Introduction vii Being; it is because she is both that she needs complete freedom for development and the power to exercise all human rights, not in order to imitate man, or to do any work which he may be better fitted to do, but to enable her to do her own work, to follow her own natural impulses, and to exercise that function of Motherhood, in the wider sense of the word, which is not surpassed in import- ance by any other in the world. Certainly, such a declaration could not fail to be disconcerting to each party. Indeed it tore away the blinkers from the eyes of both the two contending parties. Their op- posing affirmations were united, and their opposing negations were dissolved in trans- parent futility. The whole question was lifted on to a higher plane. The new demands which every age must necessarily make were upheld, not at the expense of the ancient and precious traditions of the race, but by showing that they w^ere necessary in order to maintain those traditions. Surely no mean achievement rTcu^<Xc c/*—/^ X