to make their own way to seats in Parliament and to office by the same means as male politicians, by canvassing, stumping, wrestling with competitors in debate; and the female character would be exposed to influences entirely different from those which operated on Isabella of Castile.
Without pressing the argument against "Premiers in the family way" too far, it may safely be said that the women who would best represent their sex, and whose opinions would be worth most, would be generally excluded from public life by conjugal and maternal duty. Success with popular constituencies would probably fall to the lot, not of the grave matrons and spinsters whom Mr. Mill evidently has in view, but of dashing adventuresses, whose methods of captivating their constituents would often be by no means identical with legislative wisdom, or calculated to increase our veneration for their sex.
That high education will greatly change the female character, in a political point of view, there does not seem to be much reason to believe. The most highly educated women when they take part in public life appear still to show the distinctive features of their sex. It may be remarked that the religious education of the two sexes is already the same, yet their religious tendencies are widely different. Nor is it probable that maternity and the other leading circumstances and influences by which female character is determined being identical in all countries, nationality will be an element of much practical importance. Unless the every-day life of Englishwomen should become such as to train them for political action, it is not likely that they will be superior to French or Spanish women as politicians. Mr. Mill has treated the question as one regarding women generally, without distinction as to nationality, and in this respect he seems to be in the right.
Mr. Mill is the real father of the whole movement; the arguments of its other champions are mere reproductions of his. Whatever biased his mind, therefore, ought to be carefully noted; and again it must be said that he was possessed by an illusion—an illusion beautiful and touching, but still
