"The priesthood will make women feel the merit of _submission_, by developing this _admirable_ maxim of Aristotle: _the chief strength of woman consists in surmounting the difficulty of obeying_; their education will have prepared them to comprehend that all dominion, far from really elevating, necessarily degrades them, by depreciating their chief worth so as to expect from strength the ascendancy which is due to love alone."--_Ibid._ Here are a few pages from the system of Politique Positive, t. IV., which are too curious not to interest the reader. "The better to characterize feminine independence, I think it best to introduce a bold hypothesis, which human progress perhaps will realize, although it is my business neither to examine when nor how. "If the masculine apparatus contributes to our generation only after a simple excitement, derived from its organic destination, the possibility may be conceived of replacing this stimulant _by another or several others, of which the woman would dispose at will_. The absence of such a faculty among the neighboring species cannot be sufficient to interdict it to the most eminent and most modifiable race.... "If feminine independence can ever reach this limit, in accordance with the sum total of moral, intellectual, and even material progress, the social function of the affective sex will be found notably improved. Then all fluctuation between the animal appreciation which still prevails, and the noble doctrine systematized by positivism, would cease. The most essential production (that of our species) would become independent of the caprices of a perturbating instinct, the normal repression of which has hitherto constituted the principal obstacle to human discipline. Such a privilege would be naturally found transferred, with full responsibility, to the organs best fitted to its use, alone capable of guarding themselves from vicious impulses, so as to realize all the advantages that it permits." Which means in good English, my female readers, that perhaps the time will come when you will create children without the co-operation of these gentlemen; that this function will be confided to those among you who shall be most worthy of it, and that they will be held responsible for the imperfection of the product. "Thenceforth," resumes the author, "the utopia of the Virgin Mother will become to the purest and most eminent an ideal goal, directly suited to sum up human perfection, thus carried even to systematizing procreation, while ennobling it.... Success depends most of all on the general development of the relations between the soul and the body, its continued search (that of the problem of fruitful virginity) will worthily institute the systematic study of vital harmony, by procuring to it at once the noblest aim and the best organs."--_Ibid._