It may be doubted if the feminine intellect has increased since the dawn of civilisation. To-day woman stands on a different plane of recognition, but by reason of assertiveness, not because of increased mental ability. As with that of man, the possibilities of woman's intellect were long latent; but they existed, and the result is development, not creation of fibre. I repeat that I do not believe that the feminine intellect has grown in power. I doubt if the present age can show a mind superior in natural strength to that of Sappho; I do not believe that the present Empress of China, strong woman as she is, is greater than Semiramis, or that even Elizabeth of England was the equal of the warrior-queen of Babylon. But there can be no doubt that there exists a broader culture to-day than ever before and that thus the intellectual sum of women is always growing, though there comes no increase in the mental powers of the individual. It has been so with man. We boast of the mighty achievements of our age; but we have not yet built such a structure as that of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, or the Pyramid of Cheops at Ghizeh. We pride ourselves upon our letters; but the grandest poem ever written by man was also the first of which we have record--the Book of Job, and we do not even know the name of the poet who thus set a standard which has never since been reached. We may claim Shakespeare as the equal of Homer in expression; but it requires true hero worship among his admirers to place the Elizabethan singer upon an equality with the old Greek in any other respect. There has been no growth of individual intellect in either sex since the days of which we first find record; but there has been an increase of average and a definition of tendency which are productive of higher general result. And the natural consequence of this state of things is found in the fact that even a Sappho in the world of letters would not stand out so prominently, would not be considered such a prodigy, were she to come in these days. We should admire her genius and her powers without feeling the sensation of wonder that these should be possessed by a woman. It is in the recognition of this fact that we are better enabled to understand the changing aspect in the relations of women to men during these latter years. There has been no alteration in the possibilities within the grasp of the individual, but great change within those which can be claimed by the sex at large. Women can do no more now than in the olden days when they were considered as almost inferior to animals; but woman has profited by the opportunities of her time, and is every day developing powers until now unsuspected.