come to an understanding of many of the problems of our lives. This, then, must be the second path of our discovery, and, following it, we shall gain further knowledge of what is artificial and what is real in the character of woman and in the present relations of the sexes. We find that the external surroundings that influence life are referable to one of two classes: those which tend to increase destructive processes, and find their active expression in expenditure of energy, and those which tend to increase constructive processes, and are passive instead of active, storing energy, not expending it. These two classes of external forces, disruptive and constructive, are called katabolic and anabolic. Looking back on the early natural lives of men and women, we find there has been a very sharp separation in the play of these opposite sets of influences. A hasty survey of the facts suffices to prove that the work of the world was divided into two great parts, the men had the share of killing life, whether that of man or of animals, their attention was given to fighting and hunting; while the women's share was the continuing and nourishing life, their attention being given to the domestic arts--to agriculture and the attendant stationary industries. Woman's position during the matriarchate was largely the result of the need in primitive society of woman's constructive energy, and her power arose from an unfettered use of her special functions. But this divergence of the paths of women from the paths of men continued, and during the patriarchal period became arbitrary with the withdrawal of women from initiative labour, an unnatural arrangement which arose out of later social conditions. The militant side of social activities has belonged to men, the passive to women; and men have been goaded into growth by the conditions and struggles of their lives. They have gathered around themselves a special man-formed environment of institutions and laws, of activities and inventions, of art and literature, of male sentiments, and male systems of opinions, to which they are connected in subtle and numerous relations, and this complex heritage of influences has been reimposed on men generation by generation. In this social working-life women have not had an equal part--and a drag in their development has arisen as the result of this passivity. At a certain period in civilisation women became an inferior class because men with their greater range of opportunities, which brought them within a wider and more variable circle of influences, developed a superior fitness on the motor side. Another contrast is very evident, men's work being performed under more striking circumstances and with more apparent effort and danger, drew to itself prestige, which women's work did not receive; their work, on the contrary, was held in contempt.[7]