Chapter II. Parasitism (continued).

Is it to be, that, in the future, machinery and the captive motor-forces of
nature are largely to take the place of human hand and foot in the labour
of clothing and feeding the nations; are these branches of industry to be
no longer domestic labours?--then, we demand in the factory, the warehouse,
and the field, wherever machinery has usurped our ancient labour-ground,
that we also should have our place, as guiders, controllers, and
possessors. Is child-bearing to become the labour of but a portion of our
sex?--then we demand for those among us who are allowed to take no share in
it, compensatory and equally honourable and important fields of social
toil. Is the training of human creatures to become a yet more and more
onerous and laborious occupation, their education and culture to become
increasingly a high art, complex and scientific?--if so, then, we demand
that high and complex culture and training which shall fit us for
instructing the race which we bring into the world. Is the demand for
child-bearing to become so diminished that, even in the lives of those
among us who are child-bearers, it shall fill no more than half a dozen
years out of the three-score-and-ten of human life?--then we demand that an
additional outlet be ours which shall fill up with dignity and value the
tale of the years not so employed. Is intellectual labour to take ever and
increasingly the place of crude muscular exertion in the labour of life?--
then we demand for ourselves that culture and the freedom of action which
alone can yield us the knowledge of life and the intellectual vigour and
strength which will enable us to undertake the same share of mental which
we have borne in the past in physical labours of life. Are the rulers of
the race to be no more its kings and queens, but the mass of the peoples?--
then we, one-half of the nations, demand our full queens' share in the
duties and labours of government and legislation. Slowly but
determinately, as the old fields of labour close up and are submerged