over the fleshy and osseous parts of the organism, which generally, though
by no means always, characterises the female as distinguished from the male
of the human species, there do go mental qualities which will peculiarly
fit her for the labours of the future. It may be, that her lesser
possession of the mere muscular and osseous strength, which were the
elements of primary importance and which gave dominance in one stage of
human growth, and which placed woman at a social disadvantage as compared
with her companion, will, under new conditions of life, in which the value
of crude mechanical strength as distinguished from high vitality and strong
nervous activity is passing away, prove as largely to her advantage, as his
muscular bulk and strength in the past proved to the male. It is quite
possible, in the new world which is arising about us, that the type of
human most useful to society and best fitted for its future conditions, and
who will excel in the most numerous forms of activity, will be, not merely
the muscularly powerful and bulky, but the highly versatile, active, vital,
adaptive, sensitive, physically fine-drawn type; and, as that type, though,
like the muscularly heavy and powerful, by no means peculiar to and
confined to one sex, is yet rather more commonly found in conjunction with
a female organism, it is quite possible that, taken in the bulk and on the
whole, the female half of humanity may, by virtue of its structural
adaptions, be found most fitted for the bulk of human labours in the
future!

As with individuals and races, so also with sexes, changed social
conditions may render exactly those subtile qualities, which in one social
state were a disadvantage, of the highest social advantage in another.

The skilled diplomatist or politician, so powerful in his own element, on
board ship during a storm becomes at once of less general value or
consideration than the meanest sailor who can reef a sail or guide a wheel;