an, was likewise the opinion of Schopenhauer, an
exceedingly strong and independent thinker. The supreme examples of
genius have indeed been furnished by men; but this is no disproof of
the opinion, that the average height and quickness of feminine
mentality are above the masculine average.

Granting, however, that women have less spiritual force than men,
they certainly have greater fineness. Their smaller volume of power
is compensated by their greater delicacy and tact, their more
sensitive moral capacity: the power of self-sacrifice is surely
higher than the power of self-assertion. The examples of queens, from
Semiramis to Domna, from Zenobia to Catherine; of philosophers and
scholars, like Theano, Hypatia, and Olympia Morata; of founders of
orders and institutions, organizers and leaders of great enterprises,
like Clara and Chantal; of actresses, like Siddons; of singers, like
Malibran; of scientists, like Somerville; of heroines, like Charlotte
Corday and Joan of Arc; of mystic prophetesses, like Kriidener; of
religious thinkers, like Sarah Hennell; of novelists, like Madame
Dudevant and Marian Evans; of artists, teachers, martyrs, saints--a
host whose faces shine on us out of history, have abundantly
vindicated for their sex, so far as force of will, intellect,
imagination, and passion is concerned, the right of eminent domain in
the whole empire of human experience. Besides, admitting the courage,
knowledge, skill, and energy of average men to be greater than those
of average women, the difference in their respective opportunities
and training would go far towards explaining it. Women, as a class,
have been excluded from a thousand lists and stimulants, under whose
influences men have been sedulously educated. And, finally, even if
we confess the hopeless inferiority of woman to man in some of the
highest departments of action, that is no reason for denying her the
chance to go as far as she can. If her mental victories must be lower
and narrower than his, still she should enjoy the stimulus of the
struggle, as one means of aiding the fulfilment of her human destiny.
Because one can do more than another, shall he compel the other to do
nothing?

When the untenableness of muscular or mental power, as a ground for
holding women in an inferior position, becomes obvious, the next
support man conceives for his exclusive appropriation of authority,
is the belief that he is exclusively the representative and
vicege