with the indelible marks of that mould upon it, that as the os cervix of
woman, through which the head of the human infant passes at birth, forms a
ring, determining for ever the size at birth of the human head, a size
which could only increase if in the course of ages the os cervix of woman
should itself slowly expand; and that so exactly the intellectual capacity,
the physical vigour, the emotional depth of woman, forms also an
untranscendable circle, circumscribing with each successive generation the
limits of the expansion of the human race;--even this fact she may not so
clearly have grasped intellectually as to be able to throw it into the form
of a logical statement. The profound truth, that the continued development
of the human race on earth (a development which, as the old myths and
dreams of a narrow personal heaven fade from our view, becomes increasingly
for many of us the spiritual hope by light of which we continue to live), a
development which we hope shall make the humanity of a distant future as
much higher in intellectual power and wider in social sympathy than the
highest human units of our day, as that is higher than the first primeval
ancestor who with quivering limb strove to walk upright and shape his lips
to the expression of a word, is possible only if the male and female halves
of humanity progress together, expanding side by side in the future as they
have done in the past--even this truth it is possible few women have
exactly and logically grasped as the basis of their action. The truth
that, as the first primitive human males and females, unable to count
farther than their fingers, or grasp an abstract idea, or feel the
controlling power of social emotion, could only develop into the Sapphos,
Aristotles, and Shelleys of a more expanded civilisation, if side by side,
and line by line, male and female forms have expanded together; if, as the
convolutions of his brain increased in complexity, so increased the
convolutions in hers; if, as her forehead grew higher, so developed his;
and that, if the long upward march of the future is ever to be accomplished
by the race, male and female must march side by side, acting and reacting