Although woman through the mere _physical_ functions of motherhood makes a great social contribution, the importance of her contribution is greatly enhanced if one also takes into consideration her _spiritual_ nature. And notwithstanding the fact that fatherhood has also, to a certain degree, developed in man the qualities of tenderness, watchfulness, patience, yet the enormous predominance of woman’s _physical_ share in parenthood, in comparison with man’s, is in itself enough to create, in course of time, the intimate connection which still exists to-day between mother and child, as well as the difference between the personality of woman and man. The physical functions of motherhood were the fundamental reasons for the earliest division of labour. And this division of labour, the aim of which, next to self-preservation, was for both sexes the protection of posterity, augmented and strengthened the qualities which each sex employed for its special functions. All human qualities lie latent in each. But they have been so specialised by this division of labour, or, on the other hand, suppressed by it, that they now appear in varying proportions: in woman, a careful, managing, supervising, lifeguarding, inward-directed sense of love; in man, courage, desire for action, force of will, power of thought, an activity subduing nature and life, became the distinguishing characteristics; and fatherhood became psychologically, as it is physiologically, something different from motherhood. Even if culture continues to efface the sharp lines of demarcation, so that it becomes more and more impossible to generalise about “woman” and “man,” and increasingly more necessary for each and every woman to solve the “woman question” individually, yet from the point of view of the race, the _division of labour must on the whole remain the same as that which hitherto existed_, if the higher development of mankind shall continue in uninterrupted advance to more perfect forms. It is necessary for _these higher ends of culture_ that woman _in an ever more perfect manner shall fulfil what has hitherto been her most exalted task_: the bearing and rearing of the new generation.