Wherever man has tried to possess others he has lost possession of himself. That is the price inevitably paid by any class or section of the community which seeks to dominate the lives and restrict the liberty of its fellows. Tyranny does not strengthen but weakens the moral nature of those who exercise it, and he who owns slaves cannot himself be free. Domination is as destructive to human worth and more destructive to moral integrity than subjection. If “possession is nine points of the law” on the material plane, the tenth point--spiritual in its working--is anarchy to the soul. From time immemorial man has claimed it as his natural right to possess woman. And it is in consequence in relation to woman, and in matters of sex, that he has most obviously lost self-possession. And just as he has claimed that to possess woman is the natural prerogative of the male, so you will hear him maintain that lack of self-possession in regard to woman is natural also--and a certain degree of licence the male prerogative. The two things go together--claim to possess others and you lose possession of yourself: Give to all with whom you come in contact their full right of self-possession and self-development, and you, from that social discipline and service, will in your own body and mind become self-possessed. For that is true possession which, while it brings you a sense of enlargement and joy, takes nothing from the freedom and the joy of others. Of that kind of possession you may be prodigal, but of that which takes anything from others, or demands any condition of service from others, have a care! And look well what the conditions may be. Ask yourself constantly what is this or that demand for service or labour doing to other souls? What conditions does it lay upon them? You may boast that you have simplified your life--rid yourself, for instance, of domestic service by getting rid of cook and housemaid. You have not. The bread, the meat, even the ground flour that comes into your house is all provided by a domestic service which takes place outside your door and which you do not see. And you are as morally concerned for the conditions of that labour as if you yourself supervised it. You need it and use it as much; it is only done for you at a further remove--out of sight and out of mind--so that it is much easier (but not more justifiable), to be callous as to the conditions of those who render it. And if upon those material lines of comfort and luxury you extend your demands, you are also extending your claim over the lives of others--and your responsibility for those lives, if they go lacking where you go fed.