tles and dangling blobs such
as the turkey-cock affords; long splendid feathers for pure ornament
appear upon him; what in her is a mere tail-effect becomes in him a mass
of glittering drapery.

Partridge-cock, farmyard-cock, peacock, from sparrow to ostrich, observe
his mien! To strut and languish; to exhibit every beauteous lure;
to sacrifice ease, comfort, speed, everything--to beauty--for
her sake--this is the nature of the he-bird of any species; the
characteristic, not of the turkey, but of the cock! With drumming of
loud wings, with crow and quack and bursts of glorious song, he woos
his mate; displays his splendors before her; fights fiercely with his
rivals. To butt--to strut--to make a noise--all for love's sake; these
acts are common to the male.

We may now generalize and clearly state: That is masculine which belongs
to the male--to any or all males, irrespective of species. That
is feminine which belongs to the female, to any or all females,
irrespective of species. That is ovine, bovine, feline, canine, equine
or asinine which belongs to that species, irrespective of sex.

In our own species all this is changed. We have been so taken up with
the phenomena of masculinity and femininity, that our common humanity
has largely escaped notice. We know we are human, naturally, and are
very proud of it; but we do not consider in what our humanness consists;
nor how men and women may fall short of it, or overstep its bounds, in
continual insistence upon their special differences. It is "manly" to do
this; it is "womanly" to do that; but what a human being should do under
the circumstances is not thought of.

The only time when we do recognize what we call "common humanity" is in
extreme cases, matters of life and death; when either man or woman is
expected to behave as if they were also human creatures. Since the range
of feeling and action proper to humanity, as such, is far wider than
that proper to either sex, it seems at first somewhat remarkable that we
have given it so little recognition.

A little classification will help us here. We have certain qualities in
common with inanimate matter, such as weight, opacity, resilience. It is
clear that these are not human. We have other qualities in common with
all forms of life; cellular construction, for instance, the reproduction
of cells and the need of nutrition. These again are not human. We
have others, many others, common to the higher mammals; which are