“‘No.’

    “’Did Mr. ——­’s insistence on your changing give you any
    pleasure?’

    “‘Yes’ (after a little hesitation).

    “‘Why?’

    “‘I don’t know.’

    “’Would it have done so if you had particularly wished to sit in
    that chair; if, for instance, you had had a boil on your cheek
    and wished to turn that side away from him?’

    “’No; certainly not.  The worry of thinking he was looking at it
    would have made me too cross to feel pleased.’

“Does this explain what I mean?  The occasion, by the way, need not be really important, but, as in this imaginary case of the boil, if it seems important to the woman, irritation will outweigh the physical sensation.”

I am well aware that in thus asserting a certain tendency in women to delight in suffering pain—­however careful and qualified the position I have taken—­many estimable people will cry out that I am degrading a whole sex and generally supporting the “subjection of women.”  But the day for academic discussion concerning the “subjection of women” has gone by.  The tendency I have sought to make clear is too well established by the experience of normal and typical women—­however numerous the exceptions may be—­to be called in question.  I would point out to those who would deprecate the influence of such facts in relation to social progress that nothing is gained by regarding women as simply men of smaller growth.  They are not so; they have the laws of their own nature; their development must be along their own lines, and not along masculine lines.  It is as true now as in Bacon’s day that we only learn to command nature by obeying her.  To ignore facts is to court disappointment in our measure of progress.  The particular fact with which we have here come in contact is very vital and radical, and most subtle in its influence.  It is foolish to ignore it; we must allow for its existence.  We can neither attain a sane view of life nor a sane social legislation of life unless we possess a just and accurate knowledge of the fundamental instincts upon which life is built.

FOOTNOTES: 

[61] Various mammals, carried away by the reckless fury of the sexual impulse, are apt to ill-treat their females (R.  Mueller, Sexualbiologie, p. 123).  This treatment is, however, usually only an incident of courtship, the result of excess of ardor.  “The chaffinches and saffron-finches (Fringella and Sycalis) are very rough wooers,” says A.G.  Butler (Zooelogist, 1902, p. 241); “they sing vociferously, and chase their hens violently, knocking them over in their flight, pursuing and savagely pecking them even on the ground; but when once the hens become submissive, the males change their tactics, and become for the time model husbands, feeding their wives from their crop, and assisting in rearing the young.”