ople, than why
men should. I was certain that their interests required fully as
much protection as those of men, and were quite as little likely to
obtain it without an equal voice in making the laws by which they
were to be bound. But that perception of the vast practical bearings
of women's disabilities which found expression in the book on the
"Subjection of Women" was acquired mainly through her teaching. But
for her rare knowledge of human nature and comprehension of moral
and social influences, though I doubtless should have held my
present opinions, I should surely have had a very insufficient
perception of the mode in which the consequences of the inferior
position of women intertwine themselves with all the evils of
existing society and with all the difficulties of human improvement.
I am indeed painfully conscious of how much of her best thoughts on
the subject I have failed to reproduce, and how greatly that little
treatise falls short of what would have been if she had put on paper
her entire mind on the question, or had lived to devise and improve,
as she certainly would have done, my imperfect statement of the
case.

The first of my books in which her share was conspicuous was the
"Principles of Political Economy." The "System of Logic" owed little
to her except in the minute matters of composition, in which respect
my writings both great and small have largely benefited by her
accurate and clear-sighted criticism. The chapter of the "Political
Economy" which has had a greater influence on opinion than all the
rest, that on "The Probable Future of the Laboring Classes," is
entirely due to her: in the first draft of the book, that chapter
did not exist.

She pointed out the need of a chapter, and the extreme imperfection
of the book without it: she was the cause of my writing it; and the
more general part of the chapter--the statement and discussion of
the two opposite theories respecting the proper condition of the
laboring classes--was wholly an exposition of her thoughts, often in
words taken from her own lips.

The purely scientific part of the "Political Economy" I did not
learn from her; but it was chiefly her influence that gave to the
book that general tone by which it is distinguished from all
previous expositions of "Political Economy" that had any