AUTHOR. All that you have just said concerning love, marriage, justice and right, contains so many equivocations, errors, sophisms, and so much pathos, that nothing less than a huge volume would suffice to refute, after first explaining you. We will content ourselves, therefore, with dwelling on the principal points. VI. 1. The Androgynus, by definition, is a being combining the two sexes. Now marriage does not make of man and woman _a single being_; each preserves his individuality; your humanitary Androgynus is not therefore worth the trouble of discussion; it is only a fantasy. 2. Every organ supposes a function, it is true, but what _facts_ authorize you to say that the married couple is the organ of justice? Especially when you take the trouble to contradict yourself, in admitting that justice is produced outside of marriage; that there is no need of being married to be just? The organ of justice, like all other organs, is in each of us; it is the moral sense which comes into action when the point in question is the appreciation of the moral value of an act, or to apply to our own conduct the moral science accepted by the reason of the age. 3. According to you, equilibrium is _equality_; _equality is justice_: there is, therefore, a contradiction on your part in exacting of two beings, endowed each with liberty, will and intellect, that they should acknowledge themselves _unequal_ to produce _equality_. 4. To affirm, as you have done, that progress is the realization of the ideal through free will; that, consequently, the ideal is superior to the reality, and that man progresses because he suffers himself to be guided by it; then to affirm that woman is the ideal of man and that, notwithstanding, she is _less_ and should _obey_, is a double contradiction. If the point from which you start be admitted, logic would exact that man should permit himself to be guided by woman. But what is the use of discussing a thing that is devoid of meaning to the intellect? If man, according to you, represents in reality strength, reason, justice, woman being the idealization of man, would therefore represent the greatest strength, the loftiest reason, the most sublime justice.... Do you pretend to say this, you who affirm the contrary? 5. To say that marriage is an institution _sui generis_, a _sacrament_, a _mystery_, is to affirm what? And what enlightenment do you fancy that you have given us? Are you fully sure of comprehending yourself better than we comprehend you? I doubt it. 6. Can you demonstrate why, in an association between strong, intelligent men, and weak, narrow-minded men, justice exacts _equality_, respect for the dignity of all, and declares the slave _debased_ who submits; whilst in the association of man and woman, _identical in species_ according to you, the woman who is always, according to you, the weak and narrow-minded being, would be _debased_ and would become _odious_ by equality?