272

WOMAN IN THE FUTURE 343

INTERNATIONALITY 350

POPULATION AND OVER-POPULATION 355

CONCLUSION 372

INTRODUCTION.

We live in the age of a great social Revolution, that every day makes
further progress. A growingly powerful intellectual stir and unrest is
noticeable in all the layers of society; and the movement pushes towards
deep-reaching changes. All feel that the ground they stand on shakes. A
number of questions have risen; they occupy the attention of ever
widening circles; and discussion runs high on their solution. One of the
most important of these, one that pushes itself ever more to the fore,
is the so-called "Woman Question."

The question concerns the position that woman should occupy in our
social organism; how she may unfold her powers and faculties in all
directions, to the end that she become a complete and useful member of
human society, enjoying equal rights with all. From our view-point, this
question coincides with that other:--what shape and organization human
society must assume to the end that, in the place of oppression,
exploitation, want and misery in manifold forms, there shall be physical
and social health on the part of the individual and of society. To us,
accordingly, the Woman Question is only one of the aspects of the
general Social Question, which is now filling all heads, which is
setting all minds in motion and which, consequently, can find its final
solution only in the abolition of the existing social contradictions,
and of the evils which flow from them.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to treat the so-called Woman Question
separately. On the one hand the question, What was the former position
of woman, what is it to-day, and what will it be in the future?
concerns, in Europe at least, the larger section of society, seeing that
here the female sex constitutes the larger part of the population. On
the other hand, the prevailing notions, regarding the development that
woman has undergone in the course of centuries, correspond so little
with the facts, that light upon the subject becomes a necessity for the
understanding of the present and of the future. Indeed, a good part of
the prejudices with which the ever-growing movement is looked upon in
various circle