atherhood less responsible, and the principle here
fought for, of endowing motherhood by making fatherhood more
responsible. As Nature has been doing so, in the main line of progress
for many millions of years,--a statement not of interpretation or theory
but of observed fact--I have no fear of the ultimate issue. But it
might well be that any portion of mankind, perhaps a portion ill to be
spared, should destroy itself by an attempt to run counter to the great
principle of progress here stated. There is an abundance of men who will
be very happy to side with Mr. Wells. Men have never been wanting, in
any time or place, who were happy to gratify their instincts without
having to answer for the consequences; and it has always been the first
issue of any society that was to endure, to see that they did not have
their way: hence human marriage. The "endowment of motherhood" sounds as
if it were a scheme greatly for the benefit of women. Let them beware.
Let them begin to think of, not the remoter, but the immediate and
obvious consequences of any such schemes as are proffered by the overt
or covert enemies of marriage, and they will quickly perceive that _the
last way in which to secure the rights of women is to abrogate the
duties of men_. The support allotted to such schemes as these is not
feminine but masculine. That is the impression I derive from discussions
following lectures on the subject; and that is what I should expect,
judging from the natural tendencies of men, and the profound intuition
of women in such matters. And, conversely, the opposition to such
principles as are expressed here, and embodied in the "Women's Charter,"
will be masculine. But woman has been civilizing man from the beginning,
and she will have her way here also--for, in the last resort, not merely
youth, but the Unborn must be served.

Before we consider the alternative suggestions that some are making,
and proceed to indicate how the paternal endowment of motherhood can be
enforced in every class, as public opinion practically enforces it in
the upper and middle classes, let us meet the objection that, if
fatherhood is to be made so serious an act, and if so much
self-sacrifice is to be exacted from those who undertake it, the
marriage-rate and the birth-rate will fall more rapidly. And as regards
the marriage-rate, the answer is that marriage and parenthood are not
inseparable, a proposition which might be much amplified if a writer who