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determining. A dispatch from Washington says of the women of the Treasury Department:

      So superior is their skill in handling paper money that they accomplish results that would be utterly unattainable without them. It has been found by long experience that a counterfeit may go through half the banks in the country without being detected, until it comes back, often torn and mutilated, into the hands of the Treasury women. Then it is certain of detection. They shut their eyes and feel of a note if they suspect it. If it feels wrong, in half a minute they point out the incongruities of the counterfeit.

      Although throughout the ascending scale of life, the female has been expending all her energy in the performance of her legitimate functions—functions which, as we have seen, are of a higher order than those performed by the male, through causes which will be discussed farther on in these pages, within the later centuries of human existence—she has been temporarily overcome by the destructive forces developed in the opposite sex, forces which are without the line of true development, and which through overstimulation and encouragement have overleaped the bounds of normal activity, and have therefore become disruptive and injurious.

      During the past five thousand years, woman’s reproductive functions have been turned into means of subsistence, and under the peculiar circumstances of her environment, her “struggle for existence” has involved physical processes far more disastrous to life and health than are those to which man has been subjected. Owing to the peculiar condition of woman’s environment, there has been developed within her more delicate and sensitive organism an alarming degree of functional nervousness; yet, with the gradual broadening of her sphere of activity, and the greater exercise of personal rights, this tendency to nervous derangement is gradually becoming lessened. That there is reserve force in woman sufficient to overcome the evil results of the supremacy of the animal instincts during the last five thousand or six thousand years of human existence, from present indications seems more than likely.

      Commenting on the subject of nervousness, and the degree in which it is manifested in civilized countries, and especially among civilized women, Dr. Beard says:

      Women, with all their nervousness—and, in civilized lands, women are more nervous, immeasurably, than men, and suffer more from general and special nervous diseases—yet live quite as long as men, if not somewhat longer; their greater nervousness and far greater liability to functional diseases of the nervous system being compensated for by their smaller liability to acute and inflammatory disorders, and various organic nervous diseases, likewise, such as the general paralysis of insanity.39

      According to Maudsley women “seldom suffer from general paralysis.” This disease is frequently inherited, and is sometimes the result of alcoholic and other excesses.40

      Regarding the dangers to which women are exposed by excessive and useless maternity, Dr. Beard remarks:

      The large number of cases of laceration at childbirth and the prolonged and sometimes even life-enduring illness resulting from them, are good reasons for the terror which the processes of parturition inspires in the minds of American women today.

      However, that the dangers incident to parturition, and the excessive nervousness which characterizes civilized women, are not necessary adjuncts of civilization, but, on the contrary, are a result of the unchecked disruptive forces developed in man, and the consequent drain on the vital energies of woman, will be seen, so soon as through the cultivation of the higher faculties developed in and transmitted through females, the lower nature of males has finally been brought within its legitimate bounds.

CHAPTER IV

       THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THE MORAL SENSE

       Table of Contents

      Man is pre-eminently a social animal. He seeks companionship and depends largely upon his fellows for security and happiness. Nor is this dependence upon others confined to the human species. Association, or combination of interests, is manifested throughout the entire organic scale.

      From Mr. Darwin’s reasoning it is evident that he regards association as the basic principle underlying progress. He also thinks that combination is impossible without sympathy or a desire for the welfare of others outside of self. He is certain that associated animals have a feeling of affection for the group and that “they sympathize with one another in times of distress and danger.”41

      This writer thinks that an animal like the gorilla, which possessing great size and strength is able to defend itself against all its enemies, would not become social and therefore would be unable to advance. And this too, notwithstanding the fact that such an animal has already developed pugnacity, courage, and perseverance, the characters which are regarded as the source of the remarkable mental endowment of man.

      We have seen that the greater size of the male is the result of Sexual Selection and is therefore a secondary sexual character. “All the secondary sexual characters of man are highly variable.”42 In dealing with this subject we must not lose sight of the fact that variability denotes low organization. It shows that the organs of the body have not become specialized to perform their legitimate functions.

      Among monogamous animals difference in size between the sexes is slight, but among polygamous species the male is considerably larger than the female, this difference being correlated with numerous variations of structure.

      Among early races males were considerably in excess of females so it was customary for the former to fight desperately to win the favour of the latter in much the same manner as their animal progenitors had fought to secure their mates. These struggles were enacted in the presence of the females, they always choosing the strongest and best endowed leaving the weaker and uglier members of the group unmated and therefore unable to propagate their misfortunes. This exercise of choice by the female in pairing is the primary fact in the history of human progress. The appalling effects of the withdrawal from women of this fundamental prerogative will be referred to later in these pages.

      That pugnacity, courage, and perseverance are the result of man’s strong sexual nature is shown wherever this subject is touched upon in The Descent of Man. Special attention is directed to the fact that eunuchs are deficient in these qualities.

      That the greater size and strength of the male, together with courage, pugnacity, and perseverance, have been of great value to him in deciding the contests between rivals in courtship is quite true. It is clear, however, that these characters are in no wise responsible for the origin and development of the higher faculties. Even Mr. Darwin’s premises, when carried to their legitimate conclusions, furnish sufficient evidence to prove that the social instincts and the moral sense have been developed quite independently of these characters.

      According to the reasoning of the savants it is only through that specialization of organs which has resulted in the separation of the sex elements, and the consequent division of functions, that the social instincts have originated, and that it is to processes involved in such specialization, or differentiation, that the higher faculties and the moral sense have arisen. It is indeed plain from their reasoning that matter, or perhaps I should say the force inherent in matter, had to be raised to a certain dynamic order before the peculiar quality of brain and nerve necessary for the development of these faculties could be manifested through it.

      As there are different kinds of matter, so there are different modes of force, in the universe; and as we rise from the common physical matter in which physical laws hold sway up to chemical matter and chemical forces, and from chemical matter again up to living matter and its modes of force, so do we rise in the scale of life from the lowest kind of living matter with its corresponding force or energy, through different kinds of histological elements, with their corresponding energies or functions, up to the highest kind of living matter and corresponding mode of force with which we are acquainted, viz., nerve element and nerve force. But, when we have got to nerve element and nerve force, it behooves us not to rest content with the general idea, but to trace, with attentive discrimination, through the nervous system the different kinds of nervous cells, and their different manifestations of energy. So also shall we obtain the groundwork

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