eling_ of the midwife for the
poor mother that saved Moses. And none but a _mother_ can, in such
cases, feel to the full and effectual extent that which the operator
ought to feel. She has been in the same state _herself_; she knows more
about the matter, except in cases of very rare occurrence, than any
_man_, however great his learning and experience, can ever know. She
knows all the previous symptoms; she can judge more correctly than man
can judge in such a case; she can put questions to the party, which a
man cannot put; the communication between the two is wholly without
reserve; the _person_ of the one is given up to the other, as completely
as her own is under her command. This never can be the case with a
man-operator; for, after all that can be said or done, the native
feeling of women, in whatever rank of life, will, in these cases,
restrain them from saying and doing, before a man, even before a
_husband_, many things which they ought to say and do. So that, perhaps,
even with regard to the bare question of comparative safety to life, the
midwife is the preferable person.

238. But safety to life is not ALL. The preservation of life is not to
be preferred to EVERY THING. Ought not a man to prefer death to the
commission of treason against his country? Ought not a man to die,
rather than save his life by the prostitution of his wife to a tyrant,
who insists upon the one or the other? Every man and every woman will
answer in the affirmative to both these questions. There are, then,
cases where people ought to submit to _certain death_. Surely, then, the
mere _chance_, the mere _possibility_ of it, ought not to outweigh the
mighty considerations on the other side; ought not to overcome that
inborn modesty, that sacred reserve as to their _persons_, which, as I
said before, is the charm of charms of the female sex, and which our
mothers, _rude_ as they are called by us, took, we may be satisfied, the
best and most effectual means of preserving.

239. But is there, after all, any thing _real_ in this _greater
security_ for the life of either mother or child? If, then, risk were so
great as to call upon women to overcome this natural repugnance to
suffer the approaches of a man, that risk must be _general_; it must
apply to _all_ women; and, further, it must, ever since the creation of
man, _always_ have so applied. Now, resorting to the employment of
_men_-operators has not been in vogue in Europe more than abou