But so long as homes, even the best ones, have these faults, institutions must exhibit similar results—since both will be formed of the same human material. The institutions, on the other hand, would not possess the advantages which in the case of homes outweigh the faults. These faults may be gradually diminished by a higher spiritual culture. But nothing could compensate for what mankind would lose by the abolition of the home. The conclusion is thus that—however differently the conflict must be resolved in exceptional cases between woman’s personal claims and her motherly feelings—in the main those women who, in order to serve humanity, renounce motherhood or its cares, are conducting themselves like a warrior who should prepare for the battle of the morrow by opening his veins the evening before. CHAPTER VII COLLECTIVE MOTHERLINESS At a Scandinavian meeting on the woman’s question, a cantata was sung which proclaimed that the human race under the supremacy of man had stumbled in darkness and crime. But the race was now to be newly born from the soul of woman, the sunrise would scatter the darkness of night, and the advent of the Messiah was certain. That men during the period of their ascendancy had nevertheless produced a few trifles—for example, religions and laws, sciences and arts, discoveries and inventions—that the darkness of their night was thus at least illumined by a Milky Way, all this her majesty Woman was pleased to forget. If man were sufficiently vindictive to set about finding out what woman has accomplished in the course of ages to justify her towering self-esteem—or in other words to justify her challenging the comparison with these works of man—then he would find only one thing. When nature formed the instinct of the race, woman remoulded it as love; when necessity made the dwelling, woman transformed it into the home. Her great contribution to culture is thus affection. And this work is in truth great enough to counterbalance man’s contribution—but not to make it worthless. Fortunately we hear less and less about man’s “tyranny” having robbed woman of the chance of also proving her powers within his sphere of activity. It is more and more recognised that in the struggle for existence necessity decreed that woman’s social work should take the form of home work. The same necessity has now—in the main—liberated the powers that were confined in home work, although woman has never, at any time, been excluded from the use of her mental gifts. Such use was, however, obviously an occasional one, so long as the total of her activity belonged to another sphere.