It is very probable—for such are the teachings of the most philosophical anatomists of our time—that, so far as the mere structure of her body is concerned, woman has not attained so advanced a stage of development as man. It is even alleged, by thoughtful embryologists, that every man during the earliest period of his existence was once a woman; that is to say, that in the fœtal condition his was at one time identical with the female type, and that this was subsequently outgrown. There is no doubt that many facts support this opinion, as the persistence, for instance, in every man, of a minute and undeveloped womb,[37] useless, save as furnishing one of those homologies so abounding in the plan of creation. Suppose, however, that we grant all this, and that in purely intellectual matters woman varies normally from man, as she does in physical strength; we must yet allow that in moral vigor, in religious aspiration, and faith, and in all purely emotional attributes, she far excels him. It is not from accident that the chaste and good of all ages have selected the female rather than the male as their ideal of angels and saints in heaven; but it is in tacit yet universal recognition of her superiority in certain matters over us. We men are of the earth, earthy, but they the gift of God; and such, in the tradition, did Adam see in the beautiful mother of mankind. Well for us all that she gave to him of the tree of knowledge, else, if that tradition be true, we ourselves had never been. It is in accordance with those differences in feeling, dependent upon differences of conformation, growing with their growth and increasing with the years, and not in consequence of custom alone, that, just as obtains with the lower mammals, the advances towards the union of the sexes are made almost entirely by the man. He is impelled by that strong and almost irresistible instinct by which the future peopling of the earth is determined, while in the woman it is, to a great extent, the subsequently awakened emotion of maternal love, which, far stronger in her than that for simple congress, leads her in very truth to lay down her life for her children; for this in every household, where husband and wife live in accordance with the laws of their being, is the practical result. The mother may live to a good old age, but still the best energies of her life are expended on her offspring, in rearing and caring for them till able to shift for themselves; and in this lies, or should lie, her highest happiness.