can justly take any individual pride, the one in his intellectual, the other in her moral superiority; rather they must see themselves as
"Parts and proportions of a wondrous whole;"
as the accompanying movements which make up the harmony of the grand diapason of the human race.
And there is that just adaptation of the different parts which is essential to and constitutes harmony. Bacon says that the causes of harmony are equality and correspondence; and Pope completes our argument with the line—
"All discord, harmony not understood."
There can be, then, no real conflict of interests between man and woman, since there is a mutual dependence of each upon the other, bringing mutual good. Neither can it be a misfortune to be a woman, as so many at the present day would have us believe, although her position may be in some respects subordinate to that of man.
In fact, the subordination of man to woman, different in kind from its converse, is equally apparent; both seem to be matters of common consciousness. It may be readily seen how, in early times, when muscular strength and general physical power were held in the highest esteem, that the position of woman should have been a subordinate one. Animal courage, endurance of physical hardships, the strength, cunning, and agility, which enabled men to cope with wild beasts and with each other, were the traits of character most prized, because most conservative of life in those barbarous times; hence the idea that, woman's position is naturally a subordinate one, has acquired the force of a primal intuition, and might almost be claimed as a "datum of consciousness." But, as the necessities of existence have been gradually modified by civilization, both the character and degree of her subordination have notably changed.
Those qualities, regarded as preeminently feminine, have risen in common estimation, and mere muscular superiority, and even intellectual power, are now put to the test of comparison with the higher moral qualities.
It is true that the laws of most countries still discriminate in a manner unfavorable to women. Legislation has been largely upon the ideal basis of every woman being under the protection of some man, and of all men being the true defenders of all women, and this is evidently traceable to the conviction, already alluded to, that a subordidate position belongs naturally to woman. Lecky says that "the change from the ideal of paganism to the ideal of Christianity was a change from a type which was essentially male to a type which was essentially feminine." As the race shall continue to approach the level of its lofty ideal, the subordination of woman, as well as that of man, will continue to lessen, since both have their chief foundation in
