  often  imparting  an  ugly  and 
demoralising  warp  to  mind  and  conduct.  Ignorance  is 
not  Innocence,  'tis  true,  but  it  serves  the  same  purpose 
in  safeguarding  innocence  that  clothes  do  in  safeguarding 
modesty.  And  for  one  girl  who  falls  in  consequence  of 
innocence,  twenty  fall  from  sophistication. 

Unless  masculine  traits  have  been  over-developed 
in  her  by  abnormal  training,  in  which  case  (as  occurs 
sometimes  in  the  quasi-masculine  woman  of  middle-age) 
sex-instinct  may  acquire  an  unnatural  and  quasi- 
masculine  insistence,  this  instinct  is,  in  the  normal 
girl,  responsive  rather  than  initiative,  (Wherein  she 
differs  diametrically  from  the  male.)  And  such  natural 
dormancy  may  be  advantageously  preserved  by  haziness 
of  knowledge,  and  by  the  careful  surveillance  required 
for  protection  of  immature  minds  and  powers.  The 
bald,  matter-of-course  view-point  of  many  modern 
girls  with  regard  to  sex,  their  knowledge  of  vice,  and  their 
cynical  acceptance  and  discussion  thereof,  as  too  of  the 
vulgar  intrigues  of  notorious  dancers  and  peeresses,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  ugly  and  debasing  personal  experiences 
only  too  many  of  them  have  incurred,  are  among  the 


DESTRUCTIVE  FEMINIST   DOCTRINE     235 

evils  of  the  injurious  licence  at  present  accorded  to  young 
persons. 

Feminism,  having  thrust  such  disastrous  liberty  on 
creatures  as  eager  to  grasp  as  they  are  unfitted  to  cope 
with  the  dangers  thereof,  is  striving  now,  by  way  of 
women-patrols  and  police-women,  to  stem  the  evil  with 
one  hand — while  with  the  other,  it  continues  to  open  the 
flood-gates  still  wider.  The  only  way  to  stem  the  evil 
is  to  stem  it  at  its  source.  The  home,  with  the  vigilant 
supervision  and  guidance  of  a  mother  whose  duty  is 
publicly  recognised  and  her  authority  strengthened 
thereby,  whose  time  and  faculties  are  devoted  mainly 
to  the  making  of  home  and  to  the  safeguarding  and 
disciplining  of, the  young  creatures  she  has  brought 
into  existence,  is  environment  and  shelter  as  indis- 
pensable to  the  impressionable  youth  of  both  sexes — but 
more  particularly  to  the  impressionable  youth  of  one — 
as  it  is  for  the  rearing  of  infancy  and  childhood.  Such 
home-influences,  reinforced  by  the  strong  hand  of  a 
father  who  likewise  recognises  his  parental  responsi- 
bilities, are  the  first  of  all  the  rights  that  matter  for 
young  womanhood. 

Later,  should  come  a  term  of  domestic  service. 
Mistresses  of  households  should  realise  not  only  their 
human  but  likewise  their  national  responsibility  to  these 
young  humbler  members  thereof.  No  other  public 
service  possible  to  them  would  equally  conduce  to 
national  progress. 

As  fathers  are  legally  responsible  for  debts  of  sons 
under  age,  mothers  should  be  responsible  to  the  State 
for  the  virtue  of  daughters  under  sixteen. 

In  the  personal,  vastly  more  than  in  any  other  field 
of  operation,  woman's  chiefest  value  lies.  When  she 
exchanges  it  for  public  functions,  and  seeks  to  further 
progress  by  officialdom  and  politics,  by  institution  of 
women-patrols,  police-women.  Mayoresses,  and  so  forth, 
the  supreme  importance  of  the  personal  factor  becomes 


236        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

impressed  by  the  discovery  of  the  utter  inadequacy  of 
any  substitute  to  take  its  place.  "  If  mothers  did  their 
duty,  there  would  be  no  need  for  us,"  a  woman-patrol 
stated  recently. 

By  the  time  young  women  have  reached  such  phases 
of  demoralisation  that  their  conduct  in  public  demands 
the  intervention  of  police-women,  it  is  too  late  to  reform 
them,  moreover.  They  will  have  lost  the  best  promise 
and  hope  of  their  womanhood. 

And  so  it  is  and  must  be  ever  all  along  the  line.  The 
home  and  the  family  are  the  nursery  of  civic  as  they  are 
of  racial  progress.  We  regard  it  as  proof  of  civilisation 
that  Law-Co urts  for  Children  have  been  instituted. 
Yet  what  a  blot  it  is,  in  truth,  upon  both  parentage  and 
parenthood  that,  in  our  day  of  enlightenment,  such 
should  have  become  necessary. 

So  have  mother  influences  and  maternal  sense  of 
responsibility  declined,  however,  that  mothers  on  all 
sides  openly  confess  their  utter  lack  of  power  to  control 
boys  and  girls  just  in  their  'teens. 

VIII 

The  fashion  is  to  pity  and  deride  the  "  poor  "  early 
Victorian  because  she  lacked  the  manifold  and  nerve- 
wracking  outlets  for  that  restlessness  and  boredom  from 
which  modern  women  suffer. 

The  "  poor "  Victorian  was  a  more  harmonious, 
better-balanced  and  more  tranquil  being,  however.  And 
she  was  far  less  cursed  with  "  nerves,"  with  feverish 
unrest  and  carking  discontent,  than  women  are  to-day. 

Mrs.  Craigie  observed  that  the  Victorian,  with  her 
backboard  and  gentle  accomplishments,  produced  (with- 
out the  pusillanimous  expedient  of  "  Twilight  Sleep  ") 
notably  stronger,  finer,  and  more  clever  children  than  do 
present-day  over-educated  or  athletic  women — athletic 
women,   whose  muscles  of  arms  and  of  legs  have  so 


DESTRUCTIVE  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE     237 

sapped  the  powers  of  important  internal  muscles  that 
most  of  them  are  incapable  of  bringing  their  infants 
into  life  without  instrumental  aid. 

One  does  not,  for  a  moment,  counsel  reversion  to  the 
type  or  to  the  methods  of  an  earlier  generation.  Evolu- 
tion and  development  must  advance,  and  are,  of  course, 
advancing  satisfactorily  in  some  stock.  But  the 
Victorian  served  her  generation  nobly,  producing 
splendid  specimens  of  men  and  women,  and  handing  on 
a  generous  racial  constitution — now  being  squandered 
recklessly,  alas  !  by  her  descendants.  The  tide  of 
greater  freedom,  of  broader  outlook,  and  fuller  effective- 
ness for  woman  has  set  in,  however.  Albeit,  owing  to 
Feminist  misapprehensions,  it  is  not  only  moving  too 
rapidly  but  it  is  moving  in  a  wrong  direction;  because 
in  direct  opposition  to  biological  law. 

By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  And  the  Victorian 
so  preserved  her  woman-powers  and  attributes  that  she 
was  an  excellent  and  a  contented  wife,  and  could  bring 
into  existence — without  instrumental  aid — a  family  of 
comely,  clever  boys  and  girls ;  nurse  them  all  from  eldest 
to  youngest;  rear  and  discipline  and  put  such  stuff  of 
health  and  sanity  and  enterprise  into  them  as  shames 
some  flimsy,  feeble-minded,  characterless  modern  stock. 
We  have  far  to  look  to-day,  indeed,  for  statesmen  and 
soldiers,  poets  and  artists,  business  and  craftsmen,  and 
other  such  virile  and  talented  personages  as  those  early 
and  pre-Victorian  mothers  endowed  their  epoch  with. 

And  were  further  evidence  needed  that  our  great- 
grandmothers  equalled  our  own  women  in  the  qualities 
we  pride  ourselves  upon  as  triumphs  of  Feminism,  the 
strength  and  courage,  the  resource  and  fortitude  those 
others  showed  throughout  the  stress  and  horrors  of  the 
Indian  Mutiny  are  proof  sufficient  that,  beneath  their 
gentler  virtues,  lay  the  sterner  fibre  of  nobility. 


238        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

IX 

To  prove  to  what  a  third-grade  power  Woman,  once 
so  potent  an  inspiration  of  hfe,  has  lapsed,  we  need  but 
go  to  The  Drama — reflex  ever  of  its  period.  Consider 
Shakespeare's  women — subtly  wise,  profoundly  clever, 
beautiful  and  gracious,  true  and  charming,  strong  and 
tender,  chaste  and  gay;  warm  with  temperament, 
crystal -sparkling  with  wit  and  parry  ! 

And  comparing  these  adorable  beings  with  the 
posturing,  tricky,  intriguing,  slangy,  spotty  creatures — 
neurotic  unfaithful  wives  and  erratic  "  bachelor  "- 
daughters — of  the  modern  stage,  the  deplorable  deteriora- 
tion of  our  womanly  ideals  becomes  patent. 

Women  have  sinned  in  every  age,  but  they  have 
sinned  in  some  ages  picturesquely  and  pathetically, 
because  Nature  led  them.  While  the  morbids  and 
neurotics  of  our  modern  Plays  are  for  ever  noisily  turning 
out  the  dusty  corners  of  their  warped  psychologies,  in 
order  to  discover  some  loose  end  of  Nature  in  them 
to  condone  their  erotic  eccentricities.  Strange,  that 
Twentieth-Century  woman  tolerates  the  mirror  held  to 
her  in  these  abnormal  and  distasteful  creatures  ! 

The  modern  dramatist  is  handicapped  in  his  art, 
it  is  true,  by  lack,  in  our  latter-day  actresses,  of  that 
personal  charm  and  magnetism,  and  the  vital  power  to 
render  the  higher  and  subtler  emotions  and  passions, 
whereby  the  actresses  of  earlier  days  held  audiences 
spell-bound. 

Politics  and  Sports  destroy  alike  the  Muses  and  the 
Graces.  One  who  attempts  to  combine  them  with  the 
delicate  psychological  arts  and  artistries  of  The  Drama 
is  bound  to  failure — in  her  art,  at  all  events. 

Time  was  when  the  best  men  reverenced  women  as 
beings  of  more  delicate  calibre,  to  be  shielded  from  the 
rougher  and  grosser  contacts  of  Hfe.     Chivalry  forbade 


DESTRUCTIVE  FEMINIST   DOCTRINE     239 

that  they  should  have  taken  these  to  coarse  exhibitions, 
prize-fights  and  the  Uke.  And  to  such  restriction  woman's 
purer  instinct  and  her  finer  taste  assented. 

The  male  being  practical  and  rational,  however,  since 
women  themselves  are  changing  all  that,  he  too  is  coming 
to  believe  that  any  and  every  thing  is  good  enough  for 
a  sex  which  more  and  more  repudiates  its  subtler 
quality. 

That  native  delicacy  which  preserved  her  once  from 
masculine  habits  of  thought  and  indulgence,  taught  man 
to  realise  woman  as  belonging,  by  nature,  to  a  purer 
and  daintier  order.  (Howsoever  inferior  to  himself  in 
some  other  respects  he  may  have  held  her.) 

It  won  his  reverence  and  worship  that  these  frailer 
and  more  exquisitely-constituted  creatures  should 
possess,  despite  their  exquisiteness,  such  fine  mettle  of 
resistance  in  their  softness  as  withstood  the  fire  and 
urgence  of  the  masculine  siege;  that  within  their 
(possibly)  ignorant  little  brains  was  light  that  flashed 
straight  to  intrinsic  truths  and  right  courses  of  action; 
such  intuitive  apprehension  of  The  Good  and  The 
Beautiful,  without  experience  of  the  base  and  ugly,  as 
taught  them  to  distinguish  clearly,  to  select,  and  to  hold 
fast  to  the  fairer  in  thought  and  in  conduct. 

To  encounter  in  woman  his  own  traits  touched  to 
higher,  subtler  issues,  and  transformed  to  novel  and 
alluring  quality  by  the  charm  and  graces  of  another 
Sex,  has  made  always  an  enchanting,  an  inspiring,  and 
a  baffling  enigma  of  her — to  endue  woman  for  man  with 
eternal  values  and  impenetrable  mystery.  For  he  has 
visioned  in  her — without  formulating — the  mystery  of 
the  Human  Duality. 

Trembling  in  the  delicate  poise  of  her  twofold  being, 
between  the  soft  impressionable,  variable  woman  in  her 
and  the  man  of  steel  aesthetically  sheathed  within  the 
velvet  of  her  womanhood,  the  play  of  her  swift  supple 
transitions,  the  kaleidoscopic  changes  of  her  perpetual 


240        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

new  combinations — giving  ever  fresh  bewildering  effects 
of  colour,  light  and  mode — have  made  her  infinite 
variety  for  him.  While  her  soft,  immediate  adjustments 
to  his  own  moods  and  needs  have  been  his  wonder  and 
delight;  presenting  to  him  all  that  there  is  in  himself, 
yet  in  modes  impossible  to  himself.  All  that  he  knows 
by  acquaintance  she  knows  by  intuition — and  in  a 
fresh  and  fairer  way.  All  that  he  sees,  her  eyes  make 
him  see  again  in  new  and  more  exquisite  lights.  All 
that  he  thinks  had  been  already  in  her  woman-heart  ere 
ever  man  began  to  think.  All  that  he  loves  she  shows 
him  a  reason  for  loving — yet  not  by  way  of  reason. 
All  that  he  craves  with  his  soul,  her  soul  can  confer. 
All  that  his  body  and  sense  have  desired,  her  body  and 
sense  can  bestow — But  with  all  the  immeasurable 
differences  and  enhancements  of  her  unlike  sex. 

"  Away,  away ! "  cried  Jean  Paul  Richter,  apos- 
trophising Music,  "  thou  speakest  to  me  of  things  that  in 
all  my  endless  life  I  have  not  found,  and  shall  not  find  I  " 

Wagner  said,  "  Music  is  a  Woman." 

Dr.  Havelock  Ellis,  himself  a  zealous  Feminist,  has 
said,  that,  in  their  ardour  for  emancipation,  women 
sometimes  seem  anxious  to  be  emancipated  from  their 
sex.  .  While  Ellen  Key,  most  impartial  of  critics, 
observes  : 

"  But  full  of  insight  as  they  are  into  the  ars  amandi, 
have  modern  women,  indeed,  learned  how  with  all  their 
soul,  all  their  strength,  and  all  their  mind  to  love? 
Their  mothers  and  grandmothers — on  a  much  lower 
plane  of  woman's  erotic  idealism — knew  of  only  one 
object;  that  of  making  their  husbands  happy.  .  .  . 
But  what  watchful  tenderness,  what  dignified  desire 
to  please,  what  fair  gladness  could  not  the  finest  of  these 
spiritually-ignored  women  develop !  The  new  man 
lives  in  a  dream  of  the  new  woman,  and  she  in  a  dream 
of  the  new  man.     But  when  they  actually  find  one 


DESTRUCTIVE  FEMINIST  DOCTRINE     241 

another,  it  frequently  results  that  two  highly-developed 
brains  together  analyse  love;  or  that  two  worn-out 
nervous  systems  fight  out  a  disintegrating  battle  over 
love.  ...  Of  love's  double  heart-beat — ^the  finding 
one's  self,  and  the  forgetting  one's  self  in  another — ^the 
first  is  now  considerably  more  advanced  than  the 
second." 

The  reason  why  the  New  man  and  the  New  woman, 
having  found  one  another,  find  no  more  inspiration  or 
sweetness  each  in  the  other  than  to  "  fight  out  a  dis- 
integrating battle  "  is  because  both  are  male  of  brain 
and  bent — one  normally  so,  the  other  abnormally. 

And  when  two  males  meet,  their  nature  is — to  fight ! 

*  jC  *  :ic  He  4c 

Into  every  clause  of  this  book  must  be  read  the  many 
inspiring  exceptions  to  be  found  among  those  modern 
men  and  women  and  children  who  are  advancing 
normally  along  evolutionary  lines.  Such  are  so  fine  of 
type,  in  body  and  in  mind,  that  they  blind  not  a  few  to 
facts  of  racial  deterioration.  We  point  to  these  and  say : 
One  cannot  speak  with  truth  of  the  degeneracy  of  nations 
which  produce  such  noble  specimens  ! 

These  exceptions  prove  the  principle  I  am  endeavour- 
ing to  impress,  however.  That  were  we  to  apply  our- 
selves to  correction  of  our  biological  and  social  errors, 
we  have  with  us  stock  of  the  noblest  Race  conceivable, 
and  the  noblest  possible  future  for  that  Race. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

DANGEROUS   SEPARATION   OF  WOMEN   INTO   TWO   ORDERS  I 
FEMINISTS    AND    FEMININISTS 

^' Every  child  comes  with  the  message  that  God  is  not  yet  dis- 
couraged of  Man.'' 


Since  women  possess  native  gifts  of  highly-differ- 
entiated faculties  and  aptitudes,  not  only  their  greatest 
effectiveness,  but,  too,  their  well-being  and  happiness 
lie  in  finding  highly-specialised  and  selective  application 
for  these,  in  Life,  in  Art,  in  Science,  and  in  Industry. 

Their  role  in  every  field  of  operation  should  be  recog- 
nised as  being  wholly  different  from  that  of  man,  however ; 
and  their  own  natural  view-points  and  special  abilities 
should  be  fostered,  accordingly,  by  suitable  training; 
in  order  to  fit  them  for  the  special  departments  for  which 
they  are  essentially  suited. 

The  charming  artistry  and  fancies,  spontaneous  and 
full  of  delicate  insight,  feeling,  and  sense  of  line,  which 
a  woman  puts  into  her  illustrations  of  a  child's  Fairy- 
story,  are  art  as  true,  for  example,  and  if  less  great  of 
achievement,  are  nevertheless  as  intrinsically  valuable 
in  The  Scheme  of  Things  as  are  the  virile  masterpieces  of 
a  Michael  Angelo  or  Turner. 

Few  men  attain  the  exquisite  artistry  in  colour  that 
even  indifferent  women-painters  show.  It  is  an  expres- 
sion, in  mentality,  of  the  biological  fact  that  the  colour- 
sense  is  naturally  so  highly  developed  in  woman  that 
Colour-blindness — comparatively  common  among  men — 
is  rare  indeed  in  her. 

242 


FEMINISTS   AND   FEMININISTS  243 

On  the  other  hand,  woman  is  inherently  weak  in 
drawing.  When  she  is  trained,  however,  to  draw  with 
mascuHne  strength  and  precision,  she  loses  her  natural 
freedom  and  delicacy  of  touch,  her  sensitive  feeling  for 
line,  her  exquisite  colour-sense,  her  fertile  fancy.  Rosa 
Bonheur's  horses  are  as  strong  in  drawing  as  they  are 
baldly  deficient  in  sentiment.  Men  have  painted  horses 
bolder  still  in  line,  but  nevertheless  noble  and  beautiful 
in  feeling. 

The  same  is  true  of  Literature.  Mrs.  Browning  would 
have  been  a  great  poet  had  she  not  taken  her  husband 
for  model.  Some  of  her  delicate  woman-fancies,  tricked 
out  in  Robert  Browning's  over-virile  style,  are  like 
charming  women  masquerading  in  fustian  trousers. 

George  Eliot,  too,  affected  the  masculine  both  in  view- 
point and  method — a  bad  habit  which  so  grew  upon 
her  that  her  later  novels  are  ponderous  as  political 
treatises,  and  devoid  of  human  interest. 

Far  different,  Charlotte  Bronte.  True  to  herself  and 
to  her  sex,  she  ^vrote  and  has  written  for  all  time — as 
those  others  did  not — as  a  woman,  and  as  only  a  woman 
could  have  written.     Jane  Austen,  likewise. 

The  woman  point-of-view  and  method  are  regarded,  for 
the  most  part,however,  as  mark  of  the  amateur — the  model 
aimed  at  being  the  eternal  masculine  in  mode  and  trend. 

If  the  demand,  "  We  take  all  labour  for  our  province  !  " 
be  safeguarded  by  recognising  and  differentiating  the 
province  into  two  distinct  and  separate — supplementary 
and  complementary — departments,  for  the  respective 
labours  of  the  two  widely  differing  sexes,  the  claim 
comes  first  within  the  range  of  reason  and  discretion. 

As  woman  was  the  first  doctor,  so  she  was  the  first 
artist.  Man  inherits  from  her  not  only  his  artistic 
faculty,  but  he  derives  from  her  his  faculty  of  creative 
inspiration.  Applying  his  native  intelligence,  his  execu- 
tive ability  and  power  of  sustained  effort,  to  this  end, 


244        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

he  has  so  developed  The  Arts  as  to  have  carried  these 
to  their  modern  reahsations.  And  though  woman,  in 
her  turn,  may  learn  of  him,  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
his  standards  or  technique  are  best  adapted  to  her  modes 
of  inspiration,  to  her  ideals  or  attainments. 

Trained  along  the  lines  of  natural  inherences,  and 
trained,  accordingly,  without  injury  or  warp  to  health 
or  faculty  by  straining  after  standards  not  their  own, 
women  would  not  be  disqualified,  as  so  many 
are  now  by  avocational  specialisation,  for  wife  and 
motherhood.  They  would,  on  the  contrary,  be  the 
better  adapted.  And  health  and  charm  and  emotion 
not  having  been  sacrificed  in  them  by  de-sexing  pursuits, 
such  would  be  eagerly  sought.  Thus  Racial  advance 
would  be  secured  by  its  wives  and  mothers  having  been 
drawn  from  the  best  orders  of  women;  the  women 
naturally  endowed  with  faculty  and  character;  self- 
reliant,  but  unspoiled  by  abnormal  training. 

A  number  of  latter-day  women  being  unfitted,  alike 
by  nature  and  by  inclination,  for  marriage,  two  orders  of 
the  sex  should  be  clearly  distinguished  and  administered 
for;  as  being  wholly  different  types,  for  whom  wholly 
different  creeds  and  employments  are  indicated. 

Those  whose  aims  and  talents  incline  them  to  public 
careers  should  be  content  with  the  lot  to  which  they  are 
best  suited ;  and  content  to  accept  the  privileges  thereof, 
and  the  disabilities  thereof.  They  should  not  be  greedy, 
and  demand,  at  the  same  time,  the  liberty  of  the  free- 
lance and  the  privileges  of  the  wife  and  the  mother. 

So  with  the  wife  and  mother.  She,  for  her  part,  must 
forgo  the  liberty  of  the  free-lance.  Because,  with  her 
privileges,  she  has  undertaken  functions  and  duties 
which,  for  their  complete  fulfilment,  demand  her  best 
powers  and  activities. 

Men  who  marry  are  similarly  restricted.  The  bachelor 
lacks  the  interests  and  happiness  of  the  husband  and 
father.    The   husband   and   father  lacks   the   personal 


FEMINISTS  AND  FEMININISTS  245 

liberty  and  the  freedom  from  responsibility  enjoyed  by 
the  bachelor. 

It  is  women,  mainly,  who  demand  both  the  preroga- 
tives of  the  married  and  of  the  unmarried  states.  Not- 
withstanding that  it  is  wholly  impossible  for  them  to 
fulfil  the  functions  of  both,  because  it  is  impossible  for 
them  to  possess  either  the  aptitudes  or  the  energies  for 
both. 

In  view  of  all  that  men  have  attained  by  devotion  of 
their  lives  to  the  civilised  achievements  which  now 
dignify  existence  and  ennoble  faculty,  when  one  sees 
women  more  clamorously  confident  in  their  bounden 
right  to  inherit  lightly  all  that  the  other  sex  has  so 
laboriously  won  than  they  are  reverently  grateful  for 
the  inestimable  human  privileges  and  the  treasuries 
of  Art  and' Mind-wealth  available  to  them  by  way  of 
these  surrendered  masculine  lives,  it  seems  cause  for 
indignation  equal  to  that  aroused  by  the  phlegmatic 
calm  wherewith  most  men  accept  as  matter-of-course — 
instead  of  as  matter  for  reverent  gratitude — the  gifts 
of  Life  and  Faculty,  to  evolve  and  to  transmit  which 
to  them,  their  mothers  and  all  the  generations  of  mothers 
before  them  surrendered  their  lives  and  their  powers. 

Recognition  of  the  intrinsic  differences,  in  trend  and 
in  function,  between  the  sexes,  should  go  far  to  dispel 
misconceptions  and  points  of  variance  between  them. 
The  prevailing  notion  that  the  one  sex  is  a  sort  of  muddled 
version  of  the  other — and  not  a  highly-specialised 
presentment  of  an  invaluable  order  of  qualities,  with 
inevitable  shortcomings  in  the  complementary  order  of 
qualities — is  greatly  to  blame  for  sex-misapprehensions 
and  antagonisms. 

II 

Feminists  anticipate  that  War-experiences  will  further 
and  finally  eliminate  all  economic  sex-distinctions,  by 


246        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

having  supplied  convincing  object-lessons  that  their 
sex  is  able  to  do,  and  to  do  efficiently,  all  that  the  other 
sex  can  do. 

Far  from  object-lessons  in  the  suitabilities,  however, 
the  experience  has  furnished  terrible  examples  pointing 
the  contrary  way.  Because  although  women  have 
shown  themselves  both  willing  and  efficient  in  these  new 
capacities,  results  have  proved  at  what  cost  to  them- 
selves and  to  life  they  have  done  men's  work.  Apart 
from  a  deplorable  deterioration  in  morale,  showing  both 
in  coarseness  and  in  viciousness,  the  blight  of  age  which 
has  swooped  upon  both  young  and  old,  as  direct  conse- 
quence of  the  hardship  and  strain  of  masculine  employ- 
ments, robbing  them  of  youth  and  health  and  joy  and 
beauty,  of  repose  and  higher  appeal,  and  transforming 
them  into  the  grim,  drab,  harassed  spectres  many  have 
become,  should  be  warning  enough,  in  all  conscience,  of 
whither  Feminism  is  leading  us. 

Many  of  our  young  women  have  become  so  de-sexed 
and  masculinised,  indeed,  and  the  neuter  state  so  patent 
in  them,  that  the  individual  is  described  (unkindly)  no 
longer  as  "  She  "  but  as  "  It." 

Dire  have  been  the  disillusionment  and  bitterness 
among  our  fighting  men,  upon  returning  to  the  homes 
and  wives  or  loves  they  had  long  dreamed  of — ^to  find  the 
wife  or  love  a  shattered  wreck,  or  a  strenuous,  graceless, 
half-male  creature;  the  home  a  place  of  nerve-racking 
unrest. 

It  is  consoling  to  know  that  a  number  of  those  who 
have  been  de-sexed  merely,  and  not  disabled,  will  con- 
tinue to  find  useful  and  contented  outlet  for  their  mascu- 
line developments  in  filling  still  the  places  of  our  fallen 
heroes.  Cruelty  lies  in  the  fact,  however,  that  the 
womanhood  of  many  will  have  been  wi'ecked  quite 
needlessly ;  by  strain  of  superfluously  strenuous  drill  and 
marchings,  scoutings,  signallings,  and  other  such  vain 
and  fruitless  imitations  of  the  male. 


FEMINISTS   AND  FEMININISTS  247 

The  greatest  care  should  have  been  exercised  to  have 
selected  the  strong  and  able-bodied,  the  older  women 
and  the  women  of  the  characteristic  worker-type  (corre- 
sponding to  the  sterile  female- worker  of  the  bee-hive), 
for  the  rougher  and  the  more  exhausting  tasks.  The 
young  wives  and  mothers  and  the  young  girls  should 
have  been  rigorously  excluded  from  such. 

Of  all  human  prerogatives,  the  greatest  is  that  of 
being  preserved,  by  class,  by  ability,  by  means,  or  by 
privilege,  from  gravitating  to  levels  of  work  that  coarsen 
and  debase;  or  that,  at  all  events,  do  not  exercise  and 
foster  the  development  of  higher  tastes  and  faculty. 
And  this  human  privilege  is,  in  proportion  to  their 
degrees  of  civilisation,  accorded  to  women  by  all  civilised 
peoples.  As  men  have  stood  between  them  and  the 
perils  of  battle  and  shipwreck,  the  slaying  of  wild  beasts, 
pioneering,  exploring,  and  the  like,  so  they  have  stood 
between  them  and  the  coarsest,  ugliest,  and  most 
debasing  industrial  functions. 

Nevertheless,  Feminist  anger  at  restriction  whatsoever 
in  the  matter  of  employment  ignores  all  cause  for  grati- 
tude on  the  part  of  the  sex,  that,  being  at  man's  mercy 
as  she  is,  civilised  woman  is  no  longer  (as  the  woman 
of  inferior  civilisations  is  still)  a  beast  of  heavy  burden. 
Far  otherwise,  indeed.  Feminism  aims  at  nothing  so 
much  as  to  repudiate  her  established  privileges,  abolish 
all  distinctions,  and  to  make  woman  once  again  that  beast 
of  burden  the  chivalry  of  man — at  first  instinctive,  later 
magnanimous — has  progressively  rescued  her  from  being. 

And  yet  the  degree  to  which  sex  is  defined  in  Labour 
(as  in  Life)  is  at  the  same  time  the  gauge  and  the  cause 
of  human  development.  Wheresoever  are  found  low 
intelligence,  crude  morale  and  lack  of  progress,  there 
the  women  are  employed  in  men's  work.  Wheresoever 
women  are  employed  in  men's  work,  there  are  low 
intelligence,  crude  morale  and  lack  of  progress. 


248        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

"  Thank  Heaven  for  the  War  1  "  Feminists  have  said, 
however,  "  because  it  has  enabled  our  sex  to  prove  its 
worth — by  enabhng  us  to  quit  ourselves  like  men.  The 
world  knows  now  that  women  can  conduct  omnibuses, 
drive  ploughs,  clean  stables,  kill  chickens,  ring  and 
slaughter  pigs,  quite  as  well  as  men  can." 

It  is  as  painful  as  it  is  amazing  to  find  intelligent  and 
cultured  persons  so  blinded  by  the  obsessions- of  their 
creed  as  to  suppose  that  in  ploughing  and  hoeing  and 
making  munitions,  women  are  doing  finer  and  more 
valuable  work  than  they  had  been  doing  previously; 
that  the  woman  bus-conductor  is  a  more  important 
person  than  the  children's  nurse;  that  to  drive  a  cab 
or  clean  a  boiler  is  a  nobler  occupation  than  the  teaching 
of  music  or  the  cleansing  of  clothes;  that  to  spread 
manure  is  more  dignifying  than  to  make  beds;  to 
amputate  the  limbs  of  wounded  soldiers  is  superior  to 
the  subtler,  far  more  difficult  art  of  medically  treating 
the  complex  ills  of  women  and  children. 

That  these  other  employments  have  been  demanded 
by  the  times,  is  undeniable;  as,  too,  that  honour  and 
credit  are  due  to  those  who  well  and  capably  responded 
to  the  exigencies  of  the  hour.  But  this  does  not,  in  the 
least  degree,  lessen  the  illogic  of  the  claim  that  such 
response  to  the  cruder  and  less-civilised  demands  of 
War  proved  woman's  value  more  than  did  the  devotion 
and  efficiency  she  was  previously  showing  in  the  far  more 
complex  and  progressive  arts  of  Peace.  The  main 
value  of  her  War-work  was  that  it  fitted  the  times. 
But  the  times  have  been  woefully  out  of  joint ! 


Ill 

At  a  recent  Feminist  Meeting,  one  of  the  leaders  of 
Militancy  detailed  to  an  audience  of  fierce-eyed,  sombre- 
visaged  members  of  her  own  sex,  and  sundry  meek- 
browed  persons  pf  the  other,  her  latest  exploits  in  the 


FEMINISTS  AND  FEMININISTS  249 

matters  of  arranging  Labour  disputes  and  averting 
strikes  of  working-men ;  of  sending  Governmental  male 
officials  to  the  right-about,  and  of  disposing,  in  general, 
of  masculine  concerns. 

The  main  issue  of  her  story  was  lost  sight  of,  alike 
by  herself  and  by  her  audience.  This  was — or  so  it 
seemed  to  one  among  the  latter  :  What  manner  of  men 
were  these  who  required  or  tolerated  it  that  a  woman 
should  take  them  thus  in  hand,  and,  as  though  they  had 
been  whipped  children,  dispose  of  them  and  their  men's 
affairs — between  worker  and  employer,  between  man 
and  man  ?  What  order  of  creature  will  be  the  sons  and 
the  grandsons  of  men  ever  further  emasculated  by  every 
further  generation  of  subjection  by  such  masterful 
persons;  female-Dominants  who  arrogate  the  virile 
rights  and  prerogatives  of  their  menkind ;  their  initiative 
and  enterprise;  their  capacity  to  think,  to  speak,  to 
plan  and  to  act  for  themselves  ? 

The  Subjection  of  woman  by  man — What  was  that 
evil  compared  with  this  other  enormity  :  the  Subjection 
of  man  by  woman,  which  is  fast  replacing  it  ? 

Men  who — saving  under  stress  of  War — permit  women 
to  usurp  the  functions  and  prerogatives  of  their  natural 
domain,  in  capacities  of  Mayor,  of  Chairman  of  Com- 
panies and  so  forth,  are,  frankly  speaking — Muffs  ! 

Not  of  such  sires  were  our  great  Anglo-Saxon  Races 
gotten.  Not  such  was  it  who  have  made  England  what 
she  is  1  And  the  England  we  look  to  will  never  be  the 
England  we  look  to — until  such  effeminate  blood  shall 
have  been  bred  out  of  her  sons. 

The  male  becomes  emasculate  when  women  invade 
his  domain.  And  with  the  increasing  Hugger-mugger 
of  the  sexes,  it  grows,  every  day,  more  and  more  difficult 
for  men  to  escape  into  the  bracing,  invigorating  environ- 
ment and  moral  of  their  own  sex — a  moral  untempered 
by  amenities  due  to  the  other,  and  one  indispensable 
to  string  them  to  the  pitch  of  virile  thought  and  action. 


250        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

Our  sailors  and  soldiers  and  aviators  are  still  men, 
because  woman  has  not  so  far  invaded  the  Navy,  the 
Army,  or  the  Air. 

Feminine  invasion  everywhere  else — in  schools  and 
colleges,  in  the  arts,  in  politics,  in  commerce  and  in 
sports — is  undoubtedly  enfeebling  the  fibre  of  our 
manhood  and  the  quality  of  masculine  achievements. 
Man  is  a  pioneer ;  aggressive,  progressive,  ever  breaking 
new  ground;  conquering  new  territory  and  new  forces 
of  Nature.  And  this  alike  in  politics,  in  commerce,  and 
in  other  material  affairs.  When  he  fails  to  pioneer, 
reaching  out  to  new  horizons  of  thought  and  activity, 
engineering  new  enterprises,  while  at  the  same  time 
strengthening  and  consolidating  all  he  had  already 
acquired — then  the  world,  in  place  of  progressing, 
regresses.  And  for  pioneering,  whether  in  political  or 
in  geographical  regions,  woman's  presence  hampers 
him. 

The  less  men  are  in  a  position  to  escape  from  the 
other  sex,  the  more  they  lose  the  impetus  and  char- 
acteristics of  their  own. 

The  like  applies  to  women.  Women  who  mix  too 
much  and  too  freely  with  men  deteriorate  signally  in 
womanly  values  and  quality. 

Both  sexes  benefit  by  segregation  from  the  other,  in 
order  to  adapt — each  to  its  own  characteristic  morale 
and  moral.  Neither  sex  is  wholly  unconstrained  and 
candid  when  in  company  of  the  other — unless  both  are 
demoralised. 

Sex  operates  as  a  stimulant.  And  to  be  always 
under  influence  of  a  stimulant  is  enervating.  On  the 
other  hand,  when,  from  over-indulgence.  Sex  or  any 
other  stimulant  ceases  to  release  new  inspiration  and 
forces,  it  is  sign  of  a  permanently  enervated  state.  Or 
sex  operates  as  a  hypnotic.  And  to  be  always  under 
hypnotic  influence  is  as  destructive  of  individuality  as 
it  is  fatal  to  achievement. 


FEMINISTS   AND   FEMININISTS  251 

The  sexes  require  to  separate,  accordingly,  in  order 
to  derive  fresh  impulse  on  coming  together  again. 

Both  work  more  seriously  and  sincerely,  more  effici- 
ently and  more  effectively,  apart ;  taking  counsel,  when 
need  be,  one  of  the  other. 

The  dilettante  spirit  and  amenities  of  mixed  com- 
panies, destructive  of  "  thoroughness,"  are  greatly  to 
blame  for  that  decline  of  British  commerce  which  has 
followed  on  the  Feminist  invasion  of  business-houses. 

Significant  of  the  trend  is  the  fact  that  young  and 
pretty  and  inefficient  girls  are  selected  for  business 
positions,  as  clerks  and  so  forth,  v»diile  older  women  of 
experience  and  accredited  ability  are  rejected  summarily. 
It  is,  doubtless,  amusing  and  flattering  to  masculine 
employers  to  be  surrounded  by  attractive  youth  of  the 
opposite  sex.  But  it  is  conducive  neither  to  commercial 
enterprise  nor  to  achievement. 

IV 

Because  of  the  intrinsic  variability  underlying  her 
duality  of  constitution,  the  happy  mean  and  balance 
(difficult  to  all  humans)  are  especially  difficult  to 
woman. 

Man,  like  herself,  is  of  dual  constitution.  But  he  is 
more  firmly,  because  less  finely,  poised  between  his  two 
orders  of  Traits.  She,  on  the  contrary,  tends  to  oscillate 
between  the  opposite  extremes  of  her  two-sided  nature. 
A  bent  which  may  be  traced,  throughout  history,  in  the 
excesses,  in  one  or  the  other  direction,  that  have  char- 
acterised the  careers  of  many  famous  women-personages. 

The  Ultra-Feminine  extreme,  which  results  from  lack 
of  due  balance  of  her  woman-side  by  the  masculine  side 
of  her,  and  the  Mannish  extreme,  occasioned  by  over- 
development of  her  masculine  inherences,  may  be 
regarded  as,  respectively,  the  Scylla  and  Charybdis — 
the  rocks  of  the  Male-traits,  or  the  vortex  of  the  Female- 


252        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

traits — whereon,  equally,  may  be  wrecked  the  noblest 
characteristics  and  the  highest  values  of  the  sex,  when  it 
fails  to  steer  clear,  in  medias  res,  of  either. 

In  a  number  of  women,  the  Feminist  and  the  Femin- 
inist  (Ultra-Feminine)  types  alternate  in  the  same 
person.  In  place  of  being  stably  and  permanently 
centred  in  the  woman-side  of  them,  with  the  masculine 
to  steady  and  intelligise,  such  persons  act  and  re-act, 
in  more  or  less  violent  pendulum-swing,  between  their 
two  orders  of  impulse.  Thus  we  get  women,  intellectual, 
progressive,  strenuous,  engrossed  for  part  of  their  time 
in  serious,  perhaps  in  public  avocations — and  then 
plunging,  in  violent  recoil,  into  social  frivolities ;  vanities, 
dissipations,  pranks,  intrigues,  excesses. 

Men,  too,  act  between  extremes.  In  far  less  degree, 
however.  Life  demands  from  most  of  them  over- 
accentuation  and  concentration  of  their  male-abilities, 
in  physical  and  mental  specialisations.  And  in  re- 
action, they  plunge  into  follies  and  vices.  But  the  more 
virile  keep  their  heads,  and  preserve  a  certain  stability 
and  conformity  in  their  aberrations.  While  effeminate 
men,  it  is  mainly  who  lapse  into  vicious  excess. 

Since  woman  supplies  the  inspiration  and  the  morale 
of  life,  however,  and  since  her  momentous  function  of 
motherhood  empowers  her  to  make  or  to  mar  the  Race 
whereof  she  is  creatrix,  a  nation  has  a  greater  claim 
upon  its  women,  and  has,  at  the  same  time,  more  reason 
and  more  right  to  restrict  their  liberty  of  action,  and  to 
direct  their  bent,  than  it  has  in  the  case  of  its  men.  Its 
survival  and  its  downfall  tremble  in  the  scales  of  Life 
which  woman  holds.  To  compensate  her  for  such 
restriction  and  limitation  of  her  scope,  obviously  it  owes 
her  privileges,  personal  and  economic.  And  a  sub- 
conscious recognition  of  this  fact  has  been,  doubtless, 
the  source  of  such  privileges  as  she  now  enjoys. 

There  have  always  been,  as  history  shows,  women  in 


FEMINISTS   AND   FEMININISTS  253 

whom,  from  faulty  heredity  or  culture,  or  from  stress 
of  circumstance,  the  Male-traits  have  been  abnormally 
developed  ;  virile-brained,  stout-hearted,  muscular 
chieftainesses,  chatelaines,  abbesses,  matrons;  or  (in 
less  agreeable  guise)  amazons,  shrews  and  viragoes. 
But  always  such  were  recognised  as  being  abnormal, 
and  for  the  most  part  as  being  repellant.  It  was  not 
sought  to  manufacture  them.  It  is  only  of  late  years 
that  Mannishness  has  become  a  serious  Cult. 

And  now  a  dangerous  thing  has  happened.  Because 
where  formerly  symptoms  of  Feminism  attacked  indi- 
viduals only — and  these  mainly  the  mature  and  eccentric 
— now  the  young  and  the  normal  are  being  indoctrinated 
wholesale.  Young  girls  taken  during  the  malleable 
phases  of  growth  and  development,  and  forcibly  shaped 
to  masculine  modes,  become  more  or  less  irretrievably 
male  of  trait  and  bent ;  losing  all  power  to  recover  the 
womanly  normal. 

While  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  assembling  to-day, 
in  an  opposite  ever-increasing  and  menacing  camp, 
those  others  for  whom  Feminism,  with  its  extremist, 
exacting,  self-reliant  codes  and  modes,  has  no  appeal; 
the  pretty  mindless,  the  idle  frivolous,  the  pleasure- 
seeker,  the  freakish  and  the  conscienceless — in  a  word, 
the  Ultra-Feminines ;  in  whom  the  woman-failings  are 
unfortunately  more  conspicuous  than  are  the  woman- 
virtues.  Between  these  two  extremes  stand  (and  stand 
so  far  in  gratifying  number)  the  natural,  admirably- 
balanced,  noble  and  invaluable  Moderates — normal 
women  content  to  be  normal  women,  and  to  fulfil  the 
destined  role  of  such.  And  these  are  the  saving  grace 
of  nations. 

Apart  from  these,  the  sex  is  ever  further  and  more 
dangerously  separating  into  the  two  extremist  camps; 
the  Mannish  and  strenuous,  and  the  Over-Feminised 
and  purposeless,  more  or  less  idle  and  frivolous,  selfishly 
absorbed  in  clothes,  in  luxury  and  pleasures;  exacting 


254        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

masculine  tribute  in  mind   and  kind,   with   but  little 
return  in  affection  or  ministry. 

In  place,  accordingly,  of  that  fine  normal  poise  of 
the  Contrasting  Man  and  Woman-Traits — which  is  the 
way  of  Evolution  and  of  Progress — ^there  is  being  substi- 
tuted in  the  sex  this  degenerative  segregation  of  its 
Traits  in  two  wholly  opposite,  and  equally  lopsided 
types.  And  of  these,  the  purposeful  and  strenuous,  all 
the  while  making  for  masculine  standards,  are  all  the 
while  further  discarding  the  beauty,  the  emotions,  the 
delicacy  and  morale  of  true  woman ;  while  the  mindless 
and  vain,  the  attractive  and  charming,  are  more  and 
more  divorcing  themselves  from  purpose,  from  serious- 
ness, from  noble  endeavour  and  usefulness. 

And  since  rights  accorded  to  women  are  shared  by  all, 
every  new  privilege  Feminists  win  for  the  sex  in  the 
sweat  of  their  assiduous  brows — liberty,  latchkeys  and 
general  latitude — the  Ultra-Feminines  snatch,  and  apply 
to  frivolous  and  profitless,  or  to  demoralising  ends; 
licence,  extravagances,  vices. 

The  Ultra-Feminine,  for  the  most  part  shallow  and 
mindless  (although  many  clever  women  belong  to  this 
order),  absorbed  in  complacent  culture  of  her  oftentimes 
alluring  personality,  enhancing  it,  attiring  it,  developing 
its  charm  and  graces,  eager  of  homage  and  of  tribute,  is 
example  of  that  Parasitism  Miss  Schreiner  condemns 
in  the  sex;  example  of  qualities  normally  making  for 
beauty,  but  from  loss  of  balance,  owing  to  warp,  heredi- 
tary or  of  misdirection,  morbidly  feeding  upon  themselves. 

This  Parasitism  is  seen  in  its  worst  guise  in  the  vast 
armies  of  prostitutes,  who  in  every  clime  and  epoch 
ravage  the  fair  fruits  of  human  life  and  achievement. 

Against  this  Parasitism  in  herself,  self-absorbing, 
self-indulgent,  enervating — defect  of  her  reposefulness, 
of  her  sestheticism  and  vital  self-consciousness — every 
woman  needs  to  be  upon  her  guard;  to  repress  with 
firmness  the  smooth  easy  lapse  it  prompts  toward  sloth 


FEMINISTS   AND   FEMININISTS  255 

and  pleasure ;  to  exorcise  the  soft  dry-rot  of  it,  by  power 
of  aspiration  and  by  prayer  of  ministry,  (For  noble 
truth  it  is  that  Labor  are  est  or  are,) 

The  Woman's  Movement  did  good  service  for  the  sex 
in  the  early  chapters  of  its  history,  when  it  made  for  due 
education  of  woman's  higher  masculine  inherences; 
intelligence,  application,  self-reliance;  as  also  in  finding 
further  fields  of  usefulness  and  self-expression  for  her. 

But  unfortunately  in  the  later  chapters,  over-cultiva- 
tion of  these  traits  has  increasingly  annulled  and  extin- 
guished her  own.  And  this  with  the  unforeseen,  dis- 
quieting resultant  that  a  compensatory  movement  has 
set  in  apace  among  that  other  faction  of  the  sex.  So 
that  the  more  mannish  the  Feminists  become  in  mode 
and  aim,  the  more  Womanish  become  the  Effeminates. 
Thus,  albeit  sincerely  despising  and  decrying  this, 
Feminism  has  nevertheless  indirectly  fostered  the 
growth  of  Effeminacy.  While,  by  supplying  it  with  ever 
further  liberty  and  scope  for  the  indulgence  of  its  freaks 
and  failings.  Feminist  propaganda  has  directly  played 
into  its  hands.  Motherhood  strikes  deeper  roots  of 
attribute  even  in  the  Ultra-Feminine ;  brings  thin  streams 
of  altruism  to  her  neurasthenic  breasts.  In  her  children 
she  forgets  clothes,  grows  less  greedy  of  masculine 
tribute,  forgoes  pleasures  and  excitements  that  had 
been  the  breath  of  life  to  her. 

The  increasing  emancipation  of  the  sex  from  home- 
functions  and  from  womanly  and  mother-duties,  however 
— claimed  and  obtained  with  a  view  to  further  economic 
scope  and  application  of  its  powers — has  been  exultantly 
hailed  and  exploited  by  the  Ultra-Feminines  for  ever 
further  indulgence  of  and  wider  range  of  action  for  their 
dangerous  defects.  And  Feminism  will  find — -and  this 
soon  to  its  dismay — that  the  battle  it  has  waged  against 
the  other  sex  has  been  as  nothing  to  the  battle  it  has  yet 
to  wage  against  its  own,  in  the  person  of  the  Eternal 
Effeminate;    idle,  luxurious,  parasitic  and  effete,  who, 


256        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

with  her  brood,  engenders  the  dry-rot  which  crumbles 
mighty  civiHsations,  or  topples  them  in  Revolution. 


Of  the  two  camps,  the  vast  majority  of  masculines 
will  always  seek  their  loves  and  wives  among  the  Ultra- 
Feminines ;  frail  and  erratic,  but  attractive  and  more  or 
less  womanly.  So  long  as  men  are  men,  the  feminine 
graces,  even  in  their  spurious  forms  of  Effeminacy,  will 
possess  more  vital  appeal  for  them  than  do  the  intelli- 
gences and  utilities. 

The  Feminist  camp,  further  and  further  commandeer- 
ing the  intelligent  and  self-reliant,  the  worthy  and 
purposeful  of  the  sex,  while  more  and  more  discarding  the 
charms  and  the  softness  thereof,  will  be  further  and 
further  deserted  by  men.  And  of  the  happy  mean — ^the 
well-balanced  woman,  at  oiice  tender  and  intelligent, 
devoted  and  charming — ^there  will  be  ever  fewer  available. 

What  then  is  the  future,  biological  and  sociological, 
of  Races  whose  wives  and  mothers  will  have  been  drawn 
mainly  from  the  shallow-brained  and  shallow-hearted, 
from  the  less  dutiful,  the  less  high  and  right-minded? 
To  say  nothing  of  the  less  constitutionally-sound,  the 
Ultra-Feminine  being,  for  the  most  part,  a  neurotic? 
The  great  majority  of  such  will  decline  part,  indeed,  in 
functions  so  dull  and  distasteful  as  the  mothering  and 
rearing  of  children. 

The  Feminist  wife,  with  her  intelligent  grip  of  econo- 
mics and  her  stern  sense  of  citizen-duty,  would  fulfil 
her  racial  function  (in  accordance  with  Malthusius) 
during  intervals  of  more  absorbing  and  strenuous  activi- 
ties. But  when  once  the  novelty — which  gives  a  certain 
piquancy  for  some  men  to  a  mannishness  some  women 
are  able  to  wear  quite  prettily  and  attractively  in  early 
youth — shall  have  worn  away,  the  poor  Feminist's 
chances  of  marriage  will  be  few,  indeed ;  save  with  men- 


FEMINISTS  AND  FEMININISTS  25T 

weaklings,  requiring  the  virile  support  of  a  strong-minded, 
muscular  wife. 

The  Feminist  makes  a  far  more  honest  and  reliable, 
sincere  and  helpful,  mate  than  does  the  Ultra-Feminine. 
But  men  prefer  the  latter. 

Male  characteristics  are  to  be  found  among  their 
male  acquaintance.  And  it  is  not  a  normal,  nor  is  it  a 
wholesome  instinct  in  a  man,  to  seek  in  sex  the  traits  of 
his  own. 

In  the  cult  of  Mannishness,  woman  loses  her  strongest, 
her  noblest  and  tender  est  appeal  for  true  men — ^tlie 
appeal  of  her  womanhood.  And  losing  it,  she  abandons 
the  male  to  the  toils  of  the  enemy  camp ;  to  those  whose 
womanishness  partakes,  at  all  events,  of  the  attributes 
of  a  sex  complementary  and  supplementary  to  his  own. 
*****  * 

Unhappy  wights  1  How  Nature  has  handicapped 
them — in  order  to  spur  them  to  their  virile  part  of 
founding  and  providing  for  the  family  I 


VI 

As  innocent  of  misappropriating  that  which  is  Caesar's 
as  they  are  ignorant  of  the  biological  verities,  some 
Women-leaders  and  Prime-movers  in  Feminism  exact 
and  exult  in  the  warm  young,  zealous  adulation  and 
hero-worship  of  their  followers;  never  suspecting  that 
such  tribute  is  rendered,  in  fact,  to  the  male  in  them. 
Both  they  and  their  votaries  believe  themselves  loyal 
and  thrall  to  their  finger-tips  to  Woman  and  The  Woman- 
Cause.  Whereas  they  are,  in  reality,  hero-worshipping, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  Male  in  their  Cult,  and  on  the  other, 
the  Masculine  traits  of  its  female  exponents.  Against 
man  himself  and  the  Maleness  that  is  his  by  natural  right, 
many  are  filled  with  hottest  distrust  and  aversion.  Yet 
while  sex-antagonism  is  thus  strong  in  them  in  fealty 
to  their  creed,  Nature  is  strong  in  them  too.     And  with 


258        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

gentle  irony  she  exacts  their  homage  for  the  traits  of  the 
foe — ^masquerading  in  guise  of  a  female  ! 

Heroes  to  worship,  every  naturally-constituted  woman 
craves.  And  it  is  the  hero — far  less  than  it  is  the  heroine 
— in  the  Feminist  leaders,  their  qualities  of  fight  and 
masterfulness,  of  virile  brain  and  concrete  enterprise, 
which  evoke  their  adherents'  devotion  and  tribute. 

Some  Feminist  leaders  bid,  indeed,  as  strenuously  for 
and  claim  as  jealously  the  undivided  loyalty  and  sub- 
jection of  their  flock  as  ever  Tyrant-Man  demanded  of 
the  sex. 

In  schools  and  colleges  too,  the  girls  make  gods  and 
heroes  of  those  of  their  sex  who  excel  in  manly  sports. 
They  have  never  a  suspicion  that  their  gods  and  heroes 
are  not  goddesses  and  heroines.  Similars  being  unattrac- 
tive to  one  another,  the  exposition  of  woman-traits 
leaves  woman  more  or  less  unmoved.  As  Nature 
destined,  the  woman-heart  goes  out  to  those  virtues 
and  valours  which  are  the  natural  complement  of  her  own. 

This  latter-day  vogue  is  not  a  normal,  nor  a  pretty 
development.  But  it  is  another  of  the  inevitable 
consequences  of  disturbing  Nature's  balances.  Nature's 
plan  and  her  methods  of  administration  are  so  perfect 
that  when  left  to  herself  she  preserves  her  equilibrium 
and  secures  her  aims  by  the  safest  and,  at  the  same  time, 
by  the  simplest  expedients.  When  man  destroys  the 
hawks  which,  normally,  reduce  the  smaller  fry  of  birds 
to  their  allotted  quotum  in  the  Scheme  of  Things, 
however,  the  smaller  fry  multiply  inordinately  and  devour 
his  cherries  and  his  corn.  And  when  he  destroys  the 
smaller  fry,  the  slugs  and  grubs  and  aphides  multiply 
and  devour  his  lettuces  and  roses. 

So  it  is  with  Human  traits  and  faculties.  The  balance 
of  The  Normal  is  the  way  alone  of  health  and  happiness 
and  progress. 

There   is  great  boast  now-a-days  of  friendship   and 


FEMINISTS   AND  FEMININISTS  259 

comradeship  between  the  sexes.  Yet  though  friendship 
and  comradeship  are  good  alHes  of  love,  they  are  but 
sterile,  uninspiring  substitutes  for  the  profounder, 
higher,  vital  and  undying  emotions  of  the  true  love- 
passion. 

On  the  other  hand,  attachments  between  men  and  men, 
and  between  women  and  women,  are  strengthening  and 
intensifying ;  absorbing  the  emotion  and  devotion  formerly 
and  normally  bestowed  on  members  of  the  opposite 
sex.  While  attraction  between  persons  of  opposite 
sex  becomes  ever  lighter  and  triter  in  sentiment ;  serving 
more  and  more  for  brief  distraction  and  provocative 
pastime  rather  than  for  a  living  and  abiding  bond. 

This  misplaced  affection  for  members  of  the  same  sex 
arises  from  the  attraction  of  traits  of  the  opposite  sex 
unduly  developed  in  them.  While  indifference  to 
members  of  the  opposite  sex  results  from  lack  in  these 
of  the  characteristics  of  their  sex,  normally  accentuated. 
Thus  a  woman  is  more  drawn  to  one  of  her  own  sex 
possessing  virile  characteristics,  physical  or  mental,  than 
she  is  drawn  to  a  weak-brained,  emasculate  man.  Mascu- 
line women  are  attracted  likewise  by  the  womanly  graces 
and  quality  of  feminine  women. 

While  men  find  in  some  members  of  their  own  sex, 
feminine  traits  of  sympathy  and  sentiment  absent  in 
women  of  male-proclivity.  All  is  an  expression  of  the 
law  of  the  Attraction  of  Opposites,  which  (normally) 
causes  persons  of  opposite  sex  to  be  strongly  drawn  to 
one  another. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  development  in  himself,  or  in 
herself,  of  the  characteristics  of  the  opposite  sex  makes 
members  of  either  sex  independent  of  and  indifferent  to 
members  of  the  other,  by  supplying  them  with  a  spurious 
counterfeit  of  qualities  it  is  natural  to  seek  in  those 
others. 


260       FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

VII 

Professor  Drummond,  from  whom  I  quote  frequently, 
as  being  one  of  those  biologists  on  the  side  of  the  angels, 
writes  thus  beautifully  : 

"  Sex  is  a  paradox ;  it  is  that  which  separates 
in  order  to  unite.  .  .  .  There  is  no  instance  in 
Nature  of  Division  of  Labour  being  brought  to  such 
extreme  specialisation.  The  two  sexes  were  not 
only  set  apart  to  perform  different  halves  of  the  same 
function,  but  each  so  entirely  lost  the  power  of 
performing  the  whole  function  that  even  with  so 
great  a  thing  at  stake  as  the  continuance  of  the 
species  one  could  not  discharge  it. 

"  It  is  important  to  notice  this  absence  of  necessity 
for  Sex  having  been  created — ^the  absence  of  any 
known  necessity,  from  the  merely  physiological 
standpoint. 

"Is  it  inconceivable  that  Nature  should  some- 
times do  things  with  an  ulterior  object,  an  ethical 
one,  for  instance  ?  To  no  one  with  any  acquaintance 
with  Nature's  ways,  will  it  be  possible  to  conceive 
of  such  a  purpose  as  the  sole  purpose. 

"  Had  Sex  done  nothing  more  than  make  an 
interesting  world,  the  debt  of  Evolution  to  Re- 
production had  been  incalculable.  .  .  .  What 
exactly  Maleness  is,  and  what  Femaleness,  has  been 
one  of  the  problems  of  the  world.  At  least  five 
hundred  theories  of  their  origin  are  already  in  the 
field,  but  the  solution  seems  to  have  baffled  every 
approach.  Sex  has  remained  almost  to  the  present 
hour  an  ultimate  mystery  of  creation.  .  .  . 

"  The  contribution  of  each  to  the  evolution  of 
the  human  race  is  special  and  unique.  To  the  man 
has  been  mainly  assigned  the  fulfilment  of  the  first 
great  function — the  Struggle  for  Life.  Woman, 
whose  higher  contribution  has  not  yet  been  named, 


FEMINISTS   AND  FEMININISTS  261 

is  the  chosen  instrument  for  carrying  on  the  Struggle 
for  the  Life  of  Others. 

"  That  task,  translated  into  one  great  word  is 

Maternity — which  is  nothing  but  the  Struggle  for 

the  Life  of  Others  transfigured,  transferred  to  the 

moral  sphere.     Focused  in  a  single   human  being, 

this  function,  as  we  rise  in  history,  slowly  begins 

to  be  accompanied  by  those  heaven-born  psychical 

states  which  transform  the  femaleness  of  the  older 

order  into  the  Motherhood  of  the  New." 

Out  of  the  misconception  of  Sex  as  having  no  other 

purpose  or  significance  than  that  of  reproduction  merely, 

there  has  arisen  the  further  misconception  that,  lacking 

other  purpose  or  significance,  the  sex-characteristics  of 

Woman  may  be  obliterated  in  her  not  only  without 

injury,  but  with   benefit  to   her;    as  being  superfluous 

and  hampering  impedimenta  merely,  when  reproductive 

issues  are  beside  the  question. 

Yet  since  Faculty  lapses  first  in  its  latest  and  highest 
developments,  sex-deterioration  manifests  most  in  the 
higher  mental  and  moral  Sex-characteristics.  One 
result,  therefore,  of  not  fostering,  by  culture  and  by 
avocation,  sex-specialisations  upon  planes  of  mind  and 
aptitude,  is  that,  while  lapsing  in  its  higher  functions, 
Sex  remains  operative  still  upon  the  physical  plane,  and 
functions  crudely — perhaps  viciously  thereon.  Just  as 
intelligence  becomes  dense  and  degraded  when  its  finer 
qualities  are  not  exercised,  and  their  development  thus 
raised  to  finer  issues.  Moreover,  by  denying  to  Sex  and 
to  the  rites  of  love  any  but  parental  issues,  the  individual, 
emotional  and  spiritual  issues  of  the  human  union  are 
ignored ;  a  limitation  all  the  more  dishonouring,  because 
of  the  present-day  misconception  of  parenthood  as 
being  a  purely  "  physical,"  and,  accordingly,  an  inferior 
function. 

There  is  not,  of  course,  in  all  the  complex  marvel  of 
human  metabolism,  such  an  anomaly  as  a  purely  physical 


262        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

function.  Digestion  even  is  far,  indeed,  from  being  such, 
since  by  way  of  this  a  sHce  of  bread  is  transformed  into 
Hving  personaUty,  living  thought  and  impulse,  living 
action. 

Sex  is  manifestly  a  Spiritual  and  an  Eternal  Principle. 
Because,  by  way  of  its  essential  dual  differentiations  and 
intensifying  operations,  Matter  becomes  endued  not  only 
with  Life  and  Faculty,  but,  having  become  Living  Matter, 
it  becomes  endued,  by  power  of  reproduction,  with  the 
potential  of  eternal  Life  and  Faculty.  Even  more,  it 
becomes  endued  with  the  potential  of  the  eternal  unfold- 
ment  of  ever -further  intensifying  Life  and  Faculty. 

Sex  is,  in  truth,  for  both  genders,  such  a  convergence 
of  every  characteristic — physical,  mental  and  emotional — 
in  a  highly  specialised  focus,  that  the  whole  outlook 
upon  life  becomes  highly  specialised  and  intensified 
thereby;  every  impression  and  experience  becoming 
instinct  and  charged  with  intrinsic  meanings,  vividness 
and  colour.  And  this  apart  wholly  from  relation  to  the 
other  sex.  Although,  of  course,  the  focus  and  intensity 
of  the  traits  of  the  one  sex  are  accentuated  in  vividness 
and  richness,  in  response  to  the  complementary  traits  of 
the  other. 

It  is  Sex  that  energises  men  to  be  great ;  great  leaders 
of  men,  great  writers,  great  statesmen,  great  soldiers, 
great  sailors,  explorers — great  sinners  and  great  saints. 

Sex  it  is  makes  women  great  also ;  great  mates  for 
great  men,  great  mothers,  writers,  ministers  to  poor 
Humanity — great  saints. 

The  mystery  of  Sex  is,  surely.  Master-key  to  all  the 
other  mysteries  of  the  Cosmos. 

*  4t  *  *  *  * 


VIII 

In  aiming  at  Hermaphrodism,  Feminism  is  contriving 
not  only  at  frustration  of  all  that  Evolution  has  achieved 


FEMINISTS   AND   FEMININISTS  263 

in  Life  and  Faculty,  but  it  is  making  for  the  extinction  of 
Life  itself. 

The  Hermaphrodite  is  incapable  of  parenthood.  And 
in  the  degree  to  which  members  of  either  sex  lapse 
toward  Neuterdom,  in  body  or  in  mind,  they  become 
incapable  of  transmitting  to  offspring  all  those  higher 
developments  of  form  and  faculty  which  are,  essentially, 
Sex-differentiations.  The  present-day  decline  in  par- 
ental impulse  and  affection,  which  shows,  among  other 
signs,  in  ever-decreasing  Birth-rates,  is  a  symptom  of 
temperamental  Neuterdom;  evidence  alike  of  Sex- 
decline,  and,  in  this,  of  decline  of  that  vital  energy  and 
spiritual  impulse  whereof  Sex  is  the  manifestation. 

Such  trend  toward  Race-suicide  denotes,  in  the  Race, 
that  same  neurasthenia  and  pusillanimity,  which,  in  the 
individual,  impel  him  to  personal  suicide. 

Latter-day  marriage,  greedily  grasping  all  that  Life 
and  Love  bestow  while  grudging  any  due  to  Life  and  Love, 
is  not  true  Marriage — but  is  sacrilege. 

Between  this  and  the  mating  of  true  men  and  women, 
who,  in  gratitude  for  Love,  pay  tribute  joyfully  to  Life 
in  lives  to  follow  after  them,  is  all  the  vital  difference, 
in  impulse  and  emotion,  between  the  Ship  of  Love — with 
its  mysterious  freight — immured  within  a  narrow  lock 
whereof  the  gate  to  the  Beyond  is  sealed,  and  the  Ship 
of  Love  launched  free  upon  the  open  sea  of  Human 
Destiny — a  Shining  sea  of  Faith  and  Hope,  which  tides 
beyond  the  narrow  mortal  gateway  toward  a  Great 
Unknown;  Remote,  Illimitable,  Veiled  in  Everlasting 
Silence. 

This  ship  fares  forth  upon  its  voyage  of  Mystery, 
beatified  by  full  surrender  of  all  lesser  issues  to  that 
sacred  one  of  the  Eternal  Human — a  surrender  which 
endues  true  marriage  with  tenderness  and  awe  and  beauty. 

Do  we  not  pitch  our  songs  too  low,  0  sweet — my  Singers  ? 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   IMPENDING   SUBJECTION    OF   MAN 

The  Earth  never  tires  ....  Nature  is  rude   and  incompre- 
hensible at  first; 

Be  not   discouraged,   keep   on,   there   are   divine   things   well 
envelop'd ; 

I  swear  to  you  there  are  Divine  Things  more  beautiful  than 
words  can  tell." 

Walt  Whitman, 


In  the  long  and  painful  history  of  man's  more  or  less 
total  failure  to  value  and  to  honour  woman  for  her 
greatest,  her  most  vital  and  self-sacrificing  part  in  human 
affairs,  none  has  approached  in  obliquity  his  recent 
deplorable  blunder  of  awarding  her  the  suffrage  and  the 
right  to  sit  in  Parliament,  as  recognition  of  her  War- 
services. 

All  the  long  ages  of  Mother-surrender,  of  quiet  heroism 
and  attainment,  all  the  best,  beautiful  years  of  women's 
lives  which  the  burden  and  sickness,  the  weariness, 
danger  and  anguish  have  devoured  down  the  centuries, 
while  the  mothers  were  giving  themselves  to  be  the 
nation's  bone  and  blood  and  brain,  to  nourish,  cherish, 
and  upbring  it — ^AU  were  passed  over  without  word  or 
sign. 

Not  for  her  long  ages  of  devoted  duty  to  the  nation's 
sick  and  helpless,  for  rearing  and  safeguarding  its  price- 
less infant  and  child-life,  for  administering  its  homes — 
fashioning,  cleansing,  beautifying,  contriving,  making 
the  utmost  of  its  means  and  ends — Not  for  her  inestimable 
services  as  man's  good  comrade  and  wise  counseller,  his 

love  and  friend  and  faithful  help,  in  sorrow,  evil  and 

264 


SUBJECTION   OF  MAN  265 

adversity;  not  even  for  her  age-long,  arduous  labours 
and  achievements  in  Religion,  Charity,  Reform.  For 
none  of  these,  her  great  intrinsic  and  eternal  ministries 
to  Life  and  to  Humanity,  has  man  now  set  her  by  him  in 
the  Van  of  Things. 

But  for  filling  shells  and  felling  trees,  for  turning 
lathes  and  driving  motors,  ploughing  fields  and  lighting 
street-lamps — all  valuable  duties,  it  is  true,  in  the  crisis 
we  have  passed  through,  and  indispensable  to  carrying 
on  the  nation's  business.  Yet  what  a  drop  from  the 
supreme  and  tender  to  the  trite  and  banal,  from  the  vital 
and  essential  to  the  merely  incidental,  is  seen  in  this 
belated  recompense. 

Not  woman.  Generatrix  of  Humanity  and  inspiration 
of  all  that  is  fairest  in  Humanity,  has  been  now  honoured 
— but  woman  the  bus -conductor,  ticket-clipper,  clerk 
and  agricultural  labourer,  woman  in  breeches  and  work- 
man's overall,  woman  whom  German  frightfulness  had 
dislocated  for  a  space  from  her  high  lot  and  labours; 
twisting  her  powers  awry  to  fit  a  hideous  revulsion  of 
barbarism. 

How,  if  the  gods  ever  laugh  at  the  fantastic  tricks  of 
poor  mankind,  they  must  now  have  laughed  (or  wept) 
over  the  opportunity  that  one  sex  had — and  forfeited 
— to  requite  the  other's  finest  merit. 

How  deeply-moving  and  far-reaching  in  its  impulse 
and  its  inspiration  would  have  been  the  tribute,  had  it 
been  made  in  reverent  gratitude  to  the  mothersi-of-men 
who  had  saved  the  world  by  mothering  the  men  who 
saved  the  Empire — For  achievement  stamped  with  the 
high  and  unique  quality  of  service  that  woman  alone 
could  have  rendered.  And  not  because,  when  tested  by 
men's  standards,  she  proved  herself  a  worthy  second-best 
in  doing  things  that  men  have  always  done. 

The  gods  must  long  have  wept,  I  think,  that  men  had 
thought  so  lightly  of  the  women  living  every  day  beside 
them,  surrendering  their  lives  and  powers,  their  interests, 


266        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

desires  and  individuation ;  toiling  over  cooking-pans  and 
wash-tubs,  tied  for  years  to  children's  cots,  for  life  to 
some  or  another  person's  sick-bed;  smothering  talents, 
impulse,  hopes,  impatiences,  to  find  the  soft  and  simple 
word ;  solacing,  inspiring,  making-believe  above  an  aching 
spirit  and  a  breaking  heart  that  all  was  fair  and  well 
with  the  world.  And,  moreover,  in  every  generation 
making  these  beautiful  fictions  ever  a  fraction  more 
truth  and  less  fiction.  For  the  gods  alone  know  how 
that  kindlier,  purer  and  more  tender  Home-environment 
which  women  have  created  in  men's  stony-hearted  cities 
involves  the  most  laborious,  heart-wearing,  complex 
and  widest  exercise  of  faculty  of  any  human  task. 

Women  themselves  had  long  been  tiring  of  it;  stung 
to  the  soul  and  mortified  by  centuries  of  man's  ingrati- 
tude— when  not  contempt.  Nevertheless,  where  love 
and  duty  did  not,  chains  of  custom  and  tradition  bound 
them  faithful  to  their  oars. 

Till  German  Frightfulness  releasing  them,  the  cry  is 
now  : 

Since  you  can  do  something  better  and  more  profitable 
than  merely  to  row  the  old  Galley  of  Life — since  you 
can  do  men's  work,  forsooth,  come  out  into  the  market- 
place and  help  us  pay  our  big  War-Bill ! 

And  yet — Whither  will  drift  the  Galley  of  Life  when 
its  rowers  put  their  strength  elsewhere  ? 


II 

In  the  haze  of  false  sentiment  exaggerating — not  the 
value  of  masculine  work  done  by  the  sex  during  War, 
because  this  was,  of  course,  invaluable  and  indispensable, 
but  exaggerating,  absolutely,  the  values  of  this  work  as 
compared  with  the  woman's  work  it  had  been  doing 
previously,  the  decision  to  admit  women  to  Parliament 
was  a  precipitate  and  an  ill-considered  measure,  by  no 
means  innocent  of  party  motive. 


SUBJECTION   OF  MAN  267 

Threatening,  as  it  does,  a  drastic  sweep  of  all  political, 
economic  and  every  other  difference  between  the 
standards,  training,  and  employment  of  the  sexes,  it  was 
pressed  forward,  nevertheless,  not  only  with  character- 
istic masculine  failure  to  recognise  the  vital  significance 
of  the  other  sex  in  Human  Things,  but  in  utter  blindness 
to  social  and  racial  consequences,  immediate  and  remote, 
which  make  it  possibly  the  most  momentous  decision 
ever  arrived  at  in  the  history  of  human  progress. 

Showing  how  little  it  was  known  for  the  turning-point 
in  our  great  destiny,  the  question  was  debated  with 
unseemly  levity,  while  less  than  half  the  parliamentary 
members  troubled  (or  had  hardihood)  to  record  their 
votes ;  the  abstention  of  the  others  proving  which  way 
blew  the  straws  of  their  faint  wills.  And  of  those  voting 
in  favour,  half,  perhaps,  did  so  (as  some  confessed)  under 
intimidation  of  otherwise  losing  their  seats.  (What 
would  be  said  of  the  soldier  who  should  turn  his  back 
upon  the  enemy  for  fear  of  losing  life  even  ?) 

No  more  than  twenty-five  found  courage  to  sayT:heir 
"  No's  "  like  honest  gentleman. 

Yet  far  from  Enfranchisement  having  been  a  burning 
need  blazing  in  the  hearts  of  women,  their  newly-awarded 
vote  required  to  be  spurred  and  whipped  out  of  all 
but  a  small  minority.  Or  coaxed  from  them  by 
abandoning  appeal  on  all  the  wider  issues  of  Imperial 
and  national  policy,  and,  in  so  far  as  their  interest  was 
sought,  by  reducing  the  programme  to  personal  and 
domestic  issues — electric  lighting  in  their  parlours,  hot- 
water  taps  in  their  kitchens,  and  so  forth. 

And  here  was  seen,  at  once,  the  threat  of  a  grave  and 
an  increasing  diversion  from  that  purely  political  outlook 
of  men,  which  should  be  impersonal  in  issue,  broad  in 
enterprise.  Not  that  the  human  and  domestic  side  is  a 
whit  less  momentous  than  the  more  abstract  and  national. 
But  appealing  to  a  different  order  of  mind,  it  demands 


268        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

that   different  order  of  mind  which   characterises  the 
woman-sex,  to  deal  with  it  effectively. 

The  plea  that  women  will  acquire  in  time  the  masculine 
political  view-point  threatens,  on  the  other  hand,  the  loss 
in  them  of  their  own  highly-specialised  and  invaluable 
interests,  morale  and  qualities;  which,  being  womanly 
of  impulse  and  of  trend,  make  for  the  individual  welfare, 
happiness  and  elevation  of  the  nation's  members. 

Ill 

As  with  every  other  human  function,  there  are  two 
departments  of  politics.  And  the  House  of  Commons 
represents  man's. 

It  stands  for  all  that  is  best  accomplished  politically 
by  his  highly-specialised  order  of  brain ;  by  his  concrete 
energy  and  initiative,  his  justice  and  rationalism,  his 
power  of  administration,  and  his  uncompromising 
sternness — pitilessness,  if  need  be — to  deal  with  and  to 
punish  crime  and  aggression,  national  and  international. 
It  stands,  in  a  word,  for  that  virile  outlook  and  the  virile 
grip  in  Statesmanship  which  are  indispensable  to  mate- 
rialise a  people's  prosperity  and  to  pioneer  its  progress. 
These  are  the  functions  of  men.  Just  as  the  Army  and 
Navy,  Science  and  Commerce,  are  the  functions  of  men. 
Because  the  male  bent  and  intellect  are  those  best  fitted 
to  raise  these  developments  to  their  highest  and  most 
effective  issues,  just  as  the  male  physique  and  energy 
are  best  fitted  to  achieve  these  issues  in  material  results. 

Had  anything  been  needed  to  emphasise  the  values  of 
such  virile  characteristics  in  the  administration  of  a 
nation's  policy,  the  War  furnished  it.  And  the  many 
blunders  and  vacillations  marring  the  conduct  of  the 
War  emphasised  the  lack  of  these  invaluable  masculine 
qualities  in  the  concurrent  House  of  Commons.  Army, 
Navy,  and  Air-Services  proved  their  manhood  doughtily 
in  their  respective  provinces.  Had  they  been  supple- 
mented by  an  equally  virile  Statesmanship,  the  War, 


SUBJECTION  OF  MAN  269 

having  begun,  would  have  been  brought  to  a  speedy 
termination.     In  point  of  fact,  it  would  never  have  begun. 

If  now,  our  British  politics  are  already  so  lacking  in 
the  manly  ability  and  grip  indispensable  to  national 
permanence  and'  progress,  the  presence  of  women  in 
Parliament  can  but  further  emasculate  these.  It  may 
be  said  that  some  women  outside  the  House  are  more 
male  of  mind  and  mode  (not  to  speak  of  muscle)  than  are 
some  men  inside.  But  this  is  reason,  surely,  for  replacing 
these  weak  males  by  stronger  ones,  rather  than  for 
adulterating  British  statesmanship  with  Femaleness. 

The  presence  of  a  masculine  woman  in  a  house — 
whether  this  be  writ  with  a  small  or  a  capital  letter — far 
from  stiffening  the  manly  calibre  of  weak  men  in  it,  only 
further  enervates  and  paralyses  them.  To  serve  on  a 
committee  of  mixed  sex  is  to  realise  this. 

Women  should  be  represented  in  the  counsels  of  the 
nation — but  not  in  the  councils  of  men.  They  should 
have  a  House  of  their  own,  wherein  to  foster  the  interests 
of  women  and  children  mainly,  as  well  as  to  further 
The  Humanities  and  The  Moralities;  which  are,  at  the 
same  time,  woman's  true  political  sphere  and  her  chiefest 
concern — because  she  and  the  child  most  suffer  from 
failures  thereof.  Thus,  the  House  of  Men  would  be 
relieved  of  problems  their  sex  is  unqualified  to  deal  with. 
While  more  time  and  energy  would  be  left  them  to  dispose 
of  affairs  they  are  best  fitted  to  administer. 

As  already  pointed  out,  the  all-potent  factor  of  Sex 
intervening,  members  of  neither  sex  are  capable  of  doing 
their  best  work  while  in  association  with  the  other.  Sex- 
rivalries  are  stirred,  or  sex-antagonisms.  Either  of 
which  range  the  sexes  on  opposite  sides ;  thus  precluding 
amicable  co-operation.  Or  they  engender  sex-ascen- 
dancy. Which,  making  one  sex  dominate  or  defer  to 
the  other,  precludes  intelligent  co-operation.  Through 
all,  moreover,  only  too  often  run  threads  of  intrigue,  to 
entangle  and  hamper  the  powers  of  both. 


270        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

British  politics  have  notably  declined  since  woman's 
incursion  therein.  British  commerce,  once  supreme 
among  the  nations,  has  notably  declined  since  women 
entered  business-houses.  Good  and  thorough  work 
demands,  beyond  all  things,  undivided  concentration 
of  the  powers  upon  it.  And  for  nine  persons  out  of 
ten,  this  concentration  is  impossible  while  in  the  presence 
of  members  of  the  opposite  sex.  And  emphatically 
this  is  true  of  the  male,  since  woman  exercises  a  hypnotic,/ 
and,  accordingly,  an  enervating  influence  upon  him. 
Worse  still,  he  poses  for  her  :  becoming  meretricious 
and  insincere.  It  is  held  by  some  that  women  in 
Parliament  might  elevate  the  codes  and  modes  of  latter- 
day  politics,  many  of  our  best  men  withholding  them- 
selves therefrom  because  of  bad  odour  imparted  by 
self-seeking  and  unscrupulous  politicians. 

But  let  us  keep  our  House  of  Commons  a  House  of 
men,  and  make  it  representative  of  the  nation's  finest 
manhood.  It  is  the  first  and  foremost  function  of  the 
sex,  the  way  of  national  success  and  progress.  And 
just  as  the  presence  of  women  would  blunt  the  pioneering 
spirit  and  cripple  the  action  of  a  party  of  Arctic  ex- 
plorers, so  women  in  the  House  must  blunt  the  enter-, 
prise  and  hamper  the  exploits  of  Statesmanship. 

So  far,  the  good  sense  alike  of  women  as  of  men  has 
declared  against  the  innovation;  rejecting,  by  large 
majorities,  all  but  one  of  women  Parliamentary  candi- 
dates. It  remains  to  be  seen,  however,  whether  men  out- 
side the  House  will  later  endorse  the  new  departure,  by 
electing  members  of  the  other  sex  to  represent  them. 
A  thing  impossible  for  one  sex  to  do  for  the  other,  of 
course,  seeing  that  not  only  do  men  and  women  arrive 
at  their  different  conclusions  by  wholly  different  routes, 
but  all  questions  bear  wholly  different  values  for  them. 

It  may  be  argued  that  the  existence  of  dual  depart- 
ments of  politics,  and  dual  points-of-view  is  argument 
for  electing  representatives  of  both  sexes  to  The  Com- 


SUBJECTION  OF  MAN  271 

mons.  Not  so,  however.  Each  sex  is  specialist  in  its 
own  domain.  And  an  aurist  wastes  time,  and  most 
likely  blunders,  when  he  applies  himself  to  treat  eye- 
diseases.  An  oculist  wastes  time,  and  probably 
blunders,  when  delicate  ear-operations  are  required  of 
him. 

Since  by  his  dual  constitution,  moreover,  man  pos- 
sesses, by  inheritance  from  his  mother,  the  quotum  of 
woman-apprehension,  foresight,  and  altruism  required 
to  present  the  woman-bent  and  view-point  in  his  outlook 
and  conduct  of  political  and  civic  affairs,  woman's  per- 
sonal intervention  in  these  is  as  superfluous  as  it  would 
be  harmful. 

Further,  there  are  two  orders  of  men  :  An  order 
strictly  male  in  trend  and  talent,  and  an  order  whose 
mentality  is  tinctured  with  a  higher  than  average 
proportion  of  womanly  conservatism,  sympathy  and 
intuition.  And  these  two  orders  of  male — typified, 
respectively,  by  the  Conservative  and  the  Radical 
parties — perpetually  struggling  to  secure  the  measures 
prompted  by  their  respective  orders  of  mind,  and 
intermittently  gaining  ascendancy,  sustain  a  poise,  or 
mean,  between  the  unduly  conservative  and  traditional, 
and  the  unduly  radical  and  transitional  in  our  political 
administration. 

These  two  orders  of  mentality  are  found  again  in 
Youth  and  Age.  All  healthy  and  vigorous-minded 
young  men  are  radical  of  bias ;  hot-headed,  precipitate 
and  intolerant  of  crusted  orthodoxy,  keen  to  demolish  old 
institutions  and  established  methods.  While  maturity 
makes  for  conservatism.  It  knows.  And  having  learned 
by  experience  the  values  of  institutions  which  have 
become  institutions  because  of  their  values,  it  is  prudent 
in  its  counsels  of  slow  and  stable  reform,  in  its  distrust 
of  drastic,  precipitate  change,  and,  beyond  all,  in  its 
wise  misdoubtings  of  the  world  in  general  as  being 
better  than  it  is,  and  ripe,  accordingly,  for  the  best  things. 


272        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

For  the  present,  there  are  numberless  problems  and 
questions  of  women's  industrial  employment,  of  children's 
employment,  of  the  industrial  supervision  of  young 
girls  and  their  moral  protection;  problems  of  female 
drunkenness  and  prostitution,  crimes  of  children,  crimes 
against  infants  and  children ;  questions  of  health,  of  the 
education  and  upbringing  of  the  young,  of  dress  and 
conduct,  and  of  the  general  moral  purification  and  the 
mental  elevation  of  the  Race — with  all  of  which  women 
are  essentially  qualified  to  deal;  and  the  vital  national 
importance  whereof  men  have  proved  themselves  as 
incapable  of  apprehending  as  they  have  shown  them- 
selves powerless  to  administer  them. 

The  two  classes  of  national  problems,  or  the  two 
departments  into  which  most  of  these  problems  might 
be  advantageously  sub-classed,  should  be  recognised  as 
being  the  functions,  respectively,  of  the  one  or  of  the 
other  sex,  and  should  be  deputed  for  consideration  to 
the  House  of  Men  or  to  the  House  of  Women.  With 
the  result  that  in  both,  every  problem  of  reform  would 
be  dealt  with  by  the  sex  specialised  by  nature,  by 
sympathy,  and  by  training,  best  to  understand  and 
best  to  legislate  for  it. 

As  with  The  Lords,  either  House  should  Yfhve  power 
to  question  or  to  reject  the  conclusions  of  the  other. 

We  need  urgently,  indeed,  such  a  House  of  Women  to  - 
employ  its  native  wisdom,  its  intuitive  apprehension, 
and  its  moral  and  emotional  impulse,  and,  moreover, 
to  bring  its  experience  and  tact  to  bear  upon  a  hundred- 
and-one  tangled  and  neglected  issues  of  moral  and 
social  reform.  In  order  to  remedy  evils  that  have  come, 
from  long  neglect,  to  be  a  cancer,  slowly  and  surely 
sapping  and  vitiating  our  national  life  and  endangering 
our  racial  supremacy. 


SUBJECTION  OF  MAN  273 


IV 


That  women  may  do  useful  work  in  male  departments 
of  politics  and  economics  is  quite  beside  the  question. 
Far  more  valuable  work  is  needed  and  is  possible  from 
them  in  their  own  especial  fields  of  aptitude.  In  these 
latter,  moreover,  they  would  be  fostering,  in  place  of 
sacrificing,  that  morale  and  those  distinctive  talents 
Nature  has  specialised  in  them.  While  their  withdrawal 
in  toto  from  male  political  and  economic  functions  would 
put  men  on  their  mettle,  and  stimulate  their  efforts  and 
achievement  therein. 

Woman's  influence,  like  that  of  Religion,  is  most 
potent  when  it  is  indirect  and  inspirational.  Like  the 
Church,  when  she  exchanges  her  indirect  and  devotional 
ministrations  for  direct  and  material  ones,  temporal  or 
militant,  she  destroys  herself  or  the  peoples  she  dominates. 
Or  she  destroys  both. 

It  is  common  fallacy  that  so  long  as  the  world's  work 
is  done  and  its  affairs  tolerably  well  conducted,  it  is  of 
no  significance  whatsoever  by  which  sex  these  ends  are 
attained. 

Sight  is  lost  of  the  intrinsic  truth  that  Life  exists 
for  Man — not  Man  for  Life;  its  purpose  being  the 
evolution  of  the  human  Species  by  way  of  the  evolution 
of  human  Faculty.  The  world's  work  has  no  slightest 
value  save  as  spur  and  instrument  of  human  education. 
And  the  evolution  of  the  dual  orders  of  human  Faculty 
having  differentiated  the  human  Species  into  two  sexes, 
each  representing  a  wholly  different  order  of  Faculty — 
obviously  the  perfection  of  both  orders  of  Faculty  and, 
accordingly,  the  further  evolution  of  both  sexes  wherein 
these  orders  are  respectively  specialised,  can  be  attained 
only  by  the  exercise,  by  each  order,  of  the  role  and  the 
functions  that  best  evoke  its  powers.  If,  therefore,  the 
male  sex  repudiates  its  allotted  role  and  functions,  and 
forfeits,  in  consequence,  the  education  of  its  distinctive 


274        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

talents  and  moral,  by  shelving  its  responsibilities  upon 
the  other  sex,  howsoever  capable  a  substitute  this  other 
sex  may  prove  itself,  man  acts  as  foolishly  and  fatuously 
as  the  schoolboy  who  shirks  his  schooling  and  the 
discipline  thereof,  by  enlisting  his  capable  sister  to  do 
his  lessons  for  him. 

It  is,  at  the  same  time,  man's  duty  and  his  privilege 
manfully  to  shoulder  and  ably  to  perform  his  own 
allotted  part  in  Life's  affairs.  Evading  this,  or  from  a 
false  conception  of  chivalry  allowing  woman  to  usurp 
a  share  therein,  he  degenerates  inevitably;  in  default 
of  his  natural  spur  to  development.  Moreover  he 
obliges — or  connives  at  woman  doing  likewise,  in 
respect  of  her  allotted  part. 

That  he  has  already  grown  so  slack,  his  virile  pride 
and  enterprise  have  so  far  lapsed,  as  to  reconcile  him 
to  woman's  usurpation  of  his  masculine  functions  and 
prerogatives  should  warn  him  of  incipient  dry-rot  in 
him.  As  too,  the  portentous  fact  that  had  he  not 
declined  in  physical  and  mental  calibre,  she  could  never 
so  readily  and  efficiently  have  taken  his  place  as  we 
have  seen  her  doing.  So  efficiently,  indeed,  that  he 
will  be  hard  put  to  it  to  regain  and  to  retain  his  lost 
professional  and  industrial  footing,  by  proving  himself 
appreciably  the  better  man. 

As  Dr.  Havelock  Ellis  says,  if  they  are  to  cope  with 
the  new  Feminism,  men  must  needs  look  to  their  laurels 
and  produce  a  new  Masculinism.  For  truly  these  weak- 
chinned,  neurotic  young  men  of  the  rising  generation 
are  no  match  at  all  for  the  heavy- jawed,  sinewy,  resolute 
young  women  Feminist  aims  and  methods  are  giving  us. 

On  every  side,  in  politics,  literature,  journalism, 
oratory,  commerce,  even  in  scientific  invention,  women 
are  swiftly  coming  up  abreast  of  men,  and  threaten 
shortly  to  out-distance  them. — And  this  upon  their  own 
ground. 

On  the  other   hand,   the   finer   and  more   exquisite 


SUBJECTION  OF  MAN  275 

womanly  qualities  and  aptitudes,  the  emotions  and 
devotions;  purity,  sweetness,  patience,  forbearance, 
tenderness,  lovingness  and  lovableness,  together  with 
the  courtesies  and  graces,  have  fallen  out  of  culture  and 
are  fast  declining  toward  extinction.  And  this,  in  the 
measure  of  the  mushroom-growth  of  masculine  abilities 
and  aims  and  bent,  now  substituted  for  them  in  the 
sex.  With  which  decline  of  womanly  characteristics, 
the  religion  and  nobility,  virility  and  chivalry,  manly 
reverence  and  regard  for  women,  wherewith  the  true 
mother  illumines  the  souls  of  her  sons,  and  which  are 
man's  response  to  the  appeal  of  true  woman,  are  waning 
rapidly  also. 

There  is,  in  all  men  worth  the  name,  an  instinctive 
recognition  that  the  world's  most  strenuous  labours 
and  the  world's  administration  are  their  natural  func- 
tions, and  that  upon  their  sex,  accordingly,  rests  the 
responsibility  alike  of  progress  or  decline  in  these 
directions. 

This  sense  of  responsibility  is  both  stimulating  and 
uplifting,  in  the  degrees  of  its  realisation  and  fulfilment. 
The  yielding,  by  man,  to  the  other  sex,  of  masculine 
essential  rights  and  obligations  is,  at  the  same  time,  a 
symptom  in  him  of  declining  virility,  physical  and 
mental,  and  a  cause  inevitable  of  his  further  speedy 
decadence.  The  position  yielded,  and  equality  in  all 
things  ceded  to  woman,  that  pride  in  his  sex,  in  himself, 
and  in  his  work,  which  were  his  strongest  incentives 
to  progress,  drop  to  ever  lower  grades.  Until  he  comes 
at  last  to  the  state  of  the  decadent  savage,  who  keeps 
as  many  wives  to  work  for  him  as  their  work  for  him 
enables  him  to  keep. 

The  spirit  and  pride  of  Sex  are  normal  and  inspiring, 
and  are  the  expression  of  that  impulse  which  has 
directed,  in  both  sexes,  the  contrary  trend  of  both. 
No  man  of  mettle  feels  ever  again  the  same  zest  or  spur 
to    achievement    in   a   role   that    has    become   equally 


276        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

woman's.  Arrogance  ?  Possibly.  But  wholesome  and 
energising.  Defect  of  that  pride  in  his  man's  mission 
which  inspired  Drake,  Columbus,  Nelson,  Caesar,  Shake- 
speare, Ne^vton,  to  great  conquest.  Without  it,  man 
ceases  to  be  man.  That  it  is  a  factor  to  be  reckoned 
with,  was  proved  by  the  recent  election,  which  was 
signalised  by  being  woman's  first  authorised  entry  into 
the  political  arena — and  was  characterised  by  nothing 
so  much  as  by  man's  indifference,  even  his  neglect  to 
record  his  vote.  And  that  it  is  a  factor  to  be  reckoned 
with,  is  further  and  seriously  proved  by  the  slackness 
and  diminished  zest  and  output  of  masculine  Labour, 
since  the  other  sex  has  invaded  the  field. 

Woman,  for  her  part,  is  characterised  by  a  similar 
spirit  and  pride  of  her  sex.  Equally  she  loses  it  when 
men  intrude  upon  her  province.  And  this  Sex-pride 
and  spirit  in  her  would  be  nobly  intensified  and  uplifted 
to  ever  higher  levels  of  expression  and  attainment,  were 
she  but  assured  of  the  fine  quality  and  issues  of  those 
woman-faculties  and  functions,  by  way  of  which  it 
is  her  privilege  first  to  create  Life,  and  afterwards  to 
minister  to  it. 

A  potent  factor  in  man's  impotence  to  hold  his  own 
either  in  moral  or  achievement,  when  pitted  directly 
against  the  other  sex,  is  that  power  many  women 
exercise  of  recruiting  their  vital  forces  from  those  of 
persons — and  of  men,  particularly — in  association  with 
them.  The  highest  levels  of  work  and  inspiration  are 
the  product  of  reserve  and  surplus  forces.  When  these 
are  depleted,  only  languid  and  lower-grade  aims  and 
capacities  are  possible. 

The  extent  to  which  over- worked  women  may  impair 
the  health  and  constitutional  vigour  of  men  associated 
with  them  in  work  was  strikingly  shown  during  the 
changed  conditions  of  War.  Surrounded  by  over- 
wrought girls  and  women,  who  kept  themselves  going 


SUBJECTION  OF  MAN  277 

by  stimiilus  of  nervous  excitement,  of  strong  tea  or 
more  dangerous  drugs,  many  men,  co-workers  or  heads 
of  departments,  became  neurasthenic  wrecks.  Others 
lapsed  to  the  condition  of  infirm  old  men.  The  like 
was  seen  in  fathers  and  husbands  of  such  over-wrought 
War-workers.  And  nervous  depletion  occasioned  by 
working-wives  has  doubtless  much  to  do  with  the 
inanition  and  depression  now  crippling  our  industrial 
output. 

I  may  be  charged  with  holding  a  brief  for  the  Enemy- 
sex.  If  so,  it  is  not  only  because  man's  cause  is  woman's, 
but,  moreover,  because  his  present  disposition  to  sur- 
render his  prerogatives  all  round  shows  him  dangerously 
blind  to  the  truth  of  woman's  power;  misdirection 
whereof  from  its  natural  channels  menaces  not  only 
him,  but  woman  herself,  and  the  Race.  Find  the  woman  ! 
said  the  French  cynic.  Jestingly  :  because  he  no  more 
than  other  men  had  gauged  the  profundity  of  the  say- 
ing, in  all  its  deep  and  vast  biological  phenomena  and 
implications. 

Our  national  survival  stands  in  jeopardy  already, 
indeed,  from  the  lower-grade  males — narrow-brained 
neurotics  or  feeble-brained  neurasthenics — whom  latter- 
day  women  are  producing  yearly  in  tens  of  thousands. 
And  the  deplorable  truth  of  this  degeneracy  is  overlooked, 
because  no  more  than  a  fractional  number  of  our  doctors 
distinguish  between  The  Normal  and  The  Average. 
With  the  result,  that  comparing  an  abnormal  with 
others  more  abnormal,  they  declare  the  less  abnormal 
satisfactory.  Of  the  fine  physique,  the  vital  health 
and  faculty,  the  zest  and  joy  of  living  which  characterise 
true  Normality — and  which  are  the  birthright  of  every 
human  being — only  the  few  have  any  conception. 

It  is  significant  that  the  sole  ancient  civilisations  now 
surviving,  India  and  China,  have  never  hazarded  their 


278        FEMINISM   AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

chances  of  survival  by  emancipating  their  women.  On 
the  other  hand,  because  their  women  are  in  bondage, 
personally  and  psychologically,  and  because  their 
women's  vital  powers  are  exhausted  by  laborious  and 
de-sexing  occupations,  the  moral  and  material  progress 
of  these  peoples  is  at  low  ebb. 


Recruiting  statistics  have  shown  us  the  Damocles- 
sword  of  Decadence  suspended  by  a  hair  above  our 
heads;  have  shown  us  our  great  people  so  riddled  with 
disease,  defect  and  abnormality,  that  nearly  half  our 
manhood  was  declared  unfitted  for  man's  elementary 
duty  of  fighting  for  his  country  (55*9  per  cent,  only  being 
classed  in  Grade  I.).  All  that  our  centuries  of  evolu- 
tionary progress  have  achieved  for  us,  all  that  the  Race 
has  achieved  for  itself  by  faculty  and  enterprise,  integrity 
and  industry,  threatens  now  to  be  sacrificed  to  a  Feminist 
fanaticism,  which,  denying  to  woman  any  more  vital  or 
tender  human  faculties  or  offices  than  those  of  man, 
has  increasingly  repudiated  all  else  for  her  than  rights 
to  pit  her  wits  and  muscles  against  his. 

England  has  long  been,  and  has  once  again  proved 
herself  supreme  among  the  nations.  Because  England, 
more  than  any  other  land,  had  freed  her  women  from 
the  more  laborious  industrial  employments;  leaving 
them,  in  consequence,  more  vital  power  to  put  into  the 
making  of  a  splendid  Race,  fine  of  body,  stable  of 
character;  the  men  of  it  charged  with  virile  energy 
and  enterprise,  the  women  house-proud,  home-abiding; 
faithful  wives  and  admirable  mothers. 

Recruiting  statistics  have  valuably  emphasised  the 
truth  that  in  those  localities  where  women  are  most 
employed  in  labour,  there  disease  and  degeneracy  are 
most  rampant.  Significantly  it  was  shown  that  colliery- 
districts   and  the  Universities   (the  latter  with  about 


SUBJECTION  OF  MAN  279 

80  per  cent,  of  Grade  I.  men),  were  conspicuous  in  pro- 
viding the  greatest  number  of  men  qualified  for  military 
service.  Why?  Because  neither  the  mothers  of  men 
enrolled  in  Universities,  nor,  for  the  most  part,  those  of 
colliery-districts,  are  employed  industrially. 

While,  on  the  other  hand,  the  health  and  physique  of 
cotton-mill  operatives  proved  so  "  alarmingly  low  "  that 
of  184  weavers  and  spinners  only  57  could  even  be 
passed  for  Army-training.  Of  290  examined,  only  57 
men  of  one  cotton-spinning  town  were  graded  I. ;  only 
64  were  graded  II.;  while  169  were  graded  III.  and  IV. 

Again,  Why  ?  Because,  unlike  colliery-districts  where 
the  standard  of  health  was  notably  good,  in  cotton-towns 
where  physique  and  health  were  "  alarmingly  low  "  the 
vast  majority  of  wives  and  mothers  are  employed  in 
factories.  It  is  important,  moreover,  to  note  that  in 
such  gradings  of  men  for  military  service,  even  those 
classed  first  were  by  no  means  necessarily  normal  or 
vigorous.  On  the  contrary,  many  passed  were  later 
shown  defective,  by  breakdown  under  stress  of  military 
discipline. 

Further,  that  so  many  as  20  'per  cent,  of  the  young 
manhood  of  our  highest  culture  were  disqualified  for 
Grade  I.  is  a  serious  circumstance. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  has  said  regarding  this  most  vital 
question :  "  The  next  great  lesson  of  the  war  is  that  if 
Britain  has  to  be  thoroughly  equipped  to  meet  any 
emergencies,  the  State  must  take  a  more  constant  and 
a  more  intelligent  interest  in  the  health  and  fitness  of 
the  people.  If  the  Empire  is  to  be  equal  to  its  task, 
the  men  and  women  who  make  up  the  Empire  must 
be  equal  to  it.  The  number  of  B2  and  C3  men  is 
prodigious.  I  asked  the  Minister  of  National  Service 
how  many  more  men  could  we  have  put  into  the  fighting 
ranks  if  the  health  of  the  country  had  been  properly 
looked  after.     I   staggered  at  the  reply :   '  At   least   a 


280        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 

million.^  A  virile  race  has  been  wasted  by  neglect  and 
want  of  forethought,  and  it  is  a  danger  to  the  State 
and  to  the  Empire.  I  solemnly  warn  my  fellow  country- 
men that  you  cannot  maintain  an  Al  Empire  with  a 
C3  population." 

This  estimate  of  abnormality,  by  reason  of  a  million 
of  the  nation's  young  manhood  disqualified  by  definite 
disease,  defect  or  degeneracy,  is  far  below  the  mark. 
Because  owing  to  the  urgent  need  for  fighting  men,  the 
standard  of  fitness  was  compulsorily  low.  And  the 
estimate  takes  no  account  of  the  huge  number  of  such 
low-grade  "  Fit,"  who  succumbed  in  death  or  incapacita- 
tion to  the  strain  of  military  training,  or  to  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  active  service. 

The  British  Medical  Journal  has  published  figures 
showing  that  of  2,080,709  men  examined  by  Medical 
Boards — the  men  constituting  "  a  fair  sample  of  the 
male  population  between  the  ages  of  18  and  43,  and  a 
smaller  proportion  of  the  more  fit  between  43  and  51  " 
— only  1  in  3  could  be  classed  in  Grade  I,  That  is,  out  of 
every  150  members  of  our  British  manhood  in  its  best 
years  of  life,  only  50  were  up  to  the  mark  in  health  and 
normality. 

The  Journal  comments  on  "  this  mass  of  physical 
inefficiency,  with  all  its  concomitant  human  misery, 
and  direct  loss  to  the  country." 

Sir  Auckland  Geddes,  addressing  the  Federation  of 
British  Industries,  stated  that  "  appalling  facts  about 
the  health  of  the  nation  have  been  disclosed  in  reports  of 
medical  examinations  carried  out  by  recruiting  authorities.''^ 
One  of  the  most  startling  and  disquieting  of  these  dis- 
closures was  that  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  men, 
between  the  ages  of  18  and  43,  dying  of  tuberculosis. 

Despite  all  this,  however,  because  our  authorities  fear 
to  face  the  truth  and  the  drastic  economic  upheaval 
involved  in  the  prohibition  of  all  young  wives  and 
mothers  from  the  stress  of  bread  winning,  attempt  is 


SUBJECTION   OF  MAN  281 

being  made  to  shelve  the  whole  blame  of  this  appalling 
state  of  national  health  upon  faulty  industrial  and 
hygienic  conditions ;  too  long  hours  of  work,  imperfect 
ventilation,  bad  housing,  inferior  cooking,  poor  wages, 
and  so  forth.  All  factors,  of  course,  but  only  con- 
tributory to  the  great  vital  one.  And  in  order  to 
placate  the  public  conscience,  reforms  in  these  directions 
are  promised.  Excellent  and  sadly  needed  reforms,  it 
is  true — in  so  far  as  they  go ;  but  bound  to  failure 
because  they  will  not  go  to  the  root  of  things.  They 
will  be  tried,  no  doubt,  in  our  promised  Reconstruction- 
scheme.  But  being  palliative  merely,  further  holocausts 
of  human  life  and  faculty  and  happiness  will  be  sacrificed 
in  the  experiment. 

Sooner  or  later — and  Heaven  send  it  be  sooner  lest 
it  come  too  late  ! — the  truth  must  be  confronted,  and 
the  crisis  met.  The  further  the  Feminism  now  threaten- 
ing our  downfall  secures  footing,  however,  and  more 
and  more  diverts  the  nation's  life-resources  into  merely 
economic  channels,  more  and  more  squanders  them  in 
abnormal  ambitions  and  output,  the  more  deeply- 
rooted  and  more  desperate  wall  have  become  the  cancer 
of  our  national  decadence.  And  incalculably  the 
more  difficult  and  dangerous  will  be  the  task  of  its 
eradication. 

The  reform  should  have  come  while  man  still  held 
the  reins  securely  in  his  grasp — ere  Feminism  had  en- 
trenched itself  and  its  deforming  aims  and  powers 
behind  an  enfranchised  woman-sex;  to  intimidate  and 
out-number  his  own.  Because  women  in  general, 
misled  by  these  false  standards,  and,  moreover,  deteri- 
orated by  de-sexing  training,  become  every  year  less 
and  less  disposed  toward  home  and  family-life;  less 
and  less  willing  to  burden  themselves  with  the  duties 
and  sacrifices  indispensable  to  the  proper  fulfilment  of 
wife  and  motherhood.  And  now,  more  than  ever,  when 
they  are  still  further  to  be  pitted  against  men  in  the 


282        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

industrial  struggle,  woman-instincts  and  aptitudes  will 
become  ever  more  warped  and  enfeebled  in  them. 

The  Danger  menacing  us  is  the  graver  because,  while 
Disease  is  the  expression  of  a  healthy  vital  conscience 
protesting,  in  terms  of  pain  and  disability,  against 
conditions,  environmental  or  personal,  adverse  to  normal 
states  of  health  and  development  (and  to  which  the 
healthy  living  organism  declines  therefore  to  conform). 
Degeneracy  is  characterised  by  a  vital  conscience  of  so 
low  an  order  that  it  conforms  and  adapts  the  type, 
without  pain  or  protest,  to  conditions  perversive  of 
healthy  normality  and  of  further  evolutionary  advance. 

There  comes  a  stage,  accordingly,  in  Racial  decline, 
when  the  Racial  vital  conscience  no  longer  rebels,  in 
terms  of  Disease,  but  conforms,  in  terms  of  Degeneracy, 
to  artificial,  abnormal  and  evil  conditions  of  living, 
environmental  and  personal.  And  then  as  happened 
to  those  mighty  civilisations  snuffed  out  before  us — the 
major  portion  of  the  community  having  lapsed  from 
health  and  normality  into  decadent  states  of  mind  and 
body,  vice  and  corruption  become  its  Normal  both  of 
mind  and  body.  Evil  and  chaos  run  riot.  Till  Nature, 
defied  and  transgressed  at  every  turn,  opens  the  vials 
of  her  wrath,  and  pours  forth  her  microbic  myriads  to 
sow  death  and  destruction  wholesale. 

Thus  she  sweeps  from  the  board  of  Life  another  great 
Race — that  had  failed. 


VI 

Already,  there  are  disquieting  signs  that  the  physical 
disease  and  abnormality  among  us  have  engendered  such 
degrees  of  mental  and  of  moral  aberration  as  may  lead 
at  any  hour  to  grave  disruption.  Below  the  quiet  order 
of  our  British  constitution  are  heard,  from  time  to  time, 
the  rumble  of  chaotic  and  disintegrating  forces.  With 
growing  frequency,  the  shriek  of  anarchy  shrills.     Red 


SUBJECTION   OF  MAN  283 

flags  break.  We  shall  be  truly  fortunate  if  we  succeed 
in  bridging  over,  without  more  or  less  serious  upheaval, 
the  critical  gap  between  War  and  Peace. 

Woman  is  Nature's  peacemaker  and  welder.  She  it 
is  who,  in  the  home,  knits  the  loose  ends  of  the  multiple 
incongruous  and  turbulent  human  elements  into  social 
unities — families,  friendly  communities,  townships  and 
peoples — by  her  annealing  powers  of  affection  and 
sympathy,  of  charity  and  intuitive  understanding. 

"  Keep  the  Home-fires  burning !  "  sang  our  soldiers. 
No  considerations  of  The  British  Constitution,  the 
London  Stock  Exchange,  or  Worshipful  Civic  Company, 
fired  them  to  heroism,  spurred  them  to  victory.  But  for 
the  Home-fires  burning  in  suburban  villas,  in  four- 
roomed  cottages  or  two-room  lodgings — as  equally  in 
hereditary  mansions — it  was,  our  gallants  dared  and 
died,  and  reaped  their  glorious  triumph. 

My  father,  an  early  and  an  earnest  advocate  of 
Female  enfranchisement,  used  to  counsel  Lord  Beacons- 
field  that  to  enfranchise  women  would  be  to  establish 
the  Conservative  party  for  a  century,  at  least.  Because 
nine  out  of  ten  women  were,  in  those  days.  Conservative. 

Since  then.  Feminism  has  been  active,  however.  Less 
by  way  of  direct  propaganda  of  anarchy  or  Bolshevism, 
be  it  said,  than  by  fostering  that  masculine  bent  and 
spirit  of  material  unrest  and  discontent  which  destroy 
in  women  all  the  finer,  fairer  ideals  and  attributes 
of  their  intrinsic  womanhood,  and  those  self-denying 
ordinances  which  so  sweeten  and  dignify  the  humblest 
tasks  as  to  content  the  doers  of  them  with  the  inspiring 
sense,  that  they  are  worth  the  while.  With  the  result 
that  nothing  so  characterises  the  great  mass  of  latter- 
day  working  women  as  a  smouldering  irrational  and 
intemperate  Socialism.  And  the  Socialism  of  working- 
women  (as,  too,  of  the  majority  of  working-men)  is  based 
on  total  ignorance  of  the  impracticability  and  evil  of 


284        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

making  for  universal  equality  in  a  vast  Scheme  of 
Things,  the  values  and  the  ultimate  successes  whereof 
depend  absolutely  on  preserving  those  highly-specialised 
diversities  and  inequalities,  alike  of  faculty  and  bent, 
into  which  Life,  with  its  countless  degrees  of  evo- 
lutionary development,  has  progressively  graded  living 
creatures,  brute  and  human.  The  innumerable  orders 
and  classes  of  our  sociology  are  as  inevitable  as  they 
are  invaluable.  Because  they  serve  for  stages  of 
faculty  and  avocation  upon  that  biological  gradient  of 
Ascent  by  which  we  climb. 

As  was  pointed  out  earlier  in  this  book,  woman, 
although  passive  and  reposeful  of  inherence,  is  variable 
and  unstable  of  temperament;  her  powers  being  eter- 
nally at  ebb  and  flux,  in  order  that  she  may  be  the 
medium  of  those  evolutionary  mutations  which  en- 
gender human  progress.  A  nature  truly  perilous  when 
too  great  dominance  is  permitted  the  sex  in  affairs  so 
momentous  as  those  of  State-administration,  upon  the 
firm  stability  and  permanence  whereof  depend  so  many 
destinies.  Because  this  evolutionary  impulsiveness  of 
hers  is  dangerously  liable  to  express  itself  in  irrespon- 
sible, chaotic  and  anarchical  outbreaks.  As  history 
shows,  wreckage  of  many  once  mighty,  but  now  extinct, 
civilisations  set  in  when  the  males  thereof  weakly,  or 
basely,  surrendered  their  manhood's  rights  of  rule  to 
a  sex  disqualified  by  its  native  non-conformability  to 
rule  in  national  and  international  policies. 

Should  women  ever  come  to  exercise  political  power 
identical  with  man's,  they  would  be  liable  to  subvert 
the  whole  national  and  international  administration 
of  their  country  on  an  impulse.  Not  solely  from  craving 
for  novelty,  but,  too,  as  result  of  their  inherent  bent 
toward  forward  and  precipitate  movement,  and  their 
implicit  faith  in  change  as  being  necessarily  reform. 

Nations   in   which   the   feminine    element   is    strong 


SUBJECTION  OF  MAN  285 

betray  the  native  fickleness  thereof  in  perpetual  change 
of  Ministry — even  in  frequent  revolution.  This  element 
of  instability  is  Ireland's  curse,  the  flaw  in  her  people's 
splendid  Celtic  faculty. 

In  view  of  the  stern  and  strenuous  and  narrowly- 
rationalistic  creed  and  claims  of  Feminism,  as  too  of 
the  steel-brained,  steel-willed  fighting  women  leading  it, 
men  may  scoff,  with  sense  of  false  security,  at  odds 
of  danger  from  feminine  weakness  and  fickleness  in 
Feminist  ranks.  They  scoffed  just  so  at  the  menace  of 
Prussianism — whereof  Feminism  is  the  female  rendering. 

It  must  always  be  remembered,  moreover,  that  the 
civic  and  political  privileges  ceded  to  Woman,  the 
Feminist,  are  ceded  alike  to  that  freakish,  irresponsible 
creature  Woman,  the  Femininist,  who,  to  counterbalance 
the  decline  of  woman-quality  in  those  others  of  her  sex, 
adds  to  her  number  and  her  freakishness  as  those  others 
wax  in  number  and  in  stern  determination.  And  in  a 
House  of  Commons  of  mixed  sex.  Feminists  would  find, 
to  their  undoing,  that  here  as  elsewhere  the  Ultra- 
Feminines  would  speedily  outnumber  and  out-power 
themselves.  The  Movement,  inaugurated  in  all  the 
stern  and  sterile  sex-insensibility  of  the  Feminist  code, 
would  soon  be  dry-rotten  and  corrupt  with  the  weak- 
nesses bred  of  Effeminacy. 

Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  the  present  Feminist 
leaders  it  was  who,  by  their  dangerous  Bolshevist 
tactics  of  Militant  Suffragism,  proclaimed  the  anarchy 
seething  in  themselves  and  their  adherents. 

So  long  as  there  survives  within  the  breast  of  man  a 
spark  of  that  Chivalry  which  has  been  both  the  inspiring 
and  impelling  power  of  his  virile  development,  he  can 
neither  meet,  nor  can  he  treat  with  woman  upon  equal 
terms. 

Always  the  aspects  of  her  in  capacities  of  mother. 


286        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

wife  or  love  (or  mistress)  must  intervene  to  disarm,  and 
to  incapacitate  him  from  exerting  his  full  strength 
against  her.  Whether  her  appeal  to  him  be  sacred  or 
profane,  accordingly — ^that  of  woman  at  her  best  or  at 
her  worst — always  so  long  as  he  is  man,  her  highest 
and  most  tender  (as  her  basest)  appeal  will  be  by  way 
of  those  woman-Unfitnesses  which  in  every  age  have 
served  as  highest  incentive  of  his  Fitnesses;  that  he 
might  win,  safeguard  and  cherish  her.  This  chivalrous 
instinct  it  was,  in  part — for  behind  it  lurked  the  recog- 
nition of  more  than  half  a  nation  suffering  from  the 
wrong  of  Unenfranchisement — which  disarmed  and 
paralysed  his  action  in  respect  of  those  same  Suffragist 
outbreaks.  And  so  long  as  he  is  man,  will  he  be  simi- 
larly disarmed  and  dangerously  inhibited  from  meeting 
and  from  battling  successfully  with  woman. 

History  repeats  itself.  And  if  men  suppose  that  they 
have  seen  the  last  of  female  Militancy,  and  overlook 
the  menacing  truth  that  their  own  incapacity  to  cope 
with  this  must  increase  inevitably  in  direct  proportion 
to  woman's  waxing  power,  they  are  blind,  indeed,  to 
dangerous  breakers  ahead. 

Having  sown  the  fickle  wind  of  woman's  variability, 
they  are  like  to  reap  the  whirlwind  in  her  inherent 
non-conformability ;  a  difficult  and  parlous  factor  such 
as  they  have  never  previously  encountered  in  political 
and  industrial  administration.  Such  non-conform- 
ability as  is  seen  at  an  extreme  in  the  anarchy  of  revo- 
lutions; in  which  women,  having  lost  control  and 
balance,  plunge  deeper  and  deeper  into  excesses,  with- 
out power,  it  would  seem,  of  recoil.  While  men  reach 
a  maximum,  recover  poise,  and  then  setting  about  to 
re-constitute  order  out  of  chaos,  more  often  than  not 
evolve  a  higher  form  of  order  than  had  previously 
obtained. 


SUBJECTION  OF  MAN  287 


VII 


Secure  in  their  traditional  superior  strength,  however, 
and  with  characteristic  complacency  in  this  relation, 
men  have  no  suspicion  of  the  sex-antagonism — hatred 
even — seething  against  them  in  Feminism.  And  this 
far  from  having  been  annealed  or  softened,  has  been, 
on  the  contrary,  greatly  aggravated  by  the  concessions 
and  new  privileges  lately  accorded  the  sex. 

Strange  to  say,  the  chief  talk  of  extremist  women  in 
their  new  War-capacities  was  bitterest  grievance  and 
hostility  against  the  male,  because,  although  installed 
in  masculine  positions,  they  were  denied  rights  identical 
with  his ;  of  rank  and  recognition,  of  responsibility  and 
pay.  That  they  held  these  capacities  temporarily 
merely,  and  as  novices  and  amateurs,  while  men  held 
theirs  as  experts,  for  long  service  or  for  superior  values 
by  right  of  masculine  abilities,  had  no  weight  what- 
soever. Never  in  all  her  days  of  so-called  subjection 
has  woman  been  so  loud  and  denunciatory  of  the  injus- 
tices of  The  Oppressor,  of  his  conspiracies  and  crimes 
against  her,  as  since  she  has  been  yielded  a  number  of 
those  rights  which  Feminism  claims. 

Feminists  will  say  this  is  because  complete  equality 
in  all  things  has  not  yet  been  granted — has  yet  to  be 
fought  for.  The  truth  is,  however,  that  the  interests 
and  functions  of  men  fail  wholly  to  satisfy  the  wholly 
dissimilar  natures  of  women.  But  until  they  have 
realised  this — the  true  reason  of  their  discontent — an 
ever-increasing  number  of  women  will  continue  to  make 
these  their  coveted  goal,  and  to  chafe  with  anger  and 
bitterest  resentment  against  the  other  sex  for  denying 
them  full  measure  of  things — without  intrinsic  value 
for  them. 

:^  *  4t  *  *  * 

It  needs  no  saying  by  me,  that,  apart  from  the 
Feminist   extremist   faction,    the   Woman's    Movement 


288        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

includes  a  number  of  the  sex  characterised  by  the 
noblest  ideals  and  impulse,  as  by  the  finest  achieve- 
ments; their  creed  and  aims  being  pure  of  self-seeking 
or  materialist  ambitions  for  themselves  or  for  their 
kin.  And  these  it  is  to  whom  we  owe  it,  that,  amid  the 
clamour  and  the  combat  of  those  others,  the  spirit  of 
true  Womanhood,  devoted,  wise  and  altruistic,  is  making 
itself  felt  everywhere  in  modern  thought  and  modern 
progress.  Such  women  for  the  most  part  discredit 
Feminism,  in  many  cases  directly  oppose  both  its 
doctrine  and  practice. 

VIII 

The  huge  mmierical  preponderance  of  women  must, 
of  itself,  presently  swamp  all  masculine  power  and 
initiative  in  State  affairs  unless  the  political  functions 
of  the  sexes  be  separated.  Thenceforward,  Vox  populi 
must  be  the  voice  of  Woman — man's  having  ceased  to 
be  heard. 

And  man's  chiefest  menace  lies,  be  it  reiterated  to 
the  point  of  tedium,  in  that  momentous  fact  of  the 
biological  investment  in  woman,  of  the  Racial  Trust- 
fund.  For  this  is,  at  the  same  time,  his  sole  heritage 
and  that  of  the  nation.  And  not  only  does  it  con- 
stitute'her  the  custodian  of  Human  Life  and  Faculty 
but  it  makes  her  arbitress  as  well  of  man's  and  of  the 
nation's  destiny. 

In  yielding  his  House  of  Parliament,  man  has  sur- 
rendered not  only  his  highest  and  most  characteristic 
prerogative,  but  he  has  yielded  the  last  exclusive  strong- 
hold of  his  manhood.  An  entrenchment  indispensable 
to  his  difficult  task  of  holding  his  own  against  a  sex 
overwhelmingly  superior  in  number,  and  chartered,  by 
right  of  womanhood,  with  time-honoured  baffling 
privileges  which  handicap  and  defeat  him  at  all  turns. 
A   sex   Nature  has  armoured  with  charms,   moreover, 


SUBJECTION  OF  MAN  289 

and  with  weaknesses  for  his  disarming;  by  appeal,  on 
the  one  hand,  to  his  chivalry,  on  the  other,  to  his 
senses. 

Entrenched  in  his  last  stronghold,  he  stood  some 
chance  of  exerting  his  allotted  dominance  in  life's 
affairs.     All  his  strongholds  invaded,  he  stands  none. 

For  the  rest,  it  can  only  be  said  that  men  who  should 
reject  their  own,  and  elect  members  of  the  opposite 
sex  to  represent  them  in  Parliament,  would  by  that  vote 
alone  of  non-confidence  in  the  ability  or  the  good  faith 
of  their  kind,  proclaim  the  human  male  a  pitiful  failure 
in  species;  an  order  without  specialisation  of  brain,  of 
character,  or  of  moral,  to  give  it  essential  values  in 
Human  concerns. 

Woman,  on  the  other  hand,  would  stand  acclaimed 
a  Super-Being.  One  not  only  highly-specialised  by 
God  and  Nature,  as  creatrix  of  the  Race,  and  endowed 
with  gifts  to  be  the  Racial  nurse  and  guide  and  teacher, 
but,  added  to  these  most  vital  of  human  capacities,  she 
would  stand  accredited  by  man  with  such  superior 
qualifications  also  for  the  administration  of  the  State 
as  to  lead  him  to  adjudge  her  his  superior  in  this 
capacity  likewise.  While  her  still  further  pre-eminence 
is  now  to  be  emphasised  by  pitting  her  on  equal  terms 
against  the  male,  in  all  the  Arts  and  Crafts,  the  profes- 
sions and  the  businesses. 

Truly — poor  Super-Being  that  she  is  to  be — burdened 
and  spent  by  her  super-tax  of  faculties  and  functions, 
she  will  need,  indeed,  to  break  into  the  Racial  Trust- 
Fund,  in  order  to  equip  herself  for  these  her  multifarious 
exactions.  Because  not  only  will  it  be  her  affliction  to 
produce  the  Race  and  mother  it,  but  she  must  provide 
for  it  too ;  moreover,  must  doctor  it,  play  lawyer, 
parson  and  accountant  to  it;  paint  its  pictures,  mould 
its  statuary,  plan  its  architecture,  build  its  houses, 
compose  its  music,  blow  its  trumpets,  beat  its  drums; 
and,  over  and  beyond  all  these,  must  administer  its 
u 


290        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

politics,  and  serve  it  presently,  no  doubt,  as  Premier, 
Primate  and  Chancellor. 

While  it  must  be  merely  a  matter  of  brief  time, 
when,  to  her  other  tasks,  will  be  added  the  manning 
of  its  Army,  its  Navy  and  Air-Services,  and  the  serving 
of  its  guns. 

Should  Feminist  aims  be  realised — and  already  they 
are  more  than  half-won — it  will  be  a  case,  truly,  of 
Exit  Man ! 

Rejected  on  all  counts,  as  possessing  no  intrinsic 
sex-values,  to  offset  woman's  vital  and  pre-eminent  one 
of  the  creation  of  Life  (for  his  biological  part  in  this  is 
so  slight  and  brief  as  to  be  unworthy  of  note  were  it 
not  indispensable,  and  will  be  insignificant,  indeed, 
when  he  no  longer  serves  as  highly-specialised  agent 
and  artificer  of  the  Racial  faculty);  possessing  no  dis- 
tinctive qualities  and  no  obligations  of  fatherhood,  to 
protect  and  to  provide  for  offspring,  and  thereby  to 
offset  woman's  vital  and  important  one  of  nurturing 
and  rearing  this;  no  more  than  woman's  equal  (if 
that)  in  the  Sciences  and  Arts,  in  Politics  and  Com- 
merce— ^Truly  no  alternative  will  be  left  him  save  to 
retire,  abased,  into  the  dim  background  of  the  Human 
Pageant;  a  self-admitted  failure,  without  place  or 
standing,  by  virile  and  exclusive  right  and  power  of 
body,  brain  and  office. 


IX 

A  more  inspiring  picture  presents  itself,  however. 

Of  a  Manhood,  worthy  of  its  racial  and  national 
traditions,  waking  timely  to  a  recognition  of  its  man-' 
hood's  powers  and  duties,  and,  having  emancipated  itself 
from  woman's  rule  in  all  beside  her  natural  province, 
reinstating  its  supremacy  in  every  virile  field  and  func- 
tion; and  thus  re-shouldering  bravely  its  allotted 
burdens  in  Labour,  Faculty  and  Administration. 


SUBJECTION  OF  MAN  291 

Of  a  Womanhood  re-finding  itself  also,  and  finding 
itself  and  its  natural  lot  upon  a  fairer  and  a  nobler 
plane — the  plane  of  Life,  as  ever,  but  illumined  now  by 
broader  outlook,  and  instinct  with  higher  understanding. 

And  these  two  working  for  the  common  good,  of 
our  Anglo-Saxon  Race,  recruited  by  their  sympathetic 
impulse  and  reciprocal  achievement,  having  been  set, 
in  course  .of  a  few  generations,  upon  routes  of  such  a 
Human  Renaissance  as  should  carry  it  forward  to 
fulfilment  of  its  splendid  destiny. 

In  this  New  Human  Dispensation  would  be  a  House 
of  Women  to  serve  as  a  second — a  balancing  and  an 
uplifting — wing  to  the  House  of  Men. 

Thus  in  the  national  as  in  the  natural  life.  The 
Sexes  would  be  most  effectively  operating  and  co- 
operating; travelling  each  along  its  own  inherent  and 
allotted  lines,  employing  each  its  own  intrinsic  powers 
and  fulfilling  its  intrinsic  functions,  apart  from,  but 
abreast  of  and  in  continual  touch  with  the  other; 
inspiring,  fortifying,  supplementing  and  complementing 
the  attributes,  the  trend  and  the  achievements,  each 
of  each. 

He  H:  *  H:  4:  He 

Said  Mazzini,  "  Man  and  Woman  are  the  two  human 
Wings  that  lift  the  soul  toward  the  Ideal  we  are  destined 
to  attain.'^  And  the  value  and  the  effectiveness  of 
these  two  human,  as  of  other  wings,  lie  in  the  degree  to 
which,  although  they  work  in  unison,  they  move  in 
different  areas ;  apart  from  and  independent,  each  of 
the  other;  balancing  and  correlating,  but,  neverthe- 
less, each  sustaining  its  own  side  of  the  body.  Vital 
and  Social. 


APPENDIX 

Further  Evidences   in  Support  of  the  Biological 

AND       MeNDELIAN       PROPOSITIONS      ADVANCED       IN 

Book  I. 


The  Male  is  the  impelling  force  in  Physical  Development, 
or  Adaptation  to  environment 

Scientific  stock-breeding  supplies  valuable  practical 
examples  of  applied  Genetics,  or  the  Science  of  Heredity. 

Although  artificial,  in  the  sense  that  the  creatures  of 
the  Stock-yard  are  not  mated  by  law  of  Natural  Selec- 
tion, nor  are  they  bred  or  reared  under  normal  environ- 
mental conditions,  the  circumstance  that  breeders  are 
breeding  for  special  characteristics,  and  mate  the 
parents  with  a  view  to  the  transmission  and  the  accen- 
tuation of  such,  provides  important  indications  regarding 
hereditary  influence  and  its  determinant  factors. 

Mr.  Horace  G.  Regnart,  who  has  done  much  to 
establish  Stock-breeding  on  a  scientific  basis,  kindly 
furnishes  me  with  the  following  interesting  and  sugges- 
tive data  : 

"  We  Breeders  pay  more  attention  to  the  bull  because 
he  can  sire  fifty  calves  yearly;  while  the  cow  can 
produce  only  one.  One  can  afford  to  pay  a  thousand 
guineas  for  a  bull,  whereas  one  cannot  afford  fifty  cows 
at  the  same  price.  And  the  purchase  of  a  first-class 
bull  is  the  cheapest  way  of  getting  a  good  herd.  The 
history  of  practically  every  great  herd  is  the  history  of 
some  particular  bull.  As  we  say,  '  a  bull  is  half  the 
herd.^  It  is  equally  true  to  say  that  every  great  bull  is 
the  son  of  a  great  cow.  With  one  highly-prepotent 
bull  we  can  raise  a  high-class  herd,  even  if  we  start 
with  second-rate  females;  while  a  bad  bull  will  ruin 
the  best  herd  in  the  county.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
we  '  put  all  our  money '  on  the  bull." 

292 


MALE  ADAPTATION  293 

All  of  which  supports  my  theory  that  the  male  is 
the  impelling  agency  in  Adaptation  to  Environment,  or 
evolutionary  development  on  the  plane  of  physics,  and 
that  such  progressive  development  is  achieved  by  way 
of  the  male  traits  being  Dominant  upon  this  plane, 
and  manifesting,  accordingly,  in  the  physical  terms  of 
stature  and  muscle  and  force-production. 

The  male  being  the  determinant  agent  in  the  physical 
characteristics  of  size  and  flesh  and  nervous  energy — 
for  which  breeders  of  Live-stock  are  making — the  bull 
is  "  half  the  herd."  "  With  one  highly-prepotent  bull," 
a  high-class  herd  may  be  raised,  even  though  inaugurated 
with  second-rate  females.  Whilst  "  a  bad  bull  will 
ruin  the  best  herd  in  the  county."  Akin  to  which  is 
the  circumstance  that,  in  two  generations,  the  im- 
provement which  occurs  in  the  offspring  of  a  New 
Forest  pony-mare  when  mated  with  a  horse,  lapses ;  the 
descendants  reverting  to  the  type  of  the  New  Forest 
pony. 

If,  however,  the  male,  being  the  agent  of  Adaptation, 
determines  progressive  development  in  the  direction  of 
such  physical  traits  as  further  fit  species  to  its  material 
environment,  the  female  it  is,  that,  being  the  agency 
of  the  Evolution  of  Life  (and  of  the  equipment  of  species 
in  terms  of  Life,  accordingly)  supplies  offspring  with 
the  Vital  potential  of  living  cells  and  vital  organs — 
heart,  lungs,  digestive  and  assimilative  organs  and 
functions — which,  by  engendering  the  multiple  functions 
and  vital  processes  of  Life,  sustain  the  existence  and 
the  powers  of  the  organism  in  relation  to  environment. 
The  female,  moreover,  provides  it  with  the  Vital  potential 
of  reproductive  organs  for  the  transmission  of  types 
ever  further  evolved  and  adapted,  in  terms  both  of 
Life  and  Adaptation. 

The  male  thus  broadly  sketches  out  the  lines  and 
supplies  the  initiative  of  structural  development.  The 
female  supplements  the  sketch  with  the  structural 
potential  of  living  cells,  whereby  structural  develop- 
ment is  achieved;  as  too  with  the  vital  potential  of 
organs  whereby  living  organisation  is  sustained  and 
transmitted. 

The  great  sire,  bull  or  man,  generates  the  great 
daughter.  But  since  Life  is  earlier  in  origin  and 
precedes   Development,   the  great  mother  it  must   be 


294        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

who  first  engenders  the  great  son.  Because,  as  I  have 
aheady  pointed  out,  Life  and  Reproductive-Energy 
must  exist  in  the  potential  before  they  can  evolve 
upon  the  plane  of  personal  development.  In  other 
words,  function  precedes  structure.  The  potential  of 
both  function  and  structure  must  precede  the  develop- 
ment of  either  on  the  plane  of  Life. 

Woman,  accordingly,  is  Creatrix  of  the  Race,  because 
in  her  the  Race  becomes  potential.  Man  is  Artificer 
of  the  Race,  however,  because  from  him  the  Race 
receives  its  powers  of  concrete  development. 

For  progressive  evolutionary  advance,  therefore, 
every  new  generation  of  females  must  contribute  a  new 
complement  of  Vital  potential,  equal  in  potence  to  the 
new  complement  of  Developmental  initiative  which  the 
new  generation  of  males  contribute,  and  by  way  of 
which  the  female  Vital  potential  is  differentiated  into 
further  concrete  powers.  Fruitless  for  one  parent  to 
supply  a  finer  complement  than  the  other  is  able  to 
render  in  terms,  respectively,  of  Life  or  Development. 
The  female  potential  must  be  adequate  to  energise  the 
male  powers  of  differentiation.  The  male  powers 
must  be  adequate  to  differentiate  the  female  potential. 

II 

The  female   supplies   the    Typal   and    Vital    Potentials 
of  Adaptation 

To  Mr.  Regnart,  I  am  indebted  for  the  following 
further  data,  which  seem  further  to  support  my  view  : 

"  Ursula  Raglan  was  a  Beef-cow  that  milked  heavily. 
To  a  Beef-bull,  she  produced  Gainford  Champion — a 
great  bull.  While  to  a  Dairy-bull,  she  produced  the 
dam  of  Priceless  Princess — about  the  best  Dairy-cow 
that  ever  looked  through  a  halter." 

Here  we  find  the  Vital -potential  indispensable  to  the 
equipment  of  great  offspring,  proved  great  in  the 
mother,  by  her  Female  vital -function  of  lactation. 
While  her  respective  bull-mates  appear  as  the  deter- 
minant factors  which  differentiate  this  Vital  potential 
in  offspring,  respectively,  into  the  Beef-traits  (stature 
and  muscle,  that  is)  or  the  Milking-traits  (Vital  func- 
tion, that  is).     The  very  term  "  Dairy-bull,"  signifying 


POTENTIALS   OF  ADAPTATION  295 

a  male  with  power  to  transmit  to  female  descendants 
the  purely  Female  trait  of  milking,  is  evidence,  in  itself, 
of  a  female  trait,  derived  by  a  male  from  his  mother, 
passing  into  the  potential,  and  lying  dormant,  or 
Recessive,  for  a  generation,  in  his  male  organisation, 
and  then  emerging  again  in  his  daughter. 

The  great  bull  is  sire  of  a  great  cow — because  he  was 
son  of  a  great  cow.  And  he  is  a  great  bull  because  he 
received  from  his  dam  a  great  female  Vital -potential, 
for  differentiation  into  greatness  of  the  male  traits  that 
characterise  great  males.  And  in  his  turn,  he  may 
sire  a  cow  greater  than  his  mother,  because  in  passing 
on  to  his  daughter  the  great  female  Vital -potential  of 
his  mother,  he  passes  on  a  female  potential  of  greatness 
to  which  his  own  male  inherence  of  greatness  has 
added  a  further  power  of  Differentiation.  This  in- 
creased Male  power  of  differentiation,  descending  in 
the  female  line,  however,  manifests  in  traits  of  increased 
Female  functioning — the  function  of  milking,  that  is. 

The  daughter  inherits  thus  from  her  father  the 
Female  potential  of  her  paternal  grandmother,  with 
new  power  of  Male  differentiation  acquired  by  its 
residence  during  a  generation  (so  to  speak)  in  a  male 
organisation.  Which  new  power,  when  reawakened  to 
function  in  a  female  organism,  manifests  in  a  further 
degree  of  Femaleness. 

Male  development  having  progressed  along  lines  of 
increasing  brain-  and  nervous  power,  which  the  female 
has  ever  further  inherited.  Female  development  has 
progressed  along  lines  of  such  increasing  brain-power 
as  has  enabled  her  to  transform  her  native  simple  and 
undifferentiated  Femaleness  into  ever  further  developed 
and  more  complex  Female  traits,  or  functional  and 
nervous  characteristics. 

While,  on  the  other  hand,  since  Female  evolution 
has  proceeded  along  lines  of  increasing  Life,  or  Vital 
Power,  which  the  male  has  ever  further  inherited  this 
increasing  Vital  power  it  has  been  that  has  served  as 
potential  for  the  evolution  of  his  Maleness  in  terms  of 
higher  brain-  and  nervous  power. 

The  great  cow  is  mother  of  a  great  bull  because  she 
was  daughter  of  a  great  sire.  And  she  was  a  great  cow 
because  she  received  from  her  sire  a  great  male  com- 


296        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

plement  of  developmental  power,  which  imparted  to 
her  Recessive,  and  undifferentiated  Femaleness,  further 
power  of  functioning  as  female  characteristics.  And 
she  may  mother  a  son  greater  even  than  her  sire  because 
the  great  male  Developmental  impetus  of  her  father 
becomes  in  her  a  greater  Vital  potential;  which, 
descending  in  the  male  line,  engenders  further  power 
for  the  further  differentiation  of  male  characteristics. 


^III 

Evolution  of  Species  and  evolution  of  the  Individual  occur 
on  different  planes 

The  Evolution  of  Species  progresses  in  every  genera- 
tion by  way  of  each  Sex  having  derived  from  the  other 
Sex  a  new  and  opposite  potential  to  engender,  in  every 
alternate  generation,  the  further  evolution  of  its  Sex- 
traits  along  its  own  (and  contrary)  lines. 

It  may  be  considered  therefore  that  Type,  or  Species, 
evolves  to  higher  inherences  by  way  of  progressive 
divergences  of  Sex-characteristics.  While  the  Evo- 
lution of  the  individual  progresses  in  every  generation 
in  proportion  as  parents  of  both  sexes  had  mated,  in 
the  previous  generation,  with  such  members  of  the 
opposite  sex  as  were  best  fitted  to  supply,  in  the  gametes 
contributed  to  offspring,  complements  which,  by  union 
with  their  own,  so  matched  and  supplemented  their  own 
as  to  have  quickened  and  energised  the  development  of 
offspring  to  the  fullest  and  the  most  efficient  issues. 
In  any  line,  however,  a  strain  of  greatness  or  of  other 
inherence  descends  in  alternating  succession,  now  in 
the  female,  now  in  the  male  line;  receding  now  into 
the  potential,  and  then  evolving  in  development.  So 
that  while  the  Individual  normally  evolves  in  every 
generation,  the  Type  evolves  only  in  alternate 
generations. 

The  evolution  of  Type,  or  Species,  is  the  intrinsic 
function  of  the  spontaneous  Evolution  of  Life  into  two 
orders  of  Sex.  It  occurs  on  a  wholly  different  plane 
from  that  of  the  evolution  of  the  Individual.  But  by 
way  of  his,  or  her,  complement  to  the  biological  con- 
stitution of  offspring,  members  of  both  sexes  contribute 


PLANES   OF  EVOLUTION  297 

alike  to  the  evolution  of  Species  and  to  that  of  the 
Individual — according  as  such  complement  enhances 
the  power  of  the  traits  of  the  opposite  Sex  to  manifest, 
and  further  to  evolve  in  offspring. 

The  intensification  in  the  one  sex  of  its  own  in- 
herences stimulates  a  proportional  intensification  of 
the  opposite  inherences  in  the  other  Sex,  both  as 
regards  the  evolution  of  the  Type  and  of  the  Individual. 
The  phenomenon  would  seem  to  be  akin  to  that  increase 
of  one  electrical  potential  evoking  a  proportional  in- 
crease of  the  other  electrical  potential,  to  complement  it. 
When  one  sex  fails  to  supply  its  due  potential,  or  com- 
plernent,  to  the  other,  the  evolution  both  of  Type  and 
Individual  receives  a  check. 

And  because  the  evolution  of  Type  is  achieved  by 
the  Germ-plasm  derived  from  a  parent  of  one  sex 
obtaining  new  increment  from  being  invested  in  the 
organisation  of  offspring  of  the  opposite  sex,  it  is  not 
until  the  new  Typal-inherence  of  this  Germ-plasm  is 
revivified  again  in  the  organisation  of  a  member  of  the 
Sex  from  which  the  plasm  was  derived,  that  such  new 
impulse  manifests.  Hence  the  phenomenon  of  charac- 
teristics being  transmitted  from  parents  to  offspring 
of  opposite  sex.  So  that  daughters  of  normal  womanly 
organisation  reproduce  the  Typal  characteristics  of 
their  fathers'  maternal  line;  while  in  sons  of  normal 
male  organisation  those  of  their  mothers'  paternal  line 
emerge. 

Hence  too,  the  reversion  of  offspring  of  hybrid 
plants  to  the  types, — pure  Dominant  and  pure  Recessive 
— of  their  grandparents. 


IV 

Progressive  segregation  of  Male  and  Female  traits  in 
opposite  sides  of  body  ever  further  intensifies  and 
differentiates  their  intrinsic  qualities 

The  biological  constitution  of  humans  and  of  the 
other  higher  organisms  differentiating  them  into  two 
opposite  symmetrical  sides,  in  which,  as  development 
rises  higher  in  the  scale,  the  Dominance,  or  Maleness, 
in  them  is  ever  further  and  more  perfectly  segregated 


298        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

from  the  Recessiveness,  or  Femaleness,  in  them,  secures 
the  progressive  intensification,  respectively,  of  Maleness 
or  of  Femaleness  in  them,  by  ever  further  ranging  the 
factors,  or  traits,  of  these  on  opposite  sides  of  the 
biological  equation;  and  by  thus  more  effectively  cen- 
tralising the  powers,  according  to  sex,  in  one  or  the 
other  side  thereof. 

Mendel's  peas,  not  thus  differentiated  into  two  sides, 
are  bi-sexual  and  self-fertilising.  Of  the  original  stock, 
that  order  in  which  Dominant  traits  are  prepotent  is 
differentiating  toward  a  male  genus,  however.  While 
the  Recessives  are  differentiating  toward  a  female 
genus.  Although  regarded  as  "  pure  "  Dominants  and 
"  pure "  Recessives,  they  are  nevertheless  hybrids  in 
respect  of  Sex.  Being  self-fertilising,  both  Dominants 
and  Recessives  are  of  low  power,  alike  for  reproduction 
and  development.  Because  the  Dominance,  or  Male 
developmental  power,  of  the  Recessives  being  inhibited 
by  the  Recessiveness,  or  Femaleness,  in  them,  is  of 
low  Vigour.  While  the  Recessiveness,  or  Female  vital 
power  in  the  Dominants  being  unduly  expended  by 
the  Dominance,  or  Maleness,  in  them,  is  of  low  Vitality. 
The  male  sex-cdls  of  the  self-fertilising  Dominants  thus 
fertilise  female  sex-cells  of  low  vitality.  While  the 
female  sex-cells  of  the  self-fertilising  Recessives  are 
fertilised  by  male  sex-cells  of  low  vigour. 

In  cross-breeding,  the  conditions  cease  not  only  to 
be  those  of  self-fertilising,  but  they  cease,  moreover, 
to  be  those  of  the  close  inbreeding  of  self-fertilisation. 
In  the  "  hybrids "  obtained  by  crossing  the  higher- 
vigoured  male  sex-cells  of  »the  "  pure "  Dominants 
with  the  higher- vitalised  female  sex-cells  of  the  "  pure  " 
Recessives,  the  Dominants — because  Dominance  is 
prepotent  for  exterior  characteristics — submerge  the 
external  traits  of  the  Recessives,  which  are  prepotent 
for  vital  and  internal  functioning.  Such  Dominants 
are  a  bi-sexual  species  in  which  the  male  is  prepotent. 
And  to  be  male,  means  that  they  have  expended,  in 
terms  of  structiu'al  development,  a  great  proportion  of 
the  female  Vital  power  inherent  in  them ;  thus  masking 
the  Recessive  female  traits  in  them,  as  regards  exterior 
characteristics.  But  since  reproductive  power  inheres 
in  these  Recessive  traits,  these  traits  are  preserved  in 
the  sex-cells,   equally  with  the  Dominant  traits.     The 


FEMALE   IS   ROOT-STOCK  299 

plants  being  not  only  bi-sexual,  but  self-fertilising  also, 
the  sex-cells  must  obviously  be  bi-sexual  too ;  in  order 
to  provide  the  organism  with  factors  both  of  life  and 
development.  Every  sex-cell  is  a  hybrid  cell,  there- 
fore; bearing  both  Dominant  and  Recessive  traits. 
But,  like  their  parents,  in  some,  the  Dominant,  in 
others,  the  Recessive  traits  are  prepotent.  And  the 
Dominant  sex-cells  mating  with  Dominants,  the  Reces- 
sives  with  Recessives,  the  original  types  of  so-called 
"  pure  "  Dominants  and  "  pure  "  Recessives  reappear 
in  the  third  generation. 


Self-fertilising   organism  is   a  female   organism   with   a 
male  organism  differentiated  in  it 

Because  the  female  represents  the  Life-potential  of 
species  and  the  Vital  potential  of  organisms,  a  self- 
fertilising  plant  or  creature  must  be  regarded  as  a 
female  organism,  with  a  male  organism  of  Adaptation, 
or  Differentiation,  developed  in  it.  This  male  organism 
energises  both  its  developmental  and  its  functioning 
power,  and  fertilises  it;  although  the  potential  of 
structure,  of  growth,  of  function  and  of  reproduction 
are  engendered  in  the  female  organism.  The  female  is 
the  root-stock  or  parent-stem  of  all  species,  therefore. 

If  Dominance  is  Maleness,  and  Recessiveness  is 
Femaleness,  and  if  Dominance  energises  structural 
development  while  Recessiveness  engenders  reproduc- 
tion, a  Dominant  self-fertilising  plant  is  a  female  plant, 
with  a  male  plant  of  superior  Dominance  differentiated 
in  it.  While  a  Recessive  self-fertilising  plant  is  a 
female  plant  of  superior  Recessiveness,  with  a  male 
plant  of  inferior  Dominance  differentiated  in  it.  In 
crossing  stock  of  superior  Dominance  with  stock  of 
superior  Recessiveness,  the  Dominant  prevails  over  the 
Recessive  in  the  general  structural  traits  of  the  resulting 
"  hybrid,"  but  not  in  its  reproductive  inherence.  The 
new  hybrids  being  male  in  inherence,  nothing  is  added 
to  the  female  reproductive,  or  Vital,  potential  in  them. 
The  root-stock  transmits  to  its  sex-cells  therefore  just 
as  its  grandmother  did — Recessives  of  her  type,  and 
Dominants  of  the  type  of  the  Dominant  male  engrafted 


800        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

on  her,  of  the  male  grandfather  of  this  third  generation, 
that  is.     Hence  reversion. 


VI 

Sterility  of  offspring  of  alien  species  proves  evolution  of 
Species  and  of  Individual  are  independent  phenomena 

The  fact  that  dog  and  wolf,  when  mated,  breed  fertile 
species,  proves  them  sprung  from  the  same  root-stock. 
While  the  hybrid  offspring  of  different  species  are 
sterile.  Showing  such  an  intrinsic  incompatability  of 
the  alien  complements  in  the  zygote  as,  while  operating 
as  no  bar  to  their  immediate  union  and  their  develop- 
ment into  a  complete  hybrid  individual,  nevertheless 
bars  the  incorporation  of  the  alien  breed  in  the  Vital 
potential  of  stock. 

Such  sterility  in  the  offspring  of  creatures  of  different 
species  is  weighty  evidence  that  the  Evolution  of  Type, 
or  Species,  and  the  Evolution  of  the  Individual  are 
wholly  independent  phenomena ;  occurring  upon  wholly 
different  planes,  and  involving  wholly  different  prin- 
ciples and  sets  of  processes.  In  the  mating  of  alien 
species,  the  two  sex-cells,  although  of  dissimilar  species- 
inherence,  unite  nevertheless  and  develop  in  the  maternal 
environment  into  a  living  entity  of  mongrel  order.  But 
the  Germ-plasm  contained  in  the  gamete  of  one  species 
will  not  germinate  in  the  alien  environment  of  an 
organism  of  alien  species.  No  potential,  either  Vital  or 
of  Differentiation,  is  engendered,  therefore,  for  production 
of  offspring.  Hence  sterility  results.  The  potential  of 
a  living  individual  is  seen  thus  to  belong  to  a  wholly 
different  plane  of  phenomena  from  the  potential  of 
Stock.  Conditions  which  do  not  annul  the  powers  of 
life  and  of  function  in  the  one,  quench  life  and  function 
in  the  other  with  the  seal  of  sterility. 


VII 

Possible  explanation  of  ''  Sports^' 

Mr.  Regnart  says  :  "  We  often  meet  with  Sports. 
Second-  and  third-rate  parents  may  produce  an  excep- 
tionally fine  individual,   but  such  animals  are  always 


"  SPORTS  "  801 

failures  to  breed  from.  The  law  of  Filial  Regression 
comes  into  operation.  Our  aim  is  to  find  families  that 
have  produced  a  large  number  of  fine  animals — we 
know  then  that  we  are  on  safe  ground." 

In  these  cases,  it  would  seem  that  the  "  fine  in- 
dividual "  results  from  so  singularly  harmonious  and 
successful  a  complementing  and  fructifying  of  the 
parental  halves  in  offspring  as  conduce  to  develop 
the  best  points  of  both;  doubtless,  too,  to  eliminate  or 
to  annul  weak  or  faulty  factors  of  either  parental  strain. 
Neither  of  such  inferior-grade  parents  transmitting  a 
fitie  lineal  potential,  however,  the  exceptional  fineness 
of  the  individual  is  not  inherent  in  the  Germ-plasm  he 
or  she  transmits  to  offspring.  The  fine  characteristics 
of  such  "  Sports  "  are  not  transmissible,  therefore,  to 
descendants. 

Proof  again  of  two  planes  of  Life  and  Evolution,  that 
of  Species  and  that  of  the  Individual.  Moral,  too,  of 
the  importance  of  fine  selection  in  mating,  since  the 
harmonious  mating  of  second-  or  third-rate  parents 
may  produce  finer  offspring  than  are  born  of  ill-assorted 
matings  of  two  finer  breeds  of  parent. 

The  case  is  recorded  of  a  pony  about  the  size  of  a 
Shetland  pony,  which  was  the  offspring  of  pedigree 
Shire-parents  on  both  sides,  both  parents  being  over  17 
hands.  The  most  striking  feature  about  the  animal 
was  that  there  was  nothing  of  the  horse-type  about 
him — he  was  a  perfect  example  of  pony. 

Shire  horses  are  typical  examples  of  Vigour,  or 
developmental  power,  expressed  in  terms  of  stature, 
muscle  and  nervous  energy.  And  for  so  long  as  the 
breeding  for  these  characteristics  was  supplemented  in 
terms  of  vital  organs  and  vital  functioning,  by  an 
equivalent  maternal  complement  of  Vital  potential,  to 
sustain  the  constitutional  expenditure  involved  in 
stature,  muscular  equipment,  and  nervous  energy,  the 
breed  improved  in  these  particulars.  Pushed  beyond 
this  limit,  by  introducing  into  stock  further  strains  of 
Vigour,  or  developmental  initiative,  without  simul- 
taneously providing  the  indispensable  equivalents  of 
these  in  increasing  Vital  potentials,  all  at  once  the 
balance  toppled,  and  reversion  to  inferior  type  resulted. 

An  excessive  proportion  of  the  Vital  power  of  these 
two  Pedigree  Shires  of  great  stature  and  great  strength 


302        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

had  been  expended  in  the  achievement  of  such  great 
stature  and  great  strength,  and  in  the  equipment  of 
digestive  and  assimilative  organs  required  to  sustain 
these.  But  Httle  had  remained,  accordingly,  for  Repro- 
ductive investments.  Hence  reversion  in  the  de- vitalised 
stock. 

One  conceives  of  the  counterpoise  in  Stock,  of  Male 
and  Female  complements,  as  being  akin  to  that  of  the 
opposite  and  complementary  curves  of  an  arch.  So 
long  as  equipoise  is  sustained  by  the  perfect  balance  of 
the  contrary  curves,  so  long  each  re-inforces  the  other 
to  support  a  heavy  superstructure  of  development. 
Lopsidedness  of  either  curve  leads  to  collapse. 


VIII 

Vigour  is  Male.     Vitahility  is  Female 

"  Vigour,"  which  breeders  regard  as  a  potent  factor 
in  heredity,  is  commonly  confounded  with  Vital  Power, 
or  Vitability;  although  the  two  would  seem  to  be 
diametrically  opposite  in  cause,  in  nature  and  effect. 

An  athlete,  in  so-called  "  condition,"  is  in  the  prime 
of  Vigour;  his  muscular  and  nervous  powers  being  at 
high  levels  of  structure  and  of  functioning.  His  Vital 
powers  are  proportionally  at  low  ebb,  however;  as  is 
proved  by  his  notable  lack  of  recuperative  power  in 
illness.  He  is  bad  subject,  indeed,  in  respect  of  progress 
and  recovery  from  disease. 

Feeble-minded  persons  possess  but  little  Vigour  of 
brain  or  of  body,  yet  their  Vital  power,  as  shown  in 
healthy  organic  functioning  and  vitativeness,  is  often 
extraordinary.  Vigour  is  an  expression  of  nervous 
energy,  and  is  generated  by  the  brain.  Vitability  is 
Life-power,  and  results  from  vital  organs  efficient  both 
in  structure  and  in  processes.  It  is  engendered  in  the 
Reproductive  System;  which  may  be  regarded  as  the 
power-house  of  Life  and  vital  function. 

Vigour  is  the  power  of  Differentiation,  or  Individu- 
ation, of  an  organism,  structural  and  functional,  physical 
and  mental,  in  terms  of  its  relation  to  environment. 
Vitahility  is  the  intensification  of  the  individualism  and 
of  the  functioning  of  an  organism  in  terms  of  Life-power. 


VIGOUR  AND  VITALITY  303 

Vigour,  being  katabolic,  a  male  and  a  Dominant 
trait,  manifests  in  man  (as  in  plants)  as  Tallness,  or  the 
expenditure  of  vital  energy  upon  the  material  plane, 
in  growth  and  stature;  as  too  in  functional  initiative 
and  activity,  both  physical  and  mental,  on  the  material 
plane. 

Vitability,  being  anabolic,  a  female  and  a  Recessive 
trait,  manifests  as  Dwarfness,  or  the  conservation  of 
vital  energy  upon  the  material  plane,  in  respect  of 
growth  and  stature;  as  too  in  weakness,  or  inhibition 
of  vigour  and  activity,  both  physical  and  mental. 

The  male  trait  of  Vigour  makes  men  larger,  stronger, 
hardier,  and  more  resistant  to  disease  than  women  are. 
The  female  trait  of  Vitability  makes  women  healthier, 
more  charged  with  vital  power  and  temperament,  more 
recuperative  from  disease,  and  longer-lived  than  men. 
The  complementary  inherences  of  Vigour  and  Vita- 
bility, derived  respectively  from  the  two  parents,  and 
supplementing  one  another  in  offspring,  endow  him  or 
her  with  fine  form  and  structure,  healthy  vital  organs 
and  efficient  function,  power  of  Life  and  nervous 
energy. 

In  the  normal  male.  Vigour  dominates  Vitability; 
the  maternal  potential  of  Vitability  being  differentiated 
in  him  into  its  male  equivalent.  While  in  the  normal 
female.  Vigour  recedes  within  the  Female  traits  of  vital 
power  and  healthy  functioning,  endurance  and  womanly 
faculty. 

The  opposite  modes  of  Vigour  and  Vitality  are  well 
shown  in  disease.  In  vigorous  men,  disease  may  assume 
the  type  known  as  "  sthenic  " ;  occasioning  such  violent 
re-activity,  or  rebellion,  of  the  system,  and  such  con- 
sequent severity  of  symptoms  as  speedily  exhaust  the 
resources,  and  tend  to  fatal  ending.  While  Vital  power, 
being  anabolic  and  conservative,  meets  the  foe  pas- 
sively, and  instead  of  wasting,  economises  the  forces  by 
moderation  of  symptoms;  bending  to  the  course  and 
processes  of  sickness,  and  making  thereby  for  recovery. 
Because  of  the  lesser  vitability  of  their  cells,  disease 
in  men  tends'- toward  structural,  or  organic  deteriora- 
tions. While  disease  in  normal  women  is  more  often 
functional,  merely. 

In  masculine  women,  disease  is  prone,  as  in  men,  to 
structural   degenerations.     Masculine   women   are   very 


804        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

liable  to  cancer;  a  liability  they  transmit  as  heritage 
to  offspring  of  both  sexes.  Hence  the  increasing 
masculinity  of  latter-day  women  has  entailed  upon  the 
race  an  increased  liability  to  cancer  and  to  other  struc- 
tural degeneration.  This  liability  has  assumed  such 
grave  proportions  as  to  occur  in  children  even,  showing 
in  the  abnormal  growths,  "  adenoids  "  now  so  prevalent 
as  to  have  become  "  the  normal  "  of  modern  childhood. 


IX 

The  living  body  is  a  highly-vitalised  Vegetative  organism 
with  a  highly-specialised  Cerebro-nervous  organism 
differentiated  in  it 

Professor  Cuvier  said,  "  The  nervous  system  is,  at 
bottom,  the  whole  animal ;  the  other  systems  are  there 
only  to  serve  it." 

Professor  Bergson  amplifies  the  statement : 

"  A  higher  organism  is  essentially  a  sensori-motor 
system  installed  on  systems  of  digestion,  respiration, 
circulation,  secretion,  etc.,  whose  function  it  is  to  repair, 
cleanse  and  protect  it,  to  create  an  unvarying,  internal 
environment  for  it,  and  above  all  to  produce  its  potential 
energy  for  conversion  into  locomotive  movement." 

In  both  statements,  is  recognition  of  the  Dual  dif- 
ferentiation of  the  body  into  an  organism  of  Life  which 
functions  in  relation  to  its  own  intrinsic  being,  and  an 
organism  of  Consciousness  which  functions  in  relation 
to  exterior  environment.  That  in  death  from  starva- 
tion, the  brain  and  the  nerves  remain  almost  unimpaired, 
while  all  the  other  organs  and  tissues  lose  weight,  their 
cells  undergoing  profound  degenerative  changes,  is 
further  indication  of  two  distinct  and  separate  depart- 
ments of  development  and  processes  in  every  animal 
existence. 

As  in  its  Mendelian  phenomena  of  the  Segregation  of 
its  Contrasting  Traits,  and  the  Dominance  and  Reces- 
siveness  of  these  in  constitution  and  heredity,  so,  in  its 
living  organisation,  the  human  body  is  extraordinarily 
and  in  a  number  of  ways  essentially  plant-like.  The 
brain  and  the  nervous  system  may  be  regarded,  indeed, 
as    a    highly-differentiated    Cerebro -Nervous    organism 


BODY  IS  VEGETATIVE  805 

grafted  upon  a  simpler  Vital,  and  vegetative  body,  from 
which,  as  from  a  soil,  it  draws  its  life  and  energy  :  and 
from  which,  as  age  advances,  it  gradually  withdraws 
the  power  of  further  sustaining  its  existence. 

This  Cerebro -Nervous  graft  perishes  only  because 
the  Vegetative  body  on  which  it  is  installed  has  come 
to  the  end  of  its  power  to  sustain  the  life  of  the  Nervous 
organism  picketed  upon  it. 

The  close  resemblances  in  structure  and  in  processes 
between  the  Cells  of  vegetable  and  animal  organisms, 
when  taken  in  conjunction  with  a  number  of  other 
biological  indications,  justify  the  conclusion  that  living 
bodies  are  actually  vegetative  organisms  to  which  have 
been  super-added,  by  progressive  evolutionary  dif- 
ferentiations, faculties  of  Motion  and  of  Consciousness. 

(Plants  are  recognised  as  possessing  rudimentary 
consciousness.    While  Growth  is  a  mode  of  Motion.) 

The  trunk,  which  contains  the  respiratory,  circu- 
latory, nutritive  and  reproductive  organs  represents  the 
Vitative,  or  Vegetative,  system.  The  brain  with  its 
tributary  spinal  cord  and  spinal -nervous  system  repre- 
sents the  Sensori-motor  organism.  While  the  limbs  are 
highly-differentiated  implements  which  the  Cerebro- 
Nervous  organism  has  developed  in  the  Vitative 
organism ;  to  serve  it  with  means  of  locomotion  and  of 
action,  for  the  achievement  of  intelligent  purpose. 

The  lungs,  with  their  ramifications  of  tubes  and  their 
air-cells,  closely  resemble  the  branches  and  leaves  of  a 
tree,  which  spread  into  and  absorb  from  the  atmosphere 
the  oxygen  whereby  it  lives.  While  the  convoluted 
intestines  are  like  the  roots  of  a  tree,  absorbing  nurture 
for  it  from  environment. 

The  Vegetative  organism,  being  the  agency  of  Life, 
is  female  in  origin  and  inherence. 

The  Cerebro -spinal  organism,  being  the  agency  of 
Adaptation,  is  male  in  origin  and  inherence.  In  both, 
however,  the  inherences  of  the  other  sex  are  represented. 

The  body  resembles  thus  a  bi-sexual  plant,  its  root- 
stock  being  female  and  Recessive,  with  a  male  Dominant 
and  differentiating  organism  incorporated  in  it. 


306        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 


Vegetative  body  has  its  own  brain  and  nervous  system  and 
its  (involuntary)  muscles 

This  Vegetative  body  has  its  own  separate  (organic) 
brain,  in  the  Solar  Plexus — or  "  Abdominal  brain  " — 
and  its  nervous  system,  in  the  intricate  "  Sympathetic" 
system  of  nerves;  which,  in  addition  to  administering 
the  nutrition  of  the  body,  is  intimately  and  closely 
associated,  in  psychology,  with  the  brain  and  with  the 
spinal-nervous  system  of  the  Psychical  organism.  Itself 
subconscious,  this  organic  brain  nevertheless  con- 
tributes vital  impulse  and  colour  to  Consciousness. 

It  possesses  also  its  own  specialised  system  of 
muscles,  the  "  Involuntary  muscles  " ;  which  are  not 
under  control  of  the  conscious  brain  and  will,  but 
operate  automatically — by  so-called  reflex  action.  The 
motions  they  subtend  are  concerned  with  vital  func- 
tions; nutrition,  respiration,  circulation,  assimilation, 
elimination,  reproduction. 

The  Vitative  organism,  being  vegetative  of  growth 
and  passive  of  mode,  needs  rest  and  sun  and  wind  and 
air  and  w^ater  for  its  nurture  and  development.  With 
that  rising  of  the  sap  in  the  world  of  vegetation  which 
occurs  in  spring,  kindred  processes  occur  within  the 
human  vegetative  body.  It  responds  to  the  re-creative 
forces  of  its  mother-earth. 

With  every  recurring  Spring-tide,  youth  turns  again 
to  thoughts  of  love,  because  of  this  natural  renaissance 
of  its  vitative  resources,  for  purposes  of  re-creation — 
both  of  Cells  and  individuals. 

Old  age  is. a  permanent  winter  of  this  plant-body. 
Summer  suns  revive  but  little  more  than  flickerings  of 
its  vegetative  pulsings.  Although  the  psychical  life, 
intellectual  and  nervous,  may  be  still  vigorous,  the  sap 
of  the  plant-body  no  longer  rises,  quick  and  warm  and 
fructifying,  to  earth's  perennial  call. 

This  plant-like  body  with  its  plant-like  fruiting  Cells, 
it  is,  that  when  charged  with  the  graces  and  magnetic 
potences  of  health  and  high  nurture,  supplies  the 
pleasing  personality  found  not  seldom  in  sinners,  while 


PLANT-LIKE   CELLS  307 

often  conspicuously  lacking  in  saints — a  seeming 
anomaly  which  has  gone  far  to  discredit  the  virtues. 

By  way  of  it,  human  personality  resembles  a  mystical 
flowering  plant  that  breathes  and  feels  and  *  moves ; 
and  a  fruiting  plant  that  reproduces.  The  Cerebro- 
Nervous  system  animates  and  intelligises  this  beautiful 
vessel  of  flesh  wherein  it  subsists. 

The  vigour  of  its  Vegetative  stock,  supplementing 
brain  and  nervous  system  by  fine  structure,  fine  stature, 
organic  vigour,  native  faculty,  and  reproductive  power, 
has  given  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  its  world-wide  rule.  It 
is  to  this  that  its  women  have  owed  their  shapely  frames, 
their  healthful  constitutions  and  their  loveliness;  the 
warm  tints  of  hair  and  skin,  the  fresh  and  flower-like 
complexions,  and  the  fruit-like  form  and  bloom  of 
cheek  for  which  they  once  were  famed. 

Rich  personal  charm  and  sweetness  of  healthful 
condition  which  are  all  too  swiftly  passing  from  our 
modern  women,  hag-ridden  by  a  strenuousness  that  is 
wrecking  the  flower-body,  with  its  vital  joy  and  warmth, 
its  grace  of  being  and  its  bliss  of  sense,  its  temperamental 
thrill  and  colour. 

4:  4:  4:  4:  4:  He 

The  doctrine  of  Evolution  is  signally  incomplete 
unless  we  realise  it  as  a  sequence  of  progressive  develop- 
ments, direct  and  without  intermission,  from  the  simplest 
forms  of  Elemental  Matter  to  the  highest,  living  orders 
of  Creation — Mineral,  Vegetable,  Brute  and  Human 
being  progressive  stages  in  the  evolution  of  Life  and 
of  Consciousness;  graded  by  links  so  subtly  and  in- 
finitesimally  constituted  as  to  belong  equally  to  the 
kingdom  below  and  to  that  above  them. 

The  subject  appears  full  of  interest  and  suggestion, 
showing  all  the  planes  of  Nature,  from  mineral  to  man, 
linked  in  an  unbroken  line  by  way  of  this  half- vegetable 
body  of  flesh,  with  its  roots  in  earth  and  its  branches 
in  Consciousness.  No  more  than  this  briefest  of  mentions 
can  be  given  here,  however. 


308        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 


XI 

Mysterious  "  Internal  Secretions  " 

Biologists  tell  of  Dual  planes  of  operation  in  the 
processes  of  every  organ  of  the  body.  Because  some  of 
these  function  on  the  external  plane,  in  visible  secretions 
or  in  other  ways  calculable  by  scientific  methods,  and 
they  function,  too,  upon  an  Inner  and  occulted,  plane; 
in  the  form  of  mysterious  "Internal  Secretions,"  the 
mode  and  nature  whereof  have  long  baffled  and  eluded 
the  most  intricate  scientific  appliances  and  intellections. 

What  is  indicated  if  not  an  Inner,  and  Potential, 
plane  of  Life  and  vital  processes — a  plane  of  Involution^ 
or  Recession  (centripetal)— whereon  factors  of  environ- 
ment, air,  food,  water  and  so  forth  are  transformed 
by  vital  involutionary  processes,  into  potentials  of  living 
form  and  function  ?  Which  potentials  remain  latent,  or 
Recessive,  in  the  cells  and  glands  secreting  them,  and 
available  for  transformation  by  evolutionary  processes, 
into  actualities  of  physical  form  and  function  on  the 
Outer  (centrifugal)  plane  of  Life — ^the  plane  of  Evolution, 

And  Life  and  health,  together  with  normality  of 
faculty  and  function,  depend  upon  the  perfect  balance 
and  co-ordination  of  these  two  contrary  orders  of 
factors  and  processes,  which,  I  assume,  are  engendered, 
respectively,  in  the  Male  and  the  Female  departments 
of  living  organisms  of  both  sexes. 

All  the  vital  functions — Respiration,  Circulation, 
Digestion,  Reproduction — may  be  classed  as  Recessive 
functions,  because  they  are  characterised  by  a  Recession, 
or  withdrawal,  from  the  Without  to  the  Within.  This 
is  a  phenomenon  of  the  Involution  of  Environment,  for 
transformation  thereof  into  potential  Life,  and  potential 
Evolutionary  output. 

Death  is  a  centripetal  withdrawal  of  the  soul  from  the 
material  Without  to  an  Inner  zone  of  Spiritual,  or 
Potential,  Being.  And  in  due  time,  analogy  assures 
us,  having  assimilated  and  transformed  the  resultant 
of  a  terrestrial  existence  into  a  new  potential  of  Life, 
Life  issues  forth  again,  by  the  centrifugal  impulse  of 
re-Birth,  to  differentiate  itself  once  more  in  living  form 
upon  the  Outer  plane.     (Re-incarnation  is,  obviously, 


MENTAL  DUALITY  809 

the    true    interpretation   of   Resurrection,  of  the    body, 
which  otherwise  is  scientifically  impossible.) 

Winter  withdrawal,  or  Involution,  of  the  sap  of 
Vegetation  from  the  outer  plane  of  functioning  to  the 
inner  plane  of  potential  Life,  whereby  it  derives  such 
new  increment  of  Vital  potential  as,  with  the  outgoing 
of  sap  again  in  the  renaissance  of  spring,  evolves  in 
increased  growth  and  new  foliage,  is  further  example 
of  the  principle  and  processes  of  Dominance  and  Reces- 
siveness — of  the  female  Vital  impulse  and  the  male 
Developmental  impetus,  operating  in  an  eternal  tidal 
rhythm  of  ebb  and  flow. 

XII 

Dual  planes  of  Mentality:  Outer  and  Material,  Inner 

and  Occult 

As  in  the  Domain  of  Life  and  vital  processes,  so  in 
the  Domain  of  Consciousness  and  nervous  processes, 
there  are  two  planes  of  function ;  an  Inner  and  occulted 
plane  of  Mind,  or  potential  Consciousness,  and  an 
Outer  plane  of  material  Consciousness;  representing 
respectively  afferent  (or  centripetal)  and  efferent  (or 
outgoing)  nervous  currents. 

Faculty  and  sense  may  be  regarded  as  having  de- 
veloped in  one  direction  along  lines  of  the  telescope, 
with  increasing  capability  to  horizon  the  Without; 
while  they  have  developed  simultaneously  along  lines 
of  the  microscope,  to  reveal  an  Invisible  Within. 

The  Senses,  which  adapt  man's  Consciousness  to 
environment  by  the  functions  of  Sight,  Hearing,  Touch, 
Taste,  Smell,  have  become,  with  evolutionary  develop- 
ment, so  increasingly  sensitised  in  response  to  The 
Without  as  ever  further  to  have  set  him  in  rapport 
with  the  world  exterior.  While,  at  the  same  time,  so 
have  they  become  sensitised  in  response  to  The  Within, 
as  ever  further  to  have  deepened  and  quickened  his 
apprehension  of  an  occulted  Interior  plane.  Faculty 
has  acquired  thus,  simultaneously  with  its  increasing 
power  of  focusing  the  Outer  and  Objective,  an  in- 
creasing power  so  to  invert  its  focus  as  to  penetrate 
ever  more  deeply  into  the  Inner  and  Subjective,  alike 
of  man's  own  constitution  and  that  of   environment. 


310        FEMINISM  AND   SEX-EXTINCTION 

These  two  contrary,  but  co-operative,  modes  of  men- 
tality are,  respectively,  Intellection  and  Intuition — 
Male  and  Female  modes  of  mind. 


XIII 

Differentiation  of  the  Zygote,  or  Mated  Sex-cell 

I  have  described,  throughout,  the  right  side  of  the 
human  body  as  the  male-side — ^that  in  which  the  Male- 
traits  of  Humanity  are  specialised  in  the*  individual ; 
the  left  as  the  woman-side,  that  in  which  the  Woman- 
traits  of  Humanity  are  centred. 

But  the  modes  of  constitution,  as  of  inheritance,  are 
more  complex,  of  course,  than  that  one  parent  supplies 
the  potential  of  one  side,  the  other  parent  that  of  the 
other  side. 

As  regards  inheritance,  the  maternal  ovum  comprises, 
I  believe,  the  potential  of  the  whole  body,  with  the 
exception  of  the  brain,  the  spinal-cord  and  the  spinal 
nerves.  But  because  the  mother  is  descended  from 
parents  of  both  sex,  and  possesses,  therefore,  both  Male 
and  Female  elements,  the  ovum  must  contain  (as  must 
every  other  cell)  both  male  and  female  factors.  These, 
it  is  conceivable,  are  grouped,  by  contrary  polarities, 
into  two  areas,  or  hemispheres;  an  upper  and  a  lower. 
Of  these  the  upper  is  Male  in  inherency.  It  comprises 
the  potentials  of  shoulders  and  spinal  column  which  are 
fulcra  of  action,  and  of  lungs  and  heart  which  are  the 
energising  organs  of  Life.  The  lower  hemisphere  of 
the  ovum  is  Female  in  inherency.  It  comprises  the 
potentials  of  the  pelvis,  which  is  the  cradle  of  Maternity, 
of  the  reproductive  organs,  which  engender  Life  and 
the  emotions,  and  of  the  digestive  and  assimilative 
organs,   which  engender  vital  processes. 

So  too,  because  the  male  parent  is  likewise  descended 
from  parents  of  opposite  sex,  his  contribution  to  off- 
spring must  also  contain  both  male  and  female  factors. 
But  while  the  mother  supplies,  in  the  ovum,  the  potential 
of  the  whole  body — face  and  head,  trunk,  limbs  and  vital 
organs,  the  father  contributes  the  potential  of  the 
brain,  the  spinal  cord  and  the  spinal  nerves  only,  which 
adapt  the  organism,  by  way  of  form  and  Consciousness, 


MATED   SEX-CELL  311 

to  environment.  The  limbs,  which  adapt  it,  by  way 
of  Motion,  to  environment,  may  be  regarded  as 
differentiations  primarily  of  the  brain  and  nervous 
system. 

The  ovum  is  spheroidal;  the  sperm-cell  rectilinear 
(following  the  rule  that  the  line  of  Maleness  is  a  straight 
one;  that  of  Femaleness,  a  curve).  And  as  in  the 
spheroidal  ovum,  the  factors  of  the  opposite  sexes, 
grouped  into  two  areas,  separate  it  into  hemispheres  of 
opposite  sex -inherency,  so  in  the  rectilinear  sperm-cell, 
we  may  surmise  the  factors  of  the  two  sexes  to  be 
grouped  lengthwise,  and  to  separate  it  thus  into  a  male 
side  and  a  female  side.  Such  a  sperm-cell  penetrating 
the  ovum,  and  developing  laterally,  further  differentiates 
this  into  anterior,  posterior  and  lateral  areas.  The  two 
lateral  developments  of  this  potential  brain  and  spinal 
cord  and  nerves  eventually  constitute  the  right  and  the 
left  brain-hemispheres,  and  differentiate  the  body  into 
right  and  left  sides. 

The  left  brain-hemisphere,  with  its  half  of  the  spinal 
cord  and  nerves,  is  derived  from  the  male  side  of  the 
sperm-cell;  while  the  right  brain-hemisphere,  with  its 
half  of  the  spinal  cord  and  spinal  nerves,  is  derived 
from  the  female  side  (by  inheritance)  of  the  sperm  cell. 

Weismann  describes  the  Germ-Plasm  as  being  trans- 
mitted in  the  female  line  solely,  from  ovum  of  mother 
to  that  of  daughter. 

This  supports  the  above  view;  namely,  that  the 
Germ-Plasm  proper  is  inherent  in  the  ovum,  in  which  it 
exists  in  potential,  or  undifferentiated,  form,  and  that 
it  becomes  differentiated  (in  both  sexes)  into  a  right 
and  a  left-reproductive  gland  of  contrary  sex-inherence, 
by  differ entiative  power  of  the  dual-sexed  sperm-cell. 
The  re-polarisation  of  the  fertilised  ovum,  which  is 
visible  beneath  the  microscope,  would  seem  to  represent 
this  differentiative  process. 

Since  the  microcosm  is  as  the  macrocosm,  the  Dual 
constitution  must  be  repeated  in  every  living  cell  of 
the  body;  the  cell-plasma  representing  the  vegetative 
system,  the  cell-nucleus  representing  the  cerebro- 
nervous  system.  Possibly  the  nucleolus  is  the  Supra- 
and  Subconscious  element.  *  - 


312        FEMINISM  AND  SEX-EXTINCTION 


XIV 

Inorganic  Matter  is  Dual  and  Hermaphrodite.  Life 
breaks  up  this  Neuter  counterpoise,  and  progressively 
unlocks  and  segregates,  and  thus  reveals  and  specialises 
the  inherent  attributes  of  Sex 

Phenomena  of  Duality  characterise  not  Living  Matter 
only,  but  Inorganic  Matter  too.  The  elemental  atom 
is  never  found  manifesting  singly,  but  always  as  two 
atoms  coupled  together,  in  the  form  of  "  the  molecule  "  ; 
these  mated  atoms  being  of  opposite  electrical  potential. 

And  since  Living  Matter  has  evolved  out  of  Inorganic 
Matter — what  is  to  be  inferred  but  that  the  duality  of 
the  living  cell  is  the  evolution,  on  the  plane  of  Life,  of 
the  duality  of  the  chemical  molecule  ? 

Further,  that  the  duality  of  living  forms  in  terms  of 
sex-characteristics  is  the  evolution,  on  the  plane  of 
Living  Faculty,  of  the  duality  alike  of  the  living  cell 
and  of  the  chemical  molecule;  the  two  sexes  repre- 
senting, respectively,  the  contrary  inherences  of  all 
these  dualities,  specialised  and  ever  further  intensifying 
in  the  contrary  trends  of  the  opposite  Sex-traits  of 
Male  and  Female. 

The  elemental  molecule  is  seen  thus  to  be  hybrid,  or 
hermaphrodite,  in  constitution,  precisely  as  the  living 
cell  and  the  living  body  are.  While  that  both  living 
cells  and  inorganic  crystals  reproduce,  proves  factors  of 
Sex  differentiated  and  functioning  in  them. 

The  inertia  of  Matter  is  due  to  the  hermaphrodite 
state;  its  contrary  Sex -impulses  interlocking  and  nulli- 
fying one  another.  Life  breaks  up  this  neuter  state 
of  equipoise,  by  increasingly  segregating  the  dual-sex- 
inherences  and  evolving  each  along  its  own  intrinsic 
trend;  thereby  engendering  between  their  dual  factors 
fructifying  interoperations  which  result  in  the  motions 
of  Growth  and  other  vital  processes. 

Growth  is  a  phenomenon  of  Reproduction.  Living 
cells  increase  their  substance  by  germination  of  their 
bi-sexual  elements.  Attaining  maturity,  a  cell  divides 
into  two  cells,  each  of  which  by  way  of  similar  processes 
develops  into  a  mature  cell. 

And  since  for  all   Change,  two   (or  more)  contrary 


GROWTH   IS   REPRODUCTION  313 

impulses  are  necessary,  and  since  Reproduction  is  a 
function  of  Sex,  what  is  to  be  inferred  but  that  Evolu- 
tion and  Growth  and  all  other  phenomena  of  living 
cells  result  from  oppositions,  co-operations  and  cor- 
relations of  the  contrary  impetus  and  processes  of  two 
orders  of  sex -factors  present  therein?  By  way  alone 
of  their  bi-sexuality,  are  cells,  both  animal  and  vegetable, 
able  to  reproduce  the  cell -offspring  required  by  living 
organisms  for  processes  of  growth,  of  function  and 
repair. 


Printed    in    Great    Britain    bt 

Richard  Clay  &  Sons,    Limitb©. 

bbdnswick  st.,  stamford  st.,  a.k,  1 

aud  bunoay,  suffolk. 


WOMAN  AND  LABOUR 

By  OLIVE  SCHREINER 
Demy  8vo,  cloth,  8s.  6d.  net 


SEVENTH  IMPRESSION 


"  At  last  there  has  come  the  book  which  is  destined  to  be 
the  prophecy  and  the  gospel  of  the  whole  awakening.  .  .  . 
Remarkable  as  this  book  of  Olive  Schreiner's  is,  merely  as 
an  intellectual  achievement,  its  greatness  and  its  life  are  in 
the  emotional  power  which  has  found  its  stimulus  and  its 
inspiration  in  a  vision  of  the  future.  ...  A  book  which 
will  be  read  and  discussed  for  many  years  to  come." — The 
Nation. 

"  It  is  a  fascinating  mingling  of  keen  argument,  scientific 
knowledge,  historical  pageantry,  rushing  emotion,  written 
(need  it  be  said)  in  that  adorned  prose  which  is  Olive 
Schreiner's  characteristic  style.  .  .  .  The  book  ...  is 
an  epic."— Mr.  J.  Ramsay  Macdonald  in  The  Daily 
Chronicle, 

"All  the  qualities  which  long  ago  won  for  Olive  Schreiner 
the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  readers  all  over  the  globe 
are  here  in  their  old  strength.  There  is  fierce  satire  ;  there 
is  deep-souled  eloquence.  There  is  the  same  quick  reason- 
ing, the  same  tenderness,  the  same  poetic  insight  into  the 
puzzle  of  life.  .  .  .  The  feelings  which  are  behind  the  various 
women's  movements  could  not  find  clearer  or  more  eloquent 
expression  than  they  do  in  this  remarkable  book." — The 
Daily  Mail. 

"It  is  one  of  those  books  which  are  sunrises,  and  give 
us  spacious  and  natural  horizons.  Like  Mazzini's  essays,  it 
is  logic  touched  with  emotion,  politics  on  fire.  One  may 
begin  to  doubt  the  cause  of  woman^s  rights  when  the 
opponents  of  sex  equality  produce  an  equally  glowing 
earnest  and  prophetic  book." — The  Daily  News. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN,  Ltd.,  I  Adelphi  Terrace,  London,  W.C. 


BABY  WELFARE 

A  GUIDE  TO  ITS  ACQUISITION  AND 
MAINTENANCE 


By  W.  E.  ROBINSON,  M.D. 

Assistant  Physician  and  Pathologist  to  the  In/ants'  Hospital,  London 

Demy  8vo,  cloth,  7s.  6d.  net 


"  We  congratulate  the  author  on  his  careful  study  of  the 
healthy  infant,  about  whom  it  has  too  long  been  difficult  to 
obtain  exact  information." — The  Lancet. 

"A  valuable  addition  to  the  literature  dealing  with  the 
scientific  knowledge  of  infancy  and  early  childhood.  .  .  . 
The  book  starts  with  a  brief  and  easily  comprehended 
exposition  of  physical  characteristics,  a  groundwork  of 
great  value  to  intelligent  women  who  desire,  from  one 
reason  or  another,  to  be  self-reliant  as  far  as  possible  where 
their  babies  are  concerned.  A  chapter  devoted  to  'The 
Healthy  Infant'  gives  in  pleasingly  lucid  fashion  a  picture 
of  what  a  baby  should  be  doing  at  each  point  of  its 
development." — The  Queen. 

"This  book  deals  fully  and  clearly  with  the  physiology 
of  the  infant ;  with  dietetics,  based  on  a  study  of  human 
and  cow's  milk,  as  supplied  to  it ;  with  the  effects  of  faulty 
upbringing,  more  especially  of  faulty  feeding  ;  the  signs, 
causes  and  treatment  of  diseased  conditions,  and  so  on. 
It  should  be  a  valuable  aid  to  the  intelligent  mother  or 
nurse." — Nursing  Notes. 


T.  FISHER  UNWIN,  Ltd.,  1  Adelphi  Terrace   London,  W.C. 


WOMAN  AND  MARRIAGE 

A  HANDBOOK 

By  MARGARET  STEPHENS 

With  a  Preface  by  Dr.  Mary  Scharlieb,  and  an 
Introduction  by  Mrs.  S.  A.  Barnett 

Large  crown  8vo,  cloth,  6s.  net 

SIXTH  IMPRESSION 

The  direct  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  explain  very  simply 
something  of  the  structure  and  the  use  of  parenthood,  and 
to  show  the  possibilities  which  arise  from  it — in  short,  to 
help  women,  and  men  too — in  the  understanding  of  them- 
selves. It  endeavours  to  increase  intelligence  on  the  subject 
of  child-life  by  letting  a  clear  light  shine  on  those  everyday 
matters  of  birth  and  life  which  are  so  often  furtively  wrapped 
in  a  mysterious  and  wholly  distorting  gloom. 


L 


" '  Woman  and  Marriage '  is  an  outspoken  book  which 
should  be  carefully  read  by  those  for  whom  it  is  written. 
It  is  not  a  book  for  boys  and  girls  ;  it  is  a  physiological 
handbook,  thoroughly  well  written,  orderly,  wholesome  and 
practical.  .  .  .  We  commend  this  work  to  all  who  want  a 
full  account  in  simple  words  of  the  physical  facts  of  married 
life.  All  the  difficulties  of  the  subject  are  handled  fear- 
lessly, gravely  and  reverently  in  this  book,  and  as  it  must 
be  kept  out  of  the  reach  of  mere  curiosity,  so  it  deserves 
thoughtful  study  by  those  of  us  whose  lives  it  touches." — 
The  spectator, 

"  If  more  such  books  were  written,  and  more  such  know- 
ledge disseminated,  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  the  wives 
and  mothers  of  the  present  day." — The  Times. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN,  Ltd.,  1  Adelphi  Terrace,  London,  W.C. 


IMPORTANT    NOTICE. 

^  All  the  works  mentioned  in  this  list  may  be  pur- 
chased through  any  bookseller.  They  are  also 
obtainable   at  all  Libraries. 

9  Any  book-buyer  wishing  to  see  any  of  the  books 
mentioned  before  purchasing  them  may.  on  sending 
to  Mr.  Unwin  .the  name  of  his  local  bookseller,  have 
the  opportunity  of  so  doing. 

T.  FISHER    UNWIN,  LTD., 
1,    ADELPHI    TERRACE.    LONDON.    W.C.2. 


HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY  pages  i  to  8 
TRAVEL  &  DESCRIPTI  N  „  8  ..  9 
POLITICS,    SOCIOLOGY    & 

E^;oNOMICS      I0„I3 

BELLES    LETTRES  ...      „    14  „  16 


CONTENTS. 

POETRY    AND    DRAMA    pages  17 

MISCELLANEOUS        18 

FICTION      ,  19  <-   21 

NEW  EDITIONS    AND 

IMPRESSIONS        ...  „  22  „   27 


Life  and  Letters  of  Silvanus  Phillips 
Thompson,  F.R.S.  By  jane  s.  Thomp- 
son and  HELEN  G.  THOMPSON.  Illustrated, 
Demy  8vo,  cloth.  (Spring,  1920). 
This  is  a  straightforward  and  somewhat  intimate  account  of  the 
career  of  a  man  of  great  and  varied  gifts.  Born  into  the  family 
of  a  simple  Quaker  schoolmaster  of  York  his  extraordinary  energy 
•nd  devotion  to  science  carried  him  into  the  foremost  ranks  of 
ph J  sicists,  an  acknowledged  leader  in  electro-technology  and  optics. 
Both  as  popular  lecturer  and  as  trainer  of  technical  college  students 
his  skill  was  unrivalled,  and  wheresoever  he  went  his  enthusiasm 
for  men  and  things  won  him  friendships,  alike  in  his  own  country 
and  abroad.  Many  of  the  letters  describe  experiences  on  his  jour- 
neys, others  adventures  of  t)ie  antiquarian  in  the  pursuit  of  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  century  scientific  literature,  and  j^et  others  tell  of 
battles  for  truth  in  some  f  eld  or  other. 

The  book  contains  appreciations  of  his  works  as  original  investi- 
gator, teacher,  writer,  artist,  and  "  prophet,"  and  indirectly  testifies 
to,  the  warmth  of  personal  regard  which  the  frank  geniality  of  his 
nature  won  for  him  in  many  spheres. 

All  and  Sundry:  More  Uncensored  Celebrities. 

By    E.    T.     RAYMOND,    Author    of    "Uncensored 

Celebrities."  Demy  8vo,  cloth. 
Few  books  this  year  have  attracted  more  attention  or  been  more 
widely  read  than  ^Ir.  E.  T.  Raymond's  "  Uncensored  Celebrities,"  a 
work  as  caustic  as  it  was  impartial.  In  his  new  work  Mr.  Raymond 
does  not  'Imit  himself  to  political  personalities  only,  but  includes  figures 
in  the  Church,  such  as  the  Bishop  of  London  and  Dean  Inge ;  in 
literature.  Mr.  G,  K.  Chesterton,  Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc,  and  Mr.  Rudyard 
Kipling;  in  journalism,  Mr.  Harold  Begbie,  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor,  and 
Mr.  Leo  Maxse;  in  art  and  music,  Mr.  Frank  Brangwyn  and  Sir 
Thomas  Beecham.  Mr.  Raymond  includes  also  character  sketches  of 
President  Wilson,  M.  Georges  Clemenceau,  the  Duke  of  Somerset, 
Viscount  Chaplin,  Viscount  Esher,  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  Lord 
Einle,  Mr.  Speaker,  and  many  other  prominent  people.  Wider  in 
range  than  *'  Uncensored  Celebrities  "  and  equally  brilliant,  this  work 
may  be  expected  to  appeal  to  even  a  larger  public  than  its  remarkable 
predecessor. 


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HISTORY    AND    BIOGRAPHY 


The  Life  of  John  Payne.     By  thomas 

WRIGHT,  Author  of  "The  Life  of  William  Cowper," 
etc.  With  i8  Illustrations.  Demy  8vo,  cioth. 
Few  great  authors  appeal  more  to  the  imagination  than  John  Payne, 
the  hero  of  "  The  John  Payne  Society,"  who  shrank  from  the  lime- 
light of  "  interviewing."  Recognised  as  a  true  poei  by  Swinburne, 
he  was  probably  the  most  skilful  translator  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
for  we  owe  to  him  a  version  of  Villon's  poems  which  is  itself  a 
poetic  work  of  consummate  art,  the  first  complete  translation  of  the 
"  Arabian  Nights,"  the  first  complete  verse  rendering  of  Omar 
Khayyam's  quatrains,  to  say  nothing  of  translations  of  "  The  De- 
cameron," etc.  Among  his  friends  were  Swinburne,  Sir  Richard 
Burton,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  Arthur  O'Shaughnessy,  French 
authors  such  as  Victor  Hugo,  Banville,  and  Mallarni4,  and  the  artist 
who  ventured  to  depict  "  God  with  eyes  turned  inward  upon  His  own 
glory."  Mr.  Wright  by  an  extraordinary  exercise  of  tact  and  sym- 
pathy was  able  to  pass  the  barrier  which  shut  Payne  off  from  anybody 
who  sought  to  know  the  man  behind  the  books.  For  twelve  years 
before  Payne's  death  in  1916  he  was  his  most  intimate  friend,  and  as, 
during  all  that  time,  he  had  in  view  the  writing  of  Payne's  Life  he 
lost  next  to  none  of  his  opportunities  for  obtaining  at  first  hand  the 
facts  and  opinions  needed  for  his  work.  Moreover,  Payne  made  him 
a  present  of  a  MS.  autobiography  and  supplied  him  with  vjduahle 
material  from  his  letter-files.  Mr.  Wright  was,  in  fact,  P.iyne's 
Boswell,  and  no  life  which  may  be  written  hereafter  can  have  the 
weight  and  interest  of  this  vivid  book,  much  of  which  gives  us  the 
sound  of  Payne's   own  voice. 

A     History    of    Modern     Colloquial 

English.  By  HENRY  CECIL  WYLD,  B.  Litt. 
(Oxon.),  Baines  Professor  of  English  Language  and 
Philology  at  the  University  of  Liverpool.  Demy  8vo, 
cloth.     (Spring,  1520.) 

The  book  deals  more  particularly  with  the  ch  inges  tha:  have  taken 
place  during  the  last  five  hundred  years  in  the  spoken  forms  of  English. 
The  development  of  English  pronunciation  and  the  changes  in  gram- 
matical usage  are  dealt  with  in  considerable  detail,  iwul  there  is  a 
chapter  on  idiomatic  colloquialisms,  modes  of  greeting,  forms  of  address 
in  society,  conventional  and  individual  methods  of  bjg^inning  and  endins: 
private  letters,  expletives,  etc.  The  main  part  of  the  book  is  based 
almost  entirely  upon  new  material  collected  from  the  prose  and  poetical 
literature,  and  also  from  Letters,  Diaries  and  Wills  written  during  the 
five  centuries  following  the  death  of  Chaucer.  A  sketch  is  given  of  the 
chief  peculiarities  of  the  English  dialects  from  about  1150,  to  the  end 
of  the  14th  century,  and  special  chapters  are  devored  to  a  general 
account  of  the  languages  of  the  15th,  ibth,  and  17th  and  i8th  centuries 
respectively.  Many  questions  of  general  intere«t  are  dealt  with,  su:h 
as  the  rise  of  a  common  literary  form  of  English,  and  its  relation  to  the 
various  spoken  dialects ;  the  recognition  of  a  stand.ird  form  of  spoken 
English,  and  its  variations  from  age  to  age,  and  among  different  social 
classes.  The  various  types  of  English  are  illustrated  by  copious 
examples  from  the  writings  of  all  the  periods  under  consideration.  This 
will  be  a  work  of  much  interest  for  the  intelligent  general  reader  as  well 
as  for  the  scholar.  Professor  Wyld  is  the  author  of  manv  well-known 
and  widely  read  books  of  which  this  ought  to  prove  not  the  least  popul ^^ r . 


HISTORY    AND    BIOGRAPHY 


Zanzibar:    Past  and  Present.    By  major 

FRANCIS  B.  PEARCE,  C.M.G.  (British  Resident  in 
Zanzibar),  With  a  Map  and  32  pages  Illustrations. 
Super  Royal  8vo,  cloth.     (Spring,  1920.) 

This  important  work  deals  with  the  past  and  present  history  of 
Zanzibar.  From  the  earliest  times  this  islatid,  owing  to  its  com- 
manding position  off  the  coast  of  Africa,  controlled  the  great  trade- 
rcutes  which  traversed  the  Continent  from  the  Indian  to  the  Atlantic 
Oceans,  and  it  has  remained  to  the  present  day  the  Metropolis  of 
the  East  African  Region.  It  has  known  mr^ny  over-lords,  and  the 
author,  who  is  His  Majesty's  Representative  in  Zanzibar,  traces  the 
story  of  this  romantic  island-kingdom  down  the  centuries.  The 
close  association  of  this  African  island  with  ancient  and  mediaeval 
Arabia  is  demonstrated,  and  the  advent  of  the  old  Persian  colo- 
nists to  its  shores  explained.  Coming  to  later  times  such  names 
as  Vasco  da  Gama  and  Sir  James  Lancaster,  that  famous  Elizabethan 
sea-captain,  are  met  with  ;  until  leaviTig  beaten  tracks,  the  author  in- 
troduces the  reader  to  the  hoary  kingdom  of  Oman,  whence  came 
those  princes  of  the  Arabian  desert,  who  subdued  to  their  sway  the 
rich  spice-island  of  Zanzibar,  and  the  adjacent  territories  of  Central 
Africa.  Modern  Zanzibar  is  fully  dealt  with,  and  the  enlightened 
Prince  who  occupies  the  throne  of  Zanzibar  to-day  is  introduced  to 
the  reader  in  a  personal  interview.  The  latter  portion  of  the  work 
is  devoted  to  descriptions  of  the  ruined  Arab  and  Persian  stone- 
built  towns — ^the  very  names  of  which  are  now  forgotten — which 
until  cleared  by  the  author,  lay  mouldering  in  the  forests  of  Zanzi- 
bar and  Pemba.  The  text  is  elucidated  by  a  series  of  beautiful 
photographs  and  by  specially  prepared  maps. 

This  volume  must  be  regarded  as  the  standard  work  on  the  Sul- 
tanate of  Zanzibar. 


The  Canadians  in  France,  1915—1918 

By  Capt.  HARWOOD  STEELE,  M.C.,  late  Head- 
quarters Staff,  2nd  Canadian  Division.  With  Maps. 
Demy  8vo.     (Spring,  1920.) 

Captain  Steele,  who  is  already  favourably  known  as  the  autlior 
~)i  the  spirited  volume  of  poems  entitled  "  Cleared  for  Action,"  here 
-ccounts  the  deeds  of  the  famous  force  sent  by  Canada  to  take  pcirt 
.11  the  Great  War.  What  St.  Julien,  Ypves,  vSt.  Kloi,  the  Somme, 
Passchaendaele,  Lens,  Vimy,  Amiens,  Canihrai  and  M.ons,  1918 
iiean  in  the  glorious  record  of  the  Allies  will  be  fully  understooa 
)y  the  reader  of  this  book. 

This  is  the  /irst  complete  record  of  the  achie\ements  of  the  Cana- 
3ian  divisions  to  be  published.  Captain  Steele  served  three  years 
n  France,  and  participated  in  mo?.t  of  the  important  engagements 
a  which  the  Canadians  took  part. 


r 


30    0 

Nf  T. 
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Postage 


21   0 

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HISTORY    AND    BIOGRAPHY 


Drake,  Nelson  and  Napoleon :  Studies. 

By  Sir   WALTER   RUNCIMAN,    Bart.,   Author  of 
"  The  Tragedy  of  St.  Helena,"  etc.    Illustrated.     Demy 
8vo,  cloth. 
In  this  work  Sir  Walter  Rundman  deals  first  with  Drake  and  what 
he  calls    the  Fleet  Tradition,  of  which  he  regards   Drake,   the  greatest 
Elizabethan   sailor,  as   the    indubitable   founder  ;   next    the   author   deals 
at  considerable  length  with   Nelson,  his  relations   with   Lady   Hamilton, 
and  the  various  heroic  achievements  which  have  immortalised  his  name. 
From  Nelson   the  author  passes  on  to  Napoleon,  and  shews  how  his  career 
and   policy   have   had    a   vital    relation    to  the   World   War.     As   himself 
a  sailor   of  the  old    wooden-ship*;   period,    Sir   Walter  is  able  to  handl* 
with    special  knowledge    and    intimacy    the    technique    of    the   seafaring 
exploits  of  Nelson  ;  and  Sir  Walter's  analysis  of   the  character  of   Nel- 
son, a  combination    of   vanity,    childishness,    statesmanlike   ability,    and 
incomparable  seamanship    and    courage,   is    singularly    well    conceived. 

Bolingbroke  and  W  alpole.    By  the  Rt.  Hon. 

J.  M.  ROBERTSON,  Author  of  *•  Shakespeare  and 
Chapman,"  '•  The  Economics  of  Progress,"  etc,,  etc. 
Demy  8vo,  cloth. 
Many  years  ago,  in  his  "  Introduction  to  English  Politics  "  (recast 
as  "  The  Evolution  of  States  "),  Mr.  Robertson  proposed  to  continue 
that  survey  in  a  series  of  studies  of  the  leading  English  politicians, 
from  Bolingbroke  to  Gladstone.  Taking  up  the  long  suspended  plan, 
he  has  now  prtxluced  a  volume  on  the  two  leading  statesmen  of  an 
important  period,  approaching  its  problems  through  their  respective 
actions.  The  aim  is  to  present  political  history  at  once  in  its  national 
and  its  petsonal  aspects,  treating  the  personalities  of  politicians  as 
important  foices,  but  studying  at  the  same  time  the  whole  intellectual 
environment.  A  special  feature  of  the  volume  intended  to  be  developed 
in  those  which  may  follow  is  a  long  chapter  in  "  The  Social  Evolution," 
setting  frrth  the  nation's  progress,  from  generation  to  generation,  in 
commerce,  industry,  morals,  education,  literature,  art,  science,  and 
well-being. 

Sjen   from   a    Railway   Platform.     By 

WILLIAM  VINCENT.  Crown  8vo,  cloth.  (Spring, 
1920.) 
Mr.  Vincent  tnust  from  his  early  years  have  cultivated  his 
faculty  of  observation,  and  he  has  a  marvellous  metnory  for  what 
he  has  seen  or  heard.  His  recollections  start  from  the  early  'sixties, 
when,  as  a  boy,  Le  got  a  situation  as  booicstall  clerk,  from  which 
position  he  rose  to  t>e  bookstall  manager  in  various  parts  of  the 
country.  His  experiences  as  bookstall  manager  on  a  railway  plat- 
form, y>ith  its  continuously  shifting  crowds  and  contacts  with 
various  idiosyucracies,  are  highlv  interesting,  but  he  recalls  many 
events  that  have  happened  in  his  time  awa\  from  the  bookstall, 
the  notoriois  Heenan  fight,  the  remarkable  exhibition  of  the  "Great 
Eastern"  and  others.  He  gives  curious  accounts  of  the  early  rail- 
way carriages,  the  treatment  of  the  third-class  passenger  and  much 
other  lore  concerning  railway  travel  in  the  now  distant  days. 
Altogether,  Mr.  Vincent  has  produced  a  valuable  volume  of  remi- 
ni»cences. 


HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY. 


Life  of  Liza  Lehmann.    By  Herself,    with 

a    Coloured    Frontispiece    and     i6     pp.    Illustrations. 

Large  Crown  8vo,  cloth. 
Shortly  before  her  death,  Madame  Liza  Lehmann  completed  a  volume 
of  Reminiscences.  A  charming  and  gifted  woman  ner  life  was  spent 
In  artistic  and  literary  surroundings.  She  was  the  daughter  of  an 
artist,  Rudolf  Lehmann,  the  wife  of  another,  Herbert  Bedford,  one  of 
her  sisters  being  Mrs  Barry  Pain,  and  her  cousins  including  Muriel 
M<^.nie  Dowie  ("The  Girl  in  the  Carpathians")  and  Mr.  R.  C.  Lehmann, 
ot  "  Punch."  Her  memories  include  a  dinner  with  Verdi,  conve'rsation? 
with  Jenny  Lind,  anecdotes  of  Edward  VH,  Brahms,  Mme.  Clara  Butt, 
and  other  celebrities.  As  the  composer  of  "  A  Persian  Garden,"  sht 
became  world-renowned,  and  her  celf-revelation  is  not  less  interesting 
than  her  tit-bits  about  other  artists. 

Men   and    Manner  in  Parliament.   By 

Sir  henry  LUCY.  With  a  biographical  Note  and 
about  32  Illustrations.  Lar^e  Crown  8vo. 
As  "  Member  for  the  Chiltern  Hundreds  "  Sir  Henry  Lucy  published 
an  interesting  volume  on  the  Parliament  of  1874.  The  book  has  been 
long  out  of  print,  but  it  again  came  "  on  the  tapis  "  as  it  seemed  to 
tJie  publisher  so  thoroughly  worth  bringing  to  life  again.  It  is  recorded 
in  the  authorised  Life  of  President  Wilson  that  study  of  the  articles  on 
their  original  publication  in  the  "Gentleman's  Magazine"  directed  his 
career  into  the  field  of  politics.  He  wrote  to  the  authoi 
apropos  this  book :  "  I  shall  always  think  of  you  as  one 
of  my  instructors."  The  book  is  essent'ally  n  connected 
series  of  character-sketches  written  in  the  well-known  witty  manner 
of  the  famous  Punch  diarist.  Gladstone,  **  Dizzy,"  Dilke,  Bright, 
Auberon  Herbert,  Roebuck,  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  etc.,  are  some  of 
the  leading  figures,  and  lesser-known  M.P.'s  resume  a  vigorous  vitality, 
:hanks  to  Sir  Henry's  magic  pen. 

A.n^lo-American  Relations,  1861-1865. 

By  BROUGHAM  VILLIERS  &  W.  H.  CHESSON. 

Large  Crown  8vo,  cloth. 
This  book  deals  with  the  causes  of  friction  and  misunderstandings 
jetween  Great  Britain  and  the  United  Stntes  during  the  trying  years  of 
he  Civil  War.  The  reasons  which,  for  a  time,  gave  prominence  to  the 
Jouthern  sympathies  of  the  British  ruling  classes,  while  rendering  almost 
narticulate  the  far  deeper  feeling  for  the  Cause  of  Union  and  Emancipa- 
ion  among  the  masses  of  our  people,  are  examined  and  explained.  Such 
ramalic  incidents  as  the  Trent  affair,  the  launching  of  the  "Alabama," 
nd  Lincoln's  Emancipation  Proclamation  are  dealt  with  from  the 
►oint  of  view  of  their  effect  upon  opinion  in  this  country  as  illustrated 
y  contemporary  correspondence  and  literature.  Interesting  facts,  now 
Imost  forgotten,  of  the  movements  'naugurated  by  the  English  friends 
f  the  North  to  explain  to  our  people  the  true  issues  at  stake  in  the 
onflict  are  reproduced,  and  an  attempt  is  made  to  estimate  the  influence 
f  the  controversies  of  the  time  on  the  subsequent  relations  of  the 
Lnglish-speaking  peoples. 
Mr.  W.  H.  Chesson,  grandson  of  George  Thompson,  the  anti-slavery 
rator,  who  was  William  Lloyd  Garrison's  bosom  friend,  contributes  a 
hapter  which  attempts  to  convey  an  impression  of  the  inOuence  of 
Transatlantic  problems  upon  English  orat<K-y  and  the  writings  of  public 
len. 

-     ■     ^ -  — "-- — ^--.^.^^^^^^-^—^Jt.^^^ .._^_^fl. — ^ — ._...^ 


HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY 


Woodrow  Wilson  :  An  Interpretation, 

By  A.  MAURICE  LOW,  Author  of  **The  American 
People":  A  Study  in  National  Psychology,"  with  a 
Portrait.    Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

Mr.  A.  Maurice  Low  has  Jong  been  recognised  as,  next  to  Lord 
Bryce,  the  most  acute,  discriminating,  and  well-informed  of  the  English 
critics  of  America.  His  long  residence  in  that  country  and  his  ex- 
haustive study  of  certain  phases  of  American  life  have  given  him  a 
background  for  the   interpretation   of  their   political   lile. 

Mr.  Low  has  written  this  interpretation  of  President  Wilson  "  be- 
cause the  man  to-day  who  occupies  the  largest  place  in  the  world's 
thought  is  almost  as  little  understood  by  his  own  people  as  he  is  by 
the  peoples  of  other  countries,  and  still  remains  an  enigma,"  but  his 
point  of  view  as  an  interpreter  Is  that  of  a  contemporary  foreign 
observer  who,  while  having  the  benefit  of  long  residence  in  the  United 
States  and  an  intimate  knowledge  of  its  people  and  politics,  may  justly 
claim  a  detached  point  of  view  and  to  be  uninfluenced  by  personal  or 
political    considerations. 


Peace  -  Making    at    Paris.    By  sisley 

HUDDLESTON.     Large  Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

Mr.  Huddleston  has  been  one  of  the  most  independent  commentators 
of  the  proceedings  at  the  Paris  Conference,  with  a  keen  sense  of  the 
realities,  and  his  despatches  have,  in  the  phrase  of  one  of  our  best- 
known  authors,  made  him  "easily  the  best"  of  the  Paris  correspondents. 
This  book  aims  at  giving  a  broad  account  of  the  seven  months  which 
followed  the  Armistice  ;  but  the  writer  has  a  point  of  view  and  has 
lot  told  the  story  of  these  memorable  days  objectively,  such  as  might 
have  been  done  by  any  compiler  with  the  aid  of  the  newspapers.  A 
resident  in  Paris,  he  has  lived  close  to  the  heart  of  the  Conference, 
find  throws  a  vivid  light  on  certain  events  which  it  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  understand.  Thus  the  famous  "moderation  interview," 
which  was  folio. ved  by  the  telegram  of  protest  from  370  M.P.'s  and 
the  return  to  Westminster  of  the  Prime  Minister,  who  made  the  most 
sensational  speech  of  his  career,  came  from  his  pen.  The  attitude  of 
Mr.  Wilson  is  specially  studied ;  his  apotheosis  and  the  waning  of  his 
star  and  his  apparent  lapse  from  "Wilsonianism"  is  explamed.  There 
is  shown  the  dramatic  clash  of  ideas.  Special  attention  is  devoted  to 
the  strange  and  changing  policy  In  Russia,  and  some  extremely  curious 
episodes  are  revealed.  This  is  not  merely  a  timely  pul^lication,  but  the 
volume  is  likely  to  preserve  for  many  years  its  place  as  the  most  illumi- 
nating piece  of  work  about  the  two  hui'.drcd  odd  days  in  Paris.  It  is 
certain  to  raise  many  controversies,  and  it  is  one  of  those  books  which 
it  is  indispensable  to  read. 


HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY, 


Letters  of  Anne  Gilchrist  and  Walt 

Whitman.     Edltsd     with     an     Introduction     by 

THOMAS  B.   HARNED      (One  of  Walt  Whitman's 

Literary  Executors}.  Cloth. 
Anne  Gilchrist,  a  charming  woman  of  rare  Ii*^3rary  culture  and 
intelligence,  who  was  born  in  1828  and  died  in  1885,  was  Whitman's 
first  notable  female  eulogist  in  England,  her  essay  on  him  being  a 
valuable  piece  of  pioneer-criticism.  Admiration  in  her  case  became 
identified  with  love ;  in  the  'seventies  she  wrote  Whitman  ardent  love 
letters,  the  contents  of  which  would  have  surprised  any  literary  man 
less  acquainted  than  he  was  to  heroic  candour.  Whitman  was  not 
insensible  to  the  affectionate  feelings  of  Mrs.  Gilchrist  (her  husband  died 
in  7861),  and  his  share  of  their  correspondence  is  of  considerable  interest 
to  students  of  "Leaves  of  Grass." 

Breaking  the  Hindenburg  Line:  The 
Story  of  the  46th  (North  Midland) 
Division.    Ey  Raymond  e.  priestley, 

Author  of  ''Antarctic  Adventure."  Illustrated.  Large 
Crown  8vo,  cloth.     (Second  Impression.) 

Written  b>  a  member  of  the  Division  for  his  comrades  and  their 
relatives  and  friends,  the  book  is  first  of  all  intended  to  place  on  record 
for  the  North  Midland  people  the  deeds  of  their  men  during  the  weeks 
which  crowned  four  years  of  steadfast  endeavour  during  the  Great  Wat. 

It  has,  however,  a  wider  significance,  and  thus  deserves  a  wider 
circulation.  The  North  Midland  county  regiments  were  composed 
mainly  of  miners,  machinists,  operatives  and  agriculturists:  men  with- 
out military  traditions  or  militant  desires.  The  last  men  to  take  to  war 
without  an  all-compelling  reason. 


The  Transvaal   Surrounded,      By  w.  j. 

LEYDS,  Litt.D,,  Author  of  "The  First  Annexation  of 
the  Transvaal,"  With  Maps.  Demy  8vo,  cloth. 
(Spring,  1920.) 
This  work  is  a  continuation  of  "The  First  Annexation  of  the 
Transvaal  "  by  the  same  author,  and  like  the  previous  volume  is 
based  chiefly  on  British  documents,  Blae  Books  and  other  ofDcial 
lecords.  References  are  given  to  these,  and  the  reader  can  form 
his  own  opinion  from  them.  To  find  his  way  through  the  over^ 
whelming  mass  of  documents  is  only  possible  for  the  man  who  for 
long  years  drew  up  and  signed  most  of  the  papers  issued  by  his 
Government.  For  the  ofhcial  records  accessible  to  the  historian  are 
incomplete;  they  must  be  supplemented  by  tlie  archives  of  the 
Republic.  Only  when  this  has  b'^,en  done — as  it  has  now  by  one 
who  knows — vill  the  history  of  the  relations  between  England  and 
the  Boers  be  freed  from  falsehood  and  slander. 


8 


HISTORY  AND  BIOGRAPHY, 


Modern  Japan  :  its  Political,  Military  and 
Industrial  Development.  By  WILLIAM  MONT- 
GOMERY McGOVERN,  Ph.D.,  M.R.A.D.,  F.R.A.I., 
M.J.S.,  etc.  Lecturer  on  Japanese,  School  of  Oriental 
Studies  (Unv,  of  Lond,),  Priest  of  the  Nishi,  Hongwaryi, 
Kyoto,  Japan,  (Spring,  1920,) 
Unlike  the  book  of  casual  impressions  by  the  tourist  or  globe- 
trotter or  a  tedious  work  of  reference  for  the  library,  Mr. 
McGovern's  book  on  "Modern  Japan,"  gives  for  the  average 
educated  man  an  interesting  description  of  the  evolution  of  Japan 
as  a  modern  world  Power,  and  describes  the  gradual  triumphs  over 
innumerable  obstacles  v/hich  she  accomplished.  1'he  book  relates 
how  the  Restoration  of  1867  was  carried  out  by  a  small  coterie  of 
ex-Samurai,  in  whose  hands,  or  in  that  of  their  successors,  political 
power  has  ever  since  remained.  We  see  portrayed  the  perfecting 
of  the  Bureaucratic  machine,  the  general,  political  and  institutional 
history,  the  stimulation  of  militarism  and  Imperialism,  and  cen- 
tralised industry.  It  is  a  vivid  account  of  the  real  Japan  of  to-day, 
and  of  the  process  by  which  it  has  become  so.  Though  compre- 
hensible to  the  non-technical  reader,  yet  the  most  careful  student 
of  Far  Eastern  affairs  will  find  much  of  value  in  the  acute  analysis 
of  the  Japanese  nation.  The  author  is  one  who  has  resided  for 
years  in  Japan,  was  largely  educated  there,  who  was  in  the  Japanese 
Government  service,  and  who,  by  his  fluent  knowledge  of  the 
language,  was  in  intimate  contact  with  all  the  leading  statesmen  of 
to-day.  Furthermore  his  position  as  priest  of  the  great  Buddhist 
temple  of  Kyoto  brought  him  in  touch  with  phases  of  Japanese  life 
most  unusual  for  a  European.  While  neither  pro  nor  anti-Japanese, 
he  has  delineated  the  extraordinary  efficiency  of  the  machine  of 
State  (so  largely  modelled  on  Germany),  while,  at  the  same  time, 
he  has  pointed  out  certain  dangers  inherent  in  its  autocratic  bureau- 
cracy- 


(TRA  VEL     AND    DESCRIPTION 


Byways     in     Southern     Tuscany.    By 

KATHERINE   HOOKER.     With  60   full-page  Illus- 
trations, besides  sketches  in  the  text  and  a  removable 
Frontispiece,  the  end  papers  being  a  coloured  map  of 
Southern   Tuscany    by    Porter  Garnett.      Demy  8vo, 
cloth. 
In  addition  to  its  absorbing  historic  interest  this  book  has  the  claim 
of  recording   the   impressions   of   a   vivacious   and  observant  lady   who 
describes    what    she    has    seen    in    modern  Tuscany  from  San  Galgano 
to  Sorano. 

Those  who  like  books  which  conjure  up  beautiful  historic  places  and 
fascinating  romances  of  real  life  will  be  sure  to  enjoy  this  handsome 
volume.  Among  the  stcries  related  by  the  author  is  the  harrowing 
one  of  Nello  Pannocchieschi  told  bj  Dante,  the  scene  of  which  is 
the  ill-famed  Maremma,  mentioned  in  a  proverb  as  a  district  where 
"You  grow  rich  in  a  year,  but  die  in  six  months." 


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TRAVEL    'AND    DESCRIPTION 


The     Romantic   Roussillon :    In    the 
French  Pyrenees.    By  isabel  savory. 

With  Illustrations  by  M.  Landseer  MacKenzie.  Super 

Royal  8vo. 

This  book  is  written  for  a  double  putpose :  to  reveal  to  lovers  of 
sculpture  the  beauties  of  certain  Romanesque  work  hitherto  hidden  in 
remote  corners  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  to  suggest  to  travellers  the  attrac- 
tions of  a  little  country  formerly  known  as  the  Roussillon,  which  now 
forms  part  of  the  Pyr6n6es   Orientaies. 

Well  off  the  beaten  track,  though  within  easy  reach  of  London,  it 
should  appeal  to  lovers  of  fine  scenery  and  to  students  of  Romanesque 
and  mediaeval  architecture. 

Miss  Isabel  Savory,  author  of  "  The  Tail  of  the  Peacock  "  and  "  A 
Sportswoman  in  India,"  has  explored  every  inch  of  it.  Each  chapter 
is  a  witness  to  the  writer's  research  in  the  Library  at  Perpignan, 
coupled  with  a  graphic  description  of  the  country  from  an  artistic  point 
of  view,  and  lively  portraits  of  the  Catalam  as  he  exists  to-day. 

Miss  Muriel  Landseer  MacKenzie,  sculptor  and  great-niece  of  Sir 
Edwin  Landseer,  gives  a  series  of  pencil  drawings  of  which  the  collo- 
type process  makes  faithful  reproductions.  Apart  from  their  own 
merit,  they  represent  subjects  of  which  apparently  no  records  exist, 
details  of  Byzantine  and  Romanesque  architecture  discovered  in 
neglected  abbeys,  old  churches,  and  ruins  in  the  hills. 

At  the  end  of  the  book  there  Is  a  map  and  a  few  practical  notes  for 
travellers  which  indicate  that  prices  are  moderate,  and  that  there  are 
good  roads  for  motorists,  though  the  country  is  pre-eminently  adapted 
for  those  who  like  the  informality  of  the  knapsack  and  the  mountain 
path. 


In  the   Wilds  of  South  America:   six 

Years  of  Exploration  in  Colombia,  Venezuela,  British 
Guiana,  Peru,  Bolivia,  Argentina,  Paraguay,  and 
Brazil.  By  LEO  E.  MILLER,  of  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History.  First  Lieutenant  in  the 
United  States  Aviation  Corps.  With  48  Full-page 
Illustrations  and  with  maps.     Demy  8vo,  cloth. 

This    volume    represents   a   series   of  almost  continuous   explorations 
hardly  ever  paralleled   in  the  huge   areas  traversec*.     The   author   is  a 

1  distinguished  field  naturalist — one  of  those  who  accompanied  Colonel 
Roosevelt  on  his  famous  South  American  expedition — and  his  first 
object  in  his  wanderings  over  150,000  miles  of  territory  was  the 
observation  of  wild  life ;  but  hardly  second  was  that  of  exploration. 
The  result  is  a  wonderfully  informative,  impressive,  and  often  thrilling 
narrative  in  which  savage  peoples  and  all  but  unknown  animals  largely 
figure,  which  forms  an  infinitely  readable  book  and  one  of  rare  value 
for  geographers,  naturalists,  and  other  scientific  men. 


zo 


POLITICS,    SOCIOLOGY,  AND  ECONOMICS 


Millions    from    Waste.    By  Frederick 

A.  TALBOT,  Author  of  "The  Oil  Conquest 
of  the  World,"  "AH  About  Inventions  and 
Discoveries,"  "  Moving  Pictures  :  How  they  are  Made 
and  Worked,"  "Practical  Cinematography,"  "The 
Building  of  a  Great  Canadian  Railway,"  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 
Demy  8vo,  cloth. 

In  this  book,  Mr.  Frederick  A.  Talbot,  whose  many  volumes  dealing 
with  invention,  science,  and  industry  in  a  popular  manner  have 
achieved  such  a  successful  vogue,  introduces  us  to  what  may  very 
appropriately  be  described  as  a  fairyland  of  successful  endeavour  in 
a  little  known  field.  The  present  work  does  not  aim  at  being  a  treatise 
upon  the  whole  subject,  because  it  is  far  too  vast  to  be  covered  within 
tlie  covers  of  a  single  volume.  He  takes  us,  as  it  were,  into  the 
less  frequented,  yet  more  readily  accessible  by-ways,  where  exceptional 
opportunities  occur  for  one  and  all  sections  of  the  community  to  con- 
tribute to  one  of  the  greatest  economic  issues  of  the  day. 

Every  industry,  every  home,  contributes  to  ihe  waste  problem ;  each 
incurs  a  certain  proportion  of  residue  which  it  cannot  use.  This  cir- 
cumstance, combined  with  the  knowledge  that  it  is  our  duty  to  discover 
a  commercial  use  for  such  by-products,  has  been  responsible  for  many 
happy  stories  of  success  achieved  during  voyages  of  discovery  which 
the  author  duly  records. 

Mr.  Talbot  does  not  confine  himself  to  a  mere  recital  of  the  so-called 
waste  products.  He  describes  how  their  recovery  and  exploitations 
may  be  profitably  conducted,  so  that  the  present  volume  is  of  decided 
practical  value.  He  treats  of  the  fertility  of  thought  displayed  by  the 
inventor,  chemist,  and  engineer  in  the  evolution  of  simple  ways  and 
means  to  turn  despised  materials  into  indispensable  articles  of  com- 
merce. Many  of  the  appliances  are  of  a  striking  and  highly  ingenious 
character  and  cannot  fail  to  excite  interest. 

The  Nations  and  the  League.   By  various 

Writers.  With  an  Introductory  Chapter  by  Sir 
GEORGE  PAISH.     Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

This  important  work  presents  the  views  of  eminent  men  of  different 
nationalities  upon  one  of  the  most  burning  questions  of  the  day.  French 
views  are  supplied  by  M.  L^on  Bourgeois,  President  of  the  Association 
Franpaise  pour  la  Soci^t^  des  Nations,  and  the  famous  French  barrister, 
M.  Andr*  Mater,  whose  historical  account  of  experiments  already  made 
in  International  Leagues,  is  of  high  interest.  The  President  of 
Columbia  University,  Dr.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  supplies  an  essay 
on  Patriotism  in  which  this  noble  quality  is  rightly  adjusted  to  a  larger 
idea  of  human  brotherhood  than  has  formerly  been  coi.nected  with  it. 
Sir  Sidney  Low  presents  a  British  view,  and  Messrs.  Louis  Strauss  and 
A.  Heringa  contribute  Dutch  and  Belgian  views  respectively.  Mr. 
Johan  Castberg,  President  of  the  Norwegian  Odeisting,  and  the  cele- 
brated explorer,  Dr.  Nansen,  write  for  Norway,  and  the  Germans  have 
a  spokesman  in  Professor  Lujo  B'rentano,  of  Munich.  Sir  George 
Paish  brings  his  long  experience  and  expert  knowledge  to  bear  on 
the  economic  questions  that  confront  the  League. 


POLITICS,     SOCIOLOGY    AND     ECONOMICS 


II 


Local   Development  Law :    A  Survey  of 

the  Powers  of  Local  Authorities  in  Regard  to 
Housing,  Roids,  Buildings,  Lands  and  Town 
Plmning.  ^3y  H,  C.  DOWDALL,  Barrister-at-Law, 
Lecturer  on  Town  Planning  Law  in  the  University  of 
Liverpool  and  Legal  Member  of  the  Town  Planning 
Institute.     Demy  8vo,  cloth. 

This  book,  which  incorporates  the  important  legislation  just  passed 
on  the  subject,  has  been  written  at  the  request  of  architects  and  sur- 
veyors as  well  as  lawyers,  courcil  clerks,  and  councillors,  who  have 
complained  that  they  have  been  un.ible  to  find  the  kind  of  information 
which  it  supplies  in  a   brief,  comprehensive,   and  intelligible  form. 

For  the  law  of  housing,  roads,  parks,  open  spaces,  allotments,  public 
bui'dip.gs.  town  plaunii^.g,  private  Bill  procedure,  compensation,  and 
kindred  matters  bearing  on  the  public  control  of  land  and  the  use  of 
land  for  public  purposes  is  contained  in  many  large  volumes  through 
which  even  a  skilled  lawyer  finds  his  way  with  difliculty.  Mr.  Dow- 
n's work  deals  with  all  these  subjects  systematically  and  fully,  almost 
in  the  form  of  a  code,  but  it  is  held  together  and  enlivened  by  a  certain 
measure  of  historical  and  illustrative  matter,  and  avoids  unnecessary 
detail  by  giving  references  through  which  the  fullest  information  Is 
made  readily  accessible  to  those  who  desire  it,  but  perhaps  do  not 
know    where   to   look    for   it. 

The  author  is  of  opinion  that  local  authorities  are  often  imperfectly 
aware  of  the  full  range  and  scope  of  the  powers  which  they  enjoy,  or 
of  the  manner  in  which  they  might  be  co-ordinated  and  brought  to  bear 
upon  what  is,  after  all,  the  single  and  indivisible  problem  of  town 
planning  and  town  improvement. 


My   Italian    Year,      Observations   and   Reflec- 
tions in  It.dy,  1917-18.      By  JOSEPH    COLLINS. 

Demy  8vo,  cloth. 

In  the  latter  part  of   1917  the  author  was  assigned  to  military 
dutj   in  Italy.     The  nature  of  his  duties  brought  him  in  close  con- 
tact  with    Italians    in   every   walk    of   life    and    every    part   of    the 
kingdom.     Italy  was  not   previously  unknown  to  him,   as   he   had 
made  already  frequent  visits.     He  presents  a  study  of  the  Italian 
temperament,   describes   the  different  social  classes,  gives  a  study 
of  the  governmental  machine,  describes  various  sights  and  monu- 
ents  (not  at  all  in  the  tourist  manner),  and  altogether  writes  a 
very    original    book.     The   author   has   been   trained    by   a    life    of 
observation,  examination  and  deduction,  as  the  work  itself  clearly 
shows.     He   writes   with   lucidity  and  charm,   and   though,   as   he 
ays,  he  has  been  since  childhood  a  lover  of  Italy,  he  writes  with 
great   impartiality  of  certain  features  of   the   Italian  people.     De- 
>pite  the  fact  that  the  war  enters  the   book   to  a   certain  extent, 
ts  main  interest  is  by  no  means  the  war,  bat  the  fascinating  study 
t   presents  of  the   Italian  character,   ways  and   manners,   and   of 
[taly  generally. 


10 


12 


POLITICS,     SOCIOLOGY    AND     ECONOMICS 


Instincts  of  the   Herd   in   Peace  and 

War.      By  W.  TROTTER.   New  Library  Edition. 
Revised  and  Enlarged.     Large  Crown  8vo,  cloth. 
PRESS  OPINIONS  OF  THE  FIRST  EDITION 
"An  exceedingly  original  essay  on  individual  and  social  psychology." 
— ^The  New  Statesman. 

"It  is  a  balanced  and  inspiring  study  of  one  of  the  prime  factors  of 
human  advance." — The  Times. 

"The  main  purpose  of  Mr.  Trotter's  book,  which  may  be  commended 
both  for  its  logic  and  its  circumsi>ection,  is  to  suggest  that  the  science 
of  psychology  is  not  a  mass  of  dreary  and  indefinite  generalities,  but 
if  studied  in  relation  to  other  branches  of  biology,  a  guide  in  the  actual 
affairs  of  life,  enabling  the  human  mind  to  foretell  the  course  of  human 
action." — Daily  Telegraph. 

Boy- Work:  Exploitation  or  Training? 

By  the  Rev.  SPENCER   J.  GIBB,  Author  of  "The 
Problem  of  Boy- Work,"  etc.     Large  Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

Mr.  Spencer  Gibb  is  well  known  as  a  writer  on  the  social  and 
economic  problems  which  arise  from  the  employment  of  boys.  His 
new  book,  is  a  systematic  consideration  of  these  problems,  as  the  con- 
clusion of  the  War  has  left  them,  and  of  the  remedies  which  are  being 
proposed.  It  seeks  to  co-ordinate  these  reforms  so  as  to  lead  to  a 
solution  of  the  problem.  But  the  book  is  of  wider  than  merely  economic 
and  industrial  interest.  The  problem  as  Mr.  Gibb  sees  it  is  not  only 
one  of  boy-work,  but  of  the  boy  at  work.  He  therefore  examines,  with 
close  analysis  and  sympathetic  knowledge,  the  psychology  and  physiology 
of  the  boy  at  the  age  of  entering  upon  work  and  in  the  succeeding  years, 
and  traces  the  reaction  of  woiking  conditions,  not  only  upon  his  econo- 
mic future,  but  upon  his  character. 

The  Land   and  the  Soldier.    By  fred- 

ERICK  C.   HOWE,  Author  of  "  The  Only  Possible 
Peace,"  etc.     Demy  8vo,   cloth. 

The  author  believes  that  this  is  the  moment  for  extensive  social 
and  agricultural  reconstruction  :  the  large  bodies  of  returning  soldiers 
on  the  outlook  for  work  gives  an  unparalleled  opportunity  for  experi- 
ment toward  this ;  and  the  war  experience  of  the  Government  gained 
in  financing  and  organising  war  industries  and  communities  could 
be  applied  with  great  advantage  and  effect.  The  plan  is  based  on 
the  organisation  of  farm  colonies  somewhat  after  the  Danish  models, 
not  on  reclaimed  or  distant  land,  but  upon  land  never  properly  culti- 
vated, often  near  the  large  cities,  and  aims  to  connect  with  the  com- 
munities thus  formed  the  social  advantages  of,  for  instance,  the 
garden  villages  of  England.  In  fact,  the  author  advances  a  broad 
and  thoughtful  programme,  looking  toward  an  extensive  agricultural 
and  social  organisation,  and  based  upon  a  long  and  careful  study  of 
experiments  in  this  line  in  other  times  and  countries  as  well  as  here. 

It  is  a  book  that  no  one  concerned  with  reconstruction  can  afford 
to  nej^lect. 


POLITICS,     SOCIOLOGY    AND     ECONOMICS 


13 


The      Only      Possible      Peace.       By 

FREDERICK  C.  HOWE,  Author  of  "  Privilege  and 

Democracy,"  <*The  City,"  "The  Hope  of  Democracy," 

etc.     Large  Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

Under  mcxlern  industrial  conditions  it  is  conflicts  springing  from 
economic  forces  that  are  mainly  responsible  for  war  forces  that  seek 
for  control  of  other  people's  lands,  territories,  trade  resources,  or  the 
land  and  water  ways  which  control  such  economic  opportunities.  Mr. 
Howe's  work,  keeping  these  essential  points  in  view,  is  an  attempt  to 
show  how  to  anticipate  and  avoid  war  rather  than  how  to  provide  means 
for  the  arbitration  of  disputes  after  they  have  arisen.  Mr.  Howe,  a 
widely  known  student  of  economics  and  international  questions,  has 
here  produced  a  book  of  the  highest  importance. 

Nationalities  in  Hungary.       By  andre 

DE  HEVESY.         Crown   8vo,  cloth. 

This  is  a  study  of  the  many  and  various  nationalities  of  which  Hun- 
gary is  composed,  of  their  respective  characters,  and  of  the  problems 
which  confiont  these  nationalities.  The  author  advocates  a  sort  of 
United  States  of  Hungary,  giving  each  nationality  the  fullest  liberty 
of  internal  self-determination.  Included  in  the  work  is  an  ethno- 
graphical map  of  Hungary  which  is  of  great  assistance  to  the  reader. 

The  New  America.    By  frank  dilnot, 

Author    of    **  Lloyd     George  :      the     Man    and    His 
Story,"  etc.     Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

This  volume  presents  in  a  series  of  short,  vivacious  sketches  the  im- 
pressions made  on  a  trained  observer  from  England  of  life  in  the  United 
States  during  1917  and  1918.  Manners,  outlook  and  temperament  are 
dealt  with  appreciatively,  and  there  is  a  good-humored  analysis  of 
how  Americans  eat,  drink  and  amuse  themselves.  The  chapters  in- 
clude "The  Women  of  America,'*  "American  Hustle  and  Humour," 
"President  Wilson  at  Close  Quarters."  There  is  an  intimate  character- 
sketch  at  first-hand  of  General  Rush  C.  Hawkins,  who  raised  and 
commanded  the  New  York  Zouaves  in  the  Civil  War,  with  a  narrative 
of  some  of  his  conversations  with  Lincoln. 

Home  Rule  Through  Federal  De- 
volution. By  FREDERICK  W.  PIM.  With  an 
Introduction  by  Frederic  Harrison.      Paper   covers. 

The  author  assumes  that  there  is  a  general  consensus  that  ex- 
tensive modifications  of  our  existing  legislative  and  administrative 
systems  are  urgently  required,  and  that  all  indications  seem  to 
«how  that  the  present  time  offers  an  exceptional  opportunity  for 
dealing  with  them.  He  offers  federal  devolution  as  the  solution 
ci  the  Irish  question.  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  makes  a  valuable 
contribution  to  the  pamphlet. 


H 


BELLES  LETTRES 


Bye    Paths    in    Gurio  Collecting.    By 

ARTHUR  HAYDEN,  Author  of  **  Chats  on  Old 
Clocks,"  *'  Chats  on  Old  Silver,"  etc.  With  a  Frontis- 
piece and  72  Full  Page  Illustrations.     Demj'  8vo,  cloth. 

The  broad  way  of  collecting  is  crowded  with  bargain-hunters.  Com- 
petitors are  keen  and  prices  are  high.  Ail  real  collectors  love  pere- 
grinations into  the  unknown,  and  have  often  stumbled  upon  quaint 
and  long-forgotton  objects  which  were  once  in  everyday  use,  but  are 
now  relegated  to  the  attic  or  the  lumber-room.  In  furniture  there  are 
many  objects  not  deemed  desirable  by  the  fashionable  collector ;  in 
porcelain  and  earthenware  there  is  still  much  that  has  not  reached 
the  noisy  mart  to  be  chaffered  over  as  being  rare.  There  are  precious 
and  beautiful  things  comparatively  unsought  and  unconsidered. 
Modernity  has  forgotten  many  by-gone  necessities.  The  tinder-box 
with  its  endless  varieties  has  not  escaped  studious  attention 
but  it  has  not  come  into  the  forefront  o'  collecting  as  has  the 
ornate  and  bejewelled  snuff-box  with  its  more  highly  attractive  appear- 
ance. Old  Playing-Cards,  Old  Fans,  Silhouettes,  Patch-Boxes, 
Snuffers,  Old  Keys,  Old  Chests  and  Cofters,  Earrings,  Brass  Table- 
Bells,  Carved  Watch-Stands,  Curious  Teapots,  Tea-Caddies  and  Caddy- 
Spoons,  Tobacco-Boxes,  Tobacco-Stoppers,  have  their  appeal  to  col- 
lectors who  have  specialised  and  have  become  exp'^rts — that  is,  have  left 
the  highway  of  collecting  and  pursued  a  delightful  search  in  the  bye- 
paths.     This  volume  deals  with  these,  among  other  subjects. 

The  author  has  drawn  upon  his  notebooks  for  twenty-five  years, 
and  has  opened  to  the  reader  a  wonderful  storehouse  of  miscellaneous 
information  illuminated  with  a  gallery  of  photographic  reproductions. 
As  a  pleasant  guide  in  the  bye-paths  of  collecting,  Mr.  Hayden  will 
fascinat«»  those  real  collectors  who  love  collecting  for  its  own  sake. 


Shakespeare  and  the  Welsh.  By  frede 

RICK  J.  HARRIES.     Demy  8vo,  cloth. 

The  author  has  dealt  with  his  highly  interesting  subject  in  a  manner 
both  critical  and  attractive.  Not  only  has  he  examined  Shakespeare's 
knowledge  of  Welsh  characteristics  through  a  study  of  his  Welsh 
characters,  but  he  has  also  collected  much  valuable  information  regard- 
ing the  Celtic  sources  from  which  Shakespeare  drew  his  m&terials. 
The  cpportunities  which  probably  presented  themselves  to  the  poet 
for  studying  Welshmen  at  first  hand  are  suggested,  and  an  endeavour 
is  made  to  arrive  at  an  explanation  of  Shakespeare's  singularly  sym- 
pathetic attitude  toward  the  Welsh  nation.  What  will  strike  the 
general  reader  most,  perhaps,  is  the  variety  of  topics  which  arise 
around  Shakespeare's  Celtic  allusions,  and  a  subject  of  great  interest 
to  the  Welsh  reader  will  be  the  claim  that  Shakespeare  was  descended 
through  his  paternal  grandmother  from  the  old  Welsh  kings.  The 
claim  is  not  a  mere  speculative  one,  for  a  pedigree  Is  given.  The 
work  is  unique  in  many  respects,  and  should  find  a  welcome  not  merely 
among  Welshmen,  but  among  all  Shakespeare  students. 


BELLES  LETTRES 


15 


My  Commonplace  Book.  j.  t.  hackett. 

Demy  8vo,  cloth. 

The  title  of  this  book,  it  is  needless  to  say,  does  not  inean  that  the 
contents  are  commonplace.  It  is  a  very  rich  collection  of  choice  extracts 
from  the  verse  and  prose  of  famous  writers,  and  writers  who  deserve 
to  be  famous.  Swinburne  is  particularly  well  represented,  as  is  seldom 
the  case  in  anthologies.  The  arrangement  of  the  book  and  the 
accuracy  of  the  matter  have  been  the  subject  of  careful  consideration. 


Some  Greek  Masterpieces  in  Drama- 
tic and  Bucolic  Poetry  Thought 
into     English    Verse.     By    william 

STEBBING,     M.A.,     Hon.     Fellow    of    Worcester 
College,  Oxford,  and  Fellow  of  King's  College,  London, 

The  author,  who  is  a  scholar,  presents  in  this  volume  an  English 
verse  anthology  of  two  departments  in  Greek  poetry  Among  the 
passages  and  poems  which  he  has  rendered  are  the  charge  against 
Olympus  by  Promotheus,  the  *'Hy  nn  of  the  Furies,"  Iphigenia's 
appeals  to  her  father  and  mother,  "Hue  and  Cry  after  Cupid,"  etc.  To 
convey  the  poet's  thought  has  been  the  translator's  purpose,  and  his 
versions  are  particularly  intended  for  the  reader  who  has  classical 
tastes  without  having  had  a  thorough  classical  education. 


The  Legend  of  Roncevaux,   Adapted  from 

"  La  Chanson  de  Roland,"  by  SUSANNA  H.  ULOTH. 
With  four  illustrations  by  John  Littlejohns,  R,B.A. 
Small  4to,  cloth. 

Of  all  the  legends  circulating  round  the  name  of  Charlemagne  none 
is  more  famous  and  popular  than  that  of  the  Paladins  Roland  and 
Oliver.  The  poem  known  as  "  La  Chanson  de  Roland  "  is  the  earliest 
epic  in  the  French  language,  dating  in  all  probability  from  a  period  not 
long  after  the  conquest  of  England  by  William  of  Normandy  and  before 
the  first  Crusade.  Mrs.  Uloth  has  w^i^ten  a  metrical  and  rhymed  version 
of  the  most  important  part  of  the  "  Chanson,"  namely,  the  stor>  of 
the  treachery  which  led  to  the  battle  of  Roncevaux,  and  the  thrilling 
series  of  encounters  which  terminated  in  the  heroic  death  of  Oliver 
and  the  lonely  and  mystical  death  of  Roland.  There  aie  not  many  rivals 
in  the  field,  and  her  work  should,  therefore,  command  a  good  deal  cf 
interest.  It  may  be  added  that  Mr.  John  Littlejohns,  who  illustrates  the 
work,  has  won  a  considerable  reputation  for  originality  and  charm  in 
drawing  and  painting. 


i6 


BELLES  LETTERS 


The    Collected    Stories    of    Standish 

O'Grady.      with   an   introduction  by  M,     First 
3  volumes  now  issued.     Crown  8vo,  cloth. 
The  Cuculain  Cycle. 
(i)    The  Coming  of  Cuculain, 

(2)  In  the  Gates  of  the  Morth. 

(3)  The  Triumph  and  Passing  of  Cuculain. 

These  three  books  contain  the  essential  and  most  beautiful  portions 
of  Mr  Siandish  O'Grady's  "Bardic  History  of  Ireland,"  the  work  which 
proved  to  be  the  starting-point  of  Ireland's  Literary  Rcnt-issance.  That 
work  has  long  been  unobtainable,  and  is  now  offered  for  the  first  time 
in  a  convenient  and  popular  form,  which  will  enable  every  reader  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  the  most  striking  figure  in  contemporary 
Anglo- Irish  literature-  The  debt  which  a  genera «^ion  of  brilliant  poets 
and  dramatists  owe  to  the  author  of  these  Cuculain  stories  has  well 
been  described   by  one  of  his  disciples,   who   wrote  : — 

"in  the  Bardic  History  of  Ireland'  he  opened,  with  a  heroic  gesture, 
the  doors  which  revealed  to  us  in  Ireland  the  ^iant  lord  of  the  Red 
Branch  Knights  and  the  Fianna.  Though  a  prose  writer,  he  may  be 
called  the  last  of   the  bards — a  true  comrade  of  Homer." 

A  NEW  VOLUME  OF  THE  TALBOT 
LITERARY  STUDIES. 

Irish    Books    and    Irish     People.     By 

STEPHEN  GWYNN,  M.A.     Crown  8vo,  cloth 

Whatever  Captain  Gwynn  writes  is  worth  reading.  He  has  a  know- 
ledge of  the  literary  value  of  Irish  books,  and  the  complex  personality 
of  Irish  possessed  by  few  present-day  writers,  and  he  in -parts  his  know- 
ledge with  that  peculiar  detached  conviction  of  the  hurkr  on  the  ditch. 
Whether  one  accepts  or  rejects  the  opinions  expressed,  they  are  always 
worthy  of  consideration,  while  the  fine  choice  of  language  and  beautiful 
literary  style  will  well  repay  a  second  reading.  Capt  Gwynn  deals 
with  such  subjects  as  Novels  of  Irish  Life,  A  Century  of  Irish  Humour, 
Literature  Among  the  Illiterates,  Irish  Education  and  Irish  Character, 
Yesterday  in  Ireland,  etc.,  etc. 


To  Book 
Lovers. 


If  you  would  like  to  receive 
future  issues  of  this  catalogue 
you  are  invited  to  send  a  post 

card  to  that  effect  to  T.    FISHER   UN  WIN,   Ltd  , 

1,  Adelphi  Terrace,  London,  W.G.2. 

Please  write  your  name  and  full  address  clearly. 


POETRY     AND     DRAMA 


Swords  and  Flutes.   Poems.  By  william 

KEAN  SEYMOUR.     Crown  8vo,  cloth.     4s.  net. 

WHAT   THE   CRITICS    SAY   OF    MR,    SEYMOUR'S    WORK. 

•'  We  recognise  not  so  much  audacity  of  experiment  as  a  sound 
ioyalty  to  the  best  standards  of  the  past,  and  an  almoct  acute  apprecia- 
tion of  beauty  both  of  vision  and  form.  .  .  .  Mr.  Seymour's  poetry  is 
full  of  rich  and  multi-coloured  pageantry,  a  sheer  delight  to  the  eye 
and  imagination." — The  Bookman. 

*'  Mr.  Seymour's  verse  is  full  of  a  haunting,  fugitive  sense  of  beauty, 
and  owes  allegiance  to  a  school  of  lyric  craftsmansh-p  which  is  rapidly 
falling  out  of  date.  But  it  is  something  more  than  this.  Mr.  Seymour 
believes  that  poetry  should  not  only  beautify,  but  interpret  life."— - 
Daily  Telegraph. 

"The  Measure" and  ''Down  Stream." 

Two  Plays.     By   GRAHAM   RAWSON,  Author  of 
"  Stroke  of  Maibot,"  etc.     Crown  8vo.     Paper  Cover. 

"  The  Measure  "  is  an  amusing  comedy  of  contemporary  life,  in  a 
prologue  and  two  acts,  dealing  with  the  adventures  of  two  bachelors 
who  become  entangled  in  a  family  containing  three  daughters. 

*'  Down  Stream  "  is  a  one-act  play  whose  action  takes  place  in  & 
supposititious  country  in  South-Eastern  Europe,  whe-e  thr  King  trap's 
one  of  his  Ministers  neatly,  and  then  deals  with  him  In  an  unexpected 
fashion. 

Of  Mr.  Rawson's  previous  volume  ("  The  Stroke  of  Marbot,"  Fisher 
Unwin,  1917)  the  Times  said  :  **  They  are  effective  plays  which  should 
act  well,  and  the  stage  directions  are  so  given  as  to  make  them  quite 
good  reading  for  the  study." 

L&TEST  ADDITION  TO  THE  TALBOT  PRESS  BOOKLETS 

The  spoiled  Buddha.     An  Eastern  Play  in  two 
Acts.     By  HELEN  WADDELL.     Paper  Covers. 

The  play  is  about  the  Buddha,  in  the  days  before  he  became  a  god ; 
and  about  Binzuru,  who  was  his  favourite  discij)le,  and  who  might  have 
become  even  as  the  Ruddha,  only  that  he  saw  a  woman  passing  by, 
and  desired  her  beauty  and  so  fell  from  giace. 


Songs  of  the  Island  Queen.   By  peadar 

MacTOMAIS.     Paper  Covers. 


"  Those  are  songs  of  a  dreamer  of  Eire, 
A  scion  of  a  race  that  is  old 

— Of  a  race  that  is  strong, 
A  people  begotten  of  freemen, 
Rocked  on  the  cradle  of  song." 


i8 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


West  African  Forests  and   Forestry. 

By  A.  HAROLD  UNWIN,  D.Oec,  M.Can.S.F.E. 
Author  of  "  Future  Fore?t  Trees."  With  upwards  of 
150  Illustrations.     Cloth,     (Spriiig,  1920.J 

The  author,  late  Senlwr  Conservator  of  Forestry  in  Nigeria,  having 
spent  eleven  years  in  West  Africa  in  forestry  work,  has  had  exceptional 
experience.  He  staits  by  dealing  in  general  with  West  African  forests, 
then  successively  in  geographical  order,  with  the  trees  and  forests  of 
Gambia,  Sierra  Leone,  Liberia,  the  Ivory  and  Gold  Coasts,  Togo, 
Nigeria,  and  the  British  Sphere  of  the  Cameroons.  He  supplies  notes 
on  timber  trees  both  for  export  and  local  use,  and  gives  throughout  the 
botanical  and  vernacular  names  of  indigenous  trees.  Dr.  Unwin  has 
also  chapters  on  the  oil  beans,  seeds  and  nuts  of  the  West  African 
forests ;  on  the  oil  palm  and  palm  kernel  industry,  and  the  question  of 
the  forest  in  relation  to  agriculture.  The  work  is  an  elaborate  one, 
marked  by  singular  thoroughness  in  its  execution. 

Collected  Fruits  of  Occult  Teaching. 

By  A,  P,  SINNETT.  DemySvo,  cloth.  (Spring,  1920.) 
Mr,  Sinnett,  who  is  one  of  the  leading  lights  of  Theosophy  and 
one  of  the  ablest  exponents  of  reincarnation  and  the  science  of  the 
evolution  of  races,  embodies  in  this  work  the  deeply  interesting 
information  which,  as  an  occultist,  he  states  he  has  derived  about 
the  human  soul,  its  hereafter  and  other  matters. 

Tvluch  of  the  work  is  due  to  the  teaching  of  the  occult  master  with 
uhom  Mr.  Sinnett  claims  to  be  in  touch.  It  cannot  be  doubted 
Ihnt  even  the  most  sceptical  reader  will  be  thrilled  and  impressed 
by  more  than  one  of  the  chapters  of  this  remarkable  and  fascinating 
book. 

The  Religion  of  a  Doctor.   By  thomas 

BODLEY  SCOTT,  M.D.,  Author  of  ««  The  Road  to 
a  Healthy  Oid  Age."     Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

Dr.  Scott,  who  is  well  known  for  his  skill  as  a  physician,  offers  here 
a  sort  of  modern  companion  to  the  famous  "Religio  Medici."  The 
essays  in  this  interesting  volume  enable  the  reader  to  view  the  spiritual 
side  of  a  contemplative  man  of  science  of  our  day. 

Revelations  of  Monte  Carlo  Roulette. 

By  J.  COUSINS  LAWRENCE.  Crown  8vo,  cloth. 
(Spring,  1920.) 
Mr.  Lav\rence  has  had  an  extensive  experience  in  studying 
roulette  plRving  at  Monte  Carlo,  and  the  result  is  an  accumulation 
of  evidence  supporting  his  accusation  of  unfair  control  on  the  part 
of  the  bank  in  the  notorious  Ca^^ino.  The  book  is  a  full  and  de- 
scriptive account  of  the  methods  of  croupiers  in  dealing  with 
plyyers,  of  the  observation  maintained  by  the  clTicials  over  both 
croupiers  and  the  players.  The  work  is  full  of  typical  incidents, 
tragic  and  amusing,  observed  on  the  spot. 


3    3 

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6d. 


s.      d. 

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6d. 


5    0 

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3    6 

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4ti. 


FICTION. 


Blind  Alley,  By  W.  L.  GEORGE.  Author  of 
'*  The  Second  Blooming,"  etc.  Crown  8vo.  (Second 
Impression.) 

"  A  powerful  piece  of  work,  and  is  at  once  a  protest  against  th«  ex- 
ploitation of  youth  by  age  and  an  attempted  den-.onstrMion  that  war 
and  all  its  activities  are  spiritual  blind  alleys  from  which  we  merely 
have  to  grope  back  to  the  position  from  which  we  started." — Pall 
Mall  Gazette. 

"It  is  an  indictment  in  detail,  a  display  of  follies  and  festivities,  a 
protest  against  the  past  stifling  the  future,  a  stirring  of  muddy  depUis." 
— Manchester  Guardian. 

"It  strikes  us  being  so  far  its  author's  high  watermark." — Daily 
Chronicle. 

"We  ate  tempted  to  say  that  'Blind  Alley'  is  the  greatest  character 
study  of  the  influence  of  the  war  we  have  read."  -Ladies'  Field. 


Pink  Roses.  By  gilbert  CANNAN.  Author  of 
**Mendel,"  "The  Stucco  House,"  etc.  Crown  8vo,  cloth. 
(Second  Impression  ) 

"Character  and  atmosphere  are  the  qualities  of  Mr.  Gilbert  Cannan's 
new  novel,  and  they  revel  through  its  pages  like  a  riot  of  pink  roses.  .  . 
Ruth  Hobday  symbolises  the  new  generation,  who  have  learnt  in 
suffering  what  they  will  realise  in  joy.  Mr.  Cannan  ha>  done  nothing 
better  than  the  portrait  of  this  splendid  type  of  young  womanhood. 
Indeed,  we  are  inclined  to  doubt  if  he  has  ever  done  anything  as 
good." — Daily  Telegraph. 


The    Candidate's    Progress,      By  j.  a. 

FARRER.     Crown  8vo,  cloth,  with  a  picture  wrapper. 

This  is  a  jeu  d'esprit,  a  political  skit  which  pokes  fun  pretty  evenly 
at  all  parties,  especially  at  so-called  democratic  representation  as  exem- 
plified by  a  parliamentary  election  conducted  largely  by  the  cynical 
wiles   of  the  election  agent. 

The  Candidate  (a  Conservative),  who  tells  the  story  in  the  firsl 
person,  meets  all  the  local  elite  and  has  patiently  to  listen  to  crusted 
Toryism ;  he  gets  heavy  orthodox  support  from  the  Bishop  and  the 
Church,  and  is  involved  in  expen.^ive  experiences  in  competing  in 
philanthropy  with  the  Liberal  candidate.  He  finds  it  necessary  to  take 
elocution  lessons;  eventually,  after  incredible  exertions,  he  gets  in  by 
five  votes — but  this  is  onlv  part  of  an  extravaganza  which  has  the 
great  merit  of  being  founded  largely  on  fact  and  the  observation  of  a 
political  expert  who  is  also  a  master  of  irony. 


7    6 

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20 


FICTION 


Pirates    of    the    Spring:    A  Novel.    By 

FORREST  REID.     Crown  8vo,  cloth, 

Mr.  Forrest  Reid  is  one  of  those  careful  craftsmen  who  are  vA  con- 
vinced of  the  absolute  necessity  of  producing  one  or  two  full-length  novels 
every  year.  Mr.  Reid  has  always  an  interesting  story  to  tell,  and 
he  is  a  master  of  style,  tender  and  sensitive,  yet  powerfully  effective, 
"Pirates  of  the  Spring"  is  a  fine  example  of  Mr.  Reid's  work  which  will 
certainly  enhance  his  literary  reputation  amongst  discriminating  readers 
who  appreciate  a  good  story  well  told. 


By  Strange  Paths :  A  Novel.    By  annie 

M.  P.  SMiTHSON.     Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

Miss  Smithson's  former  novel,  "  Her  Irish  Heritage,*'  achieved  a 
success  seldom  accorded  to  first  ventures,  and  "By  Strange  Paths"  is 
certain  to  be  equally  popular.  Miss  Smithson  is  a  nurse  by  profession, 
and  her  pictures  of  the  unseen  side  of  hospital  life  are  drawn  with  the 
sure  touch  of  knowledge  and  experience.  Her  characters  are  familiar 
because  they  are  real,  and  the  human  notes  of  gladness  and  sadness  run 
through  the  story  as  "a  melody  in  tune." 


Tales    That    Were    Told.  By   seumas 

MacMANUS.     Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

These  are  stories  that  are  truly  different  real  Irish  folk  tales,  with 
the  scent  of  the  turf  smoke  still  on  them,  and  qualities  of  humanness, 
fancy  and  humour  which  make  them  of  irresistible  appeal  A  delightful 
book  for  young  and  old,  written  with  that  touch  of  genius  which  brought 
a  poor  Donegal  schoolmaster  into  the  front  rank  of  Iri^h  authors. 


The    Whale    and    the    Grasshopper. 

By  SEUMAS  J.  O'BRIEN,  With  frontispiece  and 
cover  design  by  John  Keatings,  A.R.H.A.  Crown  8vo, 
cloth. 

A  curious  title  of  a  curious  book  of  curious  stories  that  a  curious 
reader  will   simply  revel  in. 

Mr.  Seumas  O'Brien  is  one  of  the  younger  .school  of  Irish  writer*  who 
has  taken  American  readers  by  storm,  and  this  unique  collection  of 
short  stories  comes  to  us  by  way  of  Boston  and  Dublin.  Regarding  the 
stories,  the  "Boston  Transcript"  says: — 

"One  new  short  stories  writer  has  appeared  this  year  whose  publish-jd 
stories  open  a  new  field  to  fiction  and  have  a  human  richness  of  feeling 
and  imagination  rare  in  our  sophisticated  literature.  In  Seumas  O'Brien 
I  believe  that  America  has  found  a  new  humorist  ot  popular  sym- 
pathies, a  rare  observer  and  philosopher  whose  very  absurdities  have  a 
persuasive  philosophy  of  their  own." 


FICTION  21 


FIRST    POPULAR    EDITION, 

GREATHEART 

By   ETHEL  M.   DELL. 

Crown  Svo,   cloth.        With   a   Striking    Picture   Wrapper, 
printed  in  three  colours.      (Fifth  Impression.) 

"  We  think  Miss  Dell's  many  admirers  will  consider  her  present 
novel  the  best  she  has  written." — Pall  Mall  Gazkttk. 

••  Miss  Dell's  huge  circle  of  admirers  will  revel  in  this  latest  example 
of  her  skill  in  incident  and  plot.  It  goes  with  m  unfaltering  swmg 
from  start  to  finish." — Sheffield  Telegraph. 

"  The  novel  is  full  of  tense  situations  and  highly  wrought  emotions. 
Whoever  begins  it  will  not  put  it  down  until  it  is  finished.  "—The 
Scotsman. 


A  NEW  POPULAR  EDITION  OF  THE 
5EQUEL    TO     ''THE     SHULAMITE." 

THE    WOMAN 
DEBORAH 

By  ALICE    AND    CLAUDE    ASKEW* 

New  Impression,  Re-set.     Crown  Svo,  cloth,  with  a  Striking 
Picture  Wrapper,  printed  in  three  colours. 

Alice  and  Claude  Askew's  South  African  Novel,  "The 
Shumalite,"  is  one  of  the  most  popular  of  successful  novels. 
The  sequel,  **  The  Woman  Deborah  ** — an  equally  striking 
piece  of  work — has  long  been  unobtainable.  This  new 
impression  will  find  many  new  readers  for  both  books. 


22 


NEW    EDITIONS    AND    IMPRESSIONS 


Town  Planning  in  Practice :    An  Intro- 

duction    to    the    Art    of    DesHnini    Ghies    and 
Suburbs.      By  RAYMOND   UNWIN.     With  many 
Illustrations,    Maps    and    Plans.       Crown   4to,   cloth, 
(Sixth  Impression.) 
"Few  men  in   England    have  had  so  much  experience  of  town-plan- 
ning as  Mr.  Unwin  has  had.  .  .  .  His  is  the  first  English  handbook  on 
the  subject.   ...    It  is  not  too  technical  for  the  general  reader,   and   it 
deserves  a  wide  public." — Manchester  Guardian. 

The  Evolution  of  Modern  Germany. 

New     and     revised    edition.    .  By     W.    HARBUTT 

DAWSON.     Demy  8vo,  cloth. 
"A  book  so  well  known   needs   no  recommendation,    and  thosft    who 
have  the  earlier  edition   will   assuredly  desire  to  get   the  new  one.     It 
is  essential  as  a  work  of  reference." — The  New  World. 

Richard  Cobden  :   The    International 

Man.      By  J.  A.  HOBSON.     With  a  Photogravure 
Frontispiece,  and   8   other   Illustrations.      Demy   8vo, 
cloth.     (Second  Impression.) 
"Mr.    Hobson  has   produced    one   of    those   rare    books    which   it    is 
difficult  to  read  through,  because  they  are  too  interesting.     It  conthiu- 
ally   lures   one  into  reflection;  one   puts   it   down  on   one's   knees  and 
wanders  away  straight  out  of  the  text  down  some  pleasant  (and  some- 
times unpleasant)  path  of  speculation.  .  .     Almost  every  page  testifies 
to   Cobden 's    soundness    of    judgment    in    the    sphere    of    international 
poHcj." — New  Statesman. 

Tropic    Days.       By  E.  J.  ban  field,  Author  of 
**  The  Confessions  of  a  Beachcombe,"  etc.     With  Illus- 
trations.    Demy  8vo,  cloth.    (Second  Impression.) 
"The  plant  and  bird  life  of  a  tiny  Pacific  island  are  described  with 
care  and  charm,  and  in  a  number  of  revealing  chapters  the  characters 
and  habits  of  the  very  primitive  natives  who  are  Mr.   Banfield's  neigh- 
bours are   explained.     To  the    naturalist  the    abundant   illustrations    of 
rare  growths  will  be  a  treasure." — The  Manchsster  Guardian. 

Shakespeare's  Workmanship     By  sir 

ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH,  M.A.,  Litt.D.,  Kirg 

Edward  VII.  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  the 

University  of  Cambridge.      Demy  8vo,  cloth.     (Third 

Impression.) 

'*  Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch's  analysis  of  Shakespeare's  craftsmanship 

goes  direct  to  the  principles  of  dramatic  construction ;  and  if  ever  the 

poetic  drama  seriously  revives  in  England  it  is  more  than   likely  that 

this    book  will   be    found    to  have  had  a  hand  in  the  revival."— West- 

minster  Gazette. 


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NEW    EDITIONS    AND    IMPRESSIONS 


23 


The    Soul    of     Denmark,      By    shaw 

DESMOND.     Demy  8vo,  cloth.     (Third  Impression.) 
"This  book  is  the  result  of  nearly  four  years'  residence  in  Denmark; 
and  conveys  a  full  and  intimate  picture  of  the   Dane  and  his  life  as  he 
impressed  the  author." — ^The  Times. 

Old  and  New  Masters.     By  Robert  Lynd, 

Demy  8vo,  cloth,     {v^econd  Impression.) 

•'A  book  of  essays  full  of  ci»arm,  insight  and  sympathy,  and  of  the 
transmitted  enthusiasm  that  is  the  basis  of  all  good  criticism.*' — Daily 
Niiws. 

"This  is  a  fascinating  volume,  and  has  the  right  quality  of  literary 
criticism." — Sunday  Times. 

Through  Lapland  with  Skis  and  Rein- 
deer.   By  FRANK  HEDGES  BUTLER,  F.R.G.S. 

With  4  Maps   and  65  Illustrations      Demy   8vo,  cloth 

(Third  lujpiession,  Re-set.) 
"It  is  at  once  a  fascinating  story  of  travel,  a  practical  guide  bock, 
and   a  storehouse   of  interesting   information  on  the   manners,  customs, 
and  folklore  of  a  little-known  people.*' — World's   \V;;rk. 

Uncensored    Celebrities.     By  e.  t.  ray. 

MOND.     Large  Crown  8vo,  cloth,  (Fourth  Impression.) 

'Some  exceedingly  frank  portraits  of  public  men  are  contained  in 
a  book  with  the  curious  title  of  'Uncensored  Celebrities,'  which 
Messrs.  Fisher  Unwin  publish.  The  author,  Mr.  E.  T.  Raymond,  is 
mercilessly  careful  to  explain  in  his  preface  that  the  work  is  'not  meant 
for  the  hero-worshipper.'" — Evening  Standard. 

"No  book  of  personal  studies  of  recent  years  has  given  so  much  food 
for  thought,  and  in  spite  of  its  frankness  it  is  always  fair.  Mr.  Ray- 
mond has  succeeded  in  revealing  men  without  taking  sides.  .  .  Here 
we  have  clear  vision,  sane  opinion,  and  a  very  useful  sense  of  humour, 
not  a'ways   free   from   acid. " — National  News. 

A  Short  History  of  France.    By  mary 

DUCLAUX.   With  4  Maps.  Demy  8vo,  cloth.  (Fourth 

Impression.) 

"Mme.  Duclaux  is  a  true  literary  artist;  and  no  one,  we  venture 
to  say,  even  among  the  writers  of  her  adopted  nation,  the  home  of 
brilliant  literature,  was  better  fitted  for  the  exact  task  she  has  here  set 
herself  and  so  charmingly  fulfilled.  .  .  .  One  of  the  chief  merits  of  the 
book,  which  makes  it  valuable  for  all  persons,  and  they  are  legion  In 
these  days,  who  wish  really  to  uaderstand  France,  !s  Mme.  Duclaux's 
penetrating   knowledge  of  the   French  character." — ^Thh  Spectator. 


u 


12 


t 

NET. 
EACH. 
Inland 
Postage 
6di 


10   6 

NET 

Inland 

Postage 

8d. 


10  6 

NET 
Inland 
Ptutage 

«d. 


24 


NEW    EDITIONS    AND    IMPRESSIONS 


The   Wonders   of   Instinct:  Chapters 
in     the     Psychology     of    Insects. 

By    J.    H.    FABRE.       Translated     by     Alexander 
Teixera  de  Mattos  and  Bernard  Miall.     With  i6 
Illustrations.     Demy  8vo,  cloth.     (Third  Impression.) 
"  Nothing  has  ever  been  written  in  the  literature  of  natural  history 
more  fascinating  than  the  essays  of  J.   H.   Fabre." — Daily   News. 

Six  Centuries   of  Work  and  Wages  : 

The  History  of  English  Labour.      By   JAMES  E. 

THOROLD  ROGERS.     Demy  8vo,  cloth. 

"Professor   Thorcld  Rogers'    works    on  political    iconomy   possess    a 

permanent  value  as  a  storehouse  of  data  on  that  br.inch  of  the  science 

in  which  he  specialised,  and  it  may  almost  be  said,  made  his  own." — 

Westminster  Review. 

Poems,  By  W.  B.  YEATS.  With  a  Photogravure 
Frontispiece.  Demj^  8vo,  cloth.  (Eighth  Impression.) 
"Mr.  Yeats  is  the  only  one  among  the  younger  Erglish  poets  who 
has  the  whole  poetical  temperament.  ...  It  is  this  continuously  poetical 
quality  of  mind  that  seems  to  me  to  distinguish  Mr.  Yeats  from  the 
many  men  of  talent,  and  to  place  him  among  the  few  men  of  genius." 
— Mr.  Arthur  Symons  in  the  Saturday  Review. 

The      Economic     Interpretation     of 
History.   By  james  e.  thorold  Rogers. 

Special  Library   Edition.      Large  Crown    8vo,    cloth. 

(Eighth  Impression.) 

"Professor  Thorold  Rogers  clothed  the  bare  bones  of  political 
economy  with  the  living  tissue  of  life  when  he  fascinated  his  genera- 
tion with  the  'Economic  Interpretation  of  History'  ...  an  unrivalled 
survey  of  the  inter-action  of  economic  motive,  social  growth  and 
political  history." — Christian  World. 

How  France  is  Governed.   By  Raymond 

POINCARE.     Large  Crown  8vo,  cloth.      (Fifth   Im- 
pression.) 
"  A  most  interesting  and  valuable  account  of  the  whole  framework  of 
French  administration  .  .  .  packed  with  information  not  easily  obtained 
elsewhere,    and  conveyed    in   language  of    remarkable    and    attractive 
simplicity." — The  Spectator. 

The  Life  of  Girolamo  Savonarola,   By 

PROFESSOR  PASQUALE  VILLARI.  Special 
Library  Edition.  Illustrated.  Large  Crown  8vo, 
cloth.     (Eleventh  Impression.) 

"  The  most  interesting  religious  biography  that  wc  know  of  in 
modern  times." — Spectator. 

•*  A  book  which  is  not  likely  to  be  forgotten.  "—AthenjCUII. 


NEW    EDITIONS    AND    IMPRESSIONS 


Rural  Housing,    By  william  g.  savage. 

M.D.  (Lond.),  B.Sc,  D.P.H.  New  edition,  with  a 
new  chapter  on  the  After  War  Problems.  With  32 
Illustrations.     Demy  8vo,  cloth. 

"  This  is  a  practical  book,  by  a  man  who  has  had  good  opportunities 
of  mastering  his  subject.  He  begins  with  a  sketch  of  the  Law ;  goes 
on  to  discuss  the  housing  question  as  it  stands  now ;  then  gives  detailed 
advice  on  the  construction  of  new  cottages,  and  ends  witli  an  essay  on 
the  economics  of  the  housing  problem.'' — The  Economist. 


A    Handbook.      By 
(Fifth     Impression.) 


Woman  and  Marriage. 

MARGARET    STEPHENS. 
Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

The  Spectator  says  *'  *  Woman  and  Marriage  '  is  an  outspoken  book 
which  should  be  carefully  read  by  those  for  whom  it  is  written.  It  is 
not  a  book  for  boys  and  girls ;  it  is  a  physiological  handbook,  tho- 
roughly well  written,  orderly,  wholesome  and  pract.cal.  .  .  .We  com- 
mend this  work  to  all  who  want  a  full  account  in  £imple  words  of  tlie 
physical  facts  of  married  life.  All  the  difficulties  of  the  subject  are 
handled  fearlessly,  gravely  and  reverently  in  this  book,  and  as  it  must 
be  kept  out  of  the  reach  of  mere  curiosity,  so  it  deserves  thoughtful 
study  by  those  of  us  whose  lives  it  tou4jhes." 

Lures  of  Life.    By  Joseph  lucas,  Author  of 

"Our  Villa  in   Italy."      Crown   ^vo,  clothe      (Second 
Impression,  Reset.) 
"A   stylist  and  raorans,t   whose   'lures'   range   from   religion   and   the 
magic  of   words  to  old   furniture  and  plate,  nee  people   and   the  new 
democracy." — Book  Monthly. 

"There  is  an  epicurian  touch  about  the  book  whose  author  loves 
ease  and  leisure,  old  furniture  and  Italian  villas  and  gardens.'* — The 
Friend. 

Our  Villa    in    Italy.    By  Joseph  lucas 

(Second  Edition.)     Illustrated.     Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

*•  Mr.  Lucas  has  written  a  book  which  will  delight  every  English 
lover  of  Italy.  .  .  .  Many  an  agreeable  story  do  we  find  in  these  simple, 
well-written  pages  so  full  of  the  lure  of  Florence,  and,  indeed,  of  all 
Italy."— The  Guardian. 

The  Road  to  a  Healthy  Old  Age.   By 

T.   BODLEY  SCOTT,     M.R.C.S.    (Eng.).      Second 

Edition.  Crown  8vo,  cloth.     (Third  Impression.) 

"  In  this  book  an  att^npt  is  made  to  demonstrate  both  to  the  medical 

profession  and  the  laity  that  premature  decay,  physical  and  mental,  may 

within  limits  be  prevented.     .    .    .     We  have  perused  the  book  with 

pleasure,  and  cordially  recommend  It  to  our  readers." — Medical  Times. 


26 


NEW    EDITIONS    AND    IMPRESSIONS 


The  Works  of  Augustus  Jessopp,  D.D. 

Uniform  Edition.     Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

"We  doubt  if  such  an  account  of  English  village  life,  its  bad  and 
good  sides,  its  specialities,  its  humours,  and  the  odd,  knarled  charac- 
ters it  produces  has  ever  been  published.  .  .  .  Full  of  thought,  but 
fuller  yet  of  a  subtle  humorousncss  which  is  not  Addison's  or  Lamb's, 
but  something  as  separate  and  almost  as  attractive." — The  Spectatox. 

List  cf  Volumes  t 

ARCADY:  FOR  BETTER,  FOR  VORSE. 

BEFORE  THE  GREAT  PILLAGE. 

THE  COMING  OF  THE  FRIARS. 

RANDOM  ROAMING,  AND  OTHER  PAPERS. 

STUDIES  BY  A  RECLUSE. 

THE  TRIALS  OF  A  COUNTRY  PARSON. 


Dreams.  By  olive  SCHREINER,  Author  of 
'*  Woman  and  Labour,"  "The  Story  of  an  African 
Farm,"  etc.     Crown  8vo,  cloth. 

"Written  in  exquisite  prose  they  have  the  essential  qualities  of  poetry, 
and  are,  indeed,  poems  in  prose." — Athen.«um. 
*'The  book  is  distinctly  one  of  genius." — British  Wekkly. 


"Stops,"  or,  How  to  Punctuate,   a  Prac- 

tical  Handbook  for  Writers  and  Students.     By  PAUL 
ALLARDYCE.     (Eighteenth  Impression.)    Cloth. 

"A  boon  to  aiithors,  journalists,  printers,  teachers,  and  all  whose  occu- 
pations bring  them  into  contact  with  printing  and  writing." — Pitman's 
Phonetic  Journal. 


The   Irish   Song    Book.      With  Original  Irish 

Airs.     Edited  by  ALFRED  PERCEVAL  GRAVES. 
Paper  covers.     (Thirteenth  Impression.) 

"A  collection  of  national  airs,  untrimmed,  unadorned,  unaccompanied, 
fresh  with  the  fragrant  lyrical  poesie  of  a  people  who  honoured  their 
bards  as  they  honoured  their  kings." — Cambridge  Magazine. 


NEW    EDITIONS    AND    IMPRESSIONS 


27 


The   Life  of  Lamartine.   By  h.  remsen 

WHITEHOUSE.  With  many  Illustrations.  Two 
volumes.    Demy  8vo,  cloth. 

Vagabonding    Dov/n    the    Andes.    By 

HARRY  A.  FRANCK,  Author  of  /'A  Vagabond 
Journey  Around  the  World,"  etc.  With  a  Map  and 
176  Illustrations.    Demy  8vo,  cloth.     (Second  Impres.) 

Public  Speaking  and  Debate.     A  Manual 

for  Advocates  and  Agitators.  By  GEORGE 
JACOB  HOLYOAKE.  Crown  8vo,  cloth.  (Fifteenth 
Impression.) 

**It    is    eminently   readable;    full   of  good   advice    to    public  speakers 
and  debaters,  and  rich  in  capital  stories." — The  Nbw  Age. 

"To  the  aspiring  young  orator  this  is  a  most  practdcal  and  informing 
work." — Rkynold's  Nkwspafer. 


L 


WESSELY'S    DICTIONARIES. 

Pocket  Size  (6^  by  4 J  inches).       Cloth.  4s.  cet  each. 

We»sely's  Dictionaries  are  not  only  convenient  in  size,  low  in 
price,  and  thoroughly  up-to-date,  but  also  remarkably  complete.  They 
are  not  mere*  dictionaries  of  technical  terms,  or  of  conversational 
phrases,  but  combine  the  advantages  of  both ;  and  they  also  contain 
useful  lists  of  geographical  and  Christian  names  which  difTer  according 
to  the  languages,  and  tables  showing  the  conjugation  of  irregular 
verbs.  The  type  is  very  clear,  and  in  all  respects  the  di-.fionaries  are 
admirably  adapted  to  the  needs  both  of  students  and  of  travellers. 

List  of  Volumes. 
English-French  and  French-English   Dictionary. 
English-German     and     German-English    Dictionary. 
English-Italian   and   Italian-English    Dictionary. 
English-Spanish    and    Spanish-English    Dictionary. 
English-Swedish  and  Swedish-English  Dictionary. 
Latin-English   and    English-Latin    Dictionary. 


NET 

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Post3t{e, 

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28 


THE    SOUTH    AMERICAN    SERIES 


Spanish  America:    its   Romance,   Reality   and 
Future.    By  C,  R,  ENOCK,  Author  of  "The  Andes  and 
the  Amazon,"  "Peru,"  "Mexico,"  "Ecuador,"     Illus- 
tr  ted   and   wiih   Map,      2    vols,       Demy   8vo,   cloth. 
(Spring,  1920.) 
Starting  with  the  various  States  of  Central  America,  Mr.  Knock 
then  describes  ancient  and  modern  M<^xico,  th'=>n  takes  the  reader 
successively  along  the  Pacific  Coast,  the  Corlillera  of  the   Andes, 
enters   the   land  of  the   vSpanish  Main,   conducts  the  reader  along 
the  Amazon  Valley,  gives  a  special  chapter  to  Brazil  and  another 
to  the  River  Plate  and  Pampas.     Thus  all  the  States  of  Central  and 
South  America   aie   covered.     The   work   is  topographical,  descrip- 
tive,  and  historical;    it  describes  the    people   and    the  cities,    the 
flora  and  fauna,  the  varied  resources  of  South  America,  its  trade, 
railways,    its  characteristics    generally,  and    suggests   the    possible 
future  of  this  vast,  and,  as  yet,  it  mav  be  almost  said,  unexplored 
region    with    its  infinitude    of  opportunities    for    enterprise.       Mr. 
Knock    has    written    several    volumes    in    the    **  South    American 
Series  '* ;  he  is  one  of  the  best-known  and  most  authoritative  writers 
on  South  America.    Here  he  has  written  a  volume  which  is  not  only 
most  valuably  informative,  but  in  such  a  manner  as  to  form  enter 
taining  reading  for  all  classes  of  readers. 


THE    SOUTH    AMERICAN    SERIES, 

nitistrated.    Demy  8vo>  clotiu 

1.  CHILE.     By  G.  F.  Scctt  Elliott,  F.R.G  S.    (5ih  Impression.) 

2.  PERU.    By  C.  Reginald  Enock,  F.R-GS.    (4th  Impression.) 

3.  MEXICO.     By  C  Reginald  Enock.  FR.G.S.     (5th  Impression.) 

4.  ARGENTINA.     By  W.  A.  Hirst.     (5th  Impression.) 

5.  BRAZIL.     By  Pierre  Denis.     (3rd  Imprsssion.) 

6.  URUGUAY.     By  W.  H.  Koebel.     (3rd  Impression.) 

7.  GUIANA !  British,  French  and  Dutch.    By  James  Rodway. 

8.  VENEZUELA.  By  Leonard  V.  Dallon.B-Sc.    (3rd  Impression.) 

9.  LATIN    AMERICA  i     Its    Rise   and    Progress.       By     F 

Garcia  Calderon.     With  a  Preface  by  Raymond    Poincare,   President 
of   France.      (5th  Impression.) 

COLOMBIA.     By  Phanor  J.  Eder.  A.B.,  LL.3.     (3rd  Impression) 

ECUADOR.     By  C.  Reginald  Enock,  F.R.G.S-    (2nd  Impression.) 

BOLIVIA.     By  Paul  WaU6. 

PARAGUAY.    By  V,  H.  Koebel.    (2nd  Impression.) 


14   CENTRAL  AMERICA.     By  W    H.  Koebel. 


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THE    STORY    OF    THE    NATIONS 


29 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATIONS. 

With  Maps  and  many  other  Illustrations.     Large  crown  8vo,  cloth, 
New  and  Rsvissd  Edition. 

Japan.   By  david  Murray,  Ph.D.,LL.D.   with 

a  new  chapter  on  Japan  as  a  Great  Power,  by  JOSEPH 
LONGFORD,  B,A.,  Emeritus  Professor  of  Japanese, 
King's  College,  London,  and  35  Illustrations  and  Maps. 


Bdition 
9th 
8th 
gth 
7th 
8th 


9th    6, 

loth    7, 

7th  8. 

6th  9 

6th  10 

7th  II, 

4th  12 

6th  13 

5th  14 

5th  15, 

6th  16, 

4th  17 
4th  18 
4th  19 
3rd  20 

6th  21. 
4th  22. 

6th  23 
4th  24. 


5th  23, 
3rd  26, 
3rd  27, 
3rd  aS. 


Rome* 
The  Jews, 
Germany. 
Carthage. 
Alezander't 

Empire 
The  Moors  in 

Spain. 
Ancient 

Egypt. 
Hungary. 
TheSaraceni. 
Ireland. 
Chaldea. 
The  Gotht. 
Assyria. 
Turkey. 
Holland. 
Mediaeval 

France. 
Persia. 
Phoenicia* 
Media. 
TheHansa 

Towns. 
Early  Britain. 
The  Barbary 

Corsairs* 
Russia. 
The  Jews 

under  the 

Romans. 
Scotland. 
Switzerland. 
Mexico. 
PortugaL 


Edition 

Edition 

3rd  29.  The  Nor- 

3rd 51. 

China. 

mans. 

3rd  52. 

Modern  Eng- 

3rd 30.  The  Byzant- 

land     from 

ine  Empire. 

the  Reform 

3rcl  31.  Sicily : 

Bill    to  the 

Phoenician, 

Death  of 

Greek  and 

Queen 

Roman. 

Victoria. 

and  3a.  The  Tuscan 

2nd  53 

Modem  Spain 

^RepubUc 

2nd  54 

Modern  Italy. 

3rd  33.  Poland. 

2nd  55. 

Norway. 

3rd  34-  Parthia. 

4th  56. 

Wales. 

5th  35.  The  Austra- 

2nd 57. 

Medieval 

lian  Common- 

Rome. 

wealth. 

2nd  58.  The  Papal 

3rd  36-  Spain. 

Monarchy. 

6th  37.  Japan. 

4th  59. 

Mediaeval 

8th  38.  South  Africa. 

India  under 

5  th  39.  Venice. 

Mohamme- 

3rd 40.  TheCrttsa^s 

dan  Rule. 

3rd  41.  Vedic  India. 

ist  60. 

Parliament- 

3rd 42.  The  West 

ary  England. 

Indies  and 

3rd  61. 

Buddhist 

the  Spanish 

India. 

Main. 

2nd  62. 

Mediaeval 

2nd  43.  Bohemia. 

England. 

3rd  44.  The  Balkans. 

ist  63. 

The  Coming 

3rd  45.  Canada. 

of  Parliament. 

4  th  46.  British  India. 

2nd  64. 

The  Story  of 
Greece  from 

2nd  47.  Modem 

France. 

the  Earliest 

2nd  48.  The  Franks. 

TimestoA.D. 

2nd  49.  Austria. 

14. 

2nd  50.  Modem  Eng- 

2nd 65. 

The  Roman 

land   before 

Empire. 

the  Reform 

66. 

Denmark 

Bill. 

Sweden. 

J[ 


30 


THE   "CHATS'*  SERIES 


THE  _^CHATS"    SERIES^ 

Practjcal  Guides  for  Collectors. 

With  Frontispieces  and  many  Illustrations. 

Large  crov/n  8vo,  cloth. 

New  Volume. 

Ghats  on  Royal  Copenhagen  Porcelain : 

Its  History  and  Developmeiit  from  the  18th 
Century  to  the  Present  Day.  By  ARTHUR 
HAYDEN,  Author  of  **  Chats  on  Er  glish  Earthen- 
ware," etc.  With  56  Illustrations.  Large  crown  8vo, 
cloth. 

The  above  volume  has  been  condensed  from  the  author's  edition  de 
iuxe,  published  a  few  year'*  ago,  concerning  which  the  "Pall  Mall 
Gazette"  said  :  "No  book  on  ceramics  has  been  awaited  with  so  much 
interest  by  collectors  as  Mr.  Arthur  Hayden's  work  on  'Royal  Copen- 
hagen Porceliin.'  Harden  has  handled  this  eventful  history  with  the 
skill  of  the  practised  writer,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  collector,  and  the 
method  of  the  curator."  In  presenting  it  In  a  cheaper  edition, 
although,  naturally,  many  of  the  illustrations  have  been  omitted,  there 
is  remaining  a  gallery  of  examples  richly  illuminating  the  subject.  In 
the  letterpress  nothing  has  been  omitted  which  is  of  importance.  The 
full  tables  of  mnrks  which  appeared  in  the  first  edirion  are  here  re- 
produced. There  is  no  other  volume  on  the  subject,  and,  therefore,  to 
all  who  are  interested  in  Copenhagen  porcelain,  now  considered  to  be 
the  leading  factory  in  Europe,  this  volume  is  indispensable. 

Ak  additional  chapter  deals  with  Copenhagen  Faience,  which  has 
qualities  of  its  own  appealing  to  connoisseurs. 

NEW   IMPRESSIONS    IN   PREPARATION. 
Chats  on  English  China.    By  Arthur  Haydkk.    (6th  Impression.) 
Ghats  on  Old  Silver.    By  Arthur  Hayden.     (2nd  Impression.) 
•Jhats  on  Old  Friiits.     By  Arthur  Hayden.        (4th  izapie&sion.) 
Chats  on  Ccsttsme*  By  G.  Woolliscroft  Khbad.     (2nd  Impression.) 
Chats  on  PeTsrtef,    By  H.  J.  L    J.  Masse,  M.A.     (2nd  Impression.) 
Chats  on  Old  Lace  and  Needlework.    By  Mrs.  Lowes.     (3rd  Impres&ion.) 
Chats  on  Postage  Stamps.     By    Fred.   J.    Melvrle 
Ghats  on  Old  Coins.     By  Fred.  W.  Burgess.    (2nd  Impression  ) 
Chats  on  Oriental  China.     By].  F.  Blacrxr.     (3rd  Impression.). 
Chats  on  English  Earthenwafe.  By  Arthur  Hayden.    (3rd  Impression.) 

Other  Volumes 

Chats  on  Old  Furniture.    By  Arthur  Haydsn.     (5th  Impression.) 

Chats  on   Old  Miniatures.    By  J.  J.  Foster,  F.S.A, 

Chatf  on  Autographs.    By  A.   M.   P.roadley. 

Chats  en  Old  Jewclk^v  and  Trir.kctKr    By  Macivf.x  Percival 

Chats  on  Cottage  and  Farmhouse  Furniture.    By  Arthur  Hayden. 

Chats  on  Old  Copper  and  Brass-     By  Fred.  W    Burgess. 

Chats  on  Household  Curies.    By  Fred.  W.  Bdpgess. 

Chats  on  Japanese  Prints.    By  A.  Davison  Fickb. 

Chats  on  Military  Carioi,    By  Stanley  C.  Johnson,  M.A. 

Chats  0-:  Old  CTocK      Jy  Arthur  HAvr-EN. 


THE    MERMAID    SERIES 


3^ 


THE    MERMAID    SERIES, 

The  Best  Plays  of  the  Old  Dramatists,  Literal  Reproductions  of  the 

Old  Text. 

With  Photogravure  Frontispieces.         Thin  Paper  Edition. 

Beaumont.  The  Plays  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  Introduction  and 
Notes  by  J.  St.  Loe  Strachey.     a  vols. 

Chapman,  The  Plays  of  George  Chapman.  Edited  by  William  Lyon 
Phelps,   Instructor  in  English  Literature  at  Yale  College. 

CoNGREVE.  The  Complete  Plays  of  William  Cougreve.  Editei  by  Alex 
C.  Ewaid. 

Dekker.     The  Best  Plays  of  Thomas  Dekker.     Notes  by  Ernest  Rhys. 

Drv^den.  The  Best  Plays  of  John  Dryden.  Edited  by  George  Saints- 
bury,     a  vols. 

Farquhar,  The  Best  Plays  of  George  Farquhar.  Edited,  and  with 
an  IntroductJon,  by  William  Archer. 

Fletcher.     See  Beaumont. 

Ford.     The  Best  Plays  of  John  Ford.     Edited  by  Havelock  Ellis. 

Greene.  The  Complete  Plays  of  Robert  Greene.  Edited  with  Intro- 
duction and  Notes  by  Thomas  H.  Dickinson, 

Heywood.  The  Best  Plays  of  Thomas  Heywood.  Edited  by  A.  W. 
Verity.     With   Introduction   by  J.   A.   Symonds. 

JONSON.  The  Best  Plays  of  Ben  Joason.  Edited,  with  Introduction 
and  Notes,  by  Brindsley  Nicholson  and  C.   H.   Herford.     3  vols. 

Marloa/k.  The  Best  Flays  of  Christopher  Marlowe,  Edited,  with 
Critical  Memoir  and  Notes,  by  Havelock  Ellis;  and  containing  a 
General  Introduction  to  the  Series  by  John  Addirgton  Symonds. 

Massixger.  The  Best  Plays  of  Phillip  Masslnger.  With  Critical  and 
Biographical  Essay  and  Notes  by  Arthur  Symors.     a  vols. 

MiDDLETON.  The  Best  Plays  of  Thomas  Middleton  With  an  Introduc- 
tion by  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne.     2  vols, 

Nero,  and  Other  Plays.  Edited  by  H.  P.  Home,  Arthur  Symons,  A.  W. 
Verity,  and  H.   Ellis. 

Otway.  The  Best  Plays  of  Thomas  Olway.  Introduction  and  Notes 
by  the  Hon.  Roden  Noel. 

Shadwell.  The  Best  Plays  of  Thomas  Shadwell.  Edited  by  George 
Saintsbury, 

Shirley.  The  Best  Plays  of  James  Shirley.  With  Introduction  by 
Edmund  Gosse. 

Steele.  The  Complete  Plays  c!  Richard  Steele.  Edited,  with  Introduc- 
tion and  Notes,  by  G.  A.  Aitken. 

Tourneur.     See  Webster. 

Vanburgh.  The  StJect  Flays  of  Sir  John  Yanburgh.  Edited,  with  an 
Introduction  and  Notes,  by  A.  E.  H.  Swain. 

Webster.  The  Best  Plays  of  Webster  and  Tourneur.  With  an  Intro- 
duction  and  Notes  bv  John  Addington  Svnionds. 

Wycherlky.     The  CompJete  Plays  of  William  Wycherley,     Edited,  with 
-  an  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  W.  C.  Ward. 


32 


POETRY  AND  THE  DRAMA. 


WORKS  BY  ROBERT  W.  SERVICE. 

Rhymes  of  a  Red  Gross  Man.  4th  impression 

"It  Is  the  great  merit  of  Mr.  Service's  verses  that  they  are  literally 
alive  with  the  stress  and  joy  and  agony  and  hardship  that  make  up  life 
out  in  the  battle  zone.  He  has  never  written  better  than  in  this  book, 
and  that  is  saying  a  great  deal." — Bookman. 

Songs  of  a  Sourdough.  33rd  impression. 

Ballads  of  a  Cheechako.   12th  impression. 
Rhymes  of  a  Rolling  Stone,  nth  impression. 

••Mr.  Robert  Service  is,  we  suppose,  one  of  the, most  popular  verse 
writers  in  the  world.  His  swinging  measures,  his  robust  ballads  of 
the  outposts,  his  joy  of  living,  have  fairly  caught  the  ear  of  his  country- 
men."— The  Spectator. 

"Of  the  Canadian  disciples  of  Kipling,  by  far  the  best  ii  R.  W. 
Service.  His  'Songs  of  a  Sourdough'  have  run  through  many  editions. 
Much  of  his  verse  has  a  touch  of  real  originality,  conveying  as  it  does 
a  just  impression  of  the  something  evil  and  askew  in  the  strange, 
uncouth  wUderness  of  the  High  North." — Thb  Timbi. 


THE     IWISH     ARTEMAS, 

The  Book  of  the  Land  of  Ire :  Being  a 

record  of  those  things  that  were  done  by  the  Men  of 
Ire  when  the  Men  of  Hun  made  war  on  the  earth.  By 
ALPHEO  that  is  an  humble  disciple  and  brother  scribe 
of  one  Artemas.  Post  8vo.  With  specially  designed 
cover. 

Alpheo   is  no  respecter  of   persons,    and  his   keen    shafts  of  wit  fly 
north  and  south,  east  and  west,  to  find  their  mark  in  the  camp  of  the 
Carsonite,  in  the  inner  room  of  the  Sinn   Feiner,  in  the  Wait  and  See 
Cabinet  of  Downing  Street,  and  in  the  secret  places  of  Tammany. 
'*  Yet  malice  never  was  his  aim, 

He  lashed  the  vice  but  spared  the  name. 

No  individual  could  resent 

Where  thousands  equally  were  meant." 

A  book  of  genuine  wit  and  humour  which  is  sure  to  be  as  mucfi  appre- 
ciated as  "The  Book  of  Artemas." 


NOVELS  BY  ETHEL  M.  DELL, 


33 


P  RESENTATION     EDITION 

of  the  Novels  of 

ETHEL  M.  DELL 

Seven    volumes,    Crown   8vo,    hound    uniform  in 
Cloth  gilt,  complete  in  a  handsome  box, 

NOTE,  —  The  volumes  are  also  included  in  The 
Adelphi  Library  of  Standard  Novels,  and  sold 
separately,  bound  in  cloth  at  3/6  net  each. 

List  of  Novels  included  in  this  Presentation  Edition, 

The  Way  of  an  Eagle. 

The  Knave  of  Diamonds. 

The  Rocks  of  Valpre 

The  Swindler,  and  other  stories. 

The  Keeper  of  the  Door. 

The  Safety  Curtain,  and  other  stories. 

Greatheart. 

IMPORTANT, — It  is  advisable  to  place  your  order  for  this 
presentation  edition  without  delay,  otherwise  delivery 
cannot  be  guaranteed. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN,  Ltd.,  i,  Adelphi  Terrace,  London. 


34 


POPULAR    NOVELS 


UNWIN'S     POCKET    NOVELS. 


Neatly  Bound 


!/-  «'' 


Picture  Wrapper 


THE   WAY  OF  AN  EAGLE  By  Ethel  M.  Dell 

THE  RNAYE  OF   DIAMONDS       By  Ethel  M.  Dell 
MY  LADY  OP  THE  CHIMNEY  COKNER 

By  Alexander  Irvine 
RICROFT  OF  WITHENS  By  Halmwell  Sutcliffe 
THE  YOLTURE'S  PREY  By  H.  De  Vere  Stacpoole 
AKUNDEL  By  E.  F.  Benson 

EXILE  By  Dolf  Wyllarde 

CARNIYAL  (abridged  edition)  By  Compton  Mackenzie 
GUY  AND  PAULINE  By  Compton  Mackenzie 

THE  PASSIONATE  ELOPEMEKT 

By  Compton  Mackenzie 
THROUGH  SORROWS  GATES 

By  Halliwell  Sutcliffe 
SHAMELESS  WAYNE  By  Halliwell  Sutcliffe 


JL/^^    net 


M'GLUSKY  THE  REFORMER  By  A.  G.  Hales 

THE  TRAIL  OP  '98  By  Robert  W.  Service 

ANN  YERONICA  By  H.  G.  Wells 

THE    BEETLE  By  Richard  Marsh 

ALMAYER'S  FOLLY  By  Joseph  Conrad 

THE   SHULAMITE  By  Alice  &  Claude  Askew 

NEW  CHRONICLES  OF  DON  Q. 

By  K.  &  Hesketh  Prichard 
THE  CAMERA  FIEND  By  E.  W.  Hornung 

MONTE  CARLO  By  Mrs.  De  Vere  Stacpoole 

CALLED  BACK  By  Hugh  Conway 

THE   STICKIT  MINISTER  By  S.  R.  Crockett 

THE  CRIMSON  AZALEAS  By  H.  De  Vere  Stacpoole 
PATSY  By  H.  De  Vere  Stacpoole 

BY  REEF  AND  PALM  By  Louis  Becke 

UNCANNY  TALES  By  F.  Marion  Crawford 

THE    PRETENDER  By  Robert  W.  Service 

ME.    A  Book  of  Remembrance  Anonymous 

GARRYOWEN  By  H.  De  Vere  Stacpoole 

THE  LADY   KILLER  By  H.  De  Vere  Stacpoole 

AS  IN  A  LOOKING  GLASS  By  F.  C.  Philips 

THE  VICTORIANS  By  Netta  Syrett 

THE  ROD  OF  JUSTICE  By  Alice  &  Claude  Askew 
THE  CHRONICLES  OF  DON  Q. 

By  K.  &  Hesketh  Prichard 


POPULAR    NOVELS 


35 


UNWIN'S    POCKET    NOVELS, 


Neatly  Bound 


J 


net.      Picture  Wrapi>er, 


lo    THE  CANON  IN  RESIDENCE 

By  Victor  L.  Whitechurch 

i8    THE    INDISCRETION  OF  THE  DUCHESS 

By  Anthony  Hope 

20     QUEEN  SHEB.VS  RING  By  H.  Rider  Haggard 

36  THE  SWINDLER,  and  other  stories    By  Ethel  M.  Dell 

37  THE  SAFETY  CURTAIN,  and  other  stories 

By  Ethel  M.  Dell 

38  DON  Q's  LOVE  STORY        By  K.  &  Hesketh  Prichard 

39  LADY  MARY  OF  THE  DARK  HOUSE 

By  Mrs.  C.  N.  Williamson 

40  THE  KNIGHT  ERRANT  and  other  stories 

By  Ethel  M  Dell 

41  THE  ELEVENTH  HOUR,  and  other  stories 

By  Ethel  M  Dell 

42  GOD'S  CLAY  By  Alice  &  Claude  Askew 

43  THE  SUNSHINE  SETTLERS  By  Crosbie  Garstin 


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II 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
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General  Library 

University  of  California 

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