scarcely possible for [political] practitioners not to form a false estimate alike of the power of nature and the power of art in modifying and curing diseases; underrating the former in the same proportion as they exaggerated the latter. And the consequence has been that [social] diseases have been treated mainly as if Nature had little or nothing to do with their cure, and art almost everything. A principle so false, adopted as the ground of action, could not fail to be the source of the gravest doctrinal errors, with practical results of the most deplorable character."*

The important system of medicine, which watches Nature, and endeavours cautiously to assist her endeavours, is the most successful; and a similar system of politics, carefully removing obstacles, and following rather than attempting to direct the tendencies of society, would prove far more beneficial than any violent effort to force men to be good and happy according to the legislators'

views.

*Sir John Forbes. Disease,' pp. 5 and 6.

'Nature and Art in the Cure of

95

CHAPTER IX.

THE POSITION OF WOMAN.

GIBBON observes, "experience has proved that savages are the tyrants of the female sex," and if we accept as a fact the belief that society is on the whole progressing in civilization, we shall have no hesitation in predicting that the complete emancipation of woman from every form of thraldom, and a full recognition of her rights to the culture and exercise of her faculties, is the result towards which we are moving, and to promote which should be recognized as a leading duty of our times. History may offer some apparent exceptions—and they are apparent-not real; but we are warranted in affirming as an axiom the proposition that free states can only be composed of free families, and that no collection of individuals not previously organized into free families can possibly form a free state, although they may form a more or less despotic state. The character

of the family determines the character of the state; and the growth of freedom in England has been comparatively great, because the principal races which have fused together into a British people have been remarkable for the extent to which a free domestic life was developed among them.

Two illustrations will assist the reception of this truth. Thus, in Mallet's Northern Antiquities,' we find the following remarks, true of various tribes who came to this country in early days:-" The ideas and modes of thinking of the Scandinavians were in this respect very different from those of the Asiatic and more southern nations, who, by a contrast as remarkable as it is common, have ever felt for the female sex the warm passion of love, devoid of any real esteem. Being at the same time tyrants and slaves, laying aside their own reason, and requiring none in the object, they have ever made a quick transition from adoration to contempt, and from sentiments of the most extravagant and violent love to those of the most cruel jealousy, or an indifference still more insulting. We find the reverse of all this among the northern nations, who did not so much consider the other sex as made for their pleasure as to be their equals and companions; whose esteem, as valuable as their other favours, would only be ob

tained by constant attentions, by generous services, and by a proper exertion of virtue and courage.'

The influence of the Normans in this particular must be sought in the history of the feudalism which they organized, and Guizot thus describes the feudal family:"Five or six individuals in a situation at once superior to and estranged from the rest of society, that was the feudal family. It was of course invested with a peculiar character. It was narrow, concentrated, and constantly called upon to defend itself against, to distrust, and at least to isolate itself from, even its retainers. The interior life, domestic manners, were sure to become predominant in such a system. I am aware that the brutality of the passions of a chief, his habit of spending his time in warfare or the chase, were a great obstacle to the development of domestic manners. But this would be conquered: the chief necessarily returned home habitually; he always found there his wife and children, and these well-nigh only: these would alone constitute his permanent society -they would alone share his interests, his destiny. Domestic life therefore acquired great sway. Proofs of this abound. Was it not within the bosom of the feudal family that the importance of

* 'Hist. Civil.,' vol. i.

H

women developed itself?" The assertion implied in this last query may be too sweeping, but of the tendency of feudalism to give importance to women there can be no doubt.

The foundation of the rights of women is the same as that of men-both possess faculties which they are entitled to develop, and if any one standing, as he may think, strongly, upon old fallacies should talk about the woman being made for the man, let Mrs. Browning rebuke the presumption and the ignorance:

"You misconceive the question, like a man
Who sees a woman as the complement
Of his sex merely. You forget too much
That every creature, female as the male,
Stands single in responsible act and thought,
As also in birth and death."*

When a man imagines a woman made for him, any more than he is made for her, he has no right to complain if another man stronger than himself should consider him made for his-that other man's benefit, and treat him accordingly; and when men become family tyrants, by subordinating their wives to their own power and caprice, it is natural, inevitable, and just, that they should become slaves of some local or central authority.

* Aurora Leigh.'