Before analyzing it and criticising its chief points, I must acquaint my readers with the polemical commencement which _appears_ to have given rise to the publication of the strange doctrines of our great critic. In the _Revue Philosophique_ of December, 1856, the following article by me was published under the title, _Proudhon and the Woman Question_:-- "Women have a weakness for soldiers, it is said. It is true, but they should not be reproached for it; they love even the show of courage, which is a glorious and holy thing. I am a woman, Proudhon is a great soldier of thought. I cannot therefore prevent myself from regarding him with esteem and sympathy; sentiments to which he will owe the moderation of my attack on his opinions concerning the rôle of woman in humanity. In his first "Memoir on Property," note on page 265, edition of 1841, we read the following paradox in the style of the Koran: "Between man and woman may exist love, passion, the bond of habit, whatever you like; there is not _true society_. _Man and woman are not companions._ The difference of sex gives rise between them to a separation _of the same nature as that which the difference of races places between animals_. Thus, far from applauding what is now called the emancipation of woman, I should be much more inclined, were it necessary to go to this extremity, _to put woman in seclusion_." In the third "Memoir on Property," we read: "This signifies that woman, _by nature and by destination_, is neither _associate, nor citizen, nor public functionary_." I open the "Creation of Order in Humanity," and read there: "It is in treating of education that we must determine the part of woman in society. Woman, until she becomes a wife, is _apprentice_, at most _under-superintendent_, in the work-shop, as in the family, she _remains a minor, and does not form a part of the commonwealth_. Woman is not, as is commonly affirmed, _the half nor the equal of man_, but the living and sympathetic _complement_ that is lacking to make him an individual." In the "Economical Contradictions," we read: "For my part, the more I reflect on the destiny of woman outside of the family and the household, the less I can account for it: _courtesan or housewife_, (housewife, I say, not servant,) I see no medium."