iousness, and a very large
one of acquired associations. This will be less and less the case,
but it will remain true to a great extent, as long as social
institutions do not admit the same free development of originality in
women which is possible to men. When that time comes, and not before,
we shall see, and not merely hear, as much as it is necessary to know
of the nature of women, and the adaptation of other things to it.

I have dwelt so much on the difficulties which at present obstruct
any real knowledge by men of the true nature of women, because in
this as in so many other things "opinio copiae inter maximas causas
inopiae est;" and there is little chance of reasonable thinking on the
matter, while people flatter themselves that they perfectly
understand a subject of which most men know absolutely nothing, and
of which it is at present impossible that any man, or all men taken
together, should have knowledge which can qualify them to lay down
the law to women as to what is, or is not, their vocation. Happily,
no such knowledge is necessary for any practical purpose connected
with the position of women in relation to society and life. For,
according to all the principles involved in modern society, the
question rests with women themselves--to be decided by their own
experience, and by the use of their own faculties. There are no means
of finding what either one person or many can do, but by trying--and
no means by which any one else can discover for them what it is for
their happiness to do or leave undone.

One thing we may be certain of--that what is contrary to women's
nature to do, they never will be made to do by simply giving their
nature free play. The anxiety of mankind to interfere in behalf of
nature, for fear lest nature should not succeed in effecting its
purpose, is an altogether unnecessary solicitude. What women by
nature cannot do, it is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing.
What they can do, but not so well as the men who are their
competitors, competition suffices to exclude them from; since nobody
asks for protective duties and bounties in favour of women; it is
only asked that the present bounties and protective duties in favour
of men should be recalled. If women have a greater natural
inclination for some things than for others, there is no need of laws
or social inculcation to make the majority of them do the former in
preference to the latter. Whatever women's services are most