But chivalry had another side. The pure reverence for woman passed into romantic admiration, into a worship of physical beauty, into mere passion. Woman, from being little less than a saint, became a toy. The teaching of the Church and the spirit of chivalry both acted adversely on the position of woman. By the one she was lowered below the level of humanity, by the other she was raised to an ideal pinnacle, where it was impossible she could remain. The fault was the same in both cases. The priest and the knight removed woman from her natural place into a false position, endowing her with sub-human wickedness and superhuman excellencies. With the Renaissance and the spread of education, social life underwent great changes. The Church was no longer the dominant influence. Great secular forces came into play; the tide of learning swept over Europe; commerce, travel, discoveries, inventions, caused old habits to be unlearnt. Thought, which had been stagnant, was freshened into a moving stream. In the intellectual re-birth, in the conflict of faiths, in the deadly political struggles which occupied the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England, we see how women were passing from the narrow life of the home into the wide life of the nation. The great industrial revolution, which began in the last century, and has progressed with such rapid strides, has had its special bearing on the position of women. The material improvements brought about by machinery and developing trade, have lifted the middle-class woman out of the purely domestic sphere by lessening her household duties, and so leaving her free for other occupations. She has ceased to be a producer. But the working woman has been simply drawn more and more from family life, to be absorbed into the ranks of outside workers. She is, in many cases, as much detached from the home as the man, by the necessity of wage-earning. The educational revolution of modern times has also worked great changes in the position of women in England. It has specially affected the middle classes, who have been thereby enabled to enter with perfect freedom into the world of letters, to follow professional and business careers--in a word, to carve out for themselves an independent course. A new conception has arisen of what is woman’s place in society. She now bears an active part in all the great movements--political, religious, philanthropic; her co-operation is sought in public work, and her presence welcomed, rather than resented, in all new social enterprises.