Neither is it any satisfactory reply to the question, How can we correct or eliminate the evils of spinsterhood? to point to the number of spinsters who are doing what is called “useful work.” In the first place, it is always wise when such a plea is advanced, to inquire into the “useful” work in question, in order to discover (_a_) how much of it has been rendered necessary by the very existence of spinsters in large numbers, (_b_) how much of it is the creation of the spinsters themselves in their resolute insistence on acquiring some importance, (_c_) how much of it is actually harmful, (_d_) how much of it is not essentially woman’s work at all. Finally, when these questions have been gone into with sufficient care, we find ourselves back at the old objection that, however useful the employment may be at which spinsters may be working, since it cannot thoroughly adapt them (except in the event of its conforming to two additional conditions which shall be discussed later),[103] it must leave them still abnormal members of the community, and therefore a morbid influence. I propose to discuss the whole question of spinsterhood from the age when, in healthy girls, the condition begins to prove noticeably deleterious to health and spirits, to the time when, if marriage has not taken place, no fertilization can occur. I therefore have for my subject the general question of spinsterhood, from the time when a virgin reaches the age of twenty-five, to the time when she is fifty or more. And very naturally I propose to concern myself not with spinsters in the legal sense, but only with spinsters who are entitled to the epithet _intacta_. Proceeding along the accustomed lines, spinsters shall accordingly be classified as follows:— (1) Positive virgins. (2) Negative virgins. —that is to say, (1) those whose bodies and instincts say “Yea” emphatically to life, and who will brook no negative compromise; and (2) those whose bodies and instincts are not sufficiently vital or sanguine insistently to demand the fulfilment of their destiny. It is necessary to make this sharp distinction again, because it is the only way to be clear regarding the diversity of characteristics which are to be found among spinsters of all nations and climes. In Chapter III, I dealt with the question of the origin of instinctive desire, or bodily impulse or wish. I showed how it arose from two possible sources:— (_a_) An ancestral habit, leading to a predisposition to perform certain actions in a certain manner, or to function in a traditional way in complete conformity with the lines laid down by previous generations within a species. (_b_) A certain correlation of bodily parts or organs, the possession of which in itself is sufficient to suggest and to enforce a particular course of conduct in its owner.