harder to determine the
social standing of women than of men. Women adapt themselves more
readily to new conditions; they acquire higher manners more quickly.
Their power of accommodation is greater than that of more clumsy man.

What to a plant are good soil, light and air, are to man healthy social
conditions, that allow him to unfold his powers. The well known saying:
"Man is what he eats," expresses the same thought, although somewhat
one-sidedly: The question is not merely what man eats; it embraces his
whole social posture, the social atmosphere in which he moves, that
promotes or stunts his physical and mental development, that affects,
favorably or unfavorably, his sense of feeling, of thought, and of
action. Every day we see people, situated in favorable material
conditions, going physically and morally to wreck, simply because,
beyond the narrower sphere of their own domestic or personal
surroundings, unfavorable circumstances of a social nature operate upon
them, and gain such overpowering ascendency that they switch them on
wrong tracks. The general conditions under which a man lives are even
of far greater importance than those of the home and the family. If the
conditions for social development are equal to both sexes, if to neither
there stand any obstacles in the way, and if the social state of society
is a healthy one, _then woman also will rise to a point of perfection in
her being, such as we can have no full conception of, such conditions
having hitherto been absent in the history of the development of the
race_. That which some women are in the meantime achieving, leaves no
doubt upon this head: these rise as high above the mass of their own sex
as the male geniuses do above the mass of theirs. Measured with the
scale usually applied to Princes, women have, on an average, displayed
greater talent than men in the ruling of States. As illustrations, let
Isabella and Blanche of Castile be quoted; Elizabeth of Hungary;
Catharine Sforza, the Duchess of Milan and Imola; Elizabeth of England;
Catharine of Russia; Maria Theresa, etc. Resting upon the fact that, in
all races and all parts of the world, women have ruled with marked
ability, even over the wildest and most turbulent hordes, Burbach makes
the statement that, _in all probability, women are fitter for politics
than men_.[132] For the rest, many a great man in history would shrink
considerably, were it only known What he owes to himself, and what to