[43] Sterilization for social ends was introduced in Switzerland a few years ago, in order to enable some persons with impaired self-control to be set at liberty and resume work without the risk of adding to the population defective members who would probably be a burden on the community. It was performed with the consent of the subjects (in some cases at their urgent request) and their relations, so requiring no special legislation, and the results are said to be satisfactory. In some American States sterilization for some classes of defective persons has been established by statute, but it is difficult to obtain reliable information as regards the working and the results of such legislation. [44] When Professor Giddings speaks of the "goal of mankind," it must, of course, be remembered, he is using a bold metaphor in order to make his meaning clearer. Strictly speaking, mankind has no "goals," nor are there any ends in Nature which are not means to further ends. II THE CHANGING STATUS OF WOMEN[45] The Origin of the Woman Movement--Mary Wollstonecraft--George Sand--Robert Owen--William Thompson--John Stuart Mill--The Modern Growth of Social Cohesion--The Growth of Industrialism--Its Influence in Woman's Sphere of Work--The Education of Women--Co-education--The Woman Question and Sexual Selection--Significance of Economic Independence--The State Regulation of Marriage--The Future of Marriage--Wilhelm von Humboldt--Social Equality of Women--The Reproduction of the Race as a Function of Society--Women and the Future of Civilization. I It was in the eighteenth century, the seed-time of modern ideas, that our great-grandfathers became conscious of a discordant break in the traditional conceptions of women's status. The vague cries of Justice, Freedom, Equality, which were then hurled about the world, were here and there energetically applied to women--notably in France by Condorcet--and a new movement began to grow self-conscious and coherent. Mary Wollstonecraft, after Aphra Behn the first really noteworthy Englishwoman of letters, gave voice to this movement in England.