(=c=) A marked decline in the ability, versatility, and masculinity of men, which is the outcome partly of physical and partly of intellectual inferiority, brought about on the one hand by besotting and cramping labour for generations, and, on the other, by the deliberate attempt, throughout Anglo-Saxon civilization and its imitations, to limit the notion of manliness to martial bravery and proficiency at sports. This has led to a loss of mastery over all things which is far from edifying, and has enabled women during the last century and recently to draw unduly favourable comparisons between themselves and men—which, while comprehensible in the circumstances, give quite a distorted view of the situation. It is the case of two climbers, M. and W. who, while ascending a hill, find that, through the sudden weakness of M., W.’s pace appears to be wonderfully enhanced. W., however, interprets M.’s retrograde movement not as abnormal weakness but as accelerated speed on her part, and therefore feels contempt for M. as M., not merely as enfeebled M. (=d=) A large body of disgruntled women, mostly unmarried, who, having turned away from Life and Love either through lack of mates or the nausea acquired in modern matrimony, are prepared to slander not only Life, but also motherhood, domesticity, and Man, and who, in their conscious or unconscious jealousy of younger women and girls, try to convince the latter that life can be lived happily without bodily adaptation. (=e=) Social circumstances which force millions of women into open competition with men, and therefore increase the initial hostility fostered by (=a=), (=c=), and (=d=). (=f=) A state of abnormality so acute in some of the chief functions connected with the sexual life that more and more cogent arguments are found ready to hand for those who, through Puritanism, jealousy of the rising generation, or hostility to the male, wish to slander life and emancipate themselves _and others_ from “_that_ side of it.” (=g=) A movement known as Feminism, generated chiefly by (=a=), (=c=), and (=d=), and greatly reinforced by (=e=) and (=f=), but having also a strong trace of (=b=) in its attitude, which claims that it can recruit among its own supporters the mastery, ability, and strength to put the world right, and which proposes to do so by superseding man everywhere, if possible, even in his reproductive rôle. This is the picture at a glance. To what can it lead? The history of all reforms and radical innovations in this world has shown that far-reaching changes are always the work of a leading, active, gifted, and small minority, striving with zeal and determination to realize an ideal. This ideal may be based on misconception or on error; but that does not matter. In the end, the wilful minority establishes the environment, or mould, and the inert, ductile masses pour into it and receive their shape.