Part 1 of 4
BOOK ONE: MATTER -- How Man Regards and Makes Use of Woman and NatureSo this was how it looked, the determining, the crucial sky, and this was how man moved through it, remote above the dwindled earth, the concealed human life. Vulnerable life, that could scar.
-- TILLIE OLSEN, Tell Me a Riddle
MATTERIt is decided that matter is transitory and illusory like the shadows on a wall cast by firelight; that we dwell in a cave, in the cave of our flesh, which is also matter, also illusory; it is decided that what is real is outside the cave, in a light brighter than we can imagine, that matter traps us in darkness. That the idea of matter existed before matter and is more perfect, ideal.
***
Sic transit, how quickly pass, gloria mundi, the glories of this world, it is said.
***
Matter is transitory and illusory, it is said. This world is an allegory for the next. The moon is an image of the Church, which reflects Divine Light. The wind is an image of the Spirit. The sapphire resembles the number eleven, which has transgressed ten, the number of the commandments. Therefore the number eleven stands for sin.
***
It is decided that matter is passive and inert, and that all motion originates from outside matter.
That the soul is the cause of all movement in matter and that the soul was created by God: that all other movement proceeds from violent contact with other moving matter, which was first moved by God. That the spheres in perpetual movement are moved by the winds of heaven, which are moved by God, that all movement proceeds from God.
That matter is only a potential for form or a potential for movement.
It is decided that the nature of woman is passive, that she is a vessel waiting to be filled.
It is decided that the existence of God can be proved by reason and that reason exists to apprehend God and Nature.
God is unchangeable, it is said. Logos is a quality of God created in man by God and it is eternal. The soul existed before the body and will live after it.
***
"And I do not know how long anything I touch by a bodily sense will exist," the words of a saint read, "as, for instance, this sky and this land, and whatever other bodies I perceive in them. But seven and three are ten and not only now but always ... therefore ... this incorruptible truth of numbers is common to me and anyone at all who reasons."
And it is stated elsewhere that Genesis cannot be understood without a mastery of mathematics.
"He who does not know mathematics cannot know any of the other sciences," it is said again, and it is decided that all truth can be found in mathematics, that the true explanation is mathematics and fact merely evidence.
That there are three degrees of abstraction, each leading to higher truths. The scientist peels away uniqueness, revealing category; the mathematician peels away sensual fact, revealing number; the metaphysician peels away even number and reveals the fruit of pure being.
***
It is put forward that science might be able to prolong life for longer periods than might be accomplished by nature. And it is predicted:
that machines for navigation can
be made without rowers so that the
largest ships on rivers or seas will
by a single man be propelled with
greater velocity than if they were
full of men
that cars can be made to move with
out the aid of animals at an un
believable rapidity
that flying machines can be con
structed
that such things can be
made without limit
It is decided that vision takes place because of a ray of light emanating from the eye to the thing perceived.
***
It is decided that God is primordial light, shining in the darkness of first matter, giving it substantial being. It is decided that geometrical optics holds the key to all understanding.
***
It is said that the waters of the firmament separate the corporeal from the spiritual creation.
That the space above is infinite, indivisible, immutable, and is the immensity of God.
That the earth is a central sphere surrounded by concentric zones, perfect circles of air, ether and fire, containing the stars, the sun and the planets, all kept in motion by the winds of heaven. That heaven is beyond the zone of fire and that Hell is within the sphere of the earth. That Hell is beneath our feet.
***
It is stated that all bodies have a natural place, the heavy bodies tending toward the earth, the lighter toward the heavens.
***
And what is sublunary is decaying and corruptible. The earth "is so depraved and broken in all kinds of vice and abominations that it seemeth to be a place that hath received all the filthiness and purgings of all other worlds and ages," it is said.
And the air below the moon is thick and dirty, while the air above "shineth night and day of resplendour perpetual," it is said.
***
And it is decided that the angels live above the moon and aid God in the movement of celestial spheres. "The good angels," it is said, "hold cheap all the knowledge of material and temporal matters which inflates the demon with pride."
***
And the demon resides in the earth, it is decided, in Hell, under our feet.
***
It is observed that women are closer to the earth.
That women lead to man's corruption. Women are "the Devil's Gateway," it is said.***
That regarding the understanding of spiritual things, women have a different nature than men, it is observed, and it is stated that women are "intellectually like children." That women are feebler of body and mind than men, it is said: "Frailty, thy name is woman."
And it is stated that "the word woman is used to mean the lust of the flesh."
That men are moved to carnal lust when they hear or see woman, whose face is a burning wind, whose voice is a hissing serpent.***
It is decided that in birth the female provides the matter (the menstruum, the yolk) and that the male provides the form which is immaterial, and that out of this union is born the embryo.
And it is written in the scripture that out of Adam who was the first man was taken Eve, and because she was born of man he also named her: "She shall be called Woman."
And it is written in the bestiary that the cubs of the Lioness are born dead but on the third day the Lion breathes between their eyes and they wake to life.***
It is decided that Vital Heat is the source of all vital activity, that this heat emanates from God to the male of the species, and that this vital heat informs the form of the species with maleness, whereas the female is too cold to effect this change.
It is decided also that all monstrosities of birth come from a defect in the matter provided by the female, which resists the male effort to determine form.
It is decided that Vital Heat is included in semen, that it is the natural principle in the spirit and is analogous to that element in the stars.It is decided that the Vital Heat of the Sun causes spontaneous generation.
***
The discovery is made that the sun and not the earth is the center of the universe. And the one who discovers this writes:
"In the middle of all sits Sun enthroned. In this most beautiful temple could we place this luminary in any better position from which he can illuminate the whole at once? He is rightly called the Lamp, the Mind, the Ruler of the Universe; Hermes Trismegistus names him the visible God, Sophocles' Electra calls him the All-Seeing. So the Sun sits as upon a royal throne ruling his children the planets which circle round him.... Meanwhile the earth conceives by the Sun, and becomes pregnant with an annual rebirth."
And it is decided that the Sun is God the Father, the stars God the Son, and the ethereal medium the Holy Ghost.***
Mutability on the earth, it is said, came to the Garden of Eden after the Fall. That before the Fall there was immortal bliss on earth, but that after the Fall "all things decay in time and to their end do draw."
***
That the face of the earth is a record of man's sin. That the height of mountains, the depth of valleys, the sites of great boulders, craters, seas, bodies of land, lakes and rivers, the shapes of rocks, cliffs, all were formed by the deluge, which was God's punishment for sin.***
"The world is the Devil and the Devil is the world," it is said.And of the fact that women are the Devil's Gateway it is observed that sin and afterward death came into the world because Eve consorted with the devil in the body of a serpent.
That the power of the devil lies in the privy parts of men.
That women act as the devil's agent and use flesh as bait.
That women under the power of the devil meet with him secretly, in the woods (in the wilderness), at night. That they kiss him on the anus. That they offer him pitch-black candles, which he lights with a fart. That they anoint themselves with his urine. That they dance back to back together and feast on food that would nauseate "the most ravenously hungry stomach." That a mass is held, with a naked woman's body as an altar, feces, urine and menstrual blood upon her ass. That the devil copulates with all the women in this orgy, in this ritual.That these women are witches.
That "Lucifer before his Fall, as an archangel, was a clear body, composed of the purest and brightest air, but that after his Fall he was veiled with a grosser substance and took a new form of dark and thick air."
That "virgin's urine is quite unclouded, bright and thin, and almost lemon color," whereas "the urine of the woman who has lost her virginity is very muddy and never bright or clear...."***
And that though it is written that there is no wickedness to compare to the wickedness of a woman, it is also written that good women have brought "beatitude to men, saved nations, lands and cities," and that "Blessed is the man who has a virtuous wife, for the number of his days shall be doubled."
And that a virtuous wife is one who obeys her husband, as the Church obeys Christ.
And it is said that there are certain woods which exist free from the "penalty of Adam," where there are "tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything."***
It is now discovered that the celestial substance, like the substance of the earth, is mutable.
And it is decided that though the celestial substance is mutable, yet immutable laws govern all mutability, and that the invariability of God's will can be deduced from the perfection of His laws which rule the natural world.
It is posited that the spaces between the planetary orbits each correspond to Euclid's five perfect solids: that from Saturn to Mercury each corresponds to a cube, a tetrahedron, a dodecahedron, an icosahedron and an octahedron.
For this reason it is said that there are only six planets and that there could be only six planets (no more and no less).***
It is announced that the music of the spheres may be discovered through mathematical laws.
The cause of the universe, it is said, lies in mathematical harmony, which exists in the mind of the creator.***
It is said that all shapes, celestial and terrestrial, are in reality geometrical shapes.A compass is devised and a set of rules drawn for reducing the irregular to the regular and for simplifying a combination of regular shapes to a single figure.
It is argued that the heliocentric system, since it requires only thirty-four epicycles (as opposed to the eighty required by the geocentric system), is more simple and that therefore it must be true.***
It is said, "Nature doth not that by many things which can be done by a few."
That "Nature is not redundant."
That "Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes."
''Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye," it is said.***
(And extravagance and excess are seen to be apparent in women: women have the defect of "inordinate affections and passions" it is written and women's sorrows are "either too extreme or not to be believed" it is said and
"women being moved to anger" are "more envious than a serpent, more malicious than a tyrant, more deceitful than the devil," and of women's wrath it is said they "are made of blood," and of women's mind it is said that it "shifts oft like the inconstant wind," and it is said that
"all witchcraft comes from carnal lust which is in women insatiable.")And it is said that all sin originated in the flesh of the body of a woman and lives in her body. (And the old text reads that Christ was born of a Virgin in order that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same manner in which it had originated. )
And we are reminded that we have brought death into the world.***
Now it is disputed and then it is made clear that angels do not possess bodies but only assume them. That they do not occupy any point in space but are virtually present and operating at that point.
And from this some suppose that angels are thin.
And it is wondered how thin angels are (and how many angels could occupy, at one time, the space on the head of a pin).***
And it is said that nature can be understood only by reduction, that only by reducing her to numbers does she become clear.
That without mathematics "one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth."
It is decided that that which cannot be measured and reduced to number is not real.
It is questioned whether or not motion is real.It is discovered that motion can be measured by measuring the space through which movement moves and the time in which the moving takes place.
It is decided that motion is real.
***
(But it is said again that all motion came originally from God and that God has given the universe a fixed quantity of movement.)
It is decided that all motion results from bodies acting directly on other bodies, that one body cannot affect another at a distance.
And it is stated that all matter is made up of smaller particles of matter, whose motions determine the appearance of the universe. That God alone sees things as they are, that He sees the particles directly. That if anyone were to know the position of all the particles at any given time he could predict the future.
***
It is said that the sensation of color is produced by the action of these particles on the retina of the eye. That the particles are real but that the sensation they produce is not.
That color is not real. Odor is not real. Dreams not real. Pleasure and pain not real. Nor nightmares. Nor chamber music.***
And of the difference of women from men it is said that women are more sensual than they.
It is said that women exist for pleasure."How fair and pleasant art thou, O love, for thy delights," it is written.
***
The human mind, it is written, was made by God to understand "not whatever you please, but quantity."
"For what is there in the human mind besides figures and magnitudes?" it is asked.
***
And it is seen that the senses are deceptive. And the ancient texts reveal that of understanding there are two kinds: one authentic and the other bastard, and
sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are all bastard understandings.And it is said that women are the fountain, the flood and the very root of deception, falsity and lies.Woman, for instance, was formed from a defective rib of man's breast, it is said, which was bent contrary to him, and so therefore it is in woman's nature to deceive.
And it is advised that if one would follow a woman to her dressing room one might discover the truth. Beneath her paint, her wigs, her jewels, her robes, is a monstrous creature so odious and ugly that one finds there "Serpents rather than saints."***
It is ascertained that sensations are confused thoughts and that imagination and memory because they derive from sensation should be distrusted.
The word "hysterical" is taken from the word hyster, meaning womb, because it is observed that the womb is the seat of the emotions (and women are more emotional than men).
That crying is womanish, it is observed, and that dramatic poetry, since it causes crying, ought to be avoided, that it "has a most formidable power of corrupting even men of high character."***
And it is written that women have the defect of "inordinate affections and passions" and over-lively imaginations, and for this reason young girls should not be taught Italian and Spanish, since books written in both those languages have a "dangerous effect" on women.
And it is cautioned that husbands should not counsel with their wives nor allow them to see their accounting books.
Those
"Who, moving others are themselves as stone
Unmoved, cold and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense"
it is written.
And it is also written that woman "is not fully the master of herself" and that "only one woman in thousands has been endowed with the God-given aptitude to live in chastity and virginity."
[url]And the old texts read that where there is death there too is sexual coupling and where there is no death there is no sexual coupling either.[/url]
And it is decided that God does not die.
It is decided that God is the maker but that he has no hands. It is decided that He created Harmony and Beauty but that He has no ears, no eyes. That He is not corporeal nor is He matter, but He is ultimate reality. That he exists absolutely and infinitely. That he is dependent on no other being. That He was not born. That He has no mother. He is the Father. He will not die.***
And it is said that God is a mathematician. That the human mind understands some propositions in geometry and arithmetic but that in "these the Divine Wisdom knows infinitely more propositions because It knows them all."
That God has allowed us to see "by creating us after His own image so that we could share in his own thoughts."
Cogito, I think, ergo, therefore, sum, I am, it is said.
***
And it is written that "not the woman but the man is the image of God."
And that "the image of God is in man and it is one." That "Women were drawn from man, who has God's jurisdiction as if he were God's vicar, because he has the image of the one God."
That as God is the principle of the universe so is man, in likeness to God, the principle of the human race.***
It is decided that the minds of women are defective. That the fibers of the brain are weak. That because women menstruate regularly the supply of blood to the brain is weakened.All abstract knowledge, all knowledge which is dry, it is cautioned, must be abandoned to the laborious and solid mind of man. "For this reason," it is further reasoned, "women will never learn geometry."
There is a controversy over whether or not women should be taught arithmetic.
To a woman who owns a telescope it is suggested that she rid herself of it, that she "stop trying to find out what's happening on the moon."***
It is decided that matter cannot know matter.
That matter "is but a brute thing and only capable of local motion." That matter has no intellect and no perception.
And it is stated that nature should be approached only through reason.1382 Thomas Brawardine in Treatise on the Proportions of Velocities in Moving Bodies proposes a mathematical law of dynamics universally valid for all changes in velocity.
1431 Joan of Arc, aged 22, "placed high on the fire so the flames would reach her slowly," dies.
(She is asked why she wears male costume.)
1468 The Pope defines witchcraft as crimen exceptum, removing all legal limit to torture.
1482 Leonardo da Vinci moves to Milan, and begins his notebooks on hydraulics, mechanics, anatomy; he paints Madonna of the Rocks.
(Does she see the body of St. Michael, they ask her? Did he come to her naked?)
1523 One thousand witches burn in a single year in the diocese of Como.
1543 Vesalius publishes De Humani Corporis Fabrica.
1543 Copernicus publishes De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.
(She is asked if she is in a state of grace. She is asked if St. Margaret speaks English.)
1571 Johannes Kepler born.
1572 Augustus the Pious issues Consultationes Saxionicae, stating that a good witch must be burned because she has made a pact with the devil.
(She confesses that she falsely pretended to have revelations from God and his angels, from St. Catherine and St. Margaret.)
1585 Witch burnings in two villages leave one female inhabitant each.1589 Francis Bacon is made clerk of the Star Chamber.
(He says that nature herself must be examined.)
1581-1591 Nine hundred burned in Lorraine.
(That nature must be bound into service, he persuades.)
1600 Gilbert's De Magnete published.
1603 William Harvey assists at the examination of the witches.
1609 Galileo, on hearing a rumor of the invention of a glass magnifying distant objects, constructs a telescope.
(It is urged that nature must be hounded in her wanderings before one can lead her and drive her.)1609 Kepler publishes Astronomia Nova.
1609 The whole population of Navarre is declared witches.(He says that the earth should be put on the rack and tortured for her secrets.)1615 William Harvey lectures on the circulation of the blood at the Royal College of Physicians.
1619 Kepler publishes his third law, De Harmonice Mundi.
1619 The first black slaves are introduced in America.
(She is asked if she signed the devil's book.
She is asked if the devil had a body.
She is asked whom she chose to be an incubus.)1622 Francis Bacon publishes Natural and Experimental History for the Foundation of Philosophy.
1622-1623 Johann George II, Prince Bishop, builds a house for the trying of witches at Bamberg, where six hundred burn.
1628 One hundred fifty-eight burned at Wurzburg.
1637 Descartes publishes Discours de la Methode.
(She is asked what oath she made. What finger she was forced to raise. Where she made a union with her incubus. What food she ate at the sabbat. What music was played, what dances were danced. What devil's marks were on her body. Who were the children on whom she cast spells; what animals she bewitched. How she was able to fly through the air.)
1638 Galileo publishes Two New Sciences.
1640 Carbon dioxide obtained by Helmont.
1644 Descartes publishes Principia Philosophiae.
1670 Rouen witch trials.
1687 Newton publishes Principia.
(She confesses that every Monday the devil lay with her for fornication. She confesses that when he copulated with her she felt intense pain.)
(She confesses that after having intercourse with the devil she married her daughter to him.)1666 Newton procures "a triangular glass prism to try the celebrated phenomena of colors."
1704 Newton publishes Opticks.
1717 Halley reveals that the world is adrift in a star swirl.
1738 Dean of Faculty of Law at Rostock demands that witches be extirpated by fire and sword.
1745 Witch trial at Lyon, five sentenced to death.
1749 Sister Maria Renata executed and burned.
1775 Anna Maria Schnagel executed for witchcraft.
(She confesses she passed through the keyhole of a door. That she became a cat and then a horse. She confesses she made a pact with the devil, that she asked for the devil's help.)
(We confess we were carried through the air in a moment.)
And it is stated that the rational soul, which is immaterial, bears the image of its divine maker, has will, is endowed with intellect and is more noble and more valuable of being than "the whole corporeal world."That Adam is soul and Eve is flesh.
***
It is argued now that animals do not think. That animals move automatically like machines. That passion in animals is more violent because it is not accompanied by thought. That our own bodies are distinguished from machines only by "a mind which thinks without reference to any passion."***
And it is further argued that if animals could think, they might have immortal souls.
But it becomes obvious that animals do not have immortal souls (and cannot think), since if one animal had an immortal soul, all might, and that "there are many of them too imperfect to make it possible to believe it of them, such as oysters, sponges, etc."
And it is said that the souls of women are small.
***
It is decided that matter is dead.
That the universe acts as a machine which can be described by describing the actions of particles of matter upon other particles according to immutable mechanical laws.
That the secret of the universe may be revealed only through understanding how it works. That behind the material "how" may lie the first cause, which is immaterial.
That the particular (like the parts of a machine) may be understood without reference to the whole.
That the "celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism but rather to clockwork."
And it is discovered:
That the weights of two bodies are proportional to their masses.
That every body perseveres in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except as compelled to change that state by impressed forces.
That change of motion is proportional to the moving force impressed and takes place in the direction of the straight line in which such force is impressed.
That reaction is always equal and opposite to action.
Inertia is named.
And it is said that the maker of the universe was skilled in mechanics.
And it is discovered of light that the sines of the angles of refraction and incidence bear a true ratio and it is argued "was the eye contrived without skill in optics?"
And it is discovered that the heart circulates the blood through the body like a hydraulic pump.
And it is said that just as a king is the foundation of a kingdom, so the "heart of animals is the foundation of their life, the sovereign of everything within them, the sun of their microcosm, that upon which all growth depends, from which all power proceeds."
And it is decided that the moment of death occurs at the moment when the heart stops beating.
And it is determined that air has weight. That its volume is proportional inversely to its pressure.
That a heavy weight and a light weight falling reach the ground simultaneously.
That God is skilled in gravity.
And the parabola is discovered as a result of continuous horizontal movement and inexorable gravity.
And the ellipse is discovered to be the path of the planets.
Everything in the universe, it is perceived, moves according to the same laws: the earth, the moon, the wind, the rain, blood, atoms.
***
And it is asserted that God constructed his clock to run autonomously. And it is argued whether or not God fixes his clock.
And it is stated that God does not learn. That God knows everything. That God made the laws of the universe and that there is nothing He cannot do. That He created natural law but that He is above natural law and need not obey it.
Yet it is finally agreed that God does not speak to us. (God has no mouth.) That God does not respond to our prayers. (He has no ears.) That God knows everything but He does not choose to respond.
***
And it is decided that what makes God divine is his power.
That "a God without dominion ... is nothing but Fate and Nature,"
That we adore God for his power.
And Eve is said to have said to Adam:My author and Disposer, what thou bidst
Unargu'd I obey; so God ordains
God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.
And it is written in the law that "Women should be subject to their men."
And we learn
And it is advised that women not be allowed to teach nor should they baptize. That "even the Virgin Mary" was not allowed to baptize.
that our speech is unholy
And it is stated that nature should be approached only through reason, that one should be taught by nature "not in the character of a pupil who agrees to everything the master likes, but as an appointed judge, who compels the witness to answer the question which he himself proposes."(And it is written that women, on discovering that they have ovaries, are liable to become arrogant through this knowledge.)
And we seek dumbness
And it is decided that human knowledge and human power are one, That "in the womb of nature" are "many secrets of excellent use."
And it is written that "it is annoying and impossible to suffer proud women, because in general Nature has given men proud and high spirits, while it has made women humble in character and submissive...."We practice muteness
***
And it is written that in the inferior world of brutes and vegetables man was created to act as the viceroy of the great God of heaven and earth, and that he should then name the brutes and the vegetables. For there is power in words, it is said, and it is put forward that by knowing the names of natural things, man can command them, that he who calls the creatures by their true names has power over them.(Thus it is decided that earth shall be called land; trees, timber; animals to be called hunted, to be called domesticated; her body to be named hair, to be named skin, to be called breast, vulva, clitoris, to be named womb.)
***
And it is pointed out that man fell at one and the same time from both innocence and dominion, and it is promised that while faith will restore innocence, science can restore dominion.
By "knowing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens and all other bodies that surround us," it is declared, "men can be the masters and possessors of nature."
And so then it is predicted that life will be prolonged, youth restored, age retarded, and incurable disease cured, and pain mitigated, and one body transformed to another, new species created, new instruments of destruction, such as poisons, invented, the time of germination accelerated, composts for the earth fabricated, new foods fabricated, new threads made, paper, glass, artificial minerals and cements, and that there will be means to convey sounds great distances over lines, stronger and more violent engines of war, and that men will fly in the air, and go under water in great ships.
***
And now the nature of time and of space is wondered at, and it is said that there are two spaces, one vulgar, changeable, relative, the other absolute, changeless, eternal. And that absolute space is the mind of God, it is suggested. (And it is cautioned that the vulgar know only vulgar space.)
***
Such a thing, therefore, as absolute motion is said to exist in absolute space. And time flows universally, it is said, and always will.
***
But "Man has been but a few years dweller on the earth," it is reflected, and it is put forward that the life of the earth like the life of man is short.
The changes to be seen on the surface of the earth, it is stated, took place swiftly and violently. That this earth was formed not by one cataclysm, but by cataclysm following cataclysm, each the sign of God's will, each marking the end of one age and the beginning of another.
And the marks of these ages can be traced in the strata of rocks holding imprints from the bodies of perished animals and perished plants, it is shown, and it is declared that all the boulders, even enormous fragments from the Alps, were rolled by the sea in one great tidal wave which spread over the splintered valleys. And the chains of mountains, it is said, were made by violent upheavals of the earth, sand, stone. That because of this violence, no life persisted from one age to another. (And the only link between the species is in the mind of God.)
And the sun will soon burn itself out.
It is decided that man is the last of a series of species made according to a plan by which the whole animal kingdom was constructed.
(Yet it is said that the appearance of man was "a geological event of vast importance ... utterly unaccounted for by ... the laws of nature.")
"There is in this universe a stair," it is declared.
And woman is "the idlest part of God's Creation," it is said.(And it is sung that only slaves love women, for the love of women is dangerous, and to drudge in "fair Aurelia's womb" is to find death.)
(And the theory is held that savage races have fallen through sin from civilization, that the further removed from the Garden of Eden, the more animalized is a race of people.)
All nature, it is said, has been designed to benefit man. That coal has been placed closer to the surface of the earth for his use. That animals run on four feet because it makes them better beasts of burden. That teeth were created for chewing, and that women "exist solely for the propagation of the race."
That nature has made it natural for a woman to seek only to be a good wife and mother, and "nature's darling" woman stays at home, it is pointed out. (Yet the woman who neglects her home is unnatural, it is observed, "a monster more horrible than Frankenstein." That since nature has closed the avenues of intellectual distinction to women, it is reasoned, education for the female is unnatural.)***
"Nature is the art of God," it is declared.
(And it is decided to name all the species. That in naming, man is given a glimpse into the secret cabinet of God. And so all the species are named according to their sexual parts.)
***
And we are assured that we have no reason to fear being overlooked or neglected by this artful creator since he takes extreme care even in so small and insignificant a detail of creation as the hinges of an earwig.
But still, the motives of the creator are questioned regarding the creation of rudimentary organs, and it is debated whether or not any malevolence came to play in the making of parasites.***
And now there is doubt. For it is postulated that in the rocks of the earth, it is discovered that there is no evidence for a beginning or an end to time here. And it is slowly realized that not cataclysms but wind shaped stone, that water drops indeed wear granite away, that water can carry soil and make mountains, that water passes from land to sea to land, that as the earth is worn away it is built again, and finally it is agreed that "nature lives in motion."
***
And now in the "traces of vanished limbs, soldered wing cases and buried teeth," secrets are revealed and facts discovered which "undermine the stability of the species."
And that God made each living thing is questioned.
For instance, it is observed that teeth appear in situations where they do not bite, wings where they do not fly. (That ducks use wings as paddles, penguins as fins, and the ostrich spreads its plumes like sails to the breeze.) And the passage by which nature joins the lizard to the snake is now observed.
That each species was not fashioned separately by God, it is concluded, and the species are not immutable.
(And of this, it is put forward that "it is derogatory that the Creator ... should have created each of the myriad of creeping parasites and slimy worms which have swarmed ... this globe.")
***
That animals originated not from the ark but in the environment in which they live now by modification from earlier forms, it is now clear, and it is said that species form species and nature makes nature.
***
Thus it is implied that there are species which once existed and exist no longer, which are extinct, and the bones of animals no longer living in the pampas are said to be akin to the bones of llamas now alive there.
(And in 1852 the last spectacled cormorant is seen.)
Still, it is testified that this evolution reveals an "immanent purpose to perfect the creation" and that animals are diverted from reaching perfection by the mutability of the world.
(And it is wondered if the orang-utan might have been diverted from perfection by the wilderness.)
***
Yet the possibility is entertained that nature evolves species without design, and there are those who reason that the forces of nature are blind, that they are blind will, without reflection or morality. That this will is a will to live and infects all natural forms, from the growth of plants to the drive for mating, and the hunger for food in animals and man.
Yes, nature is merciless and insatiable, it is said, red in tooth and claw, it is written.
(And it is also written that nature lives and breathes by crime. Hungers at her pores for bloodshed. Aches in her nerves for sin. Yearns for cruelty. That she kindles death out of life, and feeds with fresh blood the innumerable and insatiable mouths suckled at her milkless breast. That she takes pain to sharpen her pleasure. That she stabs, poisons, crushes and corrodes. That nature is weary of life. That her eyes are sick of seeing, her ears heavy with hearing. That she is burned up with creation. That she labors in the desire for death.)
And it is stated that woman's nature is more natural than man's, that she is genuine with the "cunning suppleness of a beast of prey," the tiger's claw under the glove, the naivete of her egoism, her uneducability and inner wildness.And the scope and movement of her desires and virtues are said to be incomprehensible.
And we learn to be afraid
("Woman! The very name's a crime," it is written.)
of our nature
***
That opposed to the will is idea. That idea negates nature.
And it is made clear that the evolution of the brain and hence the ability to reason set man apart from the other animals, and gave him the control over his own evolution.
That only through reason can one refuse to be a slave to nature.***
And it is stated that "the genitals are the real focus of the will and consequently, the opposite pole of the brain."
And that the organs compete with one another for a supply of blood.
***
It is recorded that woman's generative organs exercise a strange power over her heart, her mind and her soul.
That woman is what she is in character, charm, body, mind and soul because of her womb alone.
(That after menopause a woman is "degraded to the level of a being who has no further duty to perform in this world.") That woman is a natal mechanism.
Thus it is advised that too much mental activity can cause an "ovarian neuralgia," during which neither the brain nor the womb receives enough blood.
That the thinking woman, by "deflecting blood to the brain from the generative organs ... lost touch with the sacred primitive rhythms that bound her to the deepest law of the cosmos."(And the young man who would develop his intellect and his physique is cautioned to avoid as far as possible all loss of sexual fluid.)
***
For the good of the human race it is prescribed that girls complete their education by the age of sixteen or seventeen and then marry. Higher education, it is said, will render a defective development of the sexual organs.
(And it is suggested that higher education had already caused the reduced size of the pelvis in women.)Woman's greatest achievement, it is declared, is to be the mother of a great man.
***
1735, Linnaeus names the plants and animals in Systema Naturae. 1762, Rousseau publishes Contrat Social and Emile. 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 1798, Victor, the wild child of Aveyron, an uncivilized boy with the behavior of an animal, is captured by three sportsmen in the woods of Caune. 1812, Cuvier publishes Recherches sur les Ossements Fossiles de Quadrupedes. 1835, the Beagle reaches the Galapagos archipelago. 1845, Dr. Sims invents the speculum. 1848, Revolution in France. 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels distribute the Communist Manifesto. 1848, Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls. 1853, Dr. L. P. Burnham performs the first successful hysterectomy in America. 1856, Bessemer turns out the first ton of cast iron steel from his converter.
***
Through evolution, "All corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection," it is written.
"The brain stands vertically poised on the summit of the backbone, Beyond there is no further progress."
And it is observed that woman is less evolved than man. Men and women differ as much, it is observed, as plants and animals do. And men and animals correspond just as women and plants correspond, for women develop more placidly, like plants, and have an "indeterminant unity of feeling."That her evolution resulted in a higher and shriller voice, a smaller larynx, fewer red corpuscles and a less complex nervous system.
Our voices diminish
(That the later development of the abbreviated foot in women must have been a throwback, since the short foot is clearly "unworthy of a noble animal.")We become less
And it is observed that the woman's brain mass is smaller.
We become less
That lacking in reason and morality, women are a kind of middle step between the child and the man, who is the true human being.
And they say that muteness is natural in us(That in the womb the fetus goes through all the stages of human evolution.)
That mentally women are prostrate before the male sex.
That indeed the thoughts of women (and "the inferior races") are said to be filled with special and personal experience but not with general truths. And it is pointed out that neither women, nor those of the "lower races," are able to abstract ideas from concrete cases."Science offends the modesty of all real women," it is written. "It makes them feel as if one wanted to peep under their skin -- yet, worse, under their dress and finery."
And it is stated that abstract thought causes physical pain in women, that their incapacity for intellectual thought is a secondary sexual characteristic.(That the female organism transmits instincts, habits and intuition, and those features of the species established by heredity, to her offspring.)
(That "the male of the species has centralized in himself most of the activities independent of the sexual motor.")
That men "undergo . .. a severe struggle in order to maintain themselves and their families" and that this struggle may increase their intelligence and hence "an inequality between the sexes," it is written.***
1859, Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species. 1864, Navaho tribe forced from the Canyon de Chelly by the U.S. military and marched to a reservation. 1864, Contagious Disease Act in England requires all women suspected of prostitution to register as such. 1872, Married Women's Property Act, giving married women the right to own property, repealed. 1872, Alexandre de Lodyguine makes lamps with short, straight carbon filaments. 1872, Battey performs the first clitoridectomy in America. 1894, at the official academy of art in London, women are finally admitted to life drawing classes, but only when the model is partially draped. 1913, Emmeline Pankhurst's first hunger and thirst strike at Holloway Prison.
And it is said that without the male, "civilization would be impossible."That mankind has evolved away from the bestial and closer to the angel
Arise and fly
The reeling fawn, the sensual feast
It is declared
move upward, working out the beast
And let the ape and tiger die.
That all animals are merely fetal stages of man, it is decided.
And striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form
it is sung.
***
It is declared then that man is an animal, and he is the most perfect animal.
That according to the laws of survival, a creature wills himself and his species to perfection.
(''What was her womanhood," it is written, "that it could stand against the energy of his manly will.")
That "the stronger and the better equipped ... eat the weaker and ... the larger species devour the smaller."
And it is stated that if women were not meant to be dominated by men, they would not have been created weaker.
(That woman is as far from man as man is from the forest monkeys, it is reflected.)That the able survive
As for instance the wolf who is the swiftest and the slimmest.
That nature has selected this wolf and his offspring to live.
That stags have horns and cocks spurs
Because among males it is always the victor who is allowed to breed.
That the species are shaped by death.
***
It is said that the world (outside the home) is a "vast wilderness."
And that man goes naked and alone into this world, where he is surrounded by savages.
That he is subjected to "a rage of competitive battle."
That the whirl and contact with the world is the inheritance of his sex.
***
(And therefore it is suggested that sons be raised with bodily constitutions possessing extraordinary powers of endurance. That the young man must be constantly seeking manly thoughts to feed his mind. That in his education he must sacrifice some of the delights of culture in order to fit himself for competition.)***
On the other hand, it is said that woman's place is in the home.
That in evolution woman missed the powerful intellectual stimulus competition creates among men.
(That as the male brain became increasingly larger than that of the female, so men began to dominate human society.)***
Women are the weaker sex, it is said, and therefore those women have survived who best succeeded in pleasing men.
And that because of this weakness, nature has made woman a better liar, "For, as nature has endowed the lion with claw and fang, elephant and boar with tusks, the bull with horns and the jellyfish with obscuring liquid -- in the same way she has endowed women with deceit."
(That those women who betrayed anger at ill treatment from the male were less likely to survive than those who could conceal their anger.)
(That indeed nature has provided men with beards so that they might conceal their emotions, but that women, being naturally deceptive, have no beards.)
And it is postulated that those women skilled in intuition survived, since a woman able to detect instantly a rising passion in her savage husband would be more likely to escape danger from him.
(That girls should emphasize culture in their educations, it is suggested.)And it is said that nature endows woman with a superabundant beauty so that she might attract a male, but that this beauty vanishes after she has bred one or two children, just as the ant loses her wings after fertilization.
***
And it is warned that men do not like and would not seek to mate with an independent factor.
That society can be thankful that neither the emancipated woman nor the prostitute propagates her own kind.
It is decided that the ovum is passive and the sperm is adventurous.That in sperm is the concentrated power of man's perfect being,
Totus homo semen est, it is said.
That runts, feeble infants and girls are produced by debilitated sperm.That the sperm functions to vitalize the ovum.
That the ovum transmits instinct, habits, intuition and laws of conduct.
And that the sperm is the means by which the newer variations of nature are implanted in the conservative ovum.
We are nature, we are told
***
(That the male mind, just as the male organism creates variation, has the power of discovering new experience, and new laws of nature, which become, in their turn, new laws of action.)
We are nature, we are told, without intelligence***
"All organic beings are exposed to severe competition," it is written,
And it is observed that all creatures are pressed into a struggle for existence
That all the plants of a given country are at war with one another
That it is the tendency of all beings to multiply faster than their source of nourishment
(Indeed, it is written that the human race tends to outrun subsistence and is kept in bounds only by famine, pestilence or war.)
And this struggle is called a natural government, and this warfare is said to lead to perfection.
(And it is suggested that war serves "for the real health of humanity and the building of strong races.")
(And it is declared that the history of human society is the history of class struggle. That the collisions between the classes will end in the victory of the proletariat.)
(And the development of large corporations, it is pointed out, is also merely the survival of the fittest, merely the working out of a law of nature and a law of God.)And it is postulated that each organism is a product of a struggle for existence among the molecules.
That the human body is a product of warfare among its parts.
Woman is "a milk-white lamb that bleats/For man's protection," it is sung.