And it is quite certain—and it did not need suffragist raids and window-breaking riots to demonstrate it—that woman in the mass can bring a certain amount of physical force to bear.
The true inwardness of the relation in which woman stands to physical force lies not in the question of her having it at command, but in the fact that she cannot put it forth without placing herself within the jurisdiction of an ethical law.
The law against which she offends when she resorts to physical violence is not an ordinance of man; it is not written in the statutes of any State; it has not been enunciated by any human law-giver. It belongs to those unwritten, and unassailable, and irreversible commandments of religion, ἄγραπτα κἀσφαλῆ θεῶν νόμιμα, which we suddenly and mysteriously become aware of when we see them violated.
The law which the militant suffragist has violated is among the ordinances of that code which forbade us even to think of employing
