re intense, the sympathies of women are commonly
less wide than those of men. Their imaginations individualise more,
their affections are, in consequence, concentrated rather on leaders
than on causes.... In politics, their enthusiasm is more naturally
loyalty than patriotism. In history, they are even more inclined than
men to dwell exclusively upon biographical incidents or characteristics
as distinguished from the march of general causes."

Experience, by which alone mankind has ever learned or can learn, will
show how far the characteristics enumerated by Lecky are innate and how
far they have been acquired in the course of ages by certain habits of
belief and education.

The securing of citizens' rights for woman will of necessity depend on
the attitude of society. There may be numerous laws for her relief on
the statute books; but if society frowns on her appearance in court, it
will be only in exceptional cases that she will appeal to the courts. To
one who is familiar with the records of daily life a hundred years ago
there is little doubt that conjugal infidelity on the part of the
husband was more flagrant then than it is to-day; but there were
infinitely fewer divorces. The reason for this is simply that public
sentiment on the subject has changed. A century ago, a divorced woman
could do nothing; the wife was exhorted to bear her husband's faults
with meekness; and the expansion of industry had not yet opened to her
that opportunity of making her own living which she now possesses in a
hundred ways. Women were entirely dependent on men; and the men knew it.
To-day they are not so sure.

The old conception of woman's position was subjection, based on mental
and physical inferiority and supported by Biblical arguments. The newer
conception is that of a complement, in which neither inferiority nor
superiority finds place. The old conception was based, like every
institution of the times, on fear. Men were warned against heresy by
being reminded of the tortures of hell fire; against crime by appealing
to their dread of the gallows. Between the death of Anne and the reign
of George III one hundred and eighty-eight capital offences were added
to the penal code; and crime at once increased to an amazing degree. In
a system that is founded on fear, when once that fear is removed--as it
inevitably will be with the growth of enlightenment--there remains no
basis of action, no incentive to good. It has been tried for