And, when we challenge the modern age to prove that it can be anything else than materialistic, with its countless millions of sick or deficient bodies; when we challenge it to show in what manner the two thousand years of body-contempt and body-neglect have led us to a loftier spirituality, the very grossness of modern life, the very besottedness of the modern mind, and the very system of government in the modern world, _Democracy_, which is materialism in politics (estimating the value of an idea or policy by measuring the _body-weight_ behind it, not by measuring the authority, ability, or competence behind it)—all rise before us in their ugliness, leaving us but few qualms concerning the danger that we, of our persuasion, run, of falling into materialism by questioning the values that have brought us thus far. The masses are materialistic to-day because, in the first place, lowered vitality and defective functioning depress the spirit and dull the wits, thus unfitting the mind for all lofty pursuits; and, secondly, because at every moment of their lives their attention is either riveted upon their own halting functions or else distracted by similar disturbances in those among whom their lot is cast. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER I THE PRESENT POSITION OF WOMEN (I) THE UNMARRIED WE have seen that the disillusionment that dogs the heels of the values directing our civilization and its alleged progress consists in our ultimate discovery that Life, as seen through the optics of our impaired and science-aided bodies, appears to have lost a substantial portion of its reputed value. The _joie de vivre_ becomes an antiquated myth, no longer a present experience. If, however, this is true from the standpoint of modern men, how very much more true it must be from that of modern women! For, if it is right to claim that some of Life’s greatest and most lasting joys are connected with the maintenance of the species, woman, whose share in reproduction is much greater than man’s, must necessarily be the greater sufferer when the corporeal equipment of the race becomes defective. In these degenerate days of fourth-rate bodily joys, therefore, when the corporeal equipment of man and woman has to be scientifically completed with the help of elaborate extra-corporeal aids, it is among the women of the species that we should expect to find the greatest revolt against the old notions concerning Life, Motherhood, and Domesticity.