John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

mind, open to exception.
ASSERTS EQUALITY TOO STRONGLY. 131
In the intensity of his special plead
ing on this question, he hardly avoids contradicting himself;
while he postulates a degree of equality that does not chime in
with the experience of the least biassed observers. He grants
that women are physically inferior, but seems to think that
this does not affect their mental powers. He never takes
account of the fact, that the large diversion of force for the
procreative function must give some general inferiority in all
things where that does not come in, unless women are made
on the whole much stronger than men. In an allusion to his
experience of the Independent States of India, he tells us that
in three cases out of four, if a superior instance of good
government occurs, it is in a woman s reign ;
the fallacy of proving too much.
which looks like
Without entering into an argument with him on his equality
view, I expressed my doubts as to the expediency of putting
this more strongly than people generally would be willing to
accept ; inasmuch as the equality of rights did not presuppose
absolute equality of faculties. He replied with much warmth,
contending that the day of a temporizing policy was past ;
that
it was necessary to show, not simply that the removal of
restrictions would leave things as they are, but that many
women are really capable of taking advantage of the higher
openings. And further, he urged, it was necessary to stimu
late the aspirations of women themselves, so as to obtain proofs
from experience as to what they could do.
In Sir James Stephen s work, the question of the Subjection
and the conclusions
of Women undergoes a very full handling ;
reached are of course entirely different from Mill s. This is his
remark in introducing the subject :
"
I might give in proof or illustration of this the whole of his
essay on the Subjection of Women,
a work from which I
dissent from the first sentence to the last, but which I will
consider on the present occasion only
with reference to the
particular topic of equality, and as the strongest distinct illus-