PLATO A FEMINIST.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1729, 21 April 1913, Page 2

PLATO A FEMINIST.

THE LINE OF ADVANCE. The woman movement, taken in its widest sense, is to-day by all odds th« most important phenomenon in the world of human alfairs, writes Mary Johnstone in the New York "Evening Post." Its political aspect is but one of many aspects. That is the one which is thundering most loudly at the moment; but vaster and deeper are the aspects which are economic, social, eugenic, and aesthetic, The woman movement- did hot come up in a night, and it is in no danger of withering from view. It is here to stay, and to grow. It' is not tho work of a few fanatics and faddists. It is a perfectly logical phenomenon, born out of the fulness of time, and tho larger mind of the world, evidencing itself in all countries of tho world and under the most diverse circumstances, participated in by individuals of every stratum of society, by the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, tho young and the old. It is indestructible; it is moving on with an ever-increasing depth and velocity, and it is going to transform the world.

Our Ignorant Ancestors. Tho only foo of the world is Ignorance. There is a certain conventionalised sentiment which is nothing less than a cult of ignorance. To an amazing extent we Rdoro and worship, sometimes indeed the wisdom, but ato a far greater degree'the Ignorance, of our far-away ancestors., And of all subjects, the subject of woman is most surrounded by this crystallised and kowtowed-to Ignorance. In nothing is the world so ignorant as it is in deep concerns of the mother of the human species. The literature of the past preserved tho standpoint of tho past. To-day we are gaining a new standpoint, and the literature of to-day is beginning strongly to reflect that standpoint. The literature of to-morrow, is going to be enormously a feminist literature. , Even torday we see it arising, a line of gold, above the horizon.

The Great Feminists. Tho woman movement 1 owes much to writers of the past. Plato may be said to have been a feminist. Euripides was certainly one. There is a song in the Medea as translated by Gilbert Murray which English militants might chant today. All through tho centuries there have arisen, here and there, thinkers and poets who spoke out boldly for woman. They were not many, but they were there. When wo came down" to the past century and a quarter they increase in number, men and women, and increase rapidly. Shelley was a feminist, and there were important others in that first half of the nineteenth century. Eyen from tho complacent mid-Victorian period, hero ana there a voice speaks out. And the modem man to whom all women owe the vastest debt of gratitudo was Charles Darwin. As we approach our own time tho list grows and grows: John Stuart Mill, George Meredith, Ibsen, Maeterlinck—a host of men and women, essayists, novelists, dramatists, poets—to say nothing of the scientific writers, biologists, sociologists, economists, philosophers, who, in increasing number, aro starkly feminist. It is art and music and literature that make the glamour of this world: ,Wo are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams. . . , Yet we aro the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems.

themes for the Future, It is art and music and literature that havo made the glamour of our brutemuscle, warring, military past. It is they that havo made what glamour clings to —it isn't much—the harassed, competitive a»e which is closing behind us. It is they that are going lo make the glamour of the better time which is coming. It is significant that an undoubted majority of the novelists, dramatists, and poets of to-day, whether tlicy bo men or women, aro frank sympathisers with tho woman movement. It is Hgniticant that sociologisls like Lester Ward, like Havcjock Ellis and ninny another, aro feminists. It is significant that Henri Bergson is a feminist. It is significant that in all line- of human endeavour the dawnpeople of I his vast dawn-period ot ours arc feminists. ' The writer, the poet, the dramatist, the painter of the future may. be trusted lo clothe with beauty and light the great human movement which we call the woman movement. Why? lor tho reaton that it is likewise our eause-Hie Cause of the Artist. For the reason that it has in it-beauty; and potentiality of vast beauty.