Dr. Arnold, writing from France within a generation of the Terror, said in reference to the destruction of the feudal power of the nobles over the French peasantry: “The work has been done … and in my opinion the blessing is enough to compensate the evils of the French Revolution; for the good endures, while the effects of the massacres and devastation are fast passing away.” If that could be said of the Terror cannot it be even more positively said of the comparatively innocuous “militancy” of recent years? The good endures, while the evil is temporary and passes away, is as true to-day as it was a hundred years ago. MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE _Homo_—Human principles of government—Unscientific scientific men—Our masters vii INTRODUCTION. By Mrs. Fawcett xi CHAPTER I CAUSES OF THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT Woman becomes articulate—Why the movement has become political in England—Women’s handicap—The need for concentration—Two kinds of change: education, industrialisation—Adaptation essential—Solidarity of women 1 CHAPTER II WHAT IS THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT? Is it chaotic?—Knowledge and scope—What the world is losing—The spirit of the time a scientific one; women must share it—Action will follow knowledge—Is it to be thwarted action? 14 CHAPTER III THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN Importance of motherhood—Vocational training of women for motherhood a mistake—Whole human beings—Full development under Men’s domination impossible—Sentimentalists and Brutalitarians—Subjection degrading—Are women mentally inferior to men?—An irrelevant question—Opportunity for development 20 CHAPTER IV PHYSICAL FORCE Man’s undoubted superiority—The handicap of motherhood—Woman’s battle a spiritual one—Domination by force is bad business—Foreign policy and war—Equality of service and equality of sacrifice—War not the only business 31 CHAPTER V DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT Mr. Frederic Harrison and Prof. Dicey—Difficulties of governing others—Civil rights depend upon political rights—Illiberal arguments against women’s suffrage—Safety a delusion—Progress due to control of physical force by mind—Law of diminishing returns on compulsion—Opinions and interests of voter 42 CHAPTER VI VOTES