According to scientists, among the lower orders of life, males are considerably in the excess of females, and among less developed races men are more numerous than women. It has been shown in a former portion of this work that the advancement of civilization is characterized by a corresponding increase in the number of women among the adult population; hence their evident lack of numbers among primitive peoples, to say nothing of their probable aversion to war and bloodshed, would at once preclude the idea that their dominion was achieved through armed resistance to a foe so superior in numbers and in fighting qualities. By a natural law governing propagation— a law which determines the numerical proportion of the sexes, and which creates an excess in the number of that sex best suited to its environment, primitive women, had they relied on physical force, would have had little chance to maintain their independence. In a former portion of this work it has been observed that it was neither to lack of numbers nor to their want of physical force that women were divested of their power; that it was not through their weakness, but through the peculiar course which the development or growth of males had taken, that under certain conditions women became enslaved. Not merely from the facts laid down by naturalists regarding the peculiar development of the male, but from later researches into the conditions and causes which have influenced progress, it is plain that no restrictions on the range of sexual liberties could have originated in males. Hence the demand for a more refined state of society must have begun with females. This fact seems to have been perceived by Bachofen, but, as according to his reasoning, at an early period of human existence, women were slaves, exercising none of the powers necessary to personal control, it is difficult to conceive of any manner in which it was possible for them to rise to the social position and moral dignity ascribed to them in _Das Mutter-recht_.