An unprejudiced review of the facts relative to the differentiation of the two sexes, as set forth by naturalists, reveals not only the primary principles involved in human progress, but shows also the source whence these principles originated. These facts serve also to explain that “mental superiority” of man over woman observed by Mr. Darwin and others in the present stage of human growth.  
Notwithstanding the superior degree of development which, according to the facts elaborated by scientists, must belong to the female in all the orders of life below mankind, Mr. Darwin would have us believe that so soon as the human species appeared on the earth the processes which for untold ages had been in operation were reversed, and that through courage and perseverance, or patience, qualities which were the result of extreme selfishness, or which were acquired while in pursuit of animal gratification, man finally became superior to woman. The following furnishes an example of Mr. Darwin’s reasoning upon this subject. He says:
 
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The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man’s attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and the hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music (inclusive both of composition and performance), history, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison....
 
Now, when two men are put into competition, or a man with a woman, both possessed of every mental quality in equal perfection, save that one has higher energy, perseverance, and courage, the latter will generally become more eminent in every pursuit, and will gain the ascendency. He may be said to possess genius—for genius has been declared by a great authority to be patience; and patience, in this sense, means unflinching, undaunted perseverance.50
 
Doubtless, for the purpose of strengthening his position, Mr. Darwin quotes the following from John Stuart Mill: “The things in which man most excels woman are those which require most plodding and long hammering at single thoughts.” And in summing up the processes by which man has finally gained the ascendency over woman he concludes:
 
Thus man has ultimately become superior to woman. It is, indeed, fortunate that the law of the equal transmission of characters to both sexes prevails76 with mammals; otherwise it is probable that man would have become as superior in mental endowment to woman, as the peacock is in ornamental plumage to the peahen.51
 
Notwithstanding this conclusion of Mr. Darwin, in view of the facts elaborated by himself, we cannot help thinking that it is indeed fortunate that the law of the equal transmission of characters to both sexes prevails with mammals, otherwise it is probable that man would never have had any higher ambition than the gratification of his animal instincts, and would never have risen above those conditions in which he struggled desperately for the possession of the female. All the facts which have been observed relative to the acquirement of the social instincts and the moral sense prove them to have originated in the female constitution, and as progress is not possible without these characters, it is not difficult to determine within which of the sexes the progressive principle first arose. Even courage, perseverance, and energy, characters which are denominated as thoroughly masculine, since they are the result of Sexual Selection, have been and still are largely dependent on the will or choice of the female.
 
In his zeal to prove the superiority of man over woman, and while emphasizing energy, perseverance, and courage as factors in development, Mr. Darwin seems to have overlooked the importance77 of the distinctive characters belonging to the female organism, viz., perception and intuition, combined with greater powers of endurance, the first two of which, under the low conditions occasioned by the supremacy of the animal instincts, have thus far had little opportunity to manifest themselves. A fairer statement relative to the capacities of the two sexes and their ability to succeed might have been set forth as follows:
 
When a man and a woman are put in competition, both possessed of every mental quality in equal perfection, save that one has higher energy, more patience, and a somewhat greater degree of physical courage, while the other has superior powers of intuition, finer and more rapid perceptions, and a greater degree of endurance (the result of an organism freer from imperfections), the chances of the latter for gaining the ascendency will doubtless be equal to those of the former as soon as the animal conditions of life are outgrown, and the characters peculiar to the female constitution are allowed expression. Mr. Darwin’s quotation from J. Stuart Mill, that the things in which man excels woman are those which require most plodding and long hammering at single thoughts, is evidently true, and corresponds with the fundamental premises in the theory of development as set forth by all naturalists. The female organism is not a plodding machine, neither is the telephone nor the telegraph, yet these latter devices accomplish78 the work formerly done by the stagecoach much more rapidly, and in a manner better suited to civilized conditions. So soon as women are freed from the unnatural restrictions placed upon them through the temporary predominance of the animal instincts in man, their greater powers of endurance, together with a keener insight and an organism comparatively free from imperfections, will doubtless give them a decided advantage in the struggle for existence. While patience is doubtless a virtue, and while during the past ages of human experience it has been of incalculable value to man, it will not, under higher conditions, be required in competing for the prizes of life.
 
Woman’s rapid perceptions, and her intuitions which in many instances amount almost to second sight, indicate undeveloped genius, and partake largely of the nature of deductive reasoning; it is reasonable to suppose therefore that as soon as she is free, and has for a few generations enjoyed the advantages of more natural methods of education and training, and those better suited to the female constitution, she will be able to trace the various processes of induction by which she reaches her conclusions. She will then be able to reason inductively up to her deductive conceptions.
 
The worthlessness of Mr. Darwin’s comparison between men and women in performing the various activities of life is already clearly apparent. Although less than half a century has elapsed since The Descent of Man was written women are already79 successfully competing with men in nearly all the walks of life both high and low, and this too notwithstanding the fact that these occupations have heretofore been regarded as belonging exclusively to men. We have seen that Mr. Darwin mentions music as a vocation in which man’s superiority over woman is manifested, yet already in the United States, there is not one male musician who would be willing to match his skill against that of any one of the four best woman performers.
 
It is a well understood fact that neither individuals nor classes which upon every hand have been thwarted and restrained, either by unjust and oppressive laws, or by the tyranny of custom, prejudice, or physical force, have ever made any considerable progress in the actual acquirement of knowledge or in the arts of life. Mr. Darwin’s capacity for collecting and formulating facts seems not to have materially aided him in discerning the close connection existing at this stage of human progress between the masculinized conditions of human society and the necessary opportunities to succeed in the higher walks of life; in fact, he seems to have forgotten that all the avenues to success have for thousands of years been controlled and wholly manipulated by men, while the activities of women have been distorted and repressed in order that the “necessities” of the male nature might be provided for. Besides, it seems never to have occurred to him that as man has still not outgrown the animal in his nature,80 and as the intellectual and moral age is only just beginning to dawn, the time is not yet ripe for the direct expression of the more refined instincts and ideas peculiar to the female organism, and, as thus far, only that advancement has been made which is compatible with the supremacy of the lower instincts, woman’s time has not yet come.
 
Although women are still in possession of their natural inheritance, a finer and more complex organism comparatively free from imperfections, and although, as a result of this inheritance, their intuitions are still quicker, their perceptions keener, and their endurance greater, the drain on their physical energies, caused by the abnormal development of the reproductive energies in the opposite sex, has, during the ages of man’s dominion over her, been sufficient to preclude the idea of success in competing with men for the prizes of life. Although an era of progress has begun, ages will doubtless be required to eradicate abuses which are the result of constitutional defects, and especially so as the prejudices and feelings of mankind are for the most part in harmony with such abuses.
 
If we examine the subject of female apparel, at the present time, we shall observe how difficult it is to uproot long-established prejudices which are deeply rooted in sensuality and superstition; and this is true notwithstanding the fact that such prejudices may involve the comfort and even the health of half the people, and seriously affect the81 welfare of unborn generations. An examination of the influences which have determined the course of modern fashions in woman’s clothing will show the truth of this observation.
 
Of all the senses which have been developed, that of sight is undoubtedly the most refined, and when in the human species it is cultivated to a degree which enables its possessor to appreciate the beautiful in Nature and in Art, we are perhaps justified in designating it as the intellectual sense. In point of refinement, the sense of hearing comes next in order, yet among creatures as low in the scale of being as birds, we find that females not only appreciate the beautiful, but that they are charmed by pleasing and harmonious sounds, and that if males would win their favour it must be accomplished by appeals through these senses to the higher qualities developed within them.
 
Although the female of the human species, like the female among the lower orders of life, is capable of appreciating fine colouring, and to a considerable extent the beautiful in form, the style of dress adopted by women is not an expression of their natural ideas of taste and harmony. On the contrary, it is to Sexual Selection that we must look for an explanation of the incongruities and absurdities presented by the so-called female fashions of the past and present. The processes of Sexual Selection, which, so long as the female was the controlling agency in courtship, worked on the male, have in these later ages been reversed.82 For the reason that the female of the human species has so long been under subjection to the male, the styles of female dress and adornment which have been adopted, and which are still in vogue, are largely the result of masculine taste. Woman’s business in life has been to marry, or, at least, it has been necessary for her, in order to gain her support, to win the favour of the opposite sex. She must, therefore, by her charms, captivate the male.
 
With the progress of civilization and since women as economic and sexual slaves have become dependent upon men for their support, no male biped has been too stupid, too ugly, or too vicious to take to himself a mate and perpetuate his imperfections. This unchecked freedom of the male to multiply his defects is responsible for present conditions.
 
As for thousands of years women have been dependent on men not only for food and clothing but for the luxuries of life as well, it is not singular that in the struggle for life to which they have been subjected they should have adopted the styles of dress which would be likely to secure to them the greatest amount of success. When we remember that the present ideas of becomingness or propriety in woman’s apparel are the result of ages of sensuality and servitude, it is not remarkable that they are difficult to uproot, and especially so as many of the most pernicious and health-destroying styles involve questions of83 female decorum as understood by a sensualized age.
 
Mr. Darwin calls attention to the fact that women “all over the world” adorn themselves with the gay feathers of male birds. Since the beautiful plumage of male birds has been produced according to female standards of taste, and since it is wholly the result of innate female ideas of harmony in colour and design, it is not perhaps remarkable that women, recognizing the original female standards of beauty, should desire to utilize those effects which have been obtained at so great an expenditure of vital force to the opposite sex, especially as men are pleased with such display, and, as under present conditions of male supremacy, the female of the human species is obliged to captivate the male in order to secure her support.
 
Ever since the dominion of man over woman began a strict censorship over her dress has been maintained. Although in very recent times women are beginning to exercise a slight degree of independence in the matter of clothes, still, because of existing prejudices and customs they have not yet been able to adopt a style of dress which admits of the free and unrestricted use of the body and limbs. It is believed that woman, the natural tempter of man, if left to her own sinful devices, would again as of old attempt to destroy that inherent purity of heart and cleanliness of life which characterize the male consti84tution. Woman’s ankles and throat seem to be the most formidable foes against which innocent man has to contend, so the concealment of these offending members is deemed absolutely necessary for his protection and safety. Ecclesiastics, a class whose duty it has ever been to regulate and control the movements of women, seem to think that the ankles and throats of women were intended not for the use and convenience of their possessors but as snares to entrap holy men.
 
It would thus appear that the present fashions for female apparel have a deeper significance than we have been in the habit of ascribing to them. We are still living under conditions peculiar to a sensual age, and have not yet outgrown the requirements which condemn women to a style of dress which hinders the free movements of the body and which checks all the activities of life. In one way the woman of the present time may be said to resemble the male Argus pheasant, whose decorations, although they serve to please his mate, greatly hinder his power of motion and the free use of his body and limbs.
 
When we consider that apparel is but one, and a minor one, of the strictures under which women have laboured during the later era of human existence and when we consider all the ignoble and degrading uses to which womanhood has been subjected, the wonder is not that women have failed in the past to distinguish themselves in the various fields of intellectual labour in which men have85 achieved a limited degree of success, but that they have had sufficient energy and courage left to enable them even to attempt anything so far outside the boundary of their prescribed “sphere,” or that they have been able to transmit to their male offspring those powers through which they have gained their present stage of progress.
 
With regard to Mr. Darwin’s comparison of the intellectual powers of the two sexes, and his assertion that man attains to a higher eminence in whatever he takes up than woman—that, for instance, he surpasses her in the production of poetry, music, philosophy, etc., the facts at hand suggest that if within mankind no higher motives and tastes had been developed than those derived from selfishness and passion, there would never have arisen a desire for poetry, music, philosophy, or science, or, in fact, for any of the achievements which have been the result of the more exalted activities of the human intellect. However, because of the subjection of the higher faculties developed in mankind, the poetry, music, and painting of the past betray their sensuous origin and plainly reveal the stage of advancement which has been reached, while history, philosophy, and even science, judging from Mr. Darwin’s methods, have not yet wholly emerged from the murky atmosphere of a sensuous age.
 
It will be well for us to remember that the doctrine of the Survival of the Fittest does not imply that the best endowed, physically or otherwise,86 have always succeeded in the struggle for existence. By the term Survival of the Fittest we are to understand a natural law by means of which those best able to overcome the unfavourable conditions of their environment survive and are able to propagate their successful qualities. We must bear in mind that neither the growth of the individual nor that of society has proceeded in an unbroken or uninterrupted line; on the contrary, during a certain portion of human existence on the earth, the forces which tend toward degeneration have been stronger than whose which lie along the line of true development.
 
We are assured that the principles of construction and destruction are mutually employed in the reproductive processes, that continuous death means continuous life,—the katabolic or disruptive tendencies of the male being necessary to the anabolic or constructive habits of the female. As it is in reproduction, so has it been through the entire course of development. Side by side, all along the line, these two tendencies have been in operation; the grinding, rending, and devouring processes which we denominate Natural Selection, alongside those which unite, assimilate, and protect. As a result of the separation of the sexes there have been developed on the one side extreme egoism, or the desire for selfish gratification; on the other, altruism, or a desire for the welfare of others outside of self. Hence, throughout the later ages of human exist87ence, since the egoistic principles have gained the ascendency, may be observed the unequal struggle for liberty and justice, against tyranny, and the oppressors of the masses of the human race. From present appearances it would seem, that the disruptive or devouring forces have always been in the ascendency. The philosophy of history however, teaches the contrary. With a broader view of the origin and development of the human race, and the unexpected light which within the last few years has been thrown upon prehistoric society and the grandeur of past achievement, a close student of the past is able to discern a faint glimmering of a more natural age of human existence, and is able to observe in the present intense struggles for freedom and equality, an attempt to return to the earlier and more natural principles of justice and liberty, and so to advance to a stage of society in which selfishness, sensuality, and superstition no longer reign supreme.
 
The status of women always furnishes an index to the true condition of society, one or two superficial writers to the contrary notwithstanding. For this phenomenon there is a scientific reason, namely: society advances just in proportion as women are able to convey to their offspring the progressive tendencies transmissible only through the female organism. It is plain, therefore, that mankind will never advance to a higher plane of thinking and living until the restrictions upon the liberties of women have been entirely removed,88 and until within every department of human activity, their natural instincts, and the methods of thought peculiar to them be allowed free expression. The following is from Mr. Buckle’s lecture on “The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge”:
 
I believe and I hope before we separate to convince you, that so far from women exercising little or no influence over the progress of knowledge, they are capable of exercising, and have actually exercised an enormous influence; that this influence, is, in fact, so great that it is hardly possible to assign limits to it; and that great as it is, it may with advantage be still further increased. I hope, moreover, to convince you that this influence has been exhibited not merely from time to time in rare, sudden, and transitory ebullitions, but that it acts by virtue of certain laws inherent in human nature; and that, although it works as an undercurrent below the surface, and is therefore invisible to hasty observers, it has already produced the most important results, and has affected the shape, the character, and the amount of our knowledge.
 
Through the processes involved in the differentiation of sex and the consequent division of functions, it has been possible during the past six thousand or seven thousand years (a mere tithe of the time spent by mankind upon the earth) for women to become enslaved, or subjected to the lower impulses of the male nature. Through the capture of women for wives, through the exigencies89 of warfare, the individual ownership of land, and the various changes incident to a certain stage of human existence, the finer sensibilities which characterize women have been overshadowed, and the higher forces which originated within them and which are transmitted in the female line, have been temporarily subdued by the great sexual ardour inherent in the opposite sex; it is not, therefore, singular that the degree of progress attained should appear to be wholly the result of male activity and acumen. Yet, notwithstanding the degradation to which women in the position assigned them by physical force have been obliged to submit, their capacity for improvement has suffered less from the influences and circumstances of their environment than has that of men. As the higher faculties are transmitted through women equally to both sexes, in the impoverishment of their inheritance on the female side, men have suffered equally with women, while, through their male progenitors, they have inherited appetites and habits (the result of a ruder and less developed structure) which weaken and degrade the entire constitution.
 
Doubtless, so soon as women have gained sufficient strength to enable them to maintain their independence, and after the higher faculties rather than the animal propensities rule supreme, men, through the imperfections in their organism, and the appetites acquired through these imperfections, will, for a considerable length of time, find90 themselves weighted in the struggle for supremacy, and this, too, by the very characters which under lower conditions are now believed to have determined their success.
 
It is not unlikely, however, that through Sexual Selection the characters or qualities unfavourable to the higher development of man will in time be eliminated. The mother is the natural guardian and protector of offspring; therefore, so soon as women are free they will doubtless select for husbands only those men who, by their mental, moral, and physical endowments are fitted to become the fathers of their children. Only those women will become mothers who hope to secure to their offspring immunity from the giant evils with which society is afflicted. In this way, and this way only, may these evils be eradicated.
 
Under purer conditions of life, when by the higher powers developed in the race the animal propensities have become somewhat subdued by man, we may reasonably hope that the “struggle for existence,” which is still so relentlessly waged, will cease, that man will no longer struggle with man for place or power, and that the bounties of earth will no longer be hoarded by the few, while the many are suffering for the necessities of life; for are we not all members of one family, and dependent for all that we have on the same beneficent parent—Nature?
 
Although the two principles, the constructive and destructive, are closely allied, the higher facul91ties have been acquired only through the former—the highest degree of progress is possible only through union or co-operation, or, through the uniting and binding force, maternal love from which has been developed, first, sympathy among related groups, and later an interest which is capable of extending itself not only to all members of the human race, but to every sentient creature. There is, therefore, little wonder that for thousands of years of human existence, the female principle was worshipped over the entire habitable globe as the source of all light and life—the Creator and Preserver of the Universe.
 
We are only on the threshold of civilization. Mankind may as yet have no just conception of their possibilities, but so soon as, through the agencies now in operation for the advancement of the race, the “necessities” of the male nature no longer demand and secure the subjection of women and the consequent drain on the very fountain whence spring the higher faculties, a great and unexpected impetus will be given to progress.
 
The fact that a majority of women have not yet gained that freedom of action necessary to the absolute control of their own persons, nor acquired a sufficient degree of independence to enable them to adopt a course of action in their daily life which they know to be right, shows the extent to which selfishness, twin brother to sensuality, has clouded the conscience and warped the judgment in all matters pertaining to human92 justice. So closely has women’s environment been guarded that in addition to all the restrictions placed upon their liberties, a majority of them are still dependent for food and clothing on pleasing the men, who still hold the purse-strings. Yet Mr. Darwin, the apostle of original scientific investigation, concludes:
 
“If men are capable of decided prominence over women in many subjects, the average mental powers in men must be above those of women.”