Every one admits the differences of function that separate the female from the male half of humankind. But to assume that the physical, mental, and moral disabilities of women, of which we hear so much, are a necessary part of their inheritance--the debt they pay for being the mothers of the race--is an absurdity it would be difficult to explain except for that strange sex bias, which seems always to colour all opinions as to women, their character and their place in society. Havelock Ellis, who in his admirable work _Man and Woman_ has made an exhaustive examination of all the known facts with regard to the real and supposed secondary sexual differences between women and men, comes to this conclusion in his final summary-- "We have not succeeded," he says, "in determining the radical and essential character of men and women uninfluenced by external modifying conditions. We have to recognise that our present knowledge cannot tell us what they might be, but what they actually are, under the conditions of civilisation.... The facts are so numerous that even when we have ascertained the precise significance of some one fact, we cannot be sure that it is not contradicted by other facts. And so many of the facts are modifiable under a changing environment that in the absence of experience we cannot pronounce definitely regarding the behaviour of either the male or female organism under different conditions." Only a knowledge of the multifarious and complex environmental forces, which in the past have moulded women into what to-day they are, will lead us to our goal. We may examine woman's present character, both physical and mental, with every precision of detail, but the knowledge gained will not settle her inborn Nature. We shall discover what she is, not what she might be. No, rather to do this we must go back through many generations to primitive woman. We must study, in particular, that period known as the Mother-Age, when we find an early civilisation largely built up by woman's activity and developed by her skill. We must find out every fact that we can of woman's physical and mental life in this first period of social growth; we must examine the causes which led to the change from this Mother-rule to that of the Father-rule, or the patriarchate, which succeeded it. Insight into the civilisations of the past is of special value to us in trying to solve our problems of woman's true place in the social life. For one thing, we shall learn that morality and sexual customs and institutions are not fixed, but are peculiar to each age, and are good only in so far as they fulfil the needs of any special period of a people's growth. We must note, in particular, the contributions made by woman to early civilisation, and then seek the reasons why she has lost her former position of power. The savage woman is nearer to Nature than we ourselves are, and in learning of her life we shall