At a Scandinavian meeting on the woman’s question, a cantata was sung which proclaimed that the human race under the supremacy of man had stumbled in darkness and crime. But the race was now to be newly born from the soul of woman, the sunrise would scatter the darkness of night, and the advent of the Messiah was certain.

That men during the period of their ascendancy had nevertheless produced a few trifles—for example, religions and laws, sciences and arts, discoveries and inventions—that the darkness of their night was thus at least illumined by a Milky Way, all this her majesty Woman was pleased to forget.

If man were sufficiently vindictive to set about finding out what woman has accomplished in the course of ages to justify her towering self-esteem—or in other words to justify her challenging the comparison with these works of man—then he would find only one thing.

When nature formed the instinct of the race, woman remoulded it as love; when necessity made the dwelling, woman transformed it into the home. Her great contribution to culture is thus affection.

And this work is in truth great enough to counterbalance man’s contribution—but not to make it worthless.

Fortunately we hear less and less about man’s “tyranny” having robbed woman of the chance of also proving her powers within his sphere of activity. It is more and more recognised that in the struggle for existence necessity decreed that woman’s social work should take the form of home work. The same necessity has now—in the main—liberated the powers that were confined in home work, although woman has never, at any time, been excluded from the use of her mental gifts. Such use was, however, obviously an occasional one, so long as the total of her activity belonged to another sphere.

It is from the point of view of their now emancipated personality that women—and many men on their behalf—demand the right of employing these personally-human powers in social work. They point in particular to the neglect of the State in that sphere of duty, which is already theirs in the home, namely, that of protecting and improving the existence of the young and of the weak. And men are beginning to see that, the more fixedly society is organised, the more indispensable will be the co-operation between all its parts, if the social organism is really to fulfil its purpose, the welfare of all; they see that the new forms both of State help and self-help, which are now being sought after with increasing consciousness of purpose, cannot be adjusted to actual needs unless woman is able to co-operate with man in every department and take part in the legislation which is to decide the welfare of herself and of her child.

But that the organisation of society has now progressed so far that man is beginning to look for woman’s help, must not be taken by women as a reason for putting the whole blame for the slow development of society on men. This slowness results in an equal degree from the hitherto existing nature of woman and of man, from the limitations of both, and from their both being bound by the laws of development. Progress towards higher conditions depends in an equal degree on transformations in the nature of both, the ideals of both, the means and aims of both in the furtherance of culture. The very beginning of these transformations is the education women give to the new generation, which is afterwards to make the laws, to arrange the work, and to determine consumption according to the needs they bring with them into life and the virtues they have learned to love at home.

Our time is probably more conscious of its own shortcomings than any other. But nothing is more revolting to one’s sense of justice than when this consciousness takes the form of women’s megalomania as regards their own omnipotence for altering the course of the world.

Following on nature’s rough division of the race, nature and civilisation in conjunction have produced a finer one, that of creator on the one side and material on the other. Next to being one’s self a creator, it is a great thing to be worthy material in a creator’s hand. And enhancement of culture in a spiritual as well as a material sense is brought about by the creators’ success in dealing with their material. When that material is human, this means that the creators—or leaders—are successful in converting the rest into real collaborators with will and judgment of their own. Flocks driven on by shepherds, or masses of humanity led by one no more remarkable than themselves, have never had lasting effects on the course of civilisation. Such effects only follow when a creator fires the multitude with the enthusiasm of new aims, or teaches them to ennoble the means by which they may attain ends worthy of aspiration.

Thus, if women are to give the development of society a direction wholly different from that which man has given it, this will depend on the appearance among women of leaders who shall point the way to higher aims and employ purer means.

But what gives us reason to expect this of women? The reason cannot be sought elsewhere than within the sphere of their own creations, love, motherliness, the home, domestic economy. If it can be shown that women have brought all these to the full perfection of which they are capable, then there will really be good reason to believe in their miraculous power in the organisation of society.

But even if we fully admit the hindrances which man’s ordering of society, his legislation, his nature have placed in the way of women—is there a single thoughtful woman who can maintain that she herself, or that women in general, have nevertheless done all that they could within their own special sphere; that they have used to the utmost the opportunities they have possessed? What conscientious woman does not perceive that the majority still bungle the great discoveries of their sex, by the way in which they act as guardians and educators of children, as lovers, wives, makers of homes, housekeepers! In every department they lack art and science, clearness of view and circumspection. Frequently they do not possess the first conditions for intensifying and refining a happy love; that of bearing and bringing up worthy children; that of attaining the greatest sum of material comfort for the members of the family with the least expenditure of force and of means; that of arranging the spiritual balance-sheet so that the highest possible enhancement of life will be the net profit. Exactly as the majority of men only slowly and partially receive and transmit the thoughts, the works of beauty, the discoveries that their leaders bring them, so also do women slowly and partially receive the leading ideas in their sphere.

There must then be something, not only in man’s nature but in woman’s also, which hinders perfection and delays progress.

If such be the case—and the supposition need not be considered too bold—then also we may perhaps wonder whether mankind would really have progressed so far, if women had had the lead during past centuries. And if we have ventured thus far, we may also be bold enough to ask: whether these same women—who have been so far from perfecting their own work—when they come to take part in the organisation of society, will immediately perfect what man has bungled; twist the sword into a ploughshare and bring about the Messianic kingdom, where peace and righteousness shall kiss one another.

It is not until she has renounced all communion with the glorification of woman and the assertion of woman’s superiority, that a woman with a sense of intellectual propriety can occupy herself with the question of the social work of her sex.

Those who conduct the woman’s movement form in every country a “right” and a “left,” each with an extreme wing.

The particular cult of the right is woman as an ideal being. In addition, its dogmas include Christianity, monogamy, and the rest of the existing arrangements of society. It seeks to place woman on an equal footing with man within the old forms. To the extremists of this group, duty, labour, and utility are the great words of life; love and beauty do not come within the scope either of woman’s rights or of her obligations. To whitewash the stains on the existing social edifice; to give themselves more space by building out a wing on the right—this is their chief concern; the main building itself they would preserve unaltered.

The left has also its deities—but “woman” is not one of them. Its view of life is radical; that is to say, evolutionist and social. It seeks to reform the existing institution of marriage by a new morality, and existing society by a higher organisation, which will express a deeper sense of solidarity. It thus looks at the rights and liberty of woman and of man in connection with the welfare of the whole community. From this point of view, it regards woman’s freedom to love and right to motherhood as of equal importance with her right to vote and liberty to work.

Here, however, a difference comes in between this and the extreme left, which would give woman complete personal freedom of movement by leaving the children in charge of the State.

Thus the extreme wing of the old feminism meets that of the new on this point, that to both woman’s activity is an end in itself to the extent that her right is independent of whether this activity raises or lowers the vital efficiency of the whole organism.

In everything else the opposition is diametrical, except on the plane where all the groups meet: in the demand for woman’s juridical and political equality with man.

Those who demand political rights for woman in return for her liability to taxation and her cares as a mother, have a well-founded claim. But the position becomes still stronger when the claim is based upon the need of society that every member of it should co-operate to further the satisfaction of his own requirements. For modern society corresponds more and more to the idea of an organism increasing in complexity, every part of which becomes more and more important to the whole, determines more and more by its needs and powers the welfare or failure of the whole, and itself receives more and more profit or harm from the condition of the whole organism.

Society means human beings—men, women, and children, dead, living, and unborn—neither more nor yet less; human beings banded together in order thus the higher to enhance the life of the individual and of all. This combination takes at first simple, then more and more complicated forms of organisation: simple, so long as their needs are so, since only his needs move man to organise. An increasing civilisation means a more and more perfect satisfaction of increasingly complicated and higher needs. But as it is our needs that set us in motion, any hindrance of movement will also produce immediate suffering through our not being able to get rid of the cause of our displeasure; and indirect suffering through our losing the sense of pleasure that movement might have brought.

When the aim of society is seen to be that each of its members shall employ and develop his powers to the highest possible extent for the highest possible ends, then it will no longer be in abstract constructions of constitutional law, but rather in the laws of human life, that the criteria of social well-being will be sought.

The order of society must then favour the life-enhancement of the individual; the limitation of individual liberty must favour the life-enhancement of the whole—this will be to the evolutionist the motive for now extending, now limiting, the freedom of movement of the individual.

The parallelism with the human organism is evident. The formation and activity of the individual cells determine the structure of the whole; the degree in which their needs are satisfied determines the well-being of the organism. The total vital needs of the organism limit the cells’ expansion of force and self-determination, for without the health of the whole organism the cells would also languish.

Every powerful movement of society—and the demand for women’s suffrage is already such a one—is brought about by the will of many individuals to modify society in some respect, in order better to satisfy their own needs and therewith those of the whole community. Such a movement is always opposed in the beginning from the point of view of the agreement, equilibrium, and health of the community. And since a transformation in a society never occurs uniformly in time or degree; since the need of new forms is thus for a long time not widely spread, the conservatives, as a rule, are right at the beginning of their opposition; they are right even until the transformation has been taking place so long that the health of the whole organism demands that the class of society, religious body, or group of opinion in question should be given the freedom of activity without which it is ill at ease; for the uneasiness of many injures all. Conservatism is thus finally in the wrong by reason of the ever-repeated experience, that when the vital force is increased in any important organ, it is also increased in the whole organism.

Woman’s suffrage ought above all to be demanded from the point of view of the social value, and consequent right to freedom of movement, of woman’s powers. Its opponents answer: “We never thought of disputing either one or the other. Woman has already the same power as man in degree, though not in kind, just as truly as the heart is an organ equally essential to life as the brain. But the whole organism would go under, if the heart insisted on usurping the functions of the brain. Woman has become the organ of the emotions in human life—but the emotions cannot have a leading mission in public affairs. In that field woman must either be untrue to herself or lose her significance. It would be an immense loss to civilisation if she were forced into the paths of masculine egoism, instead of putting her whole strength into the rearing of future men. Thus new generations of great-minded and far-seeing men would reform society in accordance with woman’s ideals, and woman would not lose her ideals in party strife, where the chief thing is victory by any means and the end is lost sight of.” “If,” it was thus said by a thoughtful young working woman,—“if the child saw both its father and mother striving for power, with all the hardness and relentlessness this implies, then idealism would soon become extinct, whereas, on the other hand, women, by unequivocally making the highest ideal demands upon fathers and brothers, husbands and sons, could bring about by degrees an ideal condition of things.”

This view, which gives to woman the function of one central organ in the social organism and to man the other, does not, however, correspond to the reality. Just as the individual is determined from head to foot by his sex, so also is society from top to bottom bi-sexual; every function of government affects, therefore, all women just as much as all men. At present, however, only the latter possess the power of directly remedying what hinders and furthering what enhances their life, through also taking part in the functions by which they are affected.

Since every “cell,” which indirectly or directly makes up the social organism, is male or female, it is unthinkable that a higher organisation of society would not finally of necessity manifest this its bi-sexual character. Like the family—the first “State”—it is probable that the final State will appear as a unity combining the male and female principles. Or, in other words, it will be a “State-marriage,” not as hitherto merely a State-celibacy! Simply by performing the functions themselves, instead of allowing the male cells to do so on their behalf, the female cells may now as members of society experience their highest possible life-enhancement. So long as women were content to let men represent them, woman’s non-enfranchisement did not disturb the well-being of the organism. Now, on the other hand, the disturbance has set in and can be removed only by change. But what the health of the organism demands in the highest degree, is that—when the female cells begin to perform their social functions—they should preserve their sexual character, for otherwise no higher form of development would be attained. Not the male sex, but the government of society may with truth be likened to its brain, as representation may be compared with its nervous system. The society of the present day suffers from one-sided paralysis, so long as half of it is excluded from the possibility of making known its needs through the nervous system. And society suffers from this condition just as much as the body would from a corresponding state. We can best see this by observing that society where the whole body is paralysed and only the head acts, namely Russia. There only the wounds bear witness that the organism as a whole is alive. But all the societies of Europe now include within themselves a Russia, that part of the community which Camilla Collet rightly called “the Camp of Silence.” From the same inner necessity that prompted a number of the men in those countries whose condition once was like that of Russia to shake off the care of a parental government and take upon themselves the liberty of making known their own needs, of themselves deciding the conditions for their well-being, must women—and the labouring classes—win this right. This does not mean that the female half will work more perfectly or with less danger than the male. But it means that the whole organism will work more, will fare better, and will be developed to a higher condition. Those at present in possession are challenged by women as by working men, when they assert that they fully secure the interests of the unrepresented and direct their forces satisfactorily. And it may not be they, contented as they are with their power and with themselves, but the discontented that we should listen to, if higher conditions are to be attained.

To these general considerations must be added, in the case of the smaller nations, this: that the more alive and thoroughly active the whole social body is, the more power of resistance it will possess in the struggle for its existence. Those nations, in which every person can protect his own interests in and with those of the community, will—other conditions being equal—surpass the others, as an army of athletes would overcome one of invalids.

Society is confronted by tasks of increasing complexity. A force hitherto unused, that of woman, now become socially conscious, offers its co-operation in dealing with them.

All thinking persons desire new conditions with growing earnestness. But new conditions do not arise, as the socialist is far too willing to believe, through new external relations alone; nor through new ideas and discoveries, as the man of science with his bias is too apt to think. New conditions arise above all through new human beings, new souls, new emotions. Only these form new plans of life, new modes of action; only these revalue the objects which are then pursued day by day by innumerable individuals. A new idea becomes feeling and motive power, at first with one individual, then with a few, then with many, and finally with all. He who has been able to witness this with regard to any particular idea, knows that it comes about as in the spring, when first a solitary birch-tree on the sunny side unfolds its golden-green banner: then the veil of yellow, reddish-brown, and green is drawn closer and closer over the grey, till finally all the tree-tops are rounded and full, all colours subdued to one shade, and one scarcely remembers what it was like in the play of shifting colours, when the wild cherry gleamed white among the green, the dandelions spread themselves in wild profusion among the grass, the lilies of the valley peeped out from the sheath of their leaves, and the cuckoo called in the summer.

Emotions are the sap which rises when the human landscape thus changes colour and form. Therefore no profound spiritual transformation has ever taken place unless women have taken part in it. It is upon this great power of woman, already indirectly effective, that we may with reason base the hope of her direct exertion of force becoming even more effective—if with it she preserves her womanly character.

Precisely as the stricter sexual morality made woman’s love more soulful—till she can now claim love’s freedom, since she has a new contribution to make therewith—so the hindering of woman’s external activity dammed up her emotional life. Under the division of labour into a “manly” and a “womanly” field, woman’s peculiar character became more established; her feeling became intensified in the direction in which she is now ready to use it in the immediate service of humanity. Tenderness distinguishes her whole way of thinking and feeling, of wishing and working. Thus has she reached that dissimilarity to man, which she must now maintain in a public capacity.

It is as natural as it is fortunate that woman should come forward with her claims to participation in social duties and social rights just in our time, when the idea of interconnection, the sense of solidarity, has become increasingly conscious in every nation, as well as between the nations. For a clearer idea of interconnection will have the effect of saving woman from a number of man’s mistakes; a profounder sense of solidarity from a number of woman’s weaknesses—while the best traits of the womanly character will be invaluable for intensifying the sense of solidarity. The man and woman of the present day have become more sensitive to their own sufferings, and this is the first condition for becoming more sensitive to those of others. But now the problem is also really to intensify and to refine the feeling for others to such a degree that the social organism will no longer be able to endure that any of its members should suffer a hindrance to life in any avoidable way. It is in this respect that woman’s deeper sensitiveness, her richer tenderness, are given their great mission. It is true that—as was remarked in connection with the evolution of love—it is becoming more and more impossible to speak of “man” or “woman” in general, since individualisation makes each sex more and more dissimilar within itself, while development makes them more and more mutually alike. Average women and average men have more understanding than feeling. But when feeling is found in a man, it is more violent and more transitory, whereas it is more intimate and more effective in a woman. The majority of men as of women seldom think. But when man and woman think, man’s method is, as a rule, that of deduction and analysis, woman’s that of intuition and synthesis. She unites instinct and reflection as the poet does: the thought of both forms a connected line of light only in the way that a row of lamps seen in perspective does so. Her actions—like his poems—have the unconscious purpose of inspiration.

These general characteristics are reversed, it is true, in many individual cases. It is thus certain that the most conspicuous revelations of Christian charity have occurred in men. This, however, does not alter the fact that “the milk of human kindness” flows more richly in women than in the majority of men.

This superiority is the natural result of motherliness, which has gradually been developed in the female sex into immediate feeling for all that is weak and in want of help, all that is budding and growing.

But it follows from this that if woman, by her participation in public life, is to provide a great, new, progressive element—then not only must she not lose the power of sympathy she already possesses; she must, on the contrary, intensify and extend it. Motherliness is not to be found in all those who are already mothers, and we have arrived indeed at the strange position that—while man is beginning to see how much society needs the motherly feeling—a number of women are no longer willing to become mothers, since their personal development and civil occupation would thus be interfered with. Nothing is more necessary than that woman should be intellectually educated for her new social mission. But if meanwhile she loses her womanly character, then she will come to the social mission like a farmer with a complete set of agricultural implements but no seed.

In all private activity the individuality is the best seed, while, on the other hand, in the social field women will probably for a long time be most valuable owing to their universal-womanly character; for unfortunately it is still true in public life that individuality is frequently a hindrance to co-operation, which takes place rather through partisanship in interests and views than through the working together of diverging characters. It is only in rare cases that a non-party man has the chance of interposing in a decision. At present, woman may be able to influence society not as a single personality, but rather as a new and powerful principle, a great contribution of a hitherto unemployed element. Doubtless individual women—through mental superiority, intellectual development, strength of will, and powers of work—will bring a great increase of general human value to social work. But it will nevertheless be upon the difference in kind between the nature of man and woman that we must base our hope that women’s participation in the work of society will have far-reaching results.

When women think themselves able to accomplish what the whole aggregate of man’s courage, genius, devotion, self-sacrifice, and idealism has hitherto not been able to do; when in every difference of opinion on man’s and woman’s nature they attribute to him every feminine failing in addition to his own, while claiming for themselves all man’s merits, then one can be certain only about woman’s superfluity for the time being.

Woman’s right to participate in public life would, however, be in a bad way, if she could not bring to it something really indispensable, new, and peculiar to herself.

This new thing is her idealism and enthusiasm, however finely and easily they may blaze up, since woman is so much more inflammable than man, so much more eager to translate her enthusiasm into action.

For only such an enthusiast and idealist is of account who can carry the flame of his zeal in his bare hand, in spite of burns, keep it alight in spite of gusts of wind, and thus step by step come nearer his ideal. But such enthusiasts and idealists—whether male or female—are rare, much rarer than genius. They are the wine and the salt of life, whereas the virtues that the majority can show are only the daily bread on the table of society.

If then we look at the majority, the sense of justice in man and the feeling of tenderness in woman may be the greatest virtues. This does not mean that men do not both submit to and commit immense injustices, or women immense cruelties. But it means that the feeling which has been the strongest motive power in man’s public actions—in revolts and in revolutions—is the sense of justice, while the feeling of tenderness sets a hundred women in motion for one that is moved by an outraged sense of justice. Nothing is more common than to hear even from the lips of a boy the words: “It served him right”; while from a girl we should hear: “I’m sorry for him anyhow!”

It is the masculine feeling alone which has decided the structure of society. Not until woman’s feeling has the same scope as man’s; not until each can counterbalance what is extreme in the other—his what is too weak in hers, hers what is too hard in his—will society in its fatherliness and motherliness really provide for the rightful needs of all its children.

Someone has maintained that the social brain in the course of ages has developed more than the individual: by thinking and feeling more in common, the capacity has also been increased of finding means for furthering the common weal.

It is probable that women’s brains will show their efficiency above all in finding means of enhancing and preserving life, which has so much greater significance for woman than for man; for every life has cost some woman infinitely more than any man; every mangled body on the field of battle or of labour has once made some woman happy with its child’s smile, and leaves some woman in tears.

But in order thus to become inventive, women must remain what they now are: passionate in the force of their love, rapidly vibrating; otherwise they will not counterbalance the partialities of man in the work of civilisation. There are perhaps no more remarkable pages in J. S. Mill’s book, On the Subjection of Women, than those in which he maintains the faculty of woman—guided by her individual observation—for intuitively finding a general truth and, unfettered by theorising, for unhesitatingly and clear-sightedly applying it in a particular case. Woman, he says, keeps to reality, while man loses himself in abstractions; she sees what a decision will mean in an individual case, while he loses sight of this in face of the general truths he has abstracted from reality, which he tries to force into abstraction. These qualities of woman make her more unflinching, more rapid, and more immediate in her actions, while at the same time her more intimate and passionate feeling gives her more perseverance and patience in the face of trouble, disappointment, and suffering.

And this opinion of Mill is confirmed by that of Ibsen, whose fundamental view of woman is precisely that she becomes stronger in self-assertion and tenacity of purpose when it is a question of values of personality, but at the same time more devoted and self-sacrificing in the personal sphere. He regards her as less fettered by religious or social dogmas, but with greater piety and a deeper sense of community than man; he sees in her more unity between thought and action, a surer grasp of life and more courage to live it. In a word: he thinks that woman more often is something, because she has not tried to be it; that she more often attempts the unreasonable, because she cannot be satisfied with the possible.

Thus woman became, not more perfect, but—fortunately for the fulness of life—different, when first life differentiated the natural function of mother and father; made them into separate beings, neither being superior or inferior to the other, merely incomparable. It is this differentiation which must continue—not least in politics; for otherwise women’s votes would only double the poll, without altering the result, and their participation in politics would thus only be a waste of their precious powers.

Thus even in public life woman must preserve the belief in miracles, the courage of apparent foolhardiness which her love gives her; that courage of which the most beautiful images are already to be found in national legends. What private life has taught her, she must now teach in turn to public life.

This is the most difficult of all tasks; for here she must preserve the sudden anger or enthusiasm of her feeling, but purge it of arbitrariness and injustice. She must trust to her feeling’s unconscious sureness of direction, but secure it against the risks of foolhardiness. She must allow her feeling its mobility, but free it from the connection with caprice and untrustworthiness. She must keep her eyes for the individual, but yet be capable of lifting them to the universal.

To be able to do all this, woman must be willing to learn of man where he is the stronger, without letting man’s scorn of womanly weaknesses or his pretensions to superiority mislead her into seeking a kind of strength which cannot be hers; for she could thus lose only what is already her own.

Unfortunately, all the signs are not favourable to the hope that woman will pass through academies and carry on the service of the State without injury to her rapidity of view, delicacy of observation, and liberality of soul. “The conclusions of science,” “the laws of history,” “the demands of social security,” “the opportunity of compromise,” and all the other things that men pile up in the way of reform, are also alarming to woman’s courage, make her too ask for proofs instead of feeling strong in her intuition.

In the university, the government department, and the business office the soul of woman also may run the risk of becoming tied by red tape, officially dry, amenable to public injustice, sober in the face of enthusiasm. Such official and business women will be as apprehensive as men of being suspected to be dreamers and agitators; they will be as logical in proving the unreasonableness of those who think for the future. In a word: when women bear men’s burdens they will also get their bent backs; when they earn their bread in the general field of work, their hands will also be hardened. But we may hope—and everything depends upon this hope—that woman will attain her social power before she has yet lost her special characteristics, and that she will then give her whole mind to bringing about new conditions, in which she will be able to keep her hands soft and her attitude upright.

If this hope fails, then woman’s entrance into public life will not change, for a thousand years to come, its tendency to put safety before boldness; to allow prudence to chill enthusiasm, facts to clip the wings of inspiration, and practical considerations to quench ideas. The demands of humane feeling will continue to be blunted by the sharing of responsibility among many; nay, we shall even see woman uniting herself with the majority in curing the madness of idealists or—if this is impossible—in rendering them harmless.

It is thus not by hymns of praise in honour of her sex, but by great and inexorable claims on herself and on all other women, that each individual woman can best co-operate in the education of her sex for public life. Only the spiritual education that each one gives herself will prevent in the political field false estimates of value and a confused sense of justice; for in truth political life in this respect gives nothing to him who has nothing; on the contrary, it is there, if anywhere, that the words of the Bible are applicable: from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Public life in itself widens neither the view nor the heart of anyone; of this our parish and district councils, our municipalities and our parliament give sufficient evidence.

It is not only want of education, but in an equal degree half-education, that has the peculiar shady side; and such is the education still provided for the majority by school and high-school: ability to pass examinations without formation of personality, specialised knowledge without spiritual culture. The sign of this half-education is that it swallows up the individuality and makes the instincts shallow.

This evil will above all be fraught with danger to woman’s peculiar gift, intuition. The whole existing plan of education aims at rendering more acute the characteristics of man, and is successful therein, so that he is strong though one-sided in his half-education. Woman, on the other hand, becomes weak in hers, since it detracts from her characteristics without giving her, however, those of man. We often find in an unlettered woman an instinct for essentiality which the half-educated have lost or to which at least they no longer dare to trust themselves. And, above all, this is true of the qualities essential to woman herself. Thus women who are working in the service of the community often show their resentment of the gladdening power of other, young and attractive, women even within the sphere of social activity. Only the form and contents of the long catechism could convince them of a young girl’s seriousness. Whether these beauty-haters belong to the pietists of Christianity or to those of the woman’s movement, they are agreed in the opinion that the attractive woman is also the less valuable, and that men show their lack of discernment in so easily allowing themselves to be charmed by her. Man’s sense is, however, not so far wrong, even though he often takes appearance for reality. For what man looks for above all in woman—and loves most deeply, when he finds it—is the joy of goodness. It is this which is made visible in all real charm and gains its rightful victory; and only when women possess this joy of goodness and know how to communicate some of its charm to public life, will their participation in the latter tend to beautify it.

In judging of the position of affairs at the present moment we ought to remember that it is not only mothers-in-law but also daughters-in-law, not only the mistress of the house but also the cook, who would receive the franchise. But none of these groups seems inclined to regard the others as at present endowed with the greatest imaginable perfections—in private life! It may not, therefore, be too presumptuous if an outside observer should wonder whether it will be given to them to exhibit greater perfections in political life.

In a word, we must remember that developed women are not more numerous in proportion to the undeveloped than the former kind of men are to the latter. The same or other prejudices, self-interests, and stupidities, which on the part of men delay progress, will also stand in its way on the part of women. Just as one now sees herds of male “electoral cattle” in the wrong place, so will one see crowds of electoral hens—and the wrong place does not mean either the right or the left, but the place to which one is driven without personal choice and where one nevertheless remains without a feeling of shame.

Woman will, however, have the advantage of being able to learn from man’s mistakes, and she learns more quickly than he. But only the power of being one’s self active where one has the responsibility, and the right of deciding where one is to act, are educative. Developed women will naturally exhibit one-sidedness, like developed men; not until each sex comes forward with its own peculiarities will legislation and administration become universal. But universality is not yet connection. Whether one strums with one finger or with all ten on an instrument, this does not make music. Not until each finger does its work—and can play together with the others—does harmony result, whether one is speaking of instrumental or of social music.

Before social politics have replaced the politics of self-interest and class instinct, it is probable that the vital forces of many will be wasted, and among them those of many women, if in the meantime women enter political life. But neither the argument that women are too good, nor that they are too immature, will weigh heavily in keeping them from political work; for they will hasten development in the degree in which they preserve their worth; they will attain the maturity they lack in the degree in which they participate in development. Only by being used can tools be gradually adapted and perfected for what they have to do; only by performing its functions does the organ become developed for its purpose. And to this must be added the equally weighty argument that the women even now necessary for development are, no more than the men, to be found on one side only of a dividing line of money or birth or education. Only the great democratic principle—equal possibilities for all—involves in spite of its defects the best prospect of the right man or the right woman arriving in the right place. It is more important to the community that one man or woman through right of election or eligibility should reach the prominent position for which nature intended them, than that a hundred others should make mistakes as electors. Even if women are at first on the side of reaction—and in Sweden this would certainly be the case—their direct influence would nevertheless be less dangerous than their indirect and irresponsible influence is now; for there would be a possibility of their being convinced by public life that, as long as a dominant social and economical group maintains the conditions which make innumerable other members of society the victims of militarism and industrialism, of prostitution and alcoholism—so long will all social work be casting seed into the snow. But even if women did not allow themselves to be convinced, but only became a support to those at present in power, this still ought not to be a hindrance to their enfranchisement. Just as nothing makes us more persevering than working for justice, so there is no better evidence of the purity of our own claims than when we adhere to them in spite of our knowledge that their attainment will for a long time be to the advantage, not of ourselves, but of our opponents.

Everyone with eyes to see is more and more clearly aware that in our time new paths must be found. Women too are more and more frequently among those who see this, although the majority of women, by their ignorance, their lack of understanding, their petty aims, still place obstacles in the way of the pioneer work of their male kinsmen and fellow-workers.

But even among women fully conscious of the importance of social questions, there is little perception of their significance. This perception must be raised, but, above all, the idea of collective motherliness must be intensified, by fundamentally distinguishing it from that of benevolence. The latter may be justified in the individual case. But all social work, which is directed to the whole community, must aim at attaining so far in right-thinking that all well-doing may disappear. Collective motherliness must act more as an eternal subterranean fire and less as the soaring but soon burnt-out flame of a sacrifice. It is not enough that the instinct of mutual help and sympathy is more immediate in woman than in man. Just as affection is not sufficient for the care of children, if insight into the vital laws of the body and soul is lacking, so also do women need an understanding of the biology and psychology of society in order to fulfil their individual tasks in national economy, and to understand the problems which are summed up under the name of social organisation.

Only thus can sympathy with the victims of society lead women to an ever stronger opposition to the system which permits these sacrifices. They must thus begin—and that very soon—by obtaining power to restrict this, at any rate where it applies to the bringing-up of children and the education of the young; to places where women work or are brought to justice; where the sick and aged are cared for; where laws are made for all these. The majority of women—who are still on Christian ground—preach at the best charity as the duty of the favoured and patience as that of the unfortunate. But no more than the individual mother will be satisfied with charity for her own child, but will have full justice—which implies full possibilities of development, full satisfaction of wholesome needs, full employment of personal powers—even so will collective motherliness refuse to be satisfied with less on behalf of any child of the community.

Not until the idea of poor-law relief is exchanged for that of self-help, aided by society but without sacrifice of pride, not until charity is exchanged for justice, patience for assertion of rights, will there be a prospect for the many of an existence compatible with human dignity. We need not fear that the virtues of charity and patience will therefore disappear: everyone will doubtless have only too much daily use for them—not only towards God, but towards himself and his neighbour.

But as regards the life of the community their time is gone by—or at least will be so, in proportion as the belief in a fatherly providence above is exchanged for a knowledge of the power of human providence upon earth. When women’s brains and hearts begin to exercise this providence in such a way that their views of life and their social work no longer conflict with one another, then and not till then will these brains and hearts become a reforming force.

Now, for instance, the majority of women are afraid of socialism, as to which however only one opinion should prevail: that as a party policy in the near future it is the most indispensable motive power of development, while as a principle—when cleared of the mutually conflicting dogmas of different schools—in its widest meaning it expresses the ever firmer coalescence of society into an ever more intimate unity, in which the sincere assurance of the old hymn, “the good of one, the good of all,” will gradually be realised in and through the whole organisation of society. When this has made the fine image of the suffering of every member through that of one come true—then will the social State be attained.

The fear of socialism now hinders the leading women of the upper classes from supporting the others in conflicts which can result only in the victory of the cause they themselves wish to further. They are alarmed at the mere word claims, behind which they see the great hosts of the labouring classes streaming on with their red flags. They therefore prefer to speak of the duty of voting rather than of the right to vote. They hope it may be possible to carry on politics as peacefully as a college of teachers, that a public meeting may be as amenable to discipline as a school class. But this lack of a sense of proportion misses both the end and the means.

Women are thus desirous—and with full reason—of abolishing prostitution. But the first condition is a wholesale raising—for at least fifty per cent. a doubling—of the present wages of working women and shop assistants. This increase can take place only by means of trade-unions, and then strikes will be necessary. But the Christian champions of the woman’s movement have a horror of both these things.

The latter desire—and with full reason—to stop the abuse of intoxicating liquors. But they do not see that this is not to be brought about by prohibitions and tea-meetings; that only by better opportunities and an increased appetite for the joys of home comfort, education, beauty, and nature can the intoxication of life take the place of the intoxication of alcohol. But these enhanced possibilities of life will result only from the stubbornly waged class-war, of which Christian women in general disapprove.

A number of women wish to abolish war. But the same women are not able in education to renounce those kinds of forcible methods which keep alive crude passions and low ideas of justice; they still believe that the souls of children are to be cleansed like mats, by beating. It is in vain that all the most eminent educationalists, as well as many of the foremost criminologists of our time, have again and again condemned corporal punishment—which one of the greatest contemporary authorities on jurisprudence has called the “fruitless bloodshed” of the centuries—since experience has incontrovertibly shown that physical fear never produces morality in the true sense of the term. Women, however, continue to lighten their work in the nursery by employing fear. In other words, they themselves practise—and train their children in—acts of violence, such as correspond in the life of nations to the wars these very women wish to abolish.

These examples might be multiplied. They do not prove that woman is more ignorant or more inconsistent than man in her social activity. But they prove that women, like men, will be of very little value in their public capacity, so long as they follow the methods of piece-work rather than of continuity.

To begin with, therefore, it would seem that individual women, and not the majority of the sex, will represent that collective motherliness which is to be at the same time far-seeing and warm-hearted. And these women can no more expect to go on from one victory to another, than can individual men. Those who—with their souls glowing against all injustice, their hearts warm and anxious with sympathy—enter into cold reality, must be prepared to experience what has been the lot of innumerable reformers in thought and action among the other sex: that they have won the best for themselves—martyrdom; but not the best for society—victory. And it is a poor consolation that it is often the best who become martyrs and the next best who are victorious. The former are those who throw themselves into the fight, urged by justice or love of humanity or passion for liberty—without asking themselves whether they will conquer, or at least without knowing what will be the answer to this question. The latter again are usually those who within themselves have answered it in the affirmative; for this conviction of success gives them the power of arraying an army behind them, and the courage to inspire it.

The precursors among women will also find out how unspeakably difficult it is to aristocratise the democracy, which does not mean simply cleaner hands and better manners, but purer actions and finer thoughts. And if they retain their sensitiveness—as they must—the leading women will thus have to suffer not only from their own wounds, but from the shame of seeing so many of their own sex as incapable as the men of sacrificing their own advantage—or the imaginary advantages of their country—when humanity and justice demand it. And it will be the fate of these women—as of so many men before them—that the pure will, the rich personality, which cannot bend, will be forced to break.

Everyone who has had anything to do with politics must have seen something of these tragedies in which a noble heart is broken piece by piece, and know how cruel these bloodless struggles really are.

Will the best women endure to witness such tragedies? Will they endure to see how year by year politics and the press—indirectly, if not directly, under the sway of financial interest—succeed in producing the greatest possible number of half-measures and the greatest possible amount of stagnation, accompanied by inevitable self-surrender on the part of the best, and unconditional self-satisfaction on the part of the others? Will they endure seeing how in questions of culture, where selfishness can mean nothing, omniscient stupidity decides the great vital interests of the nation?

A gathering of people on great national festivals can together feel and act more greatly than each individual for himself. But in the everyday life of nations the individual is often better than he becomes in co-operation with others. What collective stupidity, collective cowardice, and collective untruthfulness together produce without shame in public life, would cause almost everyone who makes up the mass to hesitate in his private life. To rescue the effectiveness of the private conscience—but at the same time to preserve the power of the collective conscience for great moments—this should be the great task of political morality.

Women must be prepared to find that their participation in public life will cost them, not only various unjustified prejudices, but also many hardships. They must, moreover, understand that it will take much time away from their home; for the whole thing is not so simple as merely handing in one’s voting-paper, reading the leading article instead of the feuilleton, and going to an election meeting instead of to supper. If one hands in a voting-paper without knowing how one has voted, one’s participation is of no great importance. If one wants to know how one is voting, this involves the sacrifice of time; and when once one has begun to take part in public affairs, one is often forced by circumstances further and further into their vortex.

Fathers of families, who “take up” politics, are even now the despair of those families. And what if mothers of families begin likewise?

This is the kernel of the question. As mother of a family the woman who takes part in politics must make her choice between an outward direction of her activities which will be unfortunate for the home and children and a lack of independence which will be personally painful to her. She can sacrifice her private pleasures, not her private duties. But it is this latter temptation which will present itself to the woman of the poorer classes. The wife of a working man wants to go to an election meeting with her husband—but what of the little children? There is no servant. The neighbour’s wife? She too wants to go to the meeting. The crÈche? It is closed in the evening, for its manageress also takes an interest in public affairs! There is therefore no way out of it but that the wife must be content with her husband’s judgment.

In the suffrage question—as always when it was a question of woman’s rights—attention has been too one-sidedly directed to the point of view of the unmarried woman of the upper class. But these are so far from being the most important that we might rather assert that a mother of the working class, who—with all the trouble and privations this involves for her—has cared well for her children both bodily and spiritually, has made a happy home for them and her husband and therewithal has acquired for herself education and insight in social questions, affords so extraordinary a social power, that the most just of proportional suffrage methods would be to give her—and all other mothers of remarkable children—a double vote.

We are here again faced by the difficulty already pointed out: that it is precisely the most excellent women, the most indispensable for the task, who will have to choose between the duties of collective motherliness and those of motherhood, as well as between the latter and those of individual development. During her children’s earlier years no mother can well fulfil both these motherly calls. She will be forced to acknowledge that, if anyone could be said to cross the river to fetch water—and with one of the Danaids’ pitchers at that—then it would be one who should set aside her children for her social mission.

Here and there we already meet one or another of these strong, proud, and beautiful mothers of the twentieth century, who have lost nothing of their full-blooded womanliness, but rather doubled it through a personal quality which year by year embraces the kernel of their being more closely.

Human being and woman, citizen and personality—less than this the social mother of the future cannot be. She has destroyed all bridges which might take her back to the womanly ideal of older times: the powerful but narrow-minded housekeeper, the thoughtlessly devoted wife. But at the same time she has nothing in common with the short-sighted woman’s rights woman, who takes pride in being a restless working-machine or a specialist rewarded by diplomas but otherwise half-educated.

She has learned something from the older as well as from the new type. But she resembles neither, for only completeness of life is to her the meaning of life.

Many a little girl, leaning over her history book, must have been indignant at the way humanity used to be reckoned in past times: so many men—“besides women and children”!

It was long before women began to be counted at all, and they are still only half-counted. Children are still under “besides.” But some day we may perhaps have come so far in our feeling for what is coming on, that we shall invert the order and reckon “so many children—besides women and men.” We shall then give evidence in our treatment of children of our reverence for these profoundly wise and mysterious beings, whom we never fathom. We shall see behind the figure of every child the infinite line of past generations, before it the equally endless ranks of those to come. We shall remember in our actions that the child is the sum of these dead ones, the hope of those unborn. We shall let the child reveal itself and receive its revelations with a discretion at present unsuspected.

The tragedies of the childish soul are still waiting for their Shakespeare, although the child is already appearing in literature as never before. And here, as ever, literature is the precursor of the great movement of liberty which shall bring the children’s declaration of rights and make an end of the spiritual and bodily ill-treatment of children, which must appear to the future as monstrous as negro slavery does to us. It may be that children too will have their right to vote, as well as their own representatives in the legislature and in the courts of law.6

It should be the collective mothers who would thus finally liberate the children of society. It will then be seen that the octave of the child’s soul was just as indispensable as that of woman or man, in order that the great harmony of humanity might be complete.

When this happens the third kingdom will have arrived, whose Messiah the age now awaits. But it is not in the lap of collective motherliness that he will be borne.

Again and again saviours will be born to humanity. But always of some young woman with forehead pure as a lily and deep eyes. And Bethlehem will always be there, where a young mother kneels in prayer by her child’s cradle.