have knelt at the feet of monarchs, and individuals have sold
themselves to others under the subtle promise of "protection"--a word
that simply means release from all responsibility, all use of one's
own faculties--a word that has ever blinded people to its true
significance. Under authority and this false promise of "protection,"
self-reliance, the first incentive to freedom, has not only been lost,
but the aversion of mankind for responsibility has been fostered by
the few, whose greater bodily strength, superior intellect, or the
inherent law of self-development has impelled to active exertion.
Obedience and self-sacrifice--the virtues prescribed for subordinate
classes, and which naturally grow out of their condition--are alike
opposed to the theory of individual rights and self-government. But as
even the inertia of mankind is not proof against the internal law of
progress, certain beliefs have been inculcated, certain crimes
invented, in order to intimidate the masses. Hence, the Church made
free thought the worst of sins, and the spirit of inquiry the worst of
blasphemies; while the State proclaimed her temporal power of divine
origin, and all rebellion high treason alike to God and the king, to
be speedily and severely punished. In this union of Church and State
mankind touched the lowest depth of degradation. As late as the time
of Bunyan the chief doctrine inculcated from the pulpit was obedience
to the temporal power.

All these influences fell with crushing weight on woman; more
sensitive, helpless, and imaginative, she suffered a thousand fears
and wrongs where man did one. Lecky, in his "History of Rationalism in
Europe," shows that the vast majority of the victims of fanaticism and
witchcraft, burned, drowned, and tortured, were women. Guizot, in his
"History of Civilization," while decrying the influence of caste in
India, and deploring it as the result of barbarism, thanks God there
is no system of caste in Europe; ignoring the fact that in all its
dire and baneful effects, the caste of sex everywhere exists, creating
diverse codes of morals for men and women, diverse penalties for
crime, diverse industries, diverse religions and educational rights,
and diverse relations to the Government. Men are the Brahmins, women
the Pariahs, under our existing civilization. Herbert Spencer's
"Descriptive Sociology of England," an epitome of English history,
says: "Our laws are based on the all-sufficiency of man's