"Useless to individual conservation, the sexual instinct co-operates only in an _accessory and even equivocal_ manner to the propagation of the species. Philosophers truly freed from superstition should regard it more and more as tending above all to disturb the principal design of the vivifying fluid. But without waiting for the feminine utopia to be realized, we may determine, _if not the atrophy, at least the inertia of this cerebral superfoetation_, with more facility than is indicated by the insufficient efforts of theologism. While positive education will make the vices of such an instinct everywhere felt, and _will raise up the continued hope of its desuetude_, the whole final system ought naturally to institute a revulsive treatment with respect to it, more efficacious than Catholic austerities. For the universal aspiration of domestic existence and of public life will develop the sympathetic faculties to such a degree, that sentiment, intellect, and activity will always concur to stigmatize and repress the most perturbing of selfish propensities." Despite all this _aspiration_, and all these stigmas, do not trust to it, High Priest! Be advised by me, use camphor, and plenty of it; scatter it everywhere as a certain Amphitryon scattered nutmeg. It is in prevision of the excommunications hurled by you against this _vile_, this _useless_ instinct, that Nature has been prodigal of camphor. Upon the whole, you see, my female readers, that if M. Comte believes us weaker than man in body, mind, and character, in return, he believes us better. We are moral providence, guardian angels: he dreams of affranchisement for us through the subversion of a natural law. But meanwhile he places us under the yoke of man by exempting us from labor; He rivets our chains by persuading us cajolingly to despoil ourselves of our property; He says to us in the gentlest voice imaginable: never command: it would degrade you; Your great strength is in obeying him whom _it is your destiny to direct_. You will be naught in the temple, naught in the state. In the family, you are domestic priestesses, the auxiliaries of the priesthood. Three sacraments out of nine are refused you: that of destiny, because, for you, it is confounded with that of marriage; that of retirement, because you have no profession; lastly, that of incorporation, because a woman cannot, in herself, merit a personal and public apotheosis. If you have been worthy auxiliaries, you shall be interred near those whom you shall have influenced, like their other useful auxiliaries: the horse, the dog, the cow, and the ass; and mention shall be made of you when honors shall be paid to the member of humanity to whom you shall have belonged. Shall we refute such doctrines? No. Our answer to them finds a fitter place in the article devoted to M. Proudhon, who has drawn largely from the doctrine of M. Comte.