t questions of government.

Is it reasonable to think that those who are fit for the greater
functions of politics, are incapable of qualifying themselves for the
less? Is there any reason in the nature of things, that the wives and
sisters of princes should, whenever called on, be found as competent
as the princes themselves to _their_ business, but that the wives and
sisters of statesmen, and administrators, and directors of companies,
and managers of public institutions, should be unable to do what is
done by their brothers and husbands? The real reason is plain enough;
it is that princesses, being more raised above the generality of men
by their rank than placed below them by their sex, have never been
taught that it was improper for them to concern themselves with
politics; but have been allowed to feel the liberal interest natural
to any cultivated human being, in the great transactions which took
place around them, and in which they might be called on to take a
part. The ladies of reigning families are the only women who are
allowed the same range of interests and freedom of development as
men; and it is precisely in their case that there is not found to be
any inferiority. Exactly where and in proportion as women's
capacities for government have been tried, in that proportion have
they been found adequate.

This fact is in accordance with the best general conclusions which
the world's imperfect experience seems as yet to suggest, concerning
the peculiar tendencies and aptitudes characteristic of women, as
women have hitherto been. I do not say, as they will continue to be;
for, as I have already said more than once, I consider it presumption
in any one to pretend to decide what women are or are not, can or
cannot be, by natural constitution. They have always hitherto been
kept, as far as regards spontaneous development, in so unnatural a
state, that their nature cannot but have been greatly distorted and
disguised; and no one can safely pronounce that if women's nature
were left to choose its direction as freely as men's, and if no
artificial bent were attempted to be given to it except that required
by the conditions of human society, and given to both sexes alike,
there would be any material difference, or perhaps any difference at
all, in the character and capacities which would unfold themselves. I
shall presently show, that even the least contestable of the
differences which now exist, are such as may ver