ABSTRACT
FEW, I imagine, who have read Mrs. Chapman's article on Women's Suffrage in the Nineteenth Centu'Y!J for April, can fail to· have been struck with the ability with which she has treated the subject, and the logical clearness of her arguments. It is so much easier, on the face of it, to bring arguments to defend them-than to oppose the granting of the Parliamentary franchise to women, as Mrs. Chapman observes, that we cannot r~ sist a feeling of admiration when we behold a set of reasons alleged, that seem capable just at firBt of shaking our former convictions. But, after all, our con-. victions still remain intact, and I am inclined to believ:e thd this is because we have adopted our present vie.w after deliberation, and not instinctively. Mrs. Chapman ·says that she thinks the greater number of wom.en who are opposed to the measure under discussion "are opposed to it instinctively rather than deliberately." Opposition that is only instinctive is quite the least formidable ; the supporters of the measure could hardly receive better news than that the majority of women who are unfavourab1y disposed towards it have not yet thought out the matter, and are still, we may hope, amenable to argument. Who that has ever proposed any course of action, great or small, has not met. at first with a mass of· instinctive opposition, that has gradually decreased if the proposal were good, as time was given for thought and discussion! If women felt that the franchise was likely to produce such very pernicious results, I am persuaded that by this time we should have a great deal more deliberate opposition from them. And it is because Mrs. Chapman's objections are the result of careful and accurate thought, that I am peculiarly anxious to endeavour to meet them.
