But alas for human inconsistency!  As for this inverse-ratio theory,—­this theory of virtue so exalted that it has never been known or felt or mentioned among men,—­it is to be observed that those who hold it are the first to desert it when stirred by an immediate occasion.  Just as a slaveholder, in the old times, after demonstrating to you that freedom was a curse to the negro, would instantly turn round, and inflict this greatest of all curses on some slave who had saved his life; so, I fear, would one of these philosophers, if he were profoundly impressed with any great action done by a woman, give the lie to all his theories, and celebrate her fame.  In spite of all his fine principles, if he happened to be rescued from drowning by Grace Darling, he would put her name in the newspaper; if he were tended in hospital by Clara Barton, he would sound her praise; and if his mother wrote as good letters as did Mrs. Trench, he would probably print them to the extent of five hundred pages, as the archdeacon did, and all his gospel of silence would exhale itself in a single sigh of regret in the preface.

VIRTUES IN COMMON

A young friend of mine, who was educated at one of the very best schools for girls in New York city, told me that one day her teacher requested the older girls to write out a list of virtues suitable to manly character, which they did.  A month or more later, when this occurrence was well forgotten, the same teacher bade them write out a list of womanly virtues, she making no reference to the other list.  Then she made each girl compare her lists; and they all found with surprise that there was no substantial difference between them.  The only variation, in most cases, was, that they had put in a rather vague special virtue of “manliness” in the one case, and “womanliness” in the other; a sort of miscellaneous department or “odd drawer,” apparently, in which to group all traits not easily analyzed.

The moral is that, as tested by the common sense of these young people, duty is duty, and the difference between ethics for men and ethics for women lies simply in practical applications, not in principles.

Who can deny that the philosopher Antisthenes was right when he said, “The virtues of the man and the woman are the same”?  Not the Christian, certainly; for he accepts as his highest standard the being who in all history best united the highest qualities of both sexes.  Not the metaphysician; for his analysis deals with the human mind as such, not with the mind of either sex.  Not the evolutionist; for he is accustomed to trace back qualities to their source, and cannot deny that there is in each sex at least a “survival” of every good and every bad trait.  We may say that these qualities are, or may be, or ought to be, distributed unequally between the sexes; but we cannot reasonably deny that each sex possesses a share of every quality, and that what is good in one sex is also good in the other.  Man may be the braver, and yet courage in a woman may be nobler than cowardice.  Woman may be the purer, and yet purity may be noble in a man.