Edward Bellamy

“ To this I replied that man, being the dominant sex, had imposed his worship on the race as a conquering nation, its gods on the conquered. He, not woman, had been the creator of the art, the literature, and the language which were dedicated to her. Had woman been the dominant sex, the reverse might have happened, and man been obliged to stand upon a pedestal and be worshiped. ”

“ She is this by virtue, not of her personal qualities, but of the mother-sex, which, overbearing in part her individuality, consecrates her to the interests of the race, and makes her the channel of those irresistible attractions by which humanity exists and men are made to serve it. As compared with woman’s peculiar identification with the race, man’s relation to it is an exterior one. ”

“ As a solace to their votaries and an aid to their faith, nearly all religions recognized sacred emblems; not indeed to be confounded in clear minds with the original object of devotion, but worthy of reverence in its place, as its special representative and reminder. In precisely this sense the sacred emblem of humanity was woman.
“Of course, Positivism claiming to be a creed of demonstration, not of faith, Régnier did not ask me to receive this proposition as his mere statement, but proceeded to establish its reasonableness by logic. ”

“ Humanity, the object of our devotion, was but an abstraction, a rhetorical expression for a mass of individuals. To these individuals I might indeed render affection, service, compassion, tenderness, self-sacrifice; but their number and pettiness forbade me the glow of adoration with which service was touched in religions which offered a personified object of adoration. When, finally, I confided these troubles to Régnier, I expected to be rebuked ”

“ Equally vain is it to seek the explanation in any general superiority of woman to man, either moral or mental. Her qualities are indeed in engaging contrast with his, but on the whole no such superiority has ever been maintained. How, then, were we to account for a phenomenon so great in its proportions that either it indicates a world-wide madness infecting the noblest nations while sparing the basest, or else must be the outcome of some profound monition of nature, which, in proportion as man’s upward evolution progresses, he becomes capable of apprehending? ”

“ No fact in the relations of men and women, he declared, was more striking than this contrast in their mutual attitudes. It was the feminine, not the masculine, ideal which supplied the inspiration of art and the aroma of literature, which was found enshrined in the customs and common speech of mankind. ”

“ Man’s tendency to worship woman, while naturally blending with his passional attraction towards her, did not spring from the instinct of sex, but from the instinct of race,—a far deeper and generally unrecognized impulse. Even though woman should become some day the dominant sex, man need suffer no apprehension of being worshiped. ”

“ When I mentioned the former idea, Hammond demanded why this tendency was not reciprocal between the sexes. As a matter of fact, while women showed endless devotion and fondness for men, their feeling was without the strain of adoration. Particular men’s qualities of mind or heart might excite the enthusiastic admiration of women, but such admiration was for cause, and in no way confounded with the worshipful reverence which it was man’s instinct to extend to woman as woman, with secondary reference to her qualities as a particular person. ”

“ Homage from men which did not insure to the titillation of the vanity would seem to women, as usually educated, equally incomprehensible and unprofitable.
“It was in recognition of this situation that Régnier ended by making a proposition which testified, more strongly than anything else could have done, both to the enthusiasm and sincerity with which he himself held the faith he preached, and to his confidence in my own equal singleness of heart. ”

“ By his constitution he is above all an individual, and that is the natural line of his development. The love of woman is the centripetal attraction which in due time brings him back from the individual tangent to blend him again with mankind. In returning to woman he returns to humanity. ”

“ Of course the reflection was obvious that in the existing conditions of the Positivist propaganda in America it would be impossible to find a woman capable of understanding, much less of accepting, such a relation, and, therefore, that to me the cult which I had been taught must remain entirely theoretical. ”

“ Subsequently, in response to my questioning, Régnier explained to me how the master had recommended his disciples to give practical effect to the cult of womanhood. I must remember that it was nothing new and nothing peculiar to Positivism for men to adore women to the point even of idolatry. ”

“ It had been the counsel of his master, Régnier said, that, while his disciples should hold all women in exalted reverence, they should peculiarly address this general sentiment to some particular woman, who, being of the same faith, should be able to accept it worthily and without self-exaltation, in the spirit in which it was offered. ”

“ He made it his business to know personally all the students in his classes; and as it is not easy for a man of sixty, especially if he is also their teacher, to become really acquainted with students of twenty, the fact may be taken as evidence of his unusual tact. ”

“ His personal influence over us, and the intoxicating flattery implied in being seriously reasoned with on themes so lofty by a man whom we so greatly admired, would have gone far, no doubt, to commend to us any form of opinions he might have taught ”