"The method of investigating truth commonly pursued at this time, therefore, is to be held erroneous and almost foolish, in which so many inquire what others have said, and omit to ask whether the things themselves be actually so or not."—William Harvey.
The twentieth century will, we may well believe, be stamped in the records of the future as "the age of hurrying change." In certain directions this change has resulted in a profounder transformation of thought than has been effected by all the preceding centuries. Never, probably, in the history of the world were the meanings and ambitions of progress so prevalent as they are to-day. An energy of inquiry and an endless curiosity is sweeping away the complacent Victorian attitude, which in its secure faith and tranquil self-confidence accepted the conditions of living without question and without emotion. Stripped of its masks, this phase of individual egoism was perhaps the most villainous page of recorded human history; yet, with strange confidence, it regarded itself as the very summit of civilisation. It may be that such a phase was necessary before the awakening of a social conscience could arise. Old conceptions have become foolish in a New Age. A great motive, an enlarging dream, a quickening understanding of social responsibility, these are what we have gained.
Above all, this common Faith of Progress has brought a new birth to women. Many are feeling this force. There are two, says Professor Karl Pearson,[1] and it might almost be said only two great problems of modern social life—they are the problem of woman and the problem of labour. Regarded with fear by many, they are for the younger generation the sole motors in life, and the only party cries which in the present can arouse enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and a genuine freemasonry of class and sex.
There is something almost staggering in the range and greatness of the changes in belief and feeling, in intellectual conclusions and social habits, which are now disturbing the female part of humankind. How complete is the divorce between the attitude of the woman of this generation towards society and herself, and that of the generation that has passed—yes, passed as completely as if hundreds and not units represent the years that separate it from the present.
It is instructive to note in passing what was written about woman at the time immediately preceding the present revolt of the sex. The virtue upon which most stress was laid was that of "delicacy," a word which occurs with nauseous frequency in the books written both by women and men in the two last centuries.[2] "Propriety," wrote Mrs. Hannah More, "is to a woman what the great Roman citizen said action is to an orator: it is the first, the second, and the third requisite."[3]
"This delicacy or propriety," it has been well said,[4] "implied not only modesty, but ignorance; and not only decency of conduct, but false decency of mind. Nothing was to be thoroughly known, nothing to be frankly expressed. The vicious concealment was not confined to physical facts, but pervaded all forms of knowledge. Not only must the girl be kept ignorant of the principles of physiology, but she must also abstain from penetrating thoroughly into the mysteries of history, of politics, of science, and of philosophy. Even her special province of religion must be lightly surveyed. She was not required to think for herself, therefore she was deprived of all training which would enable her to think at all. The girl must appear to be dependent upon the mental strength of a man, as well as upon his physical strength."
It is necessary to remember this attitude if we are to understand the direction that woman's emancipation has largely—and, as some of us think, mistakenly—taken in this country. It explains the demand for equality of opportunity with men, which has become the watch-cry of so many women, thinking that here was the way to solve the problem. A cry good and right in itself, but one which is a starting-point only for woman's freedom, and can never be its end.
Little more than fifty years have passed since Miss Jex-Blake undertook her memorable fight to obtain medical training for herself and her colleagues at the University of Edinburgh.[5] At about the same time arose women's demand for the right of higher education, and colleges for women were opened at Oxford and Cambridge. These were the practical results which followed the revolt of Mary Wollstonecraft, and later, the great revival due to the publication of John Stuart Mill's epoch-marking book, the Subjection of Women.
During the first period of the woman's movement the centre of restlessness was amongst unmarried women, who rebelled at the old restrictions, eager for self-development and a more intellectually active life. These women undertook their own cause, insisting that their humanity came before their sex. They were picked women, much above the average woman, and to a certain extent abnormal in so far as they denied the important factor of sex. To them the average male was not a subject of overwhelming interest, and marriage and motherhood were not of prominent importance in their thought. For them "equality of opportunity for women with men" seemed to solve the problem of woman's emancipation. The constructive result of their campaign was the winning of the higher education of woman, the right to work, and the rush of women into the professions. Much, indeed, was gained, though it may be said with equal truth that much was lost. With this solution—the increased power of self-realisation in a narrow class of picked women, chiefly unmarried women of the middle-class—the woman's movement might well begin, but in this alone it can never end. The movement was incomplete as far as woman's emancipation went, because it was won by ignoring sex. In spite of the great advance in freedom and in scope of activity of life, the stigma attached to woman was not removed. To-day we have arrived at a point where instead of ignoring sex we must affirm it, and claim emancipation on the ground of our sex alone. Our mothers taught acceptance, and asked for privileges; the pioneers of revolt raised the cry "acceptance is a sin and all privilege evil"; we, the blood in our veins beating more strongly and understanding at last the true inwardness of our power, found our claim for complete emancipation upon that special work in the world and for the State which our differentiation from men imposes upon us. This differentiation is our potentiality for motherhood, and is the endowment of every woman, whether realised or not. We claim as our glory what our mothers accepted as their burden of shame.
No sudden causeless changes ever happen, or ever have happened. And the question, Why? arises. What is this dynamic force which has been, and is still sweeping in a great wave of emancipation across the civilised world, joining women in one common purpose? On the outside the revolutionary character of women's modern thought and modern practice means nothing more than that they claim the rights of adult human beings—political enfranchisement, the right of education and freedom to work. But the facts are far too complex to enable us thus to rush hastily to an answer. There is a pitiful monotony in much that is written and spoken about women's emancipation. The real causes are deep to seek, and not infrequently they have been missed even by those who have been most instrumental in bringing a new hope to women. The most advanced women champions, the martyrs of revolt, show no greater sense of the meanings and issues of the struggle in which they are engaged than the complaisant supporters of the worn-out customs they combat. They exhibit only the energies of an admirable impulse, without the control of a guiding law. Speculation, which should be carried to a comprehension of general facts, is concentrated upon the immediate gain of the hour. The tendency is to trifle with truth, and to disguise its reach and consequences. We have read, and spoken, and thought so much about the special character of woman that we have become almost wearied of the subject. Like Narcissus, we stand in some danger of falling in love with our own image. Perhaps the truth is we speculate too much instead of trying to find out the facts. The woman question is as old as sex itself and as young as mankind.