In the higher families however of animal life the distinction of sex in different individuals has become the universal rule, and it produces a polarity or contrast which becomes ever more conspicuous as we rise in the scale of creation, until it attains its highest development in the highest stage hitherto reached, that of civilised man and woman. Both physical and mental characteristics depend mainly on the fact that the ovary or egg-producing organ is developed in the female, and thus the whole work of reproduction is thrown on her. To perform this a large portion of the vital energy is required, which in the male is available for larger and more prolonged growth of organs, such as the brain, stature, and limbs, by which a more powerful grasp is attained of the outward environment. In other words, the female comes sooner to maturity and is weaker than the male. She is also animated by a much stronger love for the offspring, which is part of her own body, during the period of infancy; and thus, in addition to the physical attributes, such as lacteal glands and larger breasts, she inherits qualities of softness, amiability, and devotion, which fit her for the office of nurse. Her physical weakness, again, has made her, for untold ages, and even now in all the less advanced communities, and too often even in the most advanced, the slave of the stronger male. She has thus inherited many of the mental qualities which are essential to such a state: the desire to propitiate by pleasing and making herself attractive; the gentleness and submissiveness which shrink from a contest of brute force in which she is sure to be defeated; the clinging to a stronger nature for support, which in extreme cases leads to blind admiration of power and the spaniel-like attachment to a master whether deserving of it or not. As civilisation however advances, and as intellectual and moral qualities gain ascendency over brute strength and animal instincts, the condition of woman improves, and it comes more and more to be recognised that she is not made to be man’s slave or plaything, but has her own personality and character, which, if in some respects inferior, are in others better than those of the male half of creation. Tennyson, the great poet of modern thought, who sums up so many of the ideas and tendencies of the age in concise and vigorous verse, writes:— For woman is not undeveloped man, Nor yet man’s opposite. Not opposite, yet different, so that the one supplements what is wanting to the other, and the harmonious union of the two makes ideal perfection. It is the glory of European civilisation to have done so much to develop this idea of the equality of the sexes, and to have gone so far towards emancipating the weaker half of the human species from the tyranny of the stronger half.