question as to what are the _secondary sexual character[istic]s_ of
woman.

Now only by a felicitous exercise of the faculty of successful
generalisation can we arrive at a knowledge of these.

With respect to the restriction that nothing which might offend
woman's _amour propre [self love]_ shall be said in public, it may be
pointed out that, while it was perfectly proper and equitable that no
evil (and, as Pericles proposed, also no good) should be said of woman
in public so long as she confined herself to the domestic sphere, the
action of that section of women who have sought to effect an entrance
into public life, has now brought down upon woman, as one of the
penalties, the abrogation of that convention.

A consideration which perhaps ranks only next in importance to that
with which we have been dealing, is that of the logical sanction of
the propositions which are enunciated in the course of such
controversial discussions as that in which we are here involved.

It is clearly a precondition of all useful discussion that the author
and reader should be in accord with respect to the authority of the
generalisations and definitions which supply the premisses for his
reasonings.

Though this might perhaps to the reader appear an impractical ideal, I
would propose here to attempt to reach it by explaining the logical
method which I have set myself to follow.

Although I have from literary necessity employed in my text some of