All thought begins with conceptions to a certain extent generalised, and thence is developed in two directions. On the one hand, generalisations become wider and wider, binding together by common properties a larger and larger number of phenomena, and so embracing a wider field of the world of facts. On the other hand, thought approaches more closely the meeting-point of all conceptions, the individual, the concrete complex unit towards which we approach only by thinking in an ever-narrowing circle, and by continually being able to add new specific and differentiating attributes to the general idea, “thing,” or “something.” It was known that fishes formed a class of the animal kingdom distinct from mammals, birds, or invertebrates, long before it was recognised on the one hand that fishes might be bony or cartilaginous, or on the other that fishes, birds and mammals composed a group differing from the invertebrates by many common characters.

The self-assertion of the mind over the world of facts in all its complexity of innumerable resemblances and differences has been compared with the rule of the struggle for existence among living beings. Our conceptions stand between us and reality. It is only step by step that we can control them. As in the case of a madman, we may first have to throw a net over the whole body so that some limit may be set to his struggles; and only after the whole has been thus secured, is it possible to attend to the proper restraint of each limb.

Two general conceptions have come down to us from primitive mankind, and from the earliest times have held our mental processes in their leash. Many a time these conceptions have undergone trivial corrections; they have been sent to the workshop and patched in head and limbs; they have been lopped and added to, expanded here, contracted there, as when new needs pierce through and through an old law of suffrage, bursting bond after bond. None the less, in spite of all amendment and alteration, we have still to reckon with the primitive conceptions, male and female.

It is true that among those we call women are some who are meagre, narrow-hipped, angular, muscular, energetic, highly mentalised; there are “women” with short hair and deep voices, just as there are “men” who are beardless and gossiping. We know, in fact, that there are unwomanly women, man-like women, and unmanly, womanish, woman-like men. We assign sex to human beings from their birth on one character only, and so come to add contradictory ideas to our conceptions. Such a course is illogical.

In private conversation or in society, in scientific or general meetings, we have all taken part in frothy discussions on “Man and Woman,” or on the “Emancipation of Women.” There is a pitiful monotony in the fashion according to which, on such occasions, “men” and “women” have been treated as if, like red and white balls, they were alike in all respects save colour. In no case has the discussion been confined to an individual case, and as every one had different individuals in their mind, a real agreement was impossible. As people meant different things by the same words, there was a complete disharmony between language and ideas. Is it really the case that all women and men are marked off sharply from each other, the women, on the one hand, alike in all points, the men on the other? It is certainly the case that all previous treatment of the sexual differences, perhaps unconsciously, has implied this view. And yet nowhere else in nature is there such a yawning discontinuity. There are transitional forms between the metals and non-metals, between chemical combinations and mixtures, between animals and plants, between phanerogams and cryptogams, and between mammals and birds. It is only in obedience to the most general, practical demand for a superficial view that we classify, make sharp divisions, pick out a single tune from the continuous melody of nature. But the old conceptions of the mind, like the customs of primitive commerce, become foolish in a new age. From the analogies I have given, the improbability may henceforward be taken for granted of finding in nature a sharp cleavage between all that is masculine on the one side and all that is feminine on the other; or that a living being is so simple in this respect that it can be put wholly on one side or the other of the line. Matters are not so clear.

In the controversy as to the woman question, appeal has been made to the arbitration of anatomy, in the hope that by that aid a line could be drawn between those characters of males or females that are unalterable because inborn, and those that are acquired. (It was a strange adventure to attempt to decide the differences between the natural endowment of men and women on anatomical results; to suppose that if all other investigation failed to establish the difference, the matter could be settled by a few more grains of brain-weight on the one side.) However, the answer of the anatomists is clear enough, whether it refer to the brain or to any other portion of the body; absolute sexual distinctions between all men on the one side and all women on the other do not exist. Although the skeleton of the hand of most men is different from that of most women yet the sex cannot be determined with certainty either from the skeleton or from an isolated part with its muscles, tendons, skin, blood and nerves. The same is true of the chest, sacrum or skull. And what are we to say of the pelvis, that part of the skeleton in which, if anywhere, striking sexual differences exist? It is almost universally believed that in the one case the pelvis is adapted for the act of parturition, in the other case is not so adapted. And yet the character of the pelvis cannot be taken as an absolute criterion of sex. There are to be found, and the wayfarer knows this as well as the anatomist, many women with narrow male-like pelves and many men with the broad pelves of women. Are we then to make nothing of sexual differences? That would imply, almost, that we could not distinguish between men and women.

From what quarter are we to seek help in our problem? The old doctrine is insufficient, and yet we cannot make shift without it. If the received ideas do not suffice, it must be our task to seek out new and better guides.