We may be quite sure that far worse things come from these conditions on which we make our profit than are contained in the majority of those lives which, because of their irregularities or breaches of convention, we so swiftly rule off our calling lists. If we are not willing to forego the dividends produced for us out of our tolerated social conditions, why forego contact with that human material which they bring into being? But if you accept contact there, then you will have a difficulty in finding any human material of greater abasement to deny to it the advantage of your acquaintance. I have purposely put my argument provocatively, and applied it to thorny and questionable subjects, because I want to reach no halfway conclusion in this matter, and because the real test of our spiritual toleration is now shifting from matters religious to matters social, from questions of doctrine to questions of daily life. To-day we must be prepared to tolerate a propaganda of social ideas--the products of which, if they succeeded in obtaining a hold, would in the estimation of many be as regrettable as were the products of Calvinism or Puritanism in the past, when they were much more powerful than now. Our hatred of these new social ideas may be just as keen as the hatred of Catholicism for Protestantism or of Protestantism for Catholicism, in days when religious doctrine seemed to matter everything. More keen it could not be. The dangers these new ideas present could not be greater in our eyes than in the eyes of our forefathers were the dangers of false doctrine three centuries ago. But the principle which demands that they shall be free to state their case and to make converts remains always the same. Nevertheless it is unlikely to be granted without struggle except by an intelligent minority. The religious movement of the twentieth century, I say again, is not doctrinal but social; and its scripture is not the Bible or any written word, but human nature itself. We are on the brink of great discoveries in human nature, and many of our ethical foundations are about to be gravely disturbed. The old Manichee dread of the essential evil--the original and engrained sin--of human nature remains with us still, and there will be a great temptation, as there always has been, not merely to controvert (which is permissible) but to persecute and suppress those who preach new ideas. It is against such discreditable conduct that we have now to be on our guard. At the threshold of this new era to which we have come, with our old civilisation so broken and shattered about us by our own civilising hands, the guiding spirit of man’s destiny has its new word to say, to which we must listen with brave ears. And first and foremost it is this, “Stand upon thy feet--and I will speak with thee.” WHAT IS WOMANLY? (1911)