1.—“_Each sequent life shall feel her finer care_.”
“The one thing constant, the one peak that rises above all clouds, the
one window in which the light for ever burns, the one star that darkness
cannot quench, is _woman’s love_. This one fact justifies the existence
and the perpetuation of the human race. Again I say that women are
better than men; their hearts are more unreservedly given; in the web of
their lives sorrow is inextricably woven with the greatest joys;
self-sacrifice is a part of their nature, and at the behest of love and
maternity they walk willingly and joyously down to the very gates of
death. Is there nothing in this to excite the admiration, the adoration,
of a modern reformer? Are the monk and nun superior to the father and
mother?”—Robert Ingersoll (_North American Review_, Sept., 1890).
2.—“_Each heir of life a wealthier bounty share_;”
Poets and physiologists agree in these prognostications. The keen
observer, Bastian, in his treatise on archebiosis, willingly calls to
his support an equally conscientious ally, in the following passage:—
“We must battle on along the path of knowledge and of duty, trusting in
that natural progress towards a far distant future for the human race,
such as its past history may warrant us in anticipating. For, as Mr.
Wallace points out, those natural influences which have hitherto
promoted man’s progress ‘still acting on his mental organisation, must
ever lead to the more perfect adaptation of man’s higher faculties to
the conditions of surrounding nature and to the exigencies of the social
state,’ so that ‘his mental constitution may continue to advance and
improve, till the world is again inhabited by a single, nearly
homogeneous race, no individual of which will be inferior to the noblest
specimens of existing humanity.’”—Dr. H. Charlton Bastian (“The
Beginnings of Life,” Vol. II., p. 633).
3.—“_Those lives allied in equal union chaste._”
“The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of
maternity.”
—Walt Whitman (“Children of Adam”).
4.—“_A sweeter purpose, purer rapture, taste_;”
“A wife is no longer the husband’s property; and, according to modern
ideas, marriage is, or should be, a contract on the footing of perfect
equality between the sexes. The history of human marriage is the history
of a relation in which women have been gradually triumphing over the
passions, the prejudices, and the selfish interests of men.”—Edward
Westermarck (Concluding words of “The History of Human Marriage”).
7.—“_The only rivalry_ ...”
“When woman finds her proper place in legislation, it will be found
ultimately that it will be not as man’s rival, but his helpmate.”—Mabel
Collins (“On Woman’s Relation to the State”).
8.—“_How for their lineage fair still larger fate to find_.”
“Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, had the idea of making public principle
and utility predominate over private interests and affections; and on
that idea he ordained that children were not to be the property of their
parents, but of the State, which was to direct their education, and
determine their modes of life. A better idea with the legislators of the
future—_the number of whom will be equal with that of all
wholesomely-developed men and women upon the earth_—will be to take
fullest advantage of all natural instincts. The parents, their hearts
ever yearning with love for their offspring, and the community, careful
of its individual members, co-operating in placing the children under
all good influences towards that development, which, being the best for
their individual lives, will also coincide with what is best for the
general welfare. For this end, the experience of the past, and the
higher wisdom of their own times, will far better qualify them to judge
of fitting means and methods than we can now either surmise or
suggest.”—David Maxwell (“Stepping-stones to Socialism,” p. 15).