also be fire?" To which it must be replied, "Without fire, no
smoke; but very often the appearance of smoke where neither smoke nor
fire exist!"

The fact that a statement is frequently made or a view held forms no
presumptive ground of its truth; but it is undoubtedly a ground for
supposing that there is an appearance or semblance which makes it appear
truth, and which suggests it. The universally entertained conception
that the sun moved round the world was not merely false, but the reverse
of the truth; all that was required for its inception was a fallacious
appearance suggesting it.

When we examine narrowly the statement, that the entrance of woman into
the new fields of labour, with its probably resulting greater freedom
of action, economic independence and wider culture, may result in a
severance between the sexes, it becomes clear what that fallacious
appearance is, which suggests this.

The entrance of a woman into new fields of labour, though bringing her
increased freedom and economic independence, and necessitating increased
mental training and wider knowledge, could not extinguish the primordial
physical instinct which draws sex to sex throughout all the orders of
sentient life; and still less could it annihilate that subtler mental
need, which, as humanity develops, draws sex to sex for emotional
fellowship and close intercourse; but, it might, and undoubtedly would,
powerfully react and readjust the relations of certain men with certain
women!

While the attraction, physical and intellectual, which binds sex to sex
would remain the same in volume and intensity, the forms in which it
would express itself, and, above all, the relative power of individuals
to command the gratification of their instincts and desires, would be
fundamentally altered, and in many cases inverted.

In the barbarian state of societies, where physical force dominates,
it is the most muscular and pugilistically and brutally and animally
successful male who captures and possesses the largest number of
females; and no doubt he would be justified in regarding any social
change which gave to woman a larger freedom of choice, and which would
so perhaps give to the less brutal but perhaps more intelligent male,
whom the woman might select, an equal opportunity for the gratification
of his sexual wishes and for the producing of offspring, as a serious
loss. And, from the purely personal standpoint, he would undoubtedly
be right in dr