Here, gentlemen, is a theory complete in all its parts, tenable in an anatomo-biologic point of view, and which I challenge you to prove false, for I shall find replies to all your objections.
II.
We admit the principle that the sexes form series in physical, moral, intellectual, consequently functional respects.
We believe that they should become subordinate to each other in proportion to their relative excellence; and we take the destiny of the species as the touchstone of their respective value.
If we compare the sexes with each other, we prove in a general way, that man is merely woman on a coarser scale; we prove in the second place that he is far more animal than woman, since his muscular system is more fully developed and since he respires lower; so that he is most evidently a medium between woman and the higher species of apes.
Woman alone contains and develops the human germ; she is the creator and preserver of the race.
It is not quite certain that the co-operation of man is necessary for the work of reproduction; this is the means chosen by Nature, but human science will succeed, we hope, in delivering woman from this insupportable subjection.
Analogy authorises us to believe that woman, the sole depositary of the human germ, is equally the sole depositary of all the moral and intellectual germs, whence it follows that she is the inspirer of all knowledge, all discoveries, all justice, the mother of all virtue. Our analogous deductions are confirmed by facts; woman employs her intellect in the concrete; she is an acute observer; man is only fit to construct paradoxes and to lose himself in the abyss of metaphysics; science has only emerged from the limbo of à priora without confirmation, since the advent into this domain of the form of the feminine mind; we shall affirm, therefore, that true scholars are feminized minds.
In moral respects, man and woman differ greatly; the former is harsh, rough, without delicacy, devoid of sensibility and modesty; his habitual relations with the other sex modify him only with great difficulty; woman is naturally gentle, loving, feeling, equitable, modest; to her, man owes justice and his other virtues, when he has any; whence it follows that it is really to woman alone that social progress is due; hence it is that every step made towards civilization is marked by an advance of woman towards liberty.
If we consider each of the sexes in their relation to human destiny, we are forced to admit that, if there was reason for the predominance of man in the necessity of hewing out this destiny, the pre-eminence of woman is ensured in the future reign of right and peace.