physical suffering and weakness in childbirth and certain other directions
was the price which woman has been compelled to pay for the passing of the
race from the quadrupedal and four-handed state to the erect; and which was
essential if humanity as we know it was to exist (this of course was dealt
with by a physiological study of woman's structure); and also, to deal with
the highly probable, though unproved and perhaps unprovable, suggestion,
that it was largely the necessity which woman was under of bearing her
helpless young in her arms while procuring food for them and herself, and
of carrying them when escaping from enemies, that led to the entirely erect
position being forced on developing humanity.

These and many other points throwing an interesting light on the later
development of women (such as the relation between agriculture and the
subjection of women) were gone into in this division of the book dealing
with primitive and semi-barbarous womanhood.

When this division was ended, I had them type-written, and with the first
three chapters bound in one volume about the year 1888; and then went on to
work at the last division, which I had already begun.

This dealt with what is more popularly known as the women's question: with
the causes which in modern European societies are leading women to attempt
readjustment in their relation to their social organism; with the direction
in which such readjustments are taking place; and with the results which in
the future it appears likely such readjustments will produce.

After eleven years, 1899, these chapters were finished and bound in a large
volume with the first two divisions. There then only remained to revise
the book and write a preface. In addition to the prose argument I had in
each chapter one or more allegories; because while it is easy clearly to