ho have, in the face of disaster and evil fortune,
shown a steady perseverance and will-power in earning a living for
themselves and their children that men have not surpassed.

Having in the preceding pages considered the five capital objections to
the concession of equal suffrage, I shall now, in accordance with my
plan, say something of the much-mooted question of the superiority or
inferiority of one sex to the other. It might be concluded from the
foregoing account that I see little difference in the aptitudes and
powers of the sexes physically, morally, or intellectually. That does
not necessarily follow. It is possible to conceive of each sex as the
complement of the other; and between complements there can be no
question either of superiority or of inferiority. The great historian of
European Morals has analysed the constitutional differences of the sexes
as he conceived them; and I may quote his remarks as pertinent to my
theme. Lecky writes as follows[422]:

"Physically, men have the indisputable superiority in strength, and
women in beauty. Intellectually, a certain inferiority of the female sex
can hardly be denied when we remember how almost exclusively the
foremost places in every department of science, literature, and art have
been occupied by men, how infinitesimally small is the number of women
who have shown in any form the very highest order of genius, how many of
the greatest men have achieved their greatness in defiance of the most
adverse circumstances, and how completely women have failed in obtaining
the first position, even in music or painting, for the cultivation of
which their circumstances would appear most propitious. It is as
impossible to find a female Raphael, or a female Handel, as a female
Shakespeare or Newton. Women are intellectually more desultory and
volatile than men; they are more occupied with particular instances than
with general principles; they judge rather by intuitive perceptions than
by deliberate reasoning or past experience. They are, however, usually
superior to men in nimbleness and rapidity of thought, and in the gift
of tact or the power of seizing speedily and faithfully the finer
inflections of feeling, and they have therefore often attained very
great eminence as conversationalists, as letter-writers, as actresses,
and as novelists.

"Morally, the general superiority of women over men is, I think,
unquestionable. If we take the somewhat coarse and inadequate c