lled by others, or such as those others do not think worthy of
their acceptance. Sufferings arising from causes of this nature
usually meet with so little sympathy, that few persons are aware of
the great amount of unhappiness even now produced by the feeling of a
wasted life. The case will be even more frequent, as increased
cultivation creates a greater and greater disproportion between the
ideas and faculties of women, and the scope which society allows to
their activity.

When we consider the positive evil caused to the disqualified half of
the human race by their disqualification--first in the loss of the
most inspiriting and elevating kind of personal enjoyment, and next
in the weariness, disappointment, and profound dissatisfaction with
life, which are so often the substitute for it; one feels that among
all the lessons which men require for carrying on the struggle
against the inevitable imperfections of their lot on earth, there is
no lesson which they more need, than not to add to the evils which
nature inflicts, by their jealous and prejudiced restrictions on one
another. Their vain fears only substitute other and worse evils for
those which they are idly apprehensive of: while every restraint on
the freedom of conduct of any of their human fellow creatures,
(otherwise than by making them responsible for any evil actually
caused by it), dries up _pro tanto_ the principal fountain of human
happiness, and leaves the species less rich, to an inappreciable
degree, in all that makes life valuable to the individual human
being.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Subjection of Women, by John Stuart Mill

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