for me to
reiterate the principles of eugenics in later chapters, and since it was
necessary to show that, though this book is written in the interests of
individual womanhood, it is consistent with the principles of the divine
cause of race-culture, to which, for me, all others are subordinate, and
by which, I know, all others will in the last resort be judged.

* * * * *

The whole teaching of this book, from social generalizations to the
details of the wise management of girlhood, is based upon a single and
simple principle, often referred to and always assumed in former
writings from this pen, and in public speaking from many and various
platforms. If this principle be invalid, the whole of the practice which
is sought to be based upon it falls to the ground; but if it be valid,
it is of supreme importance as the sole foundation upon which can be
erected any structure of truth regarding woman and womanhood. Our first
concern, therefore, must be to state this principle, and the evidence
therefor. This will occupy not a small space: and the remainder will be
amply filled with the details of its application to woman as girl and
mother and grandmother, as wife and widow, as individual and citizen.

Woman is Nature's supreme organ of the future, and it is as such that
she will here be regarded. The purpose of adding yet another to the many
books on various aspects of womanhood is to propound and, if possible,
establish this conception of womanhood, and to find in it a
never-failing guide to the right living of the individual life, an
infallible criterion of right and wrong in all proposals for the future
of womanhood, whether economic, political, educational, whether
regarding marriage or divorce, or any other subject that concerns
womanhood. A principle for which so much is claimed demands clear
definition and inexpugnable foundation in the "solid ground of Nature."
Cogent in some measure though the argument would be, we must appeal in
the first place neither to the poets, nor to our own naturally implanted
preferences in womanhood, nor to any teaching that claims extra-natural
authority. Our first question must be--Do Nature and Life, the facts and
laws of the continuance and maintenance of living creatures, lend
countenance to this idea; can it be translated from general terms,
essentially poetic and therefore suspect by many, into precise, hard,
scientific language; is it a fact, lik