t exalted--the
Sovereign one." The minor proposition was supported by arguments which
belong to the lecture room of the anatomist. Passing in silence over
that which the lady calls the "Organic Argument," a little of that which
she terms the "Religious Argument,--wherefore, is not clear,--may be
quoted with a view to entertainment if not to profit:

"Organic Superiority is in itself proof positive of Super Organic
Superiority.... Life is the most advanced which employs, in the service
of the greatest number of powers, the most complex mechanism for the End
of Use. We are therefore prepared to find in it" [the feminine
structure] "the embodiment of a larger number of powers and higher aims
in its Use... a deeper feeling for the Ends of Use, a more abiding faith
in and loyalty to Development, as the one aim that makes life worthy of
acceptance and sweet in its passing taste, and on the other hand to see
that its failure herein is more fatal and destructive than it is in the
masculine life.... The feminine includes the masculine, transcending it
in all directions."

This is the synopsis of the major part of the argument, given in the
lady's own words; but her conclusion has a more familiar sound to our
ears. Here it is:

"The question of Rights settles itself in the true statement of
Capacities. Rights are narrowest where Capacities are fewest broadest
where they are the most numerous.... It is plain, then, as between
masculine and feminine, where the most expanded circle of Rights will be
found; and equally plain the absurdity of man, the narrower in
Capacities, assuming to define the sphere of Rights for Woman, the
broader."

Such was the trumpet-blast sent out by Miss Eliza Farnham, one of the
pioneers of the movement which took for its slogan her own cry of
"Women's Rights." The work made no stir and has long since passed to the
limbo of forgotten books, but it was undeniably suggestive and seems
worthy of being rescued, at least in name and purpose, from the oblivion
into which it passed. Absorbed in nearer if not weightier questions, the
women of that day gave scant welcome to the theories of Miss Farnham;
but the appearance of those theories, even if in rudimentary form, was
ominous, though the omen was not recognized. It was one of the first
guns of a struggle compared with which even the war which was then
raging was tame and half-hearted, and of which the end is not yet;
perhaps never will be.

For the tim