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THE AWAKENING

OF WOMEN

PART I

WOMAN'S PHYSICAL ORGANISATION

SCIENCE for many years has devoted its greatest and most ardent attention to the all-engrossing problem of human existences, the evolution of man. The study of mankind from the earliest ages has been found, after all, to transcend every other in interest; for each step taken in this path of discovery opens out to the seeker an ever-widening vista of sublime possibilities; and an insight into the vast scheme of Creation, that may well fill with awe and humility the finite human mind.

When it is ascertained by infallible proofs that races of men have existed on the earth in times so remote, that in the intervening period the whole surface of the world has possibly been changed over and over again, and—

"There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea ;" 1

that civilisations of a high order flourished in the pre-historic
ages of antiquity; and that many of our so-called modern
sciences, arts, and appliances were in existence some thousands
of years before the first historical era of which our limited
knowledge has any authentic record, we may well be lost in
wonder at the persistent vitality and ultimate triumph of
the Mighty Atom, which through untold ages has struggled,

1 Tennyson.

fought, suffered, and conquered, till in the foreground of the world stands man alone.

Evolution contains, in one word, the physical, moral, social, and spiritual progress of the Universe; it is the unfolding of the invariable laws upon which the whole Creation is based; and discloses to our eyes a God, who, from everlasting to everlasting, has worked upon a system so perfectly organised in every particular, that the wondrous succession of phenomena made known by scientific research are no isolated facts, but links in the chain of eternal continuity. As the late Mr. Romanes remarked, "Logically regarded, the advance of science, far from having weakened religion, has immeasurably strengthened it. For it has proved the uniformity of natural causation."

The origin of Man, and his ascent from the lowest forms of life to the higher, have ever been regarded by humanity with mingled feelings of exultation and humiliation; and philosophers and moralists have fallen into one or other extreme of optimism or pessimism over the future of the race.

At one time men flattered themselves: they had reached the top of the ladder of Creative Power; and vied with each other in extolling the nobility, the excellence, and supremacy of mankind. On reading some of these fulsome encomiums one would suppose that man was brought solely into the world for the purpose of amending the mistakes of the Creator, so excessive was the adulation bestowed upon the

creature.

It is probably true, that, in the words of the great geologist Agassiz, "Man is the end towards which all the animal creation has tended," through all the sons of time, slowly but surely, from one development to another, to the present attitude of a "nobler growth." And finding how low was the origin of man's physical nature, and to what perfection it had attained in form, utility, and adaptability, men appeared in danger of forgetting the dust of which they were made, when they further studied the vast progress of the human mind, and the mighty achievements of the human intellect. Man seemed to them as God, having reached the highest pinnacle of excellence, and containing within himself the whole encyclopedia of possible knowledge. But further study and research have only intensified the denseness of human ignorance, its insurmountable limitations. Man's physical body has probably reached its earthly culmination; the

mechanism of all his organs is perfect; his limbs are fully
adapted to their respective uses. Man, as an animal, is in
his Maker's sight "very good."

But, it is beginning to dawn upon our inner consciousness,
and as a disturbing element to our self-conceit, that ethically,
intellectually, and spiritually, man is still very far down the
ladder of evolution. Organically he is a splendid animal, an
animal also with unknown, undreamt of possibilities, but an
animal still, often ethically, socially, spiritually, on the very
lowest rungs of the ladder. What he is to be, lies in the lap
of the future; rests with his own high endeavour, with his
ultimate victory over the animal nature within him.

And in this contest, between the higher and the lower nature, the carnal and the spiritual, this perpetual warfare between good and evil, between things temporal and things eternal, where does one half of the human race take its stand? What part falls to Woman in the evolution of mankind?

These are questions of serious import, and open out to any who care to study their various and momentous bearings, most interesting, novel, and vital issues. If, as Tennyson says, "Woman is not undevelopt man," but, on the contrary, a being, diverse, distinct, and individual, we may be sure that in studying woman's place in evolution, we shall find her plane of development is cast on perfectly different lines to that of man. Woman may be called man's antithesis, yet her functions, joined with man's, form a perfect whole, neither are complete without the other.

"Male and female created He them."

"Earth's noblest thing-a woman perfected," will be, in conjunction with the perfect man, a very different being to anything human eyes have as yet beheld; but it may inspire women to take their part, to do each her little all, if it can in any measure be shown, "how divine a thing a woman may be made," as reverently, fearfully, unselfishly, she realises in some small degree her mission in God's universe.

The modern woman, if she turns to science for guidance and instruction, is at once confronted by a very remarkable discovery, refuting and subverting all previous theories and supposed so-called axioms, that have hitherto been current

1 Strictly speaking, man is undeveloped woman. The embryo being first hermaphrodite, and tends to maleness or femaleness according to conditions of food.-See "The Evolution of Sex," "The Determination of Sex," Dr.

Leopold Schenk. The German physiologist Albrecht, Wiling on the obscure diseases of men, bases this opinious repon the fact that "istales are sudimentary females.

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and more or less universally accepted concerning her sex.
She finds that, by indisputable evidence, the female organism
is the one on which Nature has bestowed most care, pre-
vision, and attention; and has been, so to speak, her first and
her last love; her crudest piece of handiwork and the cul-
minating triumph of her evolving power. In the lowest of
living creatures, life began in the elementary womb of the
all-mother; the centre of nutrition, of conservation, and of
self-reproduction.

Science has, moreover, abundantly proved, that in the mysterious evolution of sex, the male element was first nonexistent; and on its initial appearance was primarily an excrescence, a superfluity, a waste product of Nature, discarded or expelled by the female or mother organism, and, unless reunited to the parent, perished. At the very threshold of sex difference, we find that a little active cell or spore, unable to develop of itself, unites in fatigue with a larger, more quiescent individual." And again, "The contrast between the elements is that between the sexes. The large passive, highly nourished anabolic ovum, the small active katabolic sperm. The losing game of life is what we call a katabolic habit, tendency, or diathesis; the converse gaining one, being, of course, the anabolic habit, temperament, tendency, or diathesis." Or, as the scientist Rolph pithily remarks "The less nutritive and therefore smaller, hungrier, and more mobile organism we call the male, the more nutritive and usually more quiescent organism, the female." We shall see as we progress how fully this differentiation of the sexes is borne out in the development of mankind. It will explain why the female element preponderates, and will eventually predominate the male; why the male element has been the superior in invention, in science, in art; has, in fact, clothed the world with beauty, enriched it with knowledge, and subjugated it by intellect; while the female has laid the foundations of the more solid and lasting attributes, the virtue that alone can be the basis of a higher development. We shall find that from the feminine half of humanity proceeded the original impulses and intuitions that have developed all the industrial arts of peace, the virtues of the home and of the family; and through them have tended to the ultimate welfare and happiness of the state. Man, if he has been the

2 "The Evolution of Sex," Geddes and Thompson.

Iette facts point to the Duminice as the primary and fun. =damental basis of listence.. Modern biological studies, have also shown the mascutive to Recondary." "The Sternally Temicnine." Professor Bjerregaard.

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