In a lucid little introduction to Ellen Key's latest book, Mr. Havelock Ellis, after tracing the broad lines оц which the Woman's Movement has developed, suggests that it is now entering a critical period. This view is evidently shared by most of the writers on modern feminism, including some who are not likely to exaggerate the symptoms. The avowed feminist and the declared anti-feminist are both, of course, concerned to show that society is in a parlous state, either for want of, or because of, some readjustment of social relations on feminist lines which one desires and the other deprecates. We are too much accustomed to writers whose obvious desire is to "make our flesh creep," to pay much attention to jeremiads from either camp; and indeed the vast majority of men and women are sunk in too deep a sense of personal security to be capable of any very keen anxiety as to the future. The more thoughtful, however, and even some who are not usually thoughtful, have been shaken from indifference by recent developments of feminism. The suffrage campaign is only (on the surface) a by-product of feminism, and militancy is (on the surface) merely a by-product of suffragism; but evolution from feminism to suffragism and from suffragism to militancy is too

"The Woman Movement." By Ellen Key. Translated by M. B. Borthwick. London: Putnam, 1912.

2"Woman and Labor." By Olive Schreiner. London: Unwin, 1911. "Woman and Economics." By C. P. Gilman. London: Putnam, 1908. ""Woman and To-morrow." L. George. London: Jenkins, 1913. 5"The Nature of Woman." By J. L. Tayler. London: Fifield, 1912.

By W.

John and Irene." By W. H. Beveridge. London: Longmans, 1912.

"Sex Antagonism." By Walter Heape. London: Constable, 1913.

S"Woman in Modern Society." By Earl Barnes. London: Cassels, 1912.

"A Survey of the Woman Problem." By Rosa Mayreder. Translated by H. Scheffauer. London: Heinemann, 1913.

fundamental to permit that the last phase should be treated as a sporadic outburst.

The average man was not aware of feminism until the persistent advertising methods of the militant suffragette focussed attention on the woman movement. Now he is uncomfortably conscious of something stirring in the other sex which makes for change exactly what kind of change neither sex seems to know; but it is certain that, in the words of Mr. Heape, "man's opinion of woman has been definitely modified; his attitude towards her as an integral component of society can never be the same again." On the other hand, woman's attitude to man has suffered (in certain classes of society) a no less definite modification; and the result is a somewhat acute phase in the long conflict of the sexes.

Few writers on feminism appear to realize that social evolution must have its roots in natural law, and even when they do, they are apt, like Mrs. C. P. Gilman, to ignore certain facts and pervert others in an almost grotesque fashion. Mr. Walter Heape, who treats the subject of sex relations from a biological standpoint, does not get much further than a statement of the elements of the problem. He is a biologist and not a sociologist. His diagnosis of the condition of unrest which, to-day, permeates all civilized society is nevertheless particularly clear. He traces it to three sources, racial, class and sex antagonism; and he believes the last to be by far the most dangerous, since it is practically family war, and family quarrels are proverbially the most bitter. He agrees with Mr. Havelock Ellis that the movement is entering on a new and critical phase-a conclusion

which few students of feminism will doubt, having in view not only the excesses of a section of women and the change of attitude in both sexes, but the general anarchic trend of feminist literature and the wide extension of doctrines calculated to foster sex-antagonism among the very class which is destined to provide the teachers and models of the next generation.

It is a corrective to the somewhat gloomy perspective opened out by feminist literature to turn to Mr. Beveridge's "John and Irene." When one is obsessed by the apparently new and insoluble problems presented, one can find infinite consolation in this anthology of thoughts on woman. By quotations which range from Hesiod, the prophet Esdras and the Laws of Manu down to Miss Cicely Hamilton and the report of the Reg istrar-General for 1910, Mr. Beveridge nearly convinces us that there is no new woman, nor new woman's movement, nor any thing new to be said about woman and her movement. At the same time, in the allegory which is the prelude to the anthology, Mr. Beveridge sounds one uncertain note; and it is to the implied question that one returns.

The allegory sets forth how John, a convinced and ardent feminist, fell in love with Irene, whose wise and careful upbringing had preserved her, hitherto, from serious thought about anything. With the imprudence of the reformer who can never let well alone, John

"began to educate her about Woman's cause. . . . She became filled with the delight of reasoning and understanding; she seized on and held her first conclusions with the dogmatism of the undergraduate, and was prepared to sacrifice everything to philosophy. John, on the other hand

was

a perfectly normal person desiring to govern his own life in normal ways."

The exact nature of their disagreement is not revealed, but it culminated in the incineration, by John, of a volume believed to be the work of Mr. Bernard Shaw.

"They parted in anger that afternoon and would not meet again. Irene . . . stepping into John's place in the (feminist) ranks, has bought the feminist iibrary which he has sold, and John, who cannot dance, has again been seen at dances. .. So the story ends for the present on a note of hope renewed." The note is an uncertain one. John. it is true, will get himself a wife, a hearth, domestic joys, and live the normal life of the normal man. He will accept meekly, nay blindly, the yoke of his normal spouse. He will accept his share of the burden of carrying on the world's work on what he believes to be his own terms. That they are not really his own may never occur to him, so long as his manhood is at once satisfied and exercised by his family relations. But what of Irene? Is she to be permanently contented with a feminist library and a cause?

Feminism, like socialism, is difficult to confine within the boundaries of a formula. Mr. W. L. George in "Woman and To-morrow" has done what is possible in this direction. Feminism, he says, is, broadly, the furthering of the interests of woman, philosophically the levelling of the sexes, and specifically the social and political emancipation of woman. Broadly, therefore, many writers, such as Ruskin, or Dr. J. L. Tayler, are feminists, though they accept neither the philosophy nor its specific application; while a large number of writers with a feminist bias, from Montaigne

1"Women have obtained their places in the world because they are desired by men on grounds which are not of the highest ethical quality; but these are the only grounds on which men will consent to...carrying on the burden of a society, about whose invention they were not consulted." ("Essays in Fallacy," Dr. Macphail, p. 96.)

to Mazzini, might have accepted the philosophy but would probably have hesitated over the specific application of their theories. The modern feminist, particularly the female feminist, is distinguished by her attempt to reduce these theories and generalities to everyday practice. In pursuit of this aim she may, like Irene, be forced to break off relations with the other sex, she may view the privileges of her sex as badges of degradation, and she may, in the pursuit of spiritual and political emancipation, find it necessary to place herself on the level of male criminals Not having troubled much over the inductive processes by which her conclusions were reached, Irene that is Woman-conceives of them as something final and incontrovertible. John, who had been brought up by a managing mother and exacting sisters, theorizes with some selfcomplacency ("it rather pleased him to think of himself as an hereditary grand oppressor") on the equality of the sexes. Irene, with the practical, concrete vision of her sex, asks for its definite expression in the shape of a reformed marriage service, "economic independence," or a new conception of sexual relations. The keynote to these new relations is to be found in the word "individualism." The weekly newspaper, now a biweekly, which holds the fort of advanced feminism in England, declares itself to be "the only journal of recognized standing expounding a doctrine of philosophic individualism." The German feminist, Rosa Mayreder, speaks of progressive persons as those who live their lives in freedom "undisturbed by the opinion or conduct of the society to which they belong." The woman movement is to her "the

"These qualities of mind naturally drive women to literary interests which are concrete, personal and emotional. Men turn more easily...to the abstract generalizations of science. (Earl Barnes, "Woman in Modern Society.")

battle for the rights of an unfettered personality." Woman, says the Swedish feminist, Ellen Key, has suddenly discovered that instead of moving forward, as heretofore, only in and with the general progress, she can increase her own motion by self-assertion. "To-day young girls live to apply the principle of the woman movement-individualism."

These words are significant when we remember the reiterated feminist claim that women must be free to "live their own lives," to "develop their personality," instead of being merged in the family and regarded only as a part of it. Among arguments brought forward in favor of woman's possible independence are some culled from natural history. The "domestic slave" or "servant wife" or "female parasite" is reminded of the high estate of her sex in geological ages when "puny, pygmy, parasitic males struggled for existence, and were used or not, as it happened, like a half-tried patent medicine." Or she is told to find comfort in the female cirriped, who carried a few extra husbands in her scales "lest she should lose one or two," and in the ferocious spider, who uses her hapless little mate "to coldly furnish forth a marriage breakfast" (sic). She may even find satisfaction in the theories of some biologists who believe that life began with and was carried for some distance by the female organism; or that the "male element on its initial appear

ance was primarily an excrescence, a superfluity, a waste product of nature . . strictly speaking, man is undeveloped woman." To an average person it may appear extraordinary that feminists should feel obliged

Ellen Key, "The Woman Movement," p. 97. "C. P. Gilman, "Woman and Economics."

Lester Ward, "Pure Sociology." "F. Swiney, "Awakening of Women," p. 19.

sexes, were restricted to one; and women specialized more and more in those arts and crafts which had their centre in the home. Nevertheless the women of the upper classes certainly acquired somehow a culture which made them quite as interesting and interested as any college-bred girl of to-day. Read the letters, not even of the brilliant French women of the 18th century salons, but of the country-bred English women of the late 18th and early 19th centuries-Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Frances Lady Shelley, Lady Elizabeth Coke, Lady Sarah Spencer Lyttleton, Lady Dorothy Nevill not "blue-stockings," but ordinary society women, and you will find in them not only a keen appreciation of the events of their own time, but a humorous judgment and a critical faculty applied to books, music, and the conversation of their friends. How many a young society lady of to-day, writing lively and entertaining letters to a midshipman brother, would recommend for his reading Sully's "Memories," or quote Madame de Staël? When we are estimating the gains and losses from the point of view of feminine advancement of the last half-century, we may well ask ourselves whether, among the hosts of clever women-writers of to-day, there are any names worthy to be placed beside those of Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Bronté, George Eliot, Mrs. Oliphant, Mrs. Browning, and Mrs. Gaskell; and yet these are all middleclass women of a period which is supposed to have seen a complete eclipse in female education."

At the same time it is only fair to suppose that, while talent, character

De Quincey, writing in 1840 ("Essay on Style"), and Macaulay, in his History published in 1848, declare that the educated women of their day speak and write "purer and more graceful English" than is elsewhere be to found. (See "John and Irene," p. 165.) Can this be said of the high school and college-bred women of to-day?

and genius may have triumphed over an environment not specially favorable, the latter was certainly a hard and stony ground for less sturdy seeds. Especially in the middle class, which was growing to wealth and power during the first half of the 19th century, the social conditions placed women at a disadvantage. Boys had to make their way in the world without the help of those family influences which could be safely relied on in the upper classes; hence money spent on their equipment was regarded as a good investment. The same argument did not apply to girls, who, educated or not, would generally marry, or, if they remained single, would still be a charge on the menfolk. The increased dependence, uselessness, and luxury of this class of women was an important factor in the early days of the woman movement, and still constitutes a serious social problem-not to be met by turning out girls to do men's and boys' work in an inferior manner. Feminism therefore concentrated on that education which was believed to be the open-sesame to all kinds of new worlds for women as for men.

Amid a great deal of futile talk about the relative intellectual capacity of men and women, the battle of higher education was fought and won; but the argument which prevailed with the British paterfamilias was not the favorite contention that the educated woman would be a better mother and more the companion and equal of her husband. The pioneers of female education in this country, and English women in general, are apt to have an exaggerated idea of man's desire and capacity for intellectual companionship while they consistently underestimate his needs in other reBritish spects. The husband and father accepted the task of educating his daughters very nearly, if not quite,