more vivid....  But though more intense, the sympathies of women are commonly less wide than those of men.  Their imaginations individualise more, their affections are, in consequence, concentrated rather on leaders than on causes....  In politics, their enthusiasm is more naturally loyalty than patriotism.  In history, they are even more inclined than men to dwell exclusively upon biographical incidents or characteristics as distinguished from the march of general causes.”

Experience, by which alone mankind has ever learned or can learn, will show how far the characteristics enumerated by Lecky are innate and how far they have been acquired in the course of ages by certain habits of belief and education.

The securing of citizens’ rights for woman will of necessity depend on the attitude of society.  There may be numerous laws for her relief on the statute books; but if society frowns on her appearance in court, it will be only in exceptional cases that she will appeal to the courts.  To one who is familiar with the records of daily life a hundred years ago there is little doubt that conjugal infidelity on the part of the husband was more flagrant then than it is to-day; but there were infinitely fewer divorces.  The reason for this is simply that public sentiment on the subject has changed.  A century ago, a divorced woman could do nothing; the wife was exhorted to bear her husband’s faults with meekness; and the expansion of industry had not yet opened to her that opportunity of making her own living which she now possesses in a hundred ways.  Women were entirely dependent on men; and the men knew it.  To-day they are not so sure.

The old conception of woman’s position was subjection, based on mental and physical inferiority and supported by Biblical arguments.  The newer conception is that of a complement, in which neither inferiority nor superiority finds place.  The old conception was based, like every institution of the times, on fear.  Men were warned against heresy by being reminded of the tortures of hell fire; against crime by appealing to their dread of the gallows.  Between the death of Anne and the reign of George III one hundred and eighty-eight capital offences were added to the penal code; and crime at once increased to an amazing degree.  In a system that is founded on fear, when once that fear is removed—­as it inevitably will be with the growth of enlightenment—­there remains no basis of action, no incentive to good.  It has been tried for centuries and has yielded only Star Chambers and Spanish Inquisitions.  It is time that we try a new method.  An appeal to the sense of fair play, an appeal to the sense of duty and of natural affection may yield immeasurably superior results.  It has been my experience and personal observation that the standard of honour in our non-sectarian schools, where the fair play spirit is most insisted on, is vastly greater than it was in the old sectarian institutions where boys were told morning, noon, and night that they would go to hell if they did not behave.