Her sex has always been sacrificed to the present or to the
immediate needs of the future as represented by infancy and childhood;
and there is no special attractiveness in the prospect of exchanging a
military tyranny for a eugenic tyranny: "_plus ca change, plus c'est la
meme chose._"
One cannot say whether this will be accepted as a fair statement of the
woman's case at the present time, but I have endeavoured to state it
fairly and would reply to it that its claims are unquestionable and that
we must grant unreservedly the equal right of every woman to the same
consideration and recognition and opportunity as an individual, an end
in and for herself, whatever the future may ask for, as we grant to men.
But I seek to show in the following pages that, in reality, there is no
antagonism between the claims of the future and the present, the race
and the individual. On philosophic analysis we must see that, indeed, no
living race could come into being, much less endure, in which the
interests of individuals as individuals, and the interest of the race,
were opposed. If we imagine any such race we must imagine its
disappearance in one generation, or in a few generations if the clash of
interests were less than complete. Living Nature is not so fiendishly
contrived as has sometimes appeared to the casual eye. On the contrary,
the natural rule which we see illustrated in all species, animal or
vegetable, high or low, throughout the living world, is that the
individual is so constructed that his or her personal fulfilment of his
or her natural destiny as an individual, is precisely that which best
serves the race.
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