correctness. More
especially is this true of all class history, and the story of sex
development may be so rated. It is to find the reason of what is and the
nature of what is to come that we turn to the records of the past and
ask them concerning their message to us of these things. In our
retrospective view of woman, we shall, if we are alive to suggestion,
find steadfast tendencies of development. It is true that these
tendencies do not always remain in the light; like rivers, they
sometimes plunge underground and for a time find their paths in
subterranean channels where they are lost to sight; but they always
reemerge, and at last they find their way to the central sea of the
present. Future ages will doubtless mark the course of those tendencies
not only up to but through our own age; for though I have spoken of a
central sea, the simile is hardly correct, inasmuch as the true ocean
which is the goal of these rivers is not yet in the sight of humanity.
But we at least find promise of that ocean in the steadfast and
determined course of the streams which flow toward it; progress has
always a goal, though it may be one long undiscerned by the abettors of
that progress. So it is with the story of woman. We know what she has
been; we see what she is; and it is possible dimly to forecast what she
will be. Yet I dare to assert that there will be no radical change;
there may be new direction for effort, new lines of development, but the
essential nature will remain unaltered. It is not, however, with this
informing spirit that we have to do in such a work as this. There have
been many misconceptions regarding woman; I would not venture to claim
that none now exist. Yet there is a general consensus of agreement
concerning her dominating and effective characteristics, and the
probability is that in these general laws so laid down the common
opinion is of truth.

Of course, I would not dare to make such an absurd claim that there
exists, or has ever existed, a man who could truthfully say that he knew
woman in the abstract; but that does not necessarily mean that knowledge
of the tendencies and characteristics of the sex is impossible. The
reason of the dense ignorance which prevails among men concerning women
is that the men attempt to apply general laws to particular cases; and
that is fatal. It is absolutely necessary, if we are to gather wisdom
and not merely knowledge from our researches in history, that we should
ta