This is the final letter in the Davison-Knox exchange, where she pulls no punches.

Sir, –Mr. Knox is just as illogical as most of his sex when, after stoutly affirming that he is of the same opinion still, he, curiously enough, asserts that he fails ‘to see the reasonableness of rejecting good evidence that was ever vouchsafed to men’ (sic!), and yet himself rejects the evidence of the great anthropologist Broca (not Brocus, as he writes).

The same criticism rises to our minds when Mr. Knox argues that ‘if women are so well equipped as men in the size of brains, the average weight of a group of women ought to be equal to the average group of men’ (sic!). In this sentence his meaning and language are terribly obscure, but his argument seems to infer that he considers that brains are co-extensive with height! Is Mr. Knox so ignorant that he does not know that some of the cleverest men (and women) in the world have been the smallest in height?

In spite of all his elaborate disclaimers of the value of medical statistics, Mr. Knox seems to have been obliged to grub hard among them, and has then made the same error of allowing himself to be led off the track. As it is necessary to bring him back to the point at issue, I must briefly lay down the results arrived at: –(a) Size of brain is no proof of capacity of brain, amply shown by the fact that some of the largest and heaviest brains belong to lunatics: (b) in comparing brains, it is necessary to take all facts into consideration together: (c) quality is more important than quantity.

Now argument (a) at once takes the force out of Mr. Knox’s long list of statistics as to the greater brain weight of men, for it may, indeed, only point to their greater lunacy! Argument (b) also puts a tremendous discount on Mr. Knox’s statistics, because he has not co-ordinated all his facts: he has only taken brains relatively (1) as to height of body, (2) as to weight of body. That he makes this error wittingly is proved by his own summary of the matter, in asserting that ‘when women and men are of equal height or equal weight, the men have something like 10 per cent. More brains than the women.’ But this gives his case completely away, for if he will take as much trouble to verify his facts as he has apparently taken to get these statistics, which, as usual in anti-suffragist arguments, are only partial and misleading, he will find that a man and woman of the same height of body are never of the same weight of body; and, per contra, a man and woman of the same weight are rarely, if ever, of the same height. But it is this meretricious form of argument of which anti-suffragists are almost always guilty, forgetting that the wits of women are far too nimble to be deceived by it. And it is this fact which is constantly being attested to to-day which displays the quality of women’s brains and reasoning capacity, and which proves my arguments.

dMr. Knox, it is true, has ‘endeavoured’ very hard indeed to prove ‘the quality in the male to be superior to that of the female,’ but I am afraid that he has not managed to do it, for again and again he has allowed himself to be led away into ‘terminological inexactitudes,’ as, for example, when he asserts that reason and will are identical: and, again, when he goes out of his way to state that ‘no amount of female education can overcome the natural and fundamental distinctions of sex.’ All the way through this controversy it is I who have reminded him that ‘men are men and women are women,’ and that, therefore, it is the men who all along the line have been trying to overcome the natural and fundamental distinctions of sex by forcing women into one groove. What we suffragists are fighting for is that women, qua women, should have the same opportunities and facilities to develop that men have, qua men. The fact that Mr. Knox and his like ignore is that women are not at present free to develop as women, and it is that which is wrong. Whilst confessing that they do not understand women, men impose their ideals or limitations on women, and therefore women are as far from being what they might be naturally, as is the domestic animal from its wild progenitor. And that brings me back to the point with which I started, namely, that men will not acknowledge the common humanity of man and woman: and still keep up the error that ‘man has a sex, but woman is a sex,– [no final quotation mark]
Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley

Sir, — I am extremely obliged to Miss E. Davison for drawing my attention to the medical evidence she quoted in a recent issue, although there was no need to throw at my head the old saw, ‘Convince a man against his will, he is of the same opinion still.’ Everyone, Miss Davison, runs the risk of having this applied to him, who, after what seems to him due examination and deliberation, has come to hold a certain set of opinions, and who, with his best endeavours, does not find any opposing views and arguments, any that can outbear his own. I rest content with my position, and it seems to me the only one open under the circumstances, for I fail to see the reasonableness of rejecting sound, good evidence that was ever vouchsafed to man.

Let me admit there was good evidence to support Miss Davison’s argument: but, on the other hand, there is as good—and I think better—to uphold mine, and in all matters of discordant opinions only one side can possibly be in the right. In establishing my theory against Miss Davison’s, let me quote some figures which speak for themselves; and, if I mistake not, will be more convincing than many arguments.

It may be presumed that if women are so well equipped as men in the size of brains, the average height of a group of women ought to be equal to the average group of men. But it is not so. Whatever the size chosen for comparison, the woman’s brain is always less than the man’s. Whether the observations be made in England, France, or Germany, the results are the same. From Boyd’s figures, taken in England, there can be picked out 102 men and 113 women between 64 and 66 inches high, averaging close on 64 inches for each group. But the brains of men average 46.9 ounces, while those of the women are only 41.9 which give the men the advantage of 12 per cent. There are 21 small men whose height average 62 inches, and there are 135 women of the same height. The brains of the men weigh 45.6 ounces, those of the women only 42.9 ounces, giving the men an advantage of 6.3 per cent. From the figures which Brocus gathered in Paris, there may be selected 54 men and 23 women whose heights were 1.61 metre, the average of women, however, being nearly half and inch more than that of the men; yet their brains were 9 per cent less than the men’s, the weights being 12.13 grammes for the females and 13.29 for the males.

It makes no difference if, instead of taking equal heights we take body weight. Bischoff figures, gathered in Bonn, will give us the data. There are 91 men and 116 women whose bodies were between 30 and 39 kilogrammes. The brains of the men weighted 13.48 grammes, and those of the women 12.06, which gives the men an excess of 11 percent. There were 206 men and 125 women whose body weights lay between 40 and 49 kilogrammes. The brains of the men averaged 13.62 grammes, those of the women only 12.15. Here the men have the advantage of 12 per cent. Between 50 and 59 kilogrammes there were 148 men and 50 women. The men’s brains averaged 13.70 grammes, the women’s only 12.45. The excess is 10 per cent. In favour of the men.

Taking our stand by these figures, we can safely form the opinion that when women and men are of equal height or equal weight, the men have something like 10 per cent more brains than the women. We might go further, and compare the weight of the brain with the height of the body. In that case man has the advantage. Boyd’s figures, taken at Marylebone Hospital, shows that man has .73 ounce of brain for every inch in his height, while woman has only .70. this gives him an excess of 4 per cent. Brocus figures in Paris gives by this method an excess of 6 ½ per cent. To the male brain.

Miss Davison will admit, I hope, that I have made ample amends for my apparent neglect in dealing with the medical evidence she quoted. It may be also hoped these figures will tell for something with her, and until they have been answered by other proofs as direct, I fear Miss Davison will fail in convincing me to the contrary. We cannot but yield allegiance to honest figures and these figures have been taken in places and at different times by men whose business it was to measure and weigh without regard to the conclusions. The lesson to be drawn from them is one that leaves but little room for doubt.

In dealing thus with quantity, I have by no means forgotten quality. There are no facts—at least not to my knowledge—to be procured in reference to quality, except such as arise out of the practical experience of every-day life. The question of relative quality is, therefore, one that is a matter of speculation. I have, moreover, from every-day life, endeavoured to show the quality in the male to be superior to that of the female; but Miss Davison over-rides my arguments by saying that I am tinged with a strong bias, and therefore no true philosopher. But whatever she may say and do, the excess of 10 per cent. of brain matter is no mere trifle, and not so easily brushed aside.

I take exception to the insulting remark attributed to me by Miss Davison about American women. I only stated what had been said by great American physicians, whose testimony can be borne out by every-day experience happening in that State. Although the climate may have something to do in oppressing American females more than English women, yet it is the physiological side that is at fault, and is engaging the attention of the American doctors.

Miss Davison does not dwell long on the physiological part of this discussion, and when I refer to it she passes it by with some brief comment. For of all the pricks against which it hard to kick, the hardest are those which are presented by nature in the form of facts, as a great scientist puts it. No amount of female education can overcome the natural and fundamental distinctions of sex. Women are women, and [here a vertical marginal line] they cannot choose but be women. This, Miss Davison, is not an empirical assertion, but a plain statement of physiological fact.

I have often wondered what is the future the new women are preparing for their own branch of the human race. Would it not happen that the strongest faculties of women are such, if exercised without social restraint, will most surely estrange them, if not from the feelings, from the habits and associations of the traditional female life. What number of new women will choose to become mothers, and what at best will be the maternal qualities of women [here a vertical marginal line] for whom maternity is no longer a primary object, but a possible incident of life? Would there not be one result of female emancipation, and that is, that in its full and final attainment, not only the power of love in women, but for either sex its possibility will have passed away?

These are only musings on my part, and I do not expect them to enter into this discussion. I could not resist the temptation to place them on paper, and from man’s standpoint of view they will be accepted as very interesting and deserving to be pondered over. –Yours, etc.,

A. KNOX
Bedlington Colliery

Davison returns to her debate with A. Knox in the pages of The Morpeth Herald two weeks after his last letter. They exchange two more letters before the editor of the Herald puts an end to what has become a circular exchange, a round of “he said,” “she said.” It is worth noting, however, that Davison does have the last word in the exchange. The Morpeth Herald, Davison’s “home town” newspaper was not a supporter of her actions or of the suffrage movement in general. Suffrage news is hard to find in the weekly issues, while news of the Primrose League and of the Liberal Party men’s and women’s meetings is frequent and regular. News of Davison’s imprisonments is reported with little sympathy. But she is the one who wins the field in this debate.

November 15, 1912, To the Editor of The Morpeth Herald, “The Woman Suffrage Question”

Sir, — As I am in Wales for the moment, and did not receive the ‘Morpeth Herald’ till yesterday, I am hurrying to answer Mr. Knox’s latest effusion, trusting to be in time for your next issue.

Mr. A. Knox appears to be of the type to which the old saw ( brought aptly up to date) applies, ‘Convince a man against his will, he is of the same opinion still.’ The doctors’ or, rather, the scientists’ opinion, being too overwhelming for Mr. Knox’s empirical belief, he wisely confines himself to a mysterious hint that he could an’ he would (!) bring evidence to confute me, and unwisely shifts the ground (which he finds to be of the nature of a quagmire) to the, if anything, more insecure tenure of personal observation. Now we all know that personal observation, especially if tinged with a strong bias, is a very unreliable thing. It takes the wide-minded view of a true philosopher to make really useful criteria, and Mr. Knox is apparently no philosopher, for he refuses to face the facts.

Thus it is only that we can account for the glaring error which lies at the basis of all Mr. Knox’s special pleadings in that he seems to take it for granted that the volition and reasoning or judgment are identical functions of the brain, and form criteria of its value. These are, of course, quite distinct. Thus idiots are known to have the most intense will-power, and, indeed, it is that fact which makes them dangerous. Again, I have already mentioned that some of the heaviest brains in the world belong to idiots, all of which goes to show the futility of Mr. Knox’s arguments. It is not this or that faculty, or this or that comparison of size, which goes to prove the value of the brain. I was never maintaining that because nowadays it is a recognized fact that women have relatively equal brains, if not larger brains than men, therefore they are either equal or superior to men. If I did, I should be falling into an error, similar to that of Mr. Knox. I was merely pointing out the absurdity of making wild assumptions from special facts, and, above all, that Mother Nature (whom our anti-suffragist friends so slander and misrepresent) is so wise that even when for centuries man has sought to upset her law that man and woman, male and female, are both equally necessary, yet she has been quietly at work readjusting men’s follies.

So in his attempt to avoid one error, Mr. Knox has fallen into a greater one, the personal one. He accuses women of indecision of character and lack of will power. Why? The antitheses of these are the peculiarity of the so-called ‘new woman,’ or, as I prefer to dub her, ‘womanly woman,’ as she is beginning to realize her own possibilities. No man in his senses can seriously accuse us suffragettes of indecision or lack of will power and intensity of purpose. Again, as to the ancient bogies raised unchivalrously enough by me against the unfortunate ‘manly’ women (who are the result of men’s arrogant attempt to assume the role of creator and moulder) of hysteria and childishness, we ask a little too logically to please them, ‘a qui la faute?’ We do not hesitate nowadays to blame the parents for the faults of the children, and men have hitherto treated these women too much like children to be able to escape from a similar reproach.

Mr. Knox, who is apparently too fond of rushing into assumptions, says: ‘Miss Davison will probably tell us that, giving a woman the same education and the same social advantages as man, will enable her to rise in time to the level of men.’ Considering what women have done when held completely at a disadvantage, I sincerely believe that, given equality of opportunity (which, with all regard to Mr. Knox, is not necessarily ‘the same education’), they will, I hope, rise considerably above the present low level of men, and as a result drag the men up with them to a higher place.

As to Mr. Knox’s truly insulting remarks about American women, he is, of course, doing what he has done all along the line, making empirical assertions, which we must excuse on the ground of ignorance. In this case, for example, Mr. Knox is apparently ignorant of the important consideration of the effects of climate. It is amusing that Mr. Knox, having abandoned the evidence of the doctors when they do not suit his purpose, returns to them when convenient.

The last words of Mr. Knox prove conclusively what we suffragists (male and female) have found to be the bedrock feeling of ‘antis,’ namely, that women are not human beings equally with men, or, as I put it in one letter, they hold the fossilized theory that ‘man has a sex, but woman is a sex.’—Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley, Nov. 7, 1912

refers to “our womenfolk.”

Friday, Nov. 1, 1912, To the Editor of The Morpeth Herald, “The Woman Suffrage

Question”

Sir, –Miss Davison’s letter in your last issue will doubtless be read by many

with interest, for the opinion of a woman upon a subject which she has such

fine opportunities of judging cannot fail to command attention. She devotes

the main part of her letter to refuting the old theory that women’s brains are

smaller than men’s. Miss Davison’s contention carries with it some great names,

and is a weighty one, which not only impresses your readers with confidence,

but predisposes them to accept her arguments with something more than

acquiescence. But her weakness, as well as mine, lies in the fact that she relies

too much on doctors’ evidence, seeing that other medical authorities can be

brought to disprove it. Therefore, to the opinion I have already expressed, I still

adhere. And yet I cannot deny that if I had written in the light of the evidence

which Miss Davison has brought forward, I should have been less confident in

expressing it. For if doctors disagree, how can a poor layman be expected to

judge?

I am, however, pleased to see Miss Davison refuting the old theory

with all the evidence at her command. Let us for a moment waive all doctor’s

evidence, as it does not carry with it complete conviction, and trust a little to our

own observation. We naturally would ask ourselves that if a woman has, as Miss

Davison contends, larger brains than a man, would she not have in a greater

measure more will power? We think so: and yet it is not so. Do we not find in

the male that firm tenacity of purpose and determination to overcome obstacles

which are sadly lacking in the female mind? When a woman is urged to any

prolonged exercise of volition, the prompting cause may be found in the

emotional side of her nature; whereas, in a man, the intellectual is alone

sufficient to supply the needed motive. A similar deficiency may be noted in

close reading or studious thought. Women are usually less able to concentrate

their attention, their minds are more prone to wander, and they have not

specialized their studies or pursuits the same as man.

This comparative weakness of will is further manifested by indecision

of character. The ready firmness of decision in man is rarely to be met with in

women. It is no unusual thing to find among women indecision of character, so

habitual and pronounced, leading to timidity and diffidence in adopting almost

any line of conduct where important matters are concerned, and leaving them in

the condition of not knowing their own minds. And have we not observed that

women are almost always less under the control of the will than men, more apt

to break away from the restraint of reason, which sometimes takes the shape

of hysteria or childishness. These we recognize as feminine rather than as

masculine characteristics.

It would take too great a space to specify more of the failings of the

female; but we can draw our conclusions that where women are deficient in will

power, there must also be considered a deficiency in brain power. In justice, it

may be admitted that there are instances where women display better judgment

than men. But as a general rule that the judgment of women is inferior to that of

men has been a matter of universal recognition from the earliest times. The man

has always been regarded as the rightful lord of the woman to whom she is by

nature subject, as both mentally and physically the weaker vessel.

Miss Davison will probably tell us that giving a woman the same

education and the same social advantages as men will enable her to rise in time

to the level of man. As the movement for revolutionizing the education of women

in this country is of recent date, we are not able to speak from experience. But in

America woman has been subject for many years past to the same kind of

training as man in schools and in college. While advocates of woman suffrage

have borne favourable witness, American physicians are raising their voices in

warnings and protests. The girls have ambition: they succeed in running the

intellectual race set before them; but do they do it at the cost of their strength

and health, which often incapacitates them for the adequate performance of the

natural function of their sex. Without pretending to endorse these assertions I

may point out they are entitled to our consideration, for they come from

physicians of high popular standing, and they agree, moreover, with what

perhaps might have been feared on physiological grounds.

So long as the differences of physical power and organization between

man and woman are what they are, it does not seem possible that they should

have the same type of mental development. Women are entitled to have all

the mental culture and all the freedom necessary to their nature. But the

education, Miss Davison, should be in the development, not of manhood, but

of womanhood; so may women reach as high a grade of development as men,

though it be of a different type.

I have been told by many people who do me the honour to read me that

I under-rate women, that I do not recognize the political value and the capacity

of the fair sex. That is not so. Keeping apart from politics, I give in to no one in

respect for the virtues and commonsense which characterize our womenfolk, and

no one more clearly discerns and more ungrudgingly confesses their real merits.

–Yours, etc.,

A.KNOX

Bedlington Colliery

Suffrage Question”

Emily Davison’s reply to the preceding letter:

Sir, –I was very glad indeed when I opened the pages of your last issue to find

that Mr. A. Knox had not, as I feared, been chased from the lists, but was willing

to break another lance with me.

Mr. Knox at once plunges into the thick of the fight with what is apparently

his best lance, the differences of the male and female brain, clinging as

tenaciously to his ancient theory as did any of the upholders of the once custom-

established theory that the earth was flat, and that the sun bore to it a very

different relation to what is now known to be the case. The hoariness of theories

is, alas for Mr. Knox, no proof of their validity! So it is with this one, as Mr. Knox

can prove for himself if he will take the trouble to consult the standard authority

on this question, especially in its most recent developments, where he will find

that even so rabid an anti-suffragist as Sir James Crichton Browne is quoted on

the very point as to which Mr. Knox lays so much stress and also many other

equally, if not more, distinguished authorities.

The source to which I refer Mr. Knox is Mr. Harry Havelock Ellis in his

masterly study on Man and Woman in the ‘Contemporary Science Series,’ but it

is necessary to turn to the fourth edition, revised and enlarged in 1904, and to

the chapter ‘The Head.’

After an interesting weighing of the theories until recently held of the

superiority of the average male brain to that of the average female, and showing

their absurdity in light of comparative modern research, on page 117 Mr. Knox

will read: ‘The larger amount of brain in woman which we have found to exist

after the elimination of fallacies caused by indirect criteria of proportion is co-

related with the precocity and earlier arrest of growth in women which exists as

well for the brain as for the general proportions of the body….A relatively large

mass of brain tissue is a characteristic which women share with short people

generally and with children.’

So much for size. With regard to Mr. Knox’s further suggestions as to the

vascular supply of the brain, may I refer him to page 118, where he will find,

after a general discussion on the male and female cerebrum (which is summed

up in favour of the female cerebrum), the following passage: –‘Several

distinctions in the important matter of the vascular supply of the brain have as yet

received little attention. Sir James Crichton Browne and Dr. Sidney Martin have,

however, made a few observations. They found that the combined diameters of

the internal carotid and vertebral arteries which supply the brain taken together

are relatively to the brain mass RATHER LARGER IN WOMEN THAN IN MEN

[caps EWD]. So that women’s brains receive a proportionately larger blood

supply than men’s and would not suffer as they otherwise would from the

comparative poverty which, as we shall see later, characterizes their blood.’ The

latter part of this passage indicates the source of the error into which Mr. Knox

had quite naturally and willingly fallen, having been, as he owns, trained up in the

older school, which was the school that encouraged that comparative poverty of

feminine blood by cramping and enervating influences.

On page 119 Havelock Ellis discusses the theories of the average

cerebellum of man and woman and sums up his conclusions in the following

passage: –‘The most reliable evidence points on the whole to the cerebellum

being RELATIVELY [caps EWD] distinctly larger in women, than men, as stated

long ago by Gall [Franz-Joseph Gall] and Cuvier [George Cuvier].

Broca’s [Pierre Paul Broca] figures show that to a slight extent the

medulla and cerebellum, but especially the latter, are RELATIVELY LARGER

[caps EWD] in women. Dr. Philippe Rey, who has worked up Broca’s figures

with much elaboration, finds that with scarcely an exception all the centres below

the cerebrum are relatively larger in women.

The impartial, scientific and scholarly nature of this part of Havelock Ellis’

treatise is well displayed at the end of the chapter in the following passage on

page 122:–‘While, however, the brain is at present an unprofitable region for the

study of sexual difference, it is as we have seen an extremely instructive region

for the study of sexual equality. Men possess no relative superiority of brain-

mass: the superiority of brain-mass so far as it exists is on the woman’s side:

this, however, implies no intellectual superiority, but is merely a characteristic of

short people, and children….From the present standpoint of brain anatomy and

brain study there is no ground for attributing any superiority to one sex over

another. Broca, the greatest of French anthropologists….believed many years

ago (in 1881) that women are naturally and by cerebral organization slightly less

intelligent than men….This opinion has been very widely quoted: it is not so well

known that with riper knowledge Broca’s opinion changed, and he began to think

it was a mere matter of education…. and thought that IF LEFT TO THEIR

SPOTANEOUS IMPULSES MEN AND WOMEN WOULD TEND TO RESEMBLE

EACH OTHER, AS HAPPENS IN THE STATE.’ [caps EWD]

I would especially draw Mr. Knox’s attention to the fact that the greatest

scientists never lay down absolute theories, but that their greatness consists in

their willingness to re-adjust and even change their ideas and theories in the light

of increasing knowledge, that nowadays empirical statements are

discountenanced, and every theory put forward with caution and reservation. I

would also call his attention to the now rapidly growing feeling that men and

women are both human beings with a large field of common endeavour in the

commonwealth. The old figment, ‘that man has a sex, but woman is a sex’ is at

last making way before the forces of evolution. The ‘manly man’ is beginning to

realize that he wants a ‘womanly woman’ for his helpmate and comrade; not the

masculine product of centuries of one-sided legislation, but a human being ‘nobly

planned, to warn, to comfort and to command,’ left free to develop every side of

her nature, as nature intended.

What woman’s organization or physique will fit her to do none can tell yet,

but in the light of her success during the past half century or so in many spheres

hitherto held to be exclusively male, and that despite the fiercest opposition and

apparently insuperable obstacles we can only exclaim at the crass stupidity, the

arrant obstinacy and wicked prejudice of a world that has deliberately refused to

open an inexhaustible mine of treasure!

Mr. Knox asks me if I think that men would willingly submit to laws being

passed by women if the latter were in the majority, and in the next sentence he

reasserts the old bogey of the absolute necessity of brute force. If Mr. Knox

really thinks that brute force rules the world (save the mark!) can he doubt that

12 million men could not if necessary assert themselves against 13 million

women? If he does not, he is clearly afraid that the women are cleverer than the

men, and has a pretty opinion of human nature! But in either case, Mr. Knox is

no true democrat or believer in self-government and the rights of the people! –

Yours, etc.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

Longhorsley

This letter of Friday, October 18, 1912, in The Morpeth Herald, is Mr. A. Knox’s

after the catastrophe of the First World War.

Here is the exchange between Knox and Davison on October 18th and 25th:

October 18, 1912, To the Editor of The Morpeth Herald, “Woman Suffrage”

Sir,–I shall be grateful is you will allow me to respond to the kind and courteous

letter of Miss E. Davison. There can be but little doubt that a movement has

been initiated for the emancipation of women, and that Miss Davison is one

of its able advocates. I am almost persuaded the movement she upholds is

destined to grow, and when I take into consideration the many willing workers

who are prepared to suffer for their cause, I am led to believe the day is not far

distant when woman’s suffrage will be accepted as part of the Government’s

programme.

Miss Davison is within her rights in characterizing my arguments

as ‘antediluvian.’ They are old, but they are arguments that have lost none of

their strength by being old. If I am in error, I beg to be excused, for we men have

had drilled into us, by the medical faculty, that a woman’s brain weighed less

than a man’s and from this we were led to expect a marked inferiority in that of

the female. Although Miss Davison has taken great pains to assure us of the

contrary, yet we cannot force ourselves to accept her statement that it is an

exploded theory; neither can we take in that the quality of the grey matter in the

female is superior to that of the male. Can we do otherwise when we have the

evidence of a great authority, Sir J. Crichton Brown, before us which says that

as the result of many observations which he is now making, not only is the grey

matter or cortex of the female brain shallower than that of the male, but also

receives less than a proportional supply of blood.

Has Miss Davison ever observed that as soon as the brain has reached

its development there is a greater power of amassing knowledge on the part of

the male? The field has always been open to both sexes, yet in no department

can women be said to have approached men, save in fiction. We have

thousands of women who have [hole in page enjoyed?] a better education and

better [hole in page ] social advantages than a Robbie Burns or a Farraday, and

yet we have neither heard nor seen their work. It has been said the cause of this

is that the female mind has been unjustly dealt with in the past, and that they

cannot be expected all at once to rise to the level of man. The treatment of

women in the past is much to be regretted, but we cannot get over the fact that

this fact indicates one of the causes that go to mark the inferiority of women at

the present day. That she now has exhibited a disposition to emancipate herself

may be owing partly to the easy means of intellectual inter-communication in this

age, where a few women, who have felt the impulses of a higher aspiration, have

been enabled to co-operate in a way that it was impossible in former times and

partly to the views of a great many men, which have led to the encouragement

and assistance, instead of suppression, of their efforts.

It is quite evident Miss Davison did not give proper consideration to the

nature of women’s organization when she advocated the social status of women.

If we look the matter honestly in the face, it is apparent that woman is marked

out by nature for different positions in life, and that her organization renders it

improbable that she will succeed in running on the same lines and at the same

pace with man. Hence the necessity of woman keeping to her own sphere of life.

Supposing, Miss Davison, women had the franchise, would they imagine

that if they, being in the majority, combined to pass laws which were unwelcome

to men, the latter would quietly submit? Would they expect that men should fight

for them in war, if by a majority of votes they should determine upon war? Would

they no longer claim a privilege of sex in regard to the defence of the country by

arms? Legislation would be of little value unless there were a power behind it to

make it respected; and where would Miss Davison look for that power but only

where she could expect to find it, in the opposite sex?

The experiment of giving the women the vote will be tried some day and

may be it will not be so black as it is painted. We can only, as a great Cabinet

Minister said, ‘wait and see,’ Yours, etc.,

A. KNOX

Bedlington Colliery

Question”

The most protracted and most detailed debates Emily Davison entered into in the

Here is her first letter:

Sir, — Your correspondent, Mr. A. Knox, in a courteous letter in your last issue,

raises gently many of the favourite ‘anti’ contentions to which he evidently awaits

a reply. In the beginning of his letter, however, it is amusing how he owns that

we have a harder rock to assail [? ] in the Cabinet than in the Cabinet’s agents,

though he strikes an excellent note in the hint that we shall probably suddenly

come ‘to a triumphal conclusion.’ When Mr. Knox congratulates me on gaining a

strong advocate he is probably putting too high a value on words which are cheap

and easy compared with deeds, which are not.

But Mr. Knox comes to the gist of the matter when he asks the

question, ‘Why go to the Cabinet Ministers?,’ though probably he knows as well

as I do the answer, namely that it is the Cabinet which pro tem rules, and which

has it in its power to bring woman suffrage to pass. Mr. Knox advises that [it is]

‘not in the country, and not the House of Commons, that the work must be done.’

Here we part issue. In suffragettes’ opinion, both the House of Commons and

the country are to be made to move, and we must neglect neither. Hence, when

smashing windows, we have not confined our activities to Government glass

only, but have also paid attention to the private citizen. Whilst we are actively

bringing pressure to bear on ‘the powers that be’ for the nonce, we never forget

to educate the country itself, knowing well that though the country delegates its

power to the Cabinet for the moment, the ultimate power itself lies with the

sovereign people. Hence our tremendous constitutional programme, which runs

on side by side with the active militant campaign. Hence also, whilst we act in a

strictly legitimate way by the long-established political method of putting

questions and making pertinent interjections at public meetings(which are met by

such ‘political chivalry’ as that lately shown at Wrexham and Llanystumdwy, or

in the even more efficacious method, longer established by ancient usage and

precedent of stone throwing, quite logically aimed at the direct source of power,

the Cabinet, and the indirect source of power, the people, we have never

neglected the equally necessary political method of holding public meetings for

educational purposes.

In the next paragraph, Mr. Knox allows himself to be drawn aside by that

old ignis fatuus that the average male brain is larger than the average female

brain, and therefore that the male is cleverer than the female. In so asserting,

Mr. Knox renders himself liable to many criticisms, especially on the score

of ‘scientific basis.’ The fallacy has been so long exploded that it is strange to

see it resuscitated. It is not wise to isolate statistics from their context. Thus, for

example, Mr. Knox is ignoring the very important fact that the average man is

relatively larger and heavier than the average woman, and there have not been

wanting important scientists who assert that taking into consideration the

question of relative size, female brains are proportionately larger than male

brains. Another point of view is that even if the female brain may be smaller than

the male brain, the quality of the all-important grey matter is superior. Finally, as

to this point, it is impossible to avoid adding that the greater number of anti-

suffragists seem to have a most holy (or unholy!) terror of the superior mental

capacity of woman, for how else can we explain their dread of the absorption of

all power by the ‘female of the species’?

Mr. Knox lightly touches on another equally antediluviin [sic] ‘anti’ theory,

that women, if recognised as citizens of this country, will neglect their home

duties and what he terms woman’s sphere, apparently ignoring the fact that

women, poor souls, have never been allowed to rule, even in the sphere that is

perfunctorily called their[s], the home. Has Mr. Knox forgotten that other oft-

quoted dictum that ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle,’ where he certainly sees

to it that he rules? Let Mr. Knox reassure himself that woman suffrage is partly

the outcome of the fact that the Englishwoman intends to see that she does get

possession of her at present pseudo sphere, and means to see that the home

has a chance, but nationally as well as socially.

Mr. Knox raises the old bogey that woman suffrage means adult suffrage

forgetting that Messrs. Asquith and Lloyd George very astutely, last November,

brought in manhood suffrage to ‘torpedo’ woman suffrage. He puts what he

evidently considers a clincher in, asking ‘what would happen if we men had to

face the prospect of a woman governed country?’ Let Mr. Knox just turn the

question the other way round, and consider that for centuries women have been

groaning under a man-governed country and ask if it is not about time that the

nation consulted two heads instead of one?

Mr. Knox winds up by painting a drab picture, which has as little warrant

for its justification as has the rose-coloured view put before our eyes by some

enthusiasts who think that the millennium will arrive when women have votes.

No millennium or revolution will occur any more than it did in 1832, 1867, or in

1884, but merely a gradual education and upliftment of public opinion in the

direction of a genuine living democracy, the ideal towards which all modern

progressive minds must move, where the concern of one is the concern of all,

and where all women as well as men have a place in the sun. In that day the

problem of the child and the future of the race will have a reasonable chance of

solution, because the expert in the child will have the opportunity to make her

opinion felt and valued. This fight is not for the present only, but for all time,

Yours, etc.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

Longhorsley