To Miss Grace Norton.

Jan. 13, 1870.

It seems only a little time since I was in Northampton, waiting for bright days in October to cheer an expedition to

Ashfield and the hills. But Winter and I were both out of season, the one too early and the other too late; and we settled in the valley waiting for each other — or, at least, one for the other — to depart. If Winter had any motive in the matter, it was more persistent than mine; and, my patience being exhausted, I came back to Cambridge. The weather has since been equally unseasonable in the opposite direction, and not especially favorable to recovery from a chronic cough. Time, nevertheless, even of the officinal quality, is the panacea that cures all ills; and, with the aid of the normal forces of health, it has brought me to my present state of comparative salubrity, — with weaknesses, to be sure, an abnormal liability to take colds, and an invalid feebleness of the conscience which finds sophistical excuses for negligence and indolence.

. . . There is one romantic incident, however, — one rash act of heroic adventure which I have to confess or boast of. I had the temerity, on New Year’s day, to agree to give a course of lectures on Psychology next year, beginning in September, in the new post-graduate University courses, which are to be greatly increased in number. Something like the German University lecture system is aimed at, by thus bringing out such special talents or acquirements as are to be found in a community like ours, but have hitherto been turned to no public account except unsystematically in our literature. Much that can be had only by personal intercourse between a man of learning and his audience, is lost where the press is the only medium of communication. Books and Reviews, even the “North American,” cannot create that open and generous rivalry among scholars, which makes the standard of learning so high among the Germans. Indeed, the only way in which even the demand for learned books and reviews can be made as effective with us as it is in Germany is by a similar public attitude of our writers and

scholars; by their coming, not before popular, heterogeneous audiences, but before classes. Admirable as cheapness in books and the power of the press are, yet they cannot create an interest in the subjects of the most valuable books, comparable to that which the authors of them might communicate personally. This is a value in the lecture system which cheapness in books can never supersede. It is a value which no art can cheapen; but it is a value which English and American appliances of education have simply thrown away, for the most part. Much culture and learning adorn the society of both countries, which ought in some way to be connected with public education, and chiefly by raising the standard of learning in the Universities. To these considerations the President of the College is wide awake. Nowhere else in America can a college command such assistance towards laying this foundation of a University, or creating an effective demand for one. Such is my understanding of the project in which I have rashly engaged to take part; but considering that it is only just begun, and is still in the experimental stage, proper modesty does not forbid that I should try myself by a little experiment in teaching,—with the possibility in view that I may prevail against the hosts of the enemy, and put to rout the forces which ---- and ---- and ---- still continue to command for the subjugation of the human mind.

Of course, the University will recognize no distinction of sex. The classes are composed of men and women, though up to the present time no woman has been appointed lecturer. Let us hope that the question of women’s rights will be so far advanced in this new order of things that it will be merged in the wider question of human rights in general. In fact, my sympathy with Mr. Mill’s essay on this subject was rather, as I discovered on reflection, on account of principles which apply to the condition of women, emphatically, perhaps,

but not exceptionally. I agreed with your estimate, both of the quantity and quality of woman’s influence, the power she has over unreason, — in spite of her subjection; and I think it much more estimable than that which is equally peculiar to men, though this may be a prejudice of mine. And I regarded your writing to me as if I were a woman, as a compliment second only to being treated as one of the emancipated. Still, believing as I do, that human beings generally, even children, have hitherto been much more in subjection to authority than they ought to be (both directly and indirectly, or through the sanctions of punishments and rewards); and believing that the true standard of law and morality, the true well-being of all, is defeated by laws which infringe individual tastes, preferences, or sentiments, without being required for security or for compassing any obvious or important utility; and seeing that, so far as women are treated differently from men, it is mainly in consequence of some traditional and prevailing sentiments, which are not justified by any more obvious utility than an unreasoning conservatism, — I am in general ready to protest against this present state of things and in favor of larger liberty. The true standard, utility, is the basis alike of law and liberty. It requires laws with their sanctions in some of the relations of life, and equally requires the entire absence of restraints in others, both for securing the largest amounts of the most worthy enjoyments in the present conditions of human happiness, and as affording the only possibility of experiment, change, and future improvement in them. Undoubtedly, the world has greatly improved of late, in its legal and moral codes, by rationalizing the requisitions which are made on the individual through civil and popular sanctions; but it still stands in need of improvement. And it is only because woman’s condition is less improved on the whole than man’s, that her rights need to be signalized in a special manner.

As to the degree in which women are in subjection, it is true, as you say, that “greater force of character and wider experience” have more influence than sex in determining the ruler and the ruled, in all immediate personal relations. But then men have so arranged the affairs of life that, for the most part, they or their sex have the best opportunities for acquiring these qualifications for ruling. There can be no doubt that these are acquired. At any rate, whatever may be said of the origin of force of character, whether it comes, as is most likely, from the discipline of important truths and responsibilities, or not, — still it is certain that a “wider experience” cannot be innate. No doubt, a prince is better able to rule than a peasant, and therefore has a better right; still, society is just as responsible for the peasant’s subjection, since it has made the inequality by the difference in their education. In like manner, many actual relations of inequality, in themselves proper and just, are yet founded on or grow out of arbitrary discriminations, and are in their origin unjust.

You say of American women “that their legal subjection has no perceptible effect on position or character, except among the lower classes.” But does not this exception include that (much the largest) number of women who stand most in need of protection from just laws and just public sentiments, — for whom, indeed, and not for the others, a reformation of the laws is needed? I do not think that Mr. Mill has overlooked the existence of a class, — large even in England, I suppose, but much larger with us, — who are in advance of the laws and the general sentiments of society, and are practically independent of them. Such a class justifies, indeed, his hopes, but could not have justified his silence. It was not of them or for them, but rather to them, that he spoke. But whether in reality women in America are in subjection in any important respect or not, it is certain that in the estimation of

nine-tenths of American men they not only are, but ought to be. That their subjection, however, is not of the nature of servitude, but rather of religious obligation, is a part of the arrogant opinion which springs from a sentimental estimate of “the fact of sex,” and blinds men to the truths that personality is a still greater fact; that individuals embody the ends of all social institutions; that the agent is much more than a servant and is greater than any office, and should have the right to choose his or her duties, subject only to the limitations of real abilities. The needed reform is not so much a political as a social and religious one. The sense of the solidarity of interests should not rest in a slavish sentiment, which makes the servant subordinate to that superstitious object “society,” but should be founded on a feeling of personal worth, identical with the interests of all, and, as far as possible, realizing in itself all the good which social institutions compass. Though individuals are indebted to society for the most worthy kinds, as well as for larger measures, of happiness, yet the abstraction, “society,” has not in return any rights. Individuals only have rights. Whether Max Müller is correct or not in ascribing myths to a disease of language, by which words with forgotten meanings become personal or proper names, it is certain that a thousand other more important superstitions spring from that most pernicious disease, — afflicting the maturity as well as the infancy of language, — “realism,” by which a general name becomes the name of a reality, different from the objects or the qualities which it denotes in common. It is in this way that “society” has appeared to have claims which the individuals that compose it do not have; and thus a reform in logic became necessary for the overthrow of many social and religious superstitions. In fact, the two warfares, the philosophical and the social, or the theoretical and the practical, have been carried on side by side from the days of the schoolmen; and it is not an accident, but an historical consequence, that Mr. Mill is the modern champion at once of nominalism in logic and of individualism in sociology.

It is under the rights of individuals, then, that I would place the rights of women; and it seems to me that those who agitate specially for the latter are not usually actuated by the true principle of liberty, since what they demand is not equal exemption of all persons from oppression, or at any rate arbitrary authority, but they ask an increase of the range of authority by conferring it equally on all. So far as this is really regarded as an indirect means to the end of true liberty, it may be justified; but the usual motives are, in fact, the love of power and a wish to share it, and a false notion that inequality is in itself unjust. What is properly meant by the equality which is essential to justice is only the generality, or the equal and strict applicability of its rules; but these rules may themselves consist of definitions of proper inequalities in rights and duties. An arbitrary inequality, or one which is founded on mere custom and unreasoning sentiment, will be unjust, provided, as is likely to be the case, it not only deprives individuals of powers which might be usefully exercised, but also interferes with those pursuits of happiness which belong more essentially to the individual.

The suffrage is originally based on the expedient rather than the just; though, when once acquired, it may become a right through considerations more essential to the existence and well-being of society than those of expediency. That the suffrage, as it now exists, is based on more important grounds than can be urged for any extension of it, is manifest from this consideration at least: that any important infringement of the existing right would lead to social anarchy, to something much more serious in motives and consequences than the war of words about its extension, which, so far from endangering the citizen’s security, adds rather to his entertainment.

I think, nevertheless, that the present limitation of the suffrage with us is a groundless impertinence. . . . To attempt to persuade women that the suffrage does not properly belong to their sphere may be well enough; but to take away all choice in the matter by positive enactments of law is inconsistent with the very principle of liberty. It is not, therefore, for the benefit of woman, but simply for liberty’s sake, that I would demand for her this right.