triumphs in the victory which the other
is obliged to acquire. Hence arise the various modes of attack and
defence between the sexes; the boldness of one sex and the timidity of
the other; and in a word, that bashfulness and modesty, with which
nature hath armed the weak in order to subdue the strong."

The "soft," the "fair," the "gentle sex" learned its lesson with only
too much docility. It grew up stunted to meet the prevailing demand. It
acquired weakness, feigned ignorance, and emulated folly as sedulously
as men will labour to make at least a show of strength, good sense, and
knowledge. It adapted itself only too successfully to the economic
conditions in which it found itself. Men accepted its flatteries and
returned them with contempt. "Women," wrote that dictator of morals and
manners, Lord Chesterfield, "are only children of a larger growth.... A
man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and
flatters them, as he does a sprightly, forward child." The men of that
century valued women only as playthings. They forgot that he is the
child who wants the toy.

The first protests against this morality of degradation came, as one
would expect, from men. Demoralising as it was for men, it did at least
leave them the free use of their minds. Enquiry, reflection, scepticism,
unsuitable if not immodest in a woman, were the rights of a manly
intellect. Defoe and Swift uttered an unheeded protest in England, but
neither of them carried the subject far. There are some good critical
remarks in Helvetius about women's education; but the first man in that
century who seemed to realise the importance and scope of what several
dimly felt, was Baron Holbach, whose materialism was so peculiarly
shocking to our forefathers. A chapter "On Women" in his _Systeme
Social_ (1774) opens thus: "In all the countries of the world the lot of
women is to submit to tyranny. The savage makes a slave of his mate, and
carries his contempt for her to the point of cruelty. For the jealous
and voluptuous Asiatic, women are but the sensual instruments of his
secret pleasures.... Does the European, in spite of the apparent
deference which he affects towards women, really treat them with more
respect? While we refuse them a sensible education, while we feed their
minds with tedium and trifles, while we allow them to busy themselves
only with playthings and fashions and adornments, while we seek to
inspire them only with the taste fo