and so; but, as Miss Phelps says, this is
the very reason that we cannot do it; nor can we afford to be so unjust
as to make women bear the whole blame, nor so injudicious as to
criminate our society as a whole. Crime implies bad intentions, or
mistakes that result from inexcusable neglect of available knowledge.
Our bitterest enemies, the devotees of a "high-bred aristocracy," could
not charge us with the first; and as to the second, the past furnishes
no experience for our guidance. We do not know just how much work this
complex human machine is capable of doing; nor indeed do we know how to
adjust the action of the different parts, and to manage the repairs so
as to get the best possible work out of it. Some overstrain it, others
take needless trouble about the repairs. As yet the capacities of human
muscle and nerve have never been adequately tested. We are carrying the
experiments in this matter farther than they have ever gone before. We
cannot know the full strength of a cord till it is broken; but we grow
cautious when we see that the fibres are beginning to give way.

Our astonishing prosperity is due to the large total of brain-activity
that is being applied in the development of the natural resources,
industries, and social life of our nation--a total to which women as
well as men contribute, and the poorer people as well as the richer.
That they are able to make this common contribution, is due to the fact,
that we educate not only men but women, not only the rich but the poor;
that they are keenly stimulated to make it, is due to the natural
resources of the country, to the mobile conditions of society, and to
the peculiar system of educating all classes and both sexes together,
which conditions combine to afford to the various individuals, inviting
possibilities for acquiring wealth and influence. Along with this
tremendous brain activity, a very large proportion of our people are
carrying on an unusual amount of muscular activity. That is, our active
brains multiply things to be done faster than they supply us with
mechanical contrivances and organization in industry, to reduce muscular
labor.

In looking at the conditions of English life we observe:

I. Comparative repose, the absence of an exciting hope and a hurried and
worrying activity. A large part of the nation attempt to lead nothing
beyond a simple animal life, putting their entire energies into animal
force, and using this animal force for th