If the older notion of woman's incapacity on the speculative side were thus proved to be unsound, it might very well be that the corresponding belief in her practical capacity or political judgment was equally unsound. It might turn out that, when the opportunity for cultivating her political sense was offered, the result would be the same as when opportunities of education were given. In this way the cultural movement that issued from the Renaissance prepared the way for the political struggle. But before this struggle could set in two other profound and far-reaching changes were to take place. The capability of exercising political power is one thing: the right to exercise it another. Until the close of the eighteenth century the second point was hardly raised. Then there opened a period of economic and political change that made the raising of it inevitable. I will describe here the dawn of the new era in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and deal with the nineteenth in the next chapter. By the beginning of the eighteenth century the cause of woman had made a substantial advance in many respects. In Germany the advance was almost purely cultural, though the names are not wanting of women who wielded some political influence by the indirect method of influencing rulers or statesmen. In England, again, there were women of culture and women of influence, as all know; but there was a singular retrogression in the political position of women generally. Mrs. Stopes (_British Free Women_) has so recently and fully discussed the change that I need do no more than summarise it. For two reasons England had promised to be the first theatre of the struggle for political enfranchisement. Not only was it the first country of the modern era to set up parliamentary representation, but it had been the latest of the Teutonic races to retain the old ideal of respect for woman. The Norman Conquest had greatly lowered the prestige of woman, but there were still high offices (such as that of sheriff) that women could inherit and fill. On the other hand, the Norman kings had been forced to grant a permanent representation of the third estate (or Commons) five hundred years before the French Revolution, and during the great Civil War the power of the Commons had enormously increased. The old Anglo-Saxon feeling persisted in the fact that the privilege of electing the borough-representatives was not confined to one sex.