Chapter: The opinions speciously supported, in some modern publications on
the female character, and education, which have given the tone to
most of the observations made, in a more cursory manner, on the
sex, remain now to be examined.

SECTION 5.1.

I shall begin with Rousseau, and give a sketch of the character of
women in his own words, interspersing comments and reflections.  My
comments, it is true, will all spring from a few simple principles,
and might have been deduced from what I have already said; but the
artificial structure has been raised with so much ingenuity, that
it seems necessary to attack it in a more circumstantial manner,
and make the application myself.

Sophia, says Rousseau, should be as perfect a woman as Emilius is a
man, and to render her so, it is necessary to examine the character
which nature has given to the sex.

He then proceeds to prove, that women ought to be weak and passive,
because she has less bodily strength than man; and from hence
infers, that she was formed to please and to be subject to him; and
that it is her duty to render herself AGREEABLE to her master--this
being the grand end of her existence.

Supposing women to have been formed only to please, and be subject
to man, the conclusion is just, she ought to sacrifice every other
consideration to render herself agreeable to him:  and let this
brutal desire of self-preservation be the grand spring of all her
actions, when it is proved to be the iron bed of fate, to fit
which, her character should be stretched or contracted, regardless
of all moral or physical distinctions.  But if, as I think may be
demonstrated, the purposes of even this life, viewing the whole,
are subverted by practical rules built upon this ignoble base, I
may be allowed to doubt whether woman was created for man:  and
though the cry of irreligion, or even atheism be raised against me,
I will simply declare, that were an angel from heaven to tell me
that Moses's beautiful, poetical cosmogony, and the account of the
fall of man, were literally true, I could not believe what my
reason told me was derogatory to the character of the Supreme
Being:  and, having no fear of the devil before mine eyes, I
venture to call this a suggestion of reason, instead of resting my
weakness on the broad shoulders of the first seducer of my frail
sex.

"It being once demonstrated," continues Rousseau, "that man and
woman are not, nor ought to be, constituted alike in temperament
and character, it follows of course, that they should not be
educated in the same manner.  In pursuing the directions of nature,
they ought indeed to act in concert, but they should not be engaged
in the same employments:  the end of their pursuits should be the
same, but the means they should take to accomplish them, and, of
consequence, their tastes and inclinations should be different."
(Rousseau's 'Emilius', Volume 3 page 176.)

"Girls are from their earliest infancy fond of dress.  Not content
with being pretty, they are desirous of being thought so; we see,
by all their little airs, that this thought engages their
attention; and they are hardly capable of understanding what is
said to them, before they are to be governed by talking to them of
what people will think of their behaviour.  The same motive,
however, indiscreetly made use of with boys, has not the same
effect:  provided they are let to pursue their amusements at
pleasure, they care very little what people think of them.  Time
and pains are necessary to subject boys to this motive.

"Whencesoever girls derive this first lesson it is a very good one.
As the body is born, in a manner before the soul, our first concern
should be to cultivate the former; this order is common to both
sexes, but the object of that cultivation is different.  In the one
sex it is the developement of corporeal powers; in the other, that
of personal charms:  not that either the quality of strength or
beauty ought to be confined exclusively to one sex; but only that
the order of the cultivation of both is in that respect reversed.
Women certainly require as much strength as to enable them to move
and act gracefully, and men as much address as to qualify them to
act with ease."

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

"Children of both sexes have a great many amusements in common; and
so they ought; have they not also many such when they are grown up?
Each sex has also its peculiar taste to distinguish in this
particular.  Boys love sports of noise and activity; to beat the
drum, to whip the top, and to drag about their little carts:
girls, on the other hand, are fonder of things of show and
ornament; such as mirrors, trinkets, and dolls; the doll is the
peculiar amusement of the females; from whence we see their taste
plainly adapted to their destination.  The physical part of the art
of pleasing lies in dress; and this is all which children are
capacitated to cultivate of that art."

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

"Here then we see a primary propensity firmly established, which
you need only to pursue and regulate.  The little creature will
doubtless be very desirous to know how to dress up her doll, to
make its sleeve knots, its flounces, its head dress, etc., she is
obliged to have so much recourse to the people about her, for their
assistance in these articles, that it would be much more agreeable
to her to owe them all to her own industry.  Hence we have a good
reason for the first lessons which are usually taught these young
females:  in which we do not appear to be setting them a task, but
obliging them, by instructing them in what is immediately useful to
themselves.  And, in fact, almost all of them learn with reluctance
to read and write; but very readily apply themselves to the use of
their needles.  They imagine themselves already grown up, and think
with pleasure that such qualifications will enable them to decorate
themselves."

This is certainly only an education of the body; but Rousseau is
not the only man who has indirectly said that merely the person of
a young woman, without any mind, unless animal spirits come under
that description, is very pleasing.  To render it weak, and what
some may call beautiful, the understanding is neglected, and girls
forced to sit still, play with dolls, and listen to foolish
conversations; the effect of habit is insisted upon as an undoubted
indication of nature.  I know it was Rousseau's opinion that the
first years of youth should be employed to form the body, though in
educating Emilius he deviates from this plan; yet the difference
between strengthening the body, on which strength of mind in a
great measure depends, and only giving it an easy motion, is very
wide.

Rousseau's observations, it is proper to remark, were made in a
country where the art of pleasing was refined only to extract the
grossness of vice.  He did not go back to nature, or his ruling
appetite disturbed the operations of reason, else he would not have
drawn these crude inferences.

In France, boys and girls, particularly the latter, are only
educated to please, to manage their persons, and regulate their
exterior behaviour; and their minds are corrupted at a very early
age, by the worldly and pious cautions they receive, to guard them
against immodesty.  I speak of past times.  The very confessions
which mere children are obliged to make, and the questions asked by
the holy men I assert these facts on good authority, were
sufficient to impress a sexual character; and the education of
society was a school of coquetry and art.  At the age of ten or
eleven; nay, often much sooner, girls began to coquet, and talked,
unreproved, of establishing themselves in the world by marriage.

In short, they were made women, almost from their very birth, and
compliments were listened to instead of instruction.  These,
weakening the mind, Nature was supposed to have acted like a
step-mother, when she formed this after-thought of creation.

Not allowing them understanding, however, it was but consistent to
subject them to authority, independent of reason; and to prepare
them for this subjection, he gives the following advice:

"Girls ought to be active and diligent; nor is that all; they
should also be early subjected to restraint.  This misfortune, if
it really be one, is inseparable from their sex; nor do they ever
throw it off but to suffer more cruel evils.  They must be subject,
all their lives, to the most constant and severe restraint, which
is that of decorum:  it is, therefore, necessary to accustom them
early to such confinement, that it may not afterward cost them too
dear; and to the suppression of their caprices, that they may the
more readily submit to the will of others.  If, indeed, they are
fond of being always at work, they should be sometimes compelled to
lay it aside.  Dissipation, levity, and inconstancy, are faults
that readily spring up from their first propensities, when
corrupted or perverted by too much indulgence.  To prevent this
abuse, we should learn them, above all things, to lay a due
restraint on themselves.  The life of a modest woman is reduced, by
our absurd institutions, to a perpetual conflict with herself:  not
but it is just that this sex should partake of the sufferings which
arise from those evils it hath caused us."

And why is the life of a modest woman a perpetual conflict?  I
should answer, that this very system of education makes it so.
Modesty, temperance, and self-denial, are the sober offspring of
reason; but when sensibility is nurtured at the expense of the
understanding, such weak beings must be restrained by arbitrary
means, and be subjected to continual conflicts; but give their
activity of mind a wider range, and nobler passions and motives
will govern their appetites and sentiments.

"The common attachment and regard of a mother, nay, mere habit,
will make her beloved by her children, if she does nothing to incur
their hate.  Even the restraint she lays them under, if well
directed, will increase their affection, instead of lessening it;
because a state of dependence being natural to the sex, they
perceive themselves formed for obedience."

This is begging the question; for servitude not only debases the
individual, but its effects seem to be transmitted to posterity.
Considering the length of time that women have been dependent, is
it surprising that some of them hug their chains, and fawn like the
spaniel? "These dogs," observes a naturalist, "at first kept their
ears erect; but custom has superseded nature, and a token of fear
is become a beauty."

"For the same reason," adds Rousseau, "women have or ought to have,
but little liberty; they are apt to indulge themselves excessively
in what is allowed them.  Addicted in every thing to extremes, they
are even more transported at their diversions than boys."

The answer to this is very simple.  Slaves and mobs have always
indulged themselves in the same excesses, when once they broke
loose from authority.  The bent bow recoils with violence, when the
hand is suddenly relaxed that forcibly held it:  and sensibility,
the plaything of outward circumstances, must be subjected to
authority, or moderated by reason.

"There results," he continues, "from this habitual restraint, a
tractableness which the women have occasion for during their whole
lives, as they constantly remain either under subjection to the
men, or to the opinions of mankind; and are never permitted to set
themselves above those opinions.  The first and most important
qualification in a woman is good-nature or sweetness of temper;
formed to obey a being so imperfect as man, often full of vices,
and always full of faults, she ought to learn betimes even to
suffer injustice, and to bear the insults of a husband without
complaint; it is not for his sake, but her own, that she should be
of a mild disposition.  The perverseness and ill-nature of the
women only serve to aggravate their own misfortunes, and the
misconduct of their husbands; they might plainly perceive that such
are not the arms by which they gain the superiority."

Formed to live with such an imperfect being as man, they ought to
learn from the exercise of their faculties the necessity of
forbearance; but all the sacred rights of humanity are violated by
insisting on blind obedience; or, the most sacred rights belong
ONLY to man.

The being who patiently endures injustice, and silently bears
insults, will soon become unjust, or unable to discern right from
wrong.  Besides, I deny the fact, this is not the true way to form
or meliorate the temper; for, as a sex, men have better tempers
than women, because they are occupied by pursuits that interest the
head as well as the heart; and the steadiness of the head gives a
healthy temperature to the heart.  People of sensibility have
seldom good tempers.  The formation of the temper is the cool work
of reason, when, as life advances, she mixes with happy art,
jarring elements.  I never knew a weak or ignorant person who had a
good temper, though that constitutional good humour, and that
docility, which fear stamps on the behaviour, often obtains the
name.  I say behaviour, for genuine meekness never reached the
heart or mind, unless as the effect of reflection; and, that simple
restraint produces a number of peccant humours in domestic life,
many sensible men will allow, who find some of these gentle
irritable creatures, very troublesome companions.

"Each sex," he further argues, "should preserve its peculiar tone
and manner:  a meek husband may make a wife impertinent; but
mildness of disposition on the woman's side will always bring a man
back to reason, at least if he be not absolutely a brute, and will
sooner or later triumph over him."  True, the mildness of reason;
but abject fear always inspires contempt; and tears are only
eloquent when they flow down fair cheeks.

Of what materials can that heart be composed, which can melt when
insulted, and instead of revolting at injustice, kiss the rod?  Is
it unfair to infer, that her virtue is built on narrow views and
selfishness, who can caress a man, with true feminine softness, the
very moment when he treats her tyrannically?  Nature never dictated
such insincerity; and though prudence of this sort be termed a
virtue, morality becomes vague when any part is supposed to rest on
falsehood.  These are mere expedients, and expedients are only
useful for the moment.

Let the husband beware of trusting too implicitly to this servile
obedience; for if his wife can with winning sweetness caress him
when angry, and when she ought to be angry, unless contempt had
stifled a natural effervescence, she may do the same after parting
with a lover.  These are all preparations for adultery; or, should
the fear of the world, or of hell, restrain her desire of pleasing
other men, when she can no longer please her husband, what
substitute can be found by a being who was only formed by nature
and art to please man?  what can make her amends for this
privation, or where is she to seek for a fresh employment?  where
find sufficient strength of mind to determine to begin the search,
when her habits are fixed, and vanity has long ruled her chaotic
mind?

But this partial moralist recommends cunning systematically and
plausibly.

"Daughters should be always submissive; their mothers, however,
should not be inexorable.  To make a young person tractable, she
ought not to be made unhappy; to make her modest she ought not to
be rendered stupid.  On the contrary, I should not be displeased at
her being permitted to use some art, not to elude punishment in
case of disobedience, but to exempt herself from the necessity of
obeying.  It is not necessary to make her dependence burdensome,
but only to let her feel it.  Subtilty is a talent natural to the
sex; and as I am persuaded, all our natural inclinations are right
and good in themselves, I am of opinion this should be cultivated
as well as the others:  it is requisite for us only to prevent its
abuse."

"Whatever is, is right," he then proceeds triumphantly to infer.
Granted; yet, perhaps, no aphorism ever contained a more
paradoxical assertion.  It is a solemn truth with respect to God.
He, reverentially I speak, sees the whole at once, and saw its just
proportions in the womb of time; but man, who can only inspect
disjointed parts, finds many things wrong; and it is a part of the
system, and therefore right, that he should endeavour to alter what
appears to him to be so, even while he bows to the wisdom of his
Creator, and respects the darkness he labours to disperse.

The inference that follows is just, supposing the principle to be
sound: "The superiority of address, peculiar to the female sex, is
a very equitable indemnification for their inferiority in point of
strength: without this, woman would not be the companion of man;
but his slave:  it is by her superiour art and ingenuity that she
preserves her equality, and governs him while she affects to obey.
Woman has every thing against her, as well our faults as her own
timidity and weakness: she has nothing in her favour, but her
subtilty and her beauty.  Is it not very reasonable, therefore, she
should cultivate both?"  Greatness of mind can never dwell with
cunning or address; for I shall not boggle about words, when their
direct signification is insincerity and falsehood; but content
myself with observing, that if any class of mankind be so created
that it must necessarily be educated by rules, not strictly
deducible from truth, virtue is an affair of convention.  How could
Rousseau dare to assert, after giving this advice, that in the
grand end of existence, the object of both sexes should be the
same, when he well knew, that the mind formed by its pursuits, is
expanded by great views swallowing up little ones, or that it
becomes itself little?

Men have superiour strength of body; but were it not for mistaken
notions of beauty, women would acquire sufficient to enable them to
earn their own subsistence, the true definition of independence;
and to bear those bodily inconveniences and exertions that are
requisite to strengthen the mind.

Let us then, by being allowed to take the same exercise as boys,
not only during infancy, but youth, arrive at perfection of body,
that we may know how far the natural superiority of man extends.
For what reason or virtue can be expected from a creature when the
seed-time of life is neglected? None--did not the winds of heaven
casually scatter many useful seeds in the fallow ground.

"Beauty cannot be acquired by dress, and coquetry is an art not so
early and speedily attained.  While girls are yet young, however,
they are in a capacity to study agreeable gesture, a pleasing
modulation of voice, an easy carriage and behaviour; as well as to
take the advantage of gracefully adapting their looks and attitudes
to time, place, and occasion.  Their application, therefore, should
not be solely confined to the arts of industry and the needle, when
they come to display other talents, whose utility is already
apparent." "For my part I would have a young Englishwoman cultivate
her agreeable talents, in order to please her future husband, with
as much care and assiduity as a young Circassian cultivates her's,
to fit her for the Haram of an Eastern bashaw."

To render women completely insignificant, he adds,--"The tongues of
women are very voluble; they speak earlier, more readily, and more
agreeably than the men; they are accused also of speaking much
more:  but so it ought to be, and I should be very ready to convert
this reproach into a compliment; their lips and eyes have the same
activity, and for the same reason.  A man speaks of what he knows,
a woman of what pleases her; the one requires knowledge, the other
taste; the principal object of a man's discourse should be what is
useful, that of a woman's what is agreeable.  There ought to be
nothing in common between their different conversation but truth."

"We ought not, therefore, to restrain the prattle of girls, in the
same manner as we should that of boys, with that severe question,
'To what purpose are you talking?' but by another, which is no less
difficult to answer, 'How will your discourse be received?'  In
infancy, while they are as yet incapable to discern good from evil,
they ought to observe it as a law, never to say any thing
disagreeable to those whom they are speaking to:  what will render
the practice of this rule also the more difficult, is, that it must
ever be subordinate to the former, of never speaking falsely or
telling an untruth."  To govern the tongue in this manner must
require great address indeed; and it is too much practised both by
men and women.  Out of the abundance of the heart how few speak!
So few, that I, who love simplicity, would gladly give up
politeness for a quarter of the virtue that has been sacrificed to
an equivocal quality, which, at best, should only be the polish of
virtue.

But to complete the sketch.  "It is easy to be conceived, that if
male children be not in a capacity to form any true notions of
religion, those ideas must be greatly above the conception of the
females:  it is for this very reason, I would begin to speak to
them the earlier on this subject; for if we were to wait till they
were in a capacity to discuss methodically such profound questions,
we should run a risk of never speaking to them on this subject as
long as they lived.  Reason in women is a practical reason,
capacitating them artfully to discover the means of attaining a
known end, but which would never enable them to discover that end
itself.  The social relations of the sexes are indeed truly
admirable:  from their union there results a moral person, of which
woman may be termed the eyes, and man the hand, with this
dependence on each other, that it is from the man that the woman is
to learn what she is to see, and it is of the woman that man is to
learn what he ought to do.  If woman could recur to the first
principles of things as well as man, and man was capacitated to
enter into their minutae as well as woman, always independent of
each other, they would live in perpetual discord, and their union
could not subsist.  But in the present harmony which naturally
subsists between them, their different faculties tend to one common
end; it is difficult to say which of them conduces the most to it:
each follows the impulse of the other; each is obedient, and both
are masters."

"As the conduct of a woman is subservient to the public opinion,
her faith in matters of religion, should for that very reason, be
subject to authority.  'Every daughter ought to be of the same
religion as her mother, and every wife to be of the same religion
as her husband:  for, though such religion should be false, that
docility which induces the mother and daughter to submit to the
order of nature, takes away, in the sight of God, the criminality
of their error'.*  As they are not in a capacity to judge for
themselves, they ought to abide by the decision of their fathers
and husbands as confidently as by that of the church."

(*Footnote.  What is to be the consequence, if the mother's and
husband's opinion should chance not to agree?  An ignorant person
cannot be reasoned out of an error, and when persuaded to give up
one prejudice for another the mind is unsettled.  Indeed, the
husband may not have any religion to teach her though in such a
situation she will be in great want of a support to her virtue,
independent of worldly considerations.)

"As authority ought to regulate the religion of the women, it is
not so needful to explain to them the reasons for their belief, as
to lay down precisely the tenets they are to believe:  for the
creed, which presents only obscure ideas to the mind, is the source
of fanaticism; and that which presents absurdities, leads to
infidelity."

Absolute, uncontroverted authority, it seems, must subsist
somewhere:  but is not this a direct and exclusive appropriation of
reason?  The RIGHTS of humanity have been thus confined to the male
line from Adam downwards.  Rousseau would carry his male
aristocracy still further, for he insinuates, that he should not
blame those, who contend for leaving woman in a state of the most
profound ignorance, if it were not necessary, in order to preserve
her chastity, and justify the man's choice in the eyes of the
world, to give her a little knowledge of men, and the customs
produced by human passions; else she might propagate at home
without being rendered less voluptuous and innocent by the exercise
of her understanding:  excepting, indeed, during the first year of
marriage, when she might employ it to dress, like Sophia.  "Her
dress is extremely modest in appearance, and yet very coquettish in
fact:  she does not make a display of her charms, she conceals
them; but, in concealing them, she knows how to affect your
imagination.  Every one who sees her, will say, There is a modest
and discreet girl; but while you are near her, your eyes and
affections wander all over her person, so that you cannot withdraw
them; and you would conclude that every part of her dress, simple
as it seems, was only put in its proper order to be taken to pieces
by the imagination."  Is this modesty?  Is this a preparation for
immortality?  Again.  What opinion are we to form of a system of
education, when the author says of his heroine, "that with her,
doing things well is but a SECONDARY concern; her principal concern
is to do them NEATLY."

Secondary, in fact, are all her virtues and qualities, for,
respecting religion, he makes her parents thus address her,
accustomed to submission--"Your husband will instruct you in good
time."

After thus cramping a woman's mind, if, in order to keep it fair,
he has not made it quite a blank, he advises her to reflect, that a
reflecting man may not yawn in her company, when he is tired of
caressing her.  What has she to reflect about, who must obey? and
would it not be a refinement on cruelty only to open her mind to
make the darkness and misery of her fate VISIBLE?  Yet these are
his sensible remarks; how consistent with what I have already been
obliged to quote, to give a fair view of the subject, the reader
may determine.

"They who pass their whole lives in working for their daily bread,
have no ideas beyond their business or their interest, and all
their understanding seems to lie in their fingers' ends.  This
ignorance is neither prejudicial to their integrity nor their
morals; it is often of service to them.  Sometimes, by means of
reflection, we are led to compound with our duty, and we conclude,
by substituting a jargon of words, in the room of things.  Our own
conscience is the most enlightened philosopher.  There is no need
of being acquainted with Tully's offices, to make a man of probity:
and perhaps the most virtuous woman in the world is the least
acquainted with the definition of virtue.  But it is no less true,
than an improved understanding only can render society agreeable;
and it is a melancholy thing for a father of a family, who is fond
of home, to be obliged to be always wrapped up in himself, and to
have nobody about him to whom he can impart his sentiments.

"Besides, how should a woman void of reflection be capable of
educating her children?  How should she discern what is proper for
them?  How should she incline them to those virtues she is
unacquainted with, or to that merit of which she has no idea?  She
can only sooth or chide them; render them insolent or timid; she
will make them formal coxcombs, or ignorant blockheads; but will
never make them sensible or amiable."  How indeed should she, when
her husband is not always at hand to lend her his reason --when
they both together make but one moral being?  A blind will, "eyes
without hands," would go a very little way; and perchance his
abstract reason, that should concentrate the scattered beams of her
practical reason, may be employed in judging of the flavour of
wine, discanting on the sauces most proper for turtle; or, more
profoundly intent at a card-table, he may be generalizing his ideas
as he bets away his fortune, leaving all the minutiae of education
to his helpmate or chance.

But, granting that woman ought to be beautiful, innocent, and
silly, to render her a more alluring and indulgent companion--what
is her understanding sacrificed for?  And why is all this
preparation necessary only, according to Rousseau's own account, to
make her the mistress of her husband, a very short time?  For no
man ever insisted more on the transient nature of love.  Thus
speaks the philosopher.  "Sensual pleasures are transient.  The
habitual state of the affections always loses by their
gratification.  The imagination, which decks the object of our
desires, is lost in fruition.  Excepting the Supreme Being, who is
self-existent, there is nothing beautiful but what is ideal."

But he returns to his unintelligible paradoxes again, when he thus
addresses Sophia.  "Emilius, in becoming your husband, is become
your master, and claims your obedience.  Such is the order of
nature.  When a man is married, however, to such a wife as Sophia,
it is proper he should be directed by her:  this is also agreeable
to the order of nature:  it is, therefore, to give you as much
authority over his heart as his sex gives him over your person,
that I have made you the arbiter of his pleasures.  It may cost
you, perhaps, some disagreeable self-denial; but you will be
certain of maintaining your empire over him, if you can preserve it
over yourself;  what I have already observed, also shows me, that
this difficult attempt does not surpass your courage.

"Would you have your husband constantly at your feet? keep him at
some distance from your person.  You will long maintain the
authority of love, if you know but how to render your favours rare
and valuable.  It is thus you may employ even the arts of coquetry
in the service of virtue, and those of love in that of reason."

I shall close my extracts with a just description of a comfortable
couple.  "And yet you must not imagine, that even such management
will always suffice.  Whatever precaution be taken, enjoyment will,
by degrees, take off the edge of passion.  But when love hath
lasted as long as possible, a pleasing habitude supplies its place,
and the attachment of a mutual confidence succeeds to the
transports of passion.  Children often form a more agreeable and
permanent connexion between married people than even love itself.
When you cease to be the mistress of Emilius, you will continue to
be his wife and friend; you will be the mother of his children."
(Rousseau's Emilius.)

Children, he truly observes, form a much more permanent connexion
between married people than love.  Beauty he declares will not be
valued, or even seen, after a couple have lived six months
together; artificial graces and coquetry will likewise pall on the
senses:  why then does he say, that a girl should be educated for
her husband with the same care as for an eastern haram?

I now appeal from the reveries of fancy and refined licentiousness
to the good sense of mankind, whether, if the object of education
be to prepare women to become chaste wives and sensible mothers,
the method so plausibly recommended in the foregoing sketch, be the
one best calculated to produce those ends?  Will it be allowed that
the surest way to make a wife chaste, is to teach her to practise
the wanton arts of a mistress, termed virtuous coquetry by the
sensualist who can no longer relish the artless charms of
sincerity, or taste the pleasure arising from a tender intimacy,
when confidence is unchecked by suspicion, and rendered interesting
by sense?

The man who can be contented to live with a pretty useful companion
without a mind, has lost in voluptuous gratifications a taste for
more refined enjoyments; he has never felt the calm satisfaction
that refreshes the parched heart, like the silent dew of heaven--of
being beloved by one who could understand him.  In the society of
his wife he is still alone, unless when the man is sunk in the
brute.  "The charm of life," says a grave philosophical reasoner,
is "sympathy; nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men
a fellow-feeling with all the emotions of our own breast."

But, according to the tenor of reasoning by which women are kept
from the tree of knowledge, the important years of youth, the
usefulness of age, and the rational hopes of futurity, are all to
be sacrificed, to render woman an object of desire for a short
time.  Besides, how could Rousseau expect them to be virtuous and
constant when reason is neither allowed to be the foundation of
their virtue, nor truth the object of their inquiries?

But all Rousseau's errors in reasoning arose from sensibility, and
sensibility to their charms women are very ready to forgive!  When
he should have reasoned he became impassioned, and reflection
inflamed his imagination, instead of enlightening his
understanding.  Even his virtues also led him farther astray; for,
born with a warm constitution and lively fancy, nature carried him
toward the other sex with such eager fondness, that he soon became
lascivious.  Had he given way to these desires, the fire would have
extinguished itself in a natural manner, but virtue, and a romantic
kind of delicacy, made him practise self-denial; yet, when fear,
delicacy, or virtue restrained him, he debauched his imagination;
and reflecting on the sensations to which fancy gave force, he
traced them in the most glowing colours, and sunk them deep into
his soul.

He then sought for solitude, not to sleep with the man of nature;
or calmly investigate the causes of things under the shade where
Sir Isaac Newton indulged contemplation, but merely to indulge his
feelings.  And so warmly has he painted what he forcibly felt,
that, interesting the heart and inflaming the imagination of his
readers; in proportion to the strength of their fancy, they imagine
that their understanding is convinced, when they only sympathize
with a poetic writer, who skilfully exhibits the objects of sense,
most voluptuously shadowed, or gracefully veiled; and thus making
us feel, whilst dreaming that we reason, erroneous conclusions are
left in the mind.

Why was Rousseau's life divided between ecstasy and misery?  Can
any other answer be given than this, that the effervescence of his
imagination produced both; but, had his fancy been allowed to cool,
it is possible that he might have acquired more strength of mind.
Still, if the purpose of life be to educate the intellectual part
of man, all with respect to him was right; yet, had not death led
to a nobler scene of action, it is probable that he would have
enjoyed more equal happiness on earth, and have felt the calm
sensations of the man of nature, instead of being prepared for
another stage of existence by nourishing the passions which agitate
the civilized man.

But peace to his manes!  I war not with his ashes, but his
opinions.  I war only with the sensibility that led him to degrade
woman by making her the slave of love.

...."Curs'd vassalage,
First idoliz'd till love's hot fire be o'er,
Then slaves to those who courted us before."
Dryden.

The pernicious tendency of those books, in which the writers
insidiously degrade the sex, whilst they are prostrate before their
personal charms, cannot be too often or too severely exposed.

Let us, my dear contemporaries, arise above such narrow prejudices!
If wisdom is desirable on its own account, if virtue, to deserve
the name, must be founded on knowledge; let us endeavour to
strengthen our minds by reflection, till our heads become a balance
for our hearts; let us not confine all our thoughts to the petty
occurrences of the day, nor our knowledge to an acquaintance with
our lovers' or husbands' hearts; but let the practice of every duty
be subordinate to the grand one of improving our minds, and
preparing our affections for a more exalted state!

Beware then, my friends, of suffering the heart to be moved by
every trivial incident:  the reed is shaken by a breeze, and
annually dies, but the oak stands firm, and for ages braves the
storm.

Were we, indeed, only created to flutter our hour out and die--why
let us then indulge sensibility, and laugh at the severity of
reason.  Yet, alas! even then we should want strength of body and
mind, and life would be lost in feverish pleasures or wearisome
languor.

But the system of education, which I earnestly wish to see
exploded, seems to presuppose, what ought never to be taken for
granted, that virtue shields us from the casualties of life; and
that fortune, slipping off her bandage, will smile on a
well-educated female, and bring in her hand an Emilius or a
Telemachus.  Whilst, on the contrary, the reward which virtue
promises to her votaries is confined, it is clear, to their own
bosoms; and often must they contend with the most vexatious worldly
cares, and bear with the vices and humours of relations for whom
they can never feel a friendship.

There have been many women in the world who, instead of being
supported by the reason and virtue of their fathers and brothers,
have strengthened their own minds by struggling with their vices
and follies; yet have never met with a hero, in the shape of a
husband; who, paying the debt that mankind owed them, might chance
to bring back their reason to its natural dependent state, and
restore the usurped prerogative, of rising above opinion, to man.

SECTION 5.2.

Dr. Fordyce's sermons have long made a part of a young woman's
library; nay, girls at school are allowed to read them; but I
should instantly dismiss them from my pupil's, if I wished to
strengthen her understanding, by leading her to form sound
principles on a broad basis; or, were I only anxious to cultivate
her taste; though they must be allowed to contain many sensible
observations.

Dr. Fordyce may have had a very laudable end in view; but these
discourses are written in such an affected style, that were it only
on that account, and had I nothing to object against his
MELLIFLUOUS precepts, I should not allow girls to peruse them,
unless I designed to hunt every spark of nature out of their
composition, melting every human quality into female weakness and
artificial grace.  I say artificial, for true grace arises from
some kind of independence of mind.

Children, careless of pleasing, and only anxious to amuse
themselves, are often very graceful; and the nobility who have
mostly lived with inferiors, and always had the command of money,
acquire a graceful ease of deportment, which should rather be
termed habitual grace of body, than that superiour gracefulness
which is truly the expression of the mind.  This mental grace, not
noticed by vulgar eyes, often flashes across a rough countenance,
and irradiating every feature, shows simplicity and independence of
mind.  It is then we read characters of immortality in the eye, and
see the soul in every gesture, though when at rest, neither the
face nor limbs may have much beauty to recommend them; or the
behaviour, any thing peculiar to attract universal attention.  The
mass of mankind, however, look for more TANGIBLE beauty; yet
simplicity is, in general, admired, when people do not consider
what they admire; and can there be simplicity without sincerity?
but, to have done with remarks that are in some measure desultory,
though naturally excited by the subject.

In declamatory periods Dr. Fordyce spins out Rousseau's eloquence;
and in most sentimental rant, details his opinions respecting the
female character, and the behaviour which woman ought to assume to
render her lovely.

He shall speak for himself, for thus he makes nature address man.
"Behold these smiling innocents, whom I have graced with my fairest
gifts, and committed to your protection; behold them with love and
respect; treat them with tenderness and honour.  They are timid and
want to be defended.  They are frail; O do not take advantage of
their weakness!  Let their fears and blushes endear them.  Let
their confidence in you never be abused.  But is it possible, that
any of you can be such barbarians, so supremely wicked, as to abuse
it?  Can you find in your hearts* to despoil the gentle, trusting
creatures of their treasure, or do any thing to strip them of their
native robe of virtue?  Curst be the impious hand that would dare
to violate the unblemished form of Chastity!  Thou wretch! thou
ruffian! forbear; nor venture to provoke heaven's fiercest
vengeance."  I know not any comment that can be made seriously on
this curious passage, and I could produce many similar ones; and
some, so very sentimental, that I have heard rational men use the
word indecent, when they mentioned them with disgust.

(*Footnote.  Can you?--Can you? would be the most emphatical
comment, were it drawled out in a whining voice.)

Throughout there is a display of cold, artificial feelings, and
that parade of sensibility which boys and girls should be taught to
despise as the sure mark of a little vain mind.  Florid appeals are
made to heaven, and to the BEAUTEOUS INNOCENTS, the fairest images
of heaven here below, whilst sober sense is left far behind.  This
is not the language of the heart, nor will it ever reach it, though
the ear may be tickled.

I shall be told, perhaps, that the public have been pleased with
these volumes.  True--and Hervey's Meditations are still read,
though he equally sinned against sense and taste.

I particularly object to the lover-like phrases of pumped up
passion, which are every where interspersed.  If women be ever
allowed to walk without leading-strings, why must they be cajoled
into virtue by artful flattery and sexual compliments?  Speak to
them the language of truth and soberness, and away with the lullaby
strains of condescending endearment!  Let them be taught to respect
themselves as rational creatures, and not led to have a passion for
their own insipid persons.  It moves my gall to hear a preacher
descanting on dress and needle-work; and still more, to hear him
address the 'British fair, the fairest of the fair', as if they had
only feelings.

Even recommending piety he uses the following argument.  "Never,
perhaps, does a fine woman strike more deeply, than when, composed
into pious recollection, and possessed with the noblest
considerations, she assumes, without knowing it, superiour dignity
and new graces; so that the beauties of holiness seem to radiate
about her, and the by-standers are almost induced to fancy her
already worshipping amongst her kindred angels!"  Why are women to
be thus bred up with a desire of conquest? the very epithet, used
in this sense, gives me a sickly qualm!  Does religion and virtue
offer no stronger motives, no brighter reward?  Must they always be
debased by being made to consider the sex of their companions?
Must they be taught always to be pleasing?  And when levelling
their small artillery at the heart of man, is it necessary to tell
them that a little sense is sufficient to render their attention
INCREDIBLY SOOTHING?  "As a small degree of knowledge entertains in
a woman, so from a woman, though for a different reason, a small
expression of kindness delights, particularly if she have beauty!"
I should have supposed for the same reason.

Why are girls to be told that they resemble angels; but to sink
them below women?  Or, that a gentle, innocent female is an object
that comes nearer to the idea which we have formed of angels than
any other.  Yet they are told, at the same time, that they are only
like angels when they are young and beautiful; consequently, it is
their persons, not their virtues, that procure them this homage.

Idle empty words!  what can such delusive flattery lead to, but
vanity and folly?  The lover, it is true, has a poetic licence to
exalt his mistress; his reason is the bubble of his passion, and he
does not utter a falsehood when he borrows the language of
adoration.  His imagination may raise the idol of his heart,
unblamed, above humanity; and happy would it be for women, if they
were only flattered by the men who loved them; I mean, who love the
individual, not the sex; but should a grave preacher interlard his
discourses with such fooleries?

In sermons or novels, however, voluptuousness is always true to its
text.  Men are allowed by moralists to cultivate, as nature
directs, different qualities, and assume the different characters,
that the same passions, modified almost to infinity, give to each
individual.  A virtuous man may have a choleric or a sanguine
constitution, be gay or grave, unreproved; be firm till be is
almost over-bearing, or, weakly submissive, have no will or opinion
of his own; but all women are to be levelled, by meekness and
docility, into one character of yielding softness and gentle
compliance.

I will use the preacher's own words.  "Let it be observed, that in
your sex manly exercises are never graceful; that in them a tone
and figure, as well as an air and deportment, of the masculine
kind, are always forbidding; and that men of sensibility desire in
every woman soft features, and a flowing voice, a form not robust,
and demeanour delicate and gentle."

Is not the following portrait--the portrait of a house slave?  "I
am astonished at the folly of many women, who are still reproaching
their husbands for leaving them alone, for preferring this or that
company to theirs, for treating them with this and the other mark
of disregard or indifference; when, to speak the truth, they have
themselves in a great measure to blame.  Not that I would justify
the men in any thing wrong on their part.  But had you behaved to
them with more RESPECTFUL OBSERVANCE, and a more EQUAL TENDERNESS;
STUDYING THEIR HUMOURS, OVERLOOKING THEIR MISTAKES, SUBMITTING TO
THEIR OPINIONS in matters indifferent, passing by little instances
of unevenness, caprice, or passion, giving SOFT answers to hasty
words, complaining as seldom as possible, and making it your daily
care to relieve their anxieties and prevent their wishes, to
enliven the hour of dulness, and call up the ideas of felicity:
had you pursued this conduct, I doubt not but you would have
maintained and even increased their esteem, so far as to have
secured every degree of influence that could conduce to their
virtue, or your mutual satisfaction; and your house might at this
day have been the abode of domestic bliss."  Such a woman ought to
be an angel--or she is an ass--for I discern not a trace of the
human character, neither reason nor passion in this domestic
drudge, whose being is absorbed in that of a tyrant's.

Still Dr. Fordyce must have very little acquaintance with the human
heart, if he really supposed that such conduct would bring back
wandering love, instead of exciting contempt.  No, beauty,
gentleness, etc. etc. may gain a heart; but esteem, the only
lasting affection, can alone be obtained by virtue supported by
reason.  It is respect for the understanding that keeps alive
tenderness for the person.

As these volumes are so frequently put into the hands of young
people, I have taken more notice of them than strictly speaking,
they deserve; but as they have contributed to vitiate the taste,
and enervate the understanding of many of my fellow-creatures, I
could not pass them silently over.

SECTION 5.3.

Such paternal solicitude pervades Dr. Gregory's Legacy to his
daughters, that I enter on the task of criticism with affectionate
respect; but as this little volume has many attractions to
recommend it to the notice of the most respectable part of my sex,
I cannot silently pass over arguments that so speciously support
opinions which, I think, have had the most baneful effect on the
morals and manners of the female world.

His easy familiar style is particularly suited to the tenor of his
advice, and the melancholy tenderness which his respect for the
memory of a beloved wife diffuses through the whole work, renders
it very interesting; yet there is a degree of concise elegance
conspicuous in many passages, that disturbs this sympathy; and we
pop on the author, when we only expected to meet the--father.

Besides, having two objects in view, he seldom adhered steadily to
either; for, wishing to make his daughters amiable, and fearing
lest unhappiness should only be the consequence, of instilling
sentiments, that might draw them out of the track of common life,
without enabling them to act with consonant independence and
dignity, he checks the natural flow of his thoughts, and neither
advises one thing nor the other.

In the preface he tells them a mournful truth, "that they will
hear, at least once in their lives, the genuine sentiments of a
man, who has no interest in deceiving them."

Hapless woman! what can be expected from thee, when the beings on
whom thou art said naturally to depend for reason and support, have
all an interest in deceiving thee!  This is the root of the evil
that has shed a corroding mildew on all thy virtues; and blighting
in the bud thy opening faculties, has rendered thee the weak thing
thou art!  It is this separate interest-- this insidious state of
warfare, that undermines morality, and divides mankind!

If love has made some women wretched--how many more has the cold
unmeaning intercourse of gallantry rendered vain and useless! yet
this heartless attention to the sex is reckoned so manly, so
polite, that till society is very differently organized, I fear,
this vestige of gothic manners will not be done away by a more
reasonable and affectionate mode of conduct.  Besides, to strip it
of its imaginary dignity, I must observe, that in the most
civilized European states, this lip-service prevails in a very
great degree, accompanied with extreme dissoluteness of morals.  In
Portugal, the country that I particularly allude to, it takes place
of the most serious moral obligations; for a man is seldom
assassinated when in the company of a woman.  The savage hand of
rapine is unnerved by this chivalrous spirit; and, if the stroke of
vengeance cannot be stayed--the lady is entreated to pardon the
rudeness and depart in peace, though sprinkled, perhaps, with her
husband's or brother's blood.

I shall pass over his strictures on religion, because I mean to
discuss that subject in a separate chapter.

The remarks relative to behaviour, though many of them very
sensible, I entirely disapprove of, because it appears to me to be
beginning, as it were at the wrong end.  A cultivated
understanding, and an affectionate heart, will never want starched
rules of decorum, something more substantial than seemliness will
be the result; and, without understanding, the behaviour here
recommended, would be rank affectation.  Decorum, indeed, is the
one thing needful!  decorum is to supplant nature, and banish all
simplicity and variety of character out of the female world.  Yet
what good end can all this superficial counsel produce?  It is,
however, much easier to point out this or that mode of behaviour,
than to set the reason to work; but, when the mind has been stored
with useful knowledge, and strengthened by being employed, the
regulation of the behaviour may safely be left to its guidance.

Why, for instance, should the following caution be given, when art
of every kind must contaminate the mind; and why entangle the grand
motives of action, which reason and religion equally combine to
enforce, with pitiful worldly shifts and slight of hand tricks to
gain the applause of gaping tasteless fools?  "Be even cautious in
displaying your good sense.*  It will be thought you assume a
superiority over the rest of the company-- But if you happen to
have any learning keep it a profound secret, especially from the
men, who generally look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman
of great parts, and a cultivated understanding."  If men of real
merit, as he afterwards observes, are superior to this meanness,
where is the necessity that the behaviour of the whole sex should
be modulated to please fools, or men, who having little claim to
respect as individuals, choose to keep close in their phalanx.
Men, indeed, who insist on their common superiority, having only
this sexual superiority, are certainly very excusable.

(*Footnote.  Let women once acquire good sense--and if it deserve
the name, it will teach them; or, of what use will it be how to
employ it.)

There would be no end to rules for behaviour, if it be proper
always to adopt the tone of the company; for thus, for ever varying
the key, a FLAT would often pass for a NATURAL note.

Surely it would have been wiser to have advised women to improve
themselves till they rose above the fumes of vanity; and then to
let the public opinion come round--for where are rules of
accommodation to stop?  The narrow path of truth and virtue
inclines neither to the right nor left, it is a straight-forward
business, and they who are earnestly pursuing their road, may bound
over many decorous prejudices, without leaving modesty behind.
Make the heart clean, and give the head employment, and I will
venture to predict that there will be nothing offensive in the
behaviour.

The air of fashion, which many young people are so eager to attain,
always strikes me like the studied attitudes of some modern prints,
copied with tasteless servility after the antiques; the soul is
left out, and none of the parts are tied together by what may
properly be termed character.  This varnish of fashion, which
seldom sticks very close to sense, may dazzle the weak; but leave
nature to itself, and it will seldom disgust the wise.  Besides,
when a woman has sufficient sense not to pretend to any thing which
she does not understand in some degree, there is no need of
determining to hide her talents under a bushel.  Let things take
their natural course, and all will be well.

It is this system of dissimulation, throughout the volume, that I
despise.  Women are always to SEEM to be this and that--yet virtue
might apostrophize them, in the words of Hamlet--Seems!  I know not
seems!--Have that within that passeth show!--

Still the same tone occurs; for in another place, after
recommending, (without sufficiently discriminating) delicacy, he
adds, "The men will complain of your reserve.  They will assure you
that a franker behaviour would make you more amiable.  But, trust
me, they are not sincere when they tell you so.  I acknowledge that
on some occasions it might render you more agreeable as companions,
but it would make you less amiable as women:  an important
distinction, which many of your sex are not aware of."

This desire of being always women, is the very consciousness that
degrades the sex.  Excepting with a lover, I must repeat with
emphasis, a former observation--it would be well if they were only
agreeable or rational companions.  But in this respect his advice
is even inconsistent with a passage which I mean to quote with the
most marked approbation.

"The sentiment, that a woman may allow all innocent freedoms,
provided her virtue is secure, is both grossly indelicate and
dangerous, and has proved fatal to many of your sex."  With this
opinion I perfectly coincide.  A man, or a woman, of any feeling
must always wish to convince a beloved object that it is the
caresses of the individual, not the sex, that is received and
returned with pleasure; and, that the heart, rather than the
senses, is moved.  Without this natural delicacy, love becomes a
selfish personal gratification that soon degrades the character.

I carry this sentiment still further.  Affection, when love is out
of the question, authorises many personal endearments, that
naturally flowing from an innocent heart give life to the
behaviour; but the personal intercourse of appetite, gallantry, or
vanity, is despicable.  When a man squeezes the hand of a pretty
woman, handing her to a carriage, whom he has never seen before,
she will consider such an impertinent freedom in the light of an
insult, if she have any true delicacy, instead of being flattered
by this unmeaning homage to beauty.  These are the privileges of
friendship, or the momentary homage which the heart pays to virtue,
when it flashes suddenly on the notice--mere animal spirits have no
claim to the kindnesses of affection.

Wishing to feed the affections with what is now the food of vanity,
I would fain persuade my sex to act from simpler principles.  Let
them merit love, and they will obtain it, though they may never be
told that:  "The power of a fine woman over the hearts of men, of
men of the finest parts, is even beyond what she conceives."

I have already noticed the narrow cautions with respect to
duplicity, female softness, delicacy of constitution; for these are
the changes which he rings round without ceasing, in a more
decorous manner, it is true, than Rousseau; but it all comes home
to the same point, and whoever is at the trouble to analyze these
sentiments, will find the first principles not quite so delicate as
the superstructure.

The subject of amusements is treated in too cursory a manner; but
with the same spirit.

When I treat of friendship, love, and marriage, it will be found
that we materially differ in opinion; I shall not then forestall
what I have to observe on these important subjects; but confine my
remarks to the general tenor of them, to that cautious family
prudence, to those confined views of partial unenlightened
affection, which exclude pleasure and improvement, by vainly
wishing to ward off sorrow and error--and by thus guarding the
heart and mind, destroy also all their energy.  It is far better to
be often deceived than never to trust; to be disappointed in love,
than never to love; to lose a husband's fondness, than forfeit his
esteem.

Happy would it be for the world, and for individuals, of course, if
all this unavailing solicitude to attain worldly happiness, on a
confined plan, were turned into an anxious desire to improve the
understanding.  "Wisdom is the principal thing:  THEREFORE get
wisdom; and with all thy gettings get understanding."  "How long ye
simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and hate knowledge?"  Saith
Wisdom to the daughters of men!

SECTION 5.4.

I do not mean to allude to all the writers who have written on the
subject of female manners--it would in fact be only beating over
the old ground, for they have, in general, written in the same
strain; but attacking the boasted prerogative of man--the
prerogative that may emphatically be called the iron sceptre of
tyranny, the original sin of tyrants, I declare against all power
built on prejudices, however hoary.

If the submission demanded be founded on justice--there is no
appealing to a higher power--for God is justice itself.  Let us
then, as children of the same parent, if not bastardized by being
the younger born, reason together, and learn to submit to the
authority of reason when her voice is distinctly heard.  But, if it
be proved that this throne of prerogative only rests on a chaotic
mass of prejudices, that have no inherent principle of order to
keep them together, or on an elephant, tortoise, or even the mighty
shoulders of a son of the earth, they may escape, who dare to brave
the consequence without any breach of duty, without sinning against
the order of things.

Whilst reason raises man above the brutal herd, and death is big
with promises, they alone are subject to blind authority who have
no reliance on their own strength.  "They are free who will be
free!"*

(*Footnote.  "He is the free man, whom TRUTH makes free!"  Cowper.)

The being who can govern itself, has nothing to fear in life; but
if any thing is dearer than its own respect, the price must be paid
to the last farthing.  Virtue, like every thing valuable, must be
loved for herself alone; or she will not take up her abode with us.
She will not impart that peace, "which passeth understanding," when
she is merely made the stilts of reputation and respected with
pharisaical exactness, because "honesty is the best policy."

That the plan of life which enables us to carry some knowledge and
virtue into another world, is the one best calculated to ensure
content in this, cannot be denied; yet few people act according to
this principle, though it be universally allowed that it admits not
of dispute.  Present pleasure, or present power, carry before it
these sober convictions; and it is for the day, not for life, that
man bargains with happiness.  How few! how very few! have
sufficient foresight or resolution, to endure a small evil at the
moment, to avoid a greater hereafter.

Woman in particular, whose virtue* is built on mutual prejudices,
seldom attains to this greatness of mind; so that, becoming the
slave of her own feelings, she is easily subjugated by those of
others.  Thus degraded, her reason, her misty reason! is employed
rather to burnish than to snap her chains.

(*Footnote.  I mean to use a word that comprehends more than
chastity, the sexual virtue.)

Indignantly have I heard women argue in the same track as men, and
adopt the sentiments that brutalize them with all the pertinacity
of ignorance.

I must illustrate my assertion by a few examples.  Mrs. Piozzi, who
often repeated by rote, what she did not understand, comes forward
with Johnsonian periods.

"Seek not for happiness in singularity; and dread a refinement of
wisdom as a deviation into folly."  Thus she dogmatically addresses
a new married man; and to elucidate this pompous exordium, she
adds, "I said that the person of your lady would not grow more
pleasing to you, but pray let her never suspect that it grows less
so:  that a woman will pardon an affront to her understanding much
sooner than one to her person, is well known; nor will any of us
contradict the assertion.  All our attainments, all our arts, are
employed to gain and keep the heart of man; and what mortification
can exceed the disappointment, if the end be not obtained: There is
no reproof however pointed, no punishment however severe, that a
woman of spirit will not prefer to neglect; and if she can endure
it without complaint, it only proves that she means to make herself
amends by the attention of others for the slights of her husband!"

These are true masculine sentiments.  "All our ARTS are employed to
gain and keep the heart of man:"--and what is the inference?--if
her person, and was there ever a person, though formed with
Medicisan symmetry, that was not slighted? be neglected, she will
make herself amends by endeavouring to please other men.  Noble
morality!  But thus is the understanding of the whole sex
affronted, and their virtue deprived of the common basis of virtue.
A woman must know, that her person cannot be as pleasing to her
husband as it was to her lover, and if she be offended with him for
being a human creature, she may as well whine about the loss of his
heart as about any other foolish thing.  And this very want of
discernment or unreasonable anger, proves that he could not change
his fondness for her person into affection for her virtues or
respect for her understanding.

Whilst women avow, and act up to such opinions, their
understandings, at least, deserve the contempt and obloquy that
men, WHO NEVER insult their persons, have pointedly levelled at the
female mind.  And it is the sentiments of these polite men, who do
not wish to be encumbered with mind, that vain women thoughtlessly
adopt.  Yet they should know, that insulted reason alone can spread
that SACRED reserve about the persons which renders human
affections, for human affections have always some base alloy, as
permanent as is consistent with the grand end of existence--the
attainment of virtue.

The Baroness de Stael speaks the same language as the lady just
cited, with more enthusiasm.  Her eulogium on Rousseau was
accidentally put into my hands, and her sentiments, the sentiments
of too many of my sex, may serve as the text for a few comments.
"Though Rousseau," she observes, "has endeavoured to prevent women
from interfering in public affairs, and acting a brilliant part in
the theatre of politics; yet, in speaking of them, how much has he
done it to their satisfaction!  If he wished to deprive them of
some rights, foreign to their sex, how has he for ever restored to
them all those to which it has a claim!  And in attempting to
diminish their influence over the deliberations of men, how
sacredly has he established the empire they have over their
happiness!  In aiding them to descend from an usurped throne, he
has firmly seated them upon that to which they were destined by
nature; and though he be full of indignation against them when they
endeavour to resemble men, yet when they come before him with all
THE CHARMS WEAKNESSES, VIRTUES, and ERRORS, OF their sex, his
respect for their PERSONS amounts almost to adoration."  True!--For
never was there a sensualist who paid more fervent adoration at the
shrine of beauty.  So devout, indeed, was his respect for the
person, that excepting the virtue of chastity, for obvious reasons,
he only wished to see it embellished by charms, weaknesses, and
errors.  He was afraid lest the austerity of reason should disturb
the soft playfulness of love.  The master wished to have a
meretricious slave to fondle, entirely dependent on his reason and
bounty; he did not want a companion, whom he should be compelled to
esteem, or a friend to whom he could confide the care of his
children's education, should death deprive them of their father,
before he had fulfilled the sacred task.  He denies woman reason,
shuts her out from knowledge, and turns her aside from truth; yet
his pardon is granted, because, "he admits the passion of love."
It would require some ingenuity to show why women were to be under
such an obligation to him for thus admitting love; when it is clear
that he admits it only for the relaxation of men, and to perpetuate
the species; but he talked with passion, and that powerful spell
worked on the sensibility of a young encomiast.  "What signifies
it," pursues this rhapsodist, "to women, that his reason disputes
with them the empire, when his heart is devotedly theirs."  It is
not empire--but equality, that they should contend for.  Yet, if
they only wished to lengthen out their sway, they should not
entirely trust to their persons, for though beauty may gain a
heart, it cannot keep it, even while the beauty is in full bloom,
unless the mind lend, at least, some graces.

When women are once sufficiently enlightened to discover their real
interest, on a grand scale, they will, I am persuaded, be very
ready to resign all the prerogatives of love, that are not mutual,
(speaking of them as lasting prerogatives,) for the calm
satisfaction of friendship, and the tender confidence of habitual
esteem.  Before marriage they will not assume any insolent airs,
nor afterward abjectly submit; but, endeavouring to act like
reasonable creatures, in both situations, they will not be tumbled
from a throne to a stool.

Madame Genlis has written several entertaining books for children;
and her letters on Education afford many useful hints, that
sensible parents will certainly avail themselves of; but her views
are narrow, and her prejudices as unreasonable as strong.

I shall pass over her vehement argument in favour of the eternity
of future punishments, because I blush to think that a human being
should ever argue vehemently in such a cause, and only make a few
remarks on her absurd manner of making the parental authority
supplant reason.  For every where does she inculcate not only BLIND
submission to parents; but to the opinion of the world.*

(*Footnote.  A person is not to act in this or that way, though
convinced they are right in so doing, because some equivocal
circumstances may lead the world to SUSPECT that they acted from
different motives.  This is sacrificing the substance for a shadow.
Let people but watch their own hearts, and act rightly as far as
they can judge, and they may patiently wait till the opinion of the
world comes round.  It is best to be directed by a simple
motive--for justice has too often been sacrificed to
propriety;--another word for convenience.)

She tells a story of a young man engaged by his father's express
desire to a girl of fortune.  Before the marriage could take place
she is deprived of her fortune, and thrown friendless on the world.
The father practises the most infamous arts to separate his son
from her, and when the son detects his villany, and, following the
dictates of honour, marries the girl, nothing but misery ensues,
because forsooth he married WITHOUT his father's consent.  On what
ground can religion or morality rest, when justice is thus set at
defiance?  In the same style she represents an accomplished young
woman, as ready to marry any body that her MAMMA pleased to
recommend; and, as actually marrying the young man of her own
choice, without feeling any emotions of passion, because that a
well educated girl had not time to be in love.  Is it possible to
have much respect for a system of education that thus insults
reason and nature?

Many similar opinions occur in her writings, mixed with sentiments
that do honour to her head and heart.  Yet so much superstition is
mixed with her religion, and so much worldly wisdom with her
morality, that I should not let a young person read her works,
unless I could afterwards converse on the subjects, and point out
the contradictions.

Mrs. Chapone's Letters are written with such good sense, and
unaffected humility, and contain so many useful observations, that
I only mention them to pay the worthy writer this tribute of
respect.  I cannot, it is true, always coincide in opinion with
her; but I always respect her.

The very word respect brings Mrs. Macaulay to my remembrance.  The
woman of the greatest abilities, undoubtedly, that this country has
ever produced.  And yet this woman has been suffered to die without
sufficient respect being paid to her memory.

Posterity, however, will be more just; and remember that Catharine
Macaulay was an example of intellectual acquirements supposed to be
incompatible with the weakness of her sex.  In her style of
writing, indeed, no sex appears, for it is like the sense it
conveys, strong and clear.

I will not call her's a masculine understanding, because I admit
not of such an arrogant assumption of reason; but I contend that it
was a sound one, and that her judgment, the matured fruit of
profound thinking, was a proof that a woman can acquire judgment,
in the full extent of the word.  Possessing more penetration than
sagacity, more understanding than fancy, she writes with sober
energy, and argumentative closeness; yet sympathy and benevolence
give an interest to her sentiments, and that vital heat to
arguments, which forces the reader to weigh them.*

(*Footnote.  Coinciding in opinion with Mrs. Macaulay relative to
many branches of education, I refer to her valuable work, instead
of quoting her sentiments to support my own.)

When I first thought of writing these strictures I anticipated Mrs.
Macaulay's approbation with a little of that sanguine ardour which
it has been the business of my life to depress; but soon heard with
the sickly qualm of disappointed hope, and the still seriousness of
regret--that she was no more!

SECTION 5.5.

Taking a view of the different works which have been written on
education, Lord Chesterfield's Letters must not be silently passed
over.  Not that I mean to analyze his unmanly, immoral system, or
even to cull any of the useful shrewd remarks which occur in his
frivolous correspondence--No, I only mean to make a few reflections
on the avowed tendency of them--the art of acquiring an early
knowledge of the world.  An art, I will venture to assert, that
preys secretly, like the worm in the bud, on the expanding powers,
and turns to poison the generous juices which should mount with
vigour in the youthful frame, inspiring warm affections and great
resolves.

For every thing, saith the wise man, there is reason; and who would
look for the fruits of autumn during the genial months of spring?
But this is mere declamation, and I mean to reason with those
worldly-wise instructors, who, instead of cultivating the judgment,
instil prejudices, and render hard the heart that gradual
experience would only have cooled.  An early acquaintance with
human infirmities; or, what is termed knowledge of the world, is
the surest way, in my opinion, to contract the heart and damp the
natural youthful ardour which produces not only great talents, but
great virtues.  For the vain attempt to bring forth the fruit of
experience, before the sapling has thrown out its leaves, only
exhausts its strength, and prevents its assuming a natural form;
just as the form and strength of subsiding metals are injured when
the attraction of cohesion is disturbed.  Tell me, ye who have
studied the human mind, is it not a strange way to fix principles
by showing young people that they are seldom stable?  And how can
they be fortified by habits when they are proved to be fallacious
by example?  Why is the ardour of youth thus to be damped, and the
luxuriancy of fancy cut to the quick?  This dry caution may, it is
true, guard a character from worldly mischances; but will
infallibly preclude excellence in either virtue or knowledge.  The
stumbling-block thrown across every path by suspicion, will prevent
any vigorous exertions of genius or benevolence, and life will be
stripped of its most alluring charm long before its calm evening,
when man should retire to contemplation for comfort and support.

A young man who has been bred up with domestic friends, and led to
store his mind with as much speculative knowledge as can be
acquired by reading and the natural reflections which youthful
ebullitions of animal spirits and instinctive feelings inspire,
will enter the world with warm and erroneous expectations.  But
this appears to be the course of nature; and in morals, as well as
in works of taste, we should be observant of her sacred
indications, and not presume to lead when we ought obsequiously to
follow.

In the world few people act from principle; present feelings, and
early habits, are the grand springs:  but how would the former be
deadened, and the latter rendered iron corroding fetters, if the
world were shown to young people just as it is; when no knowledge
of mankind or their own hearts, slowly obtained by experience
rendered them forbearing?  Their fellow creatures would not then be
viewed as frail beings; like themselves, condemned to struggle with
human infirmities, and sometimes displaying the light and sometimes
the dark side of their character; extorting alternate feelings of
love and disgust; but guarded against as beasts of prey, till every
enlarged social feeling, in a word--humanity, was eradicated.

In life, on the contrary, as we gradually discover the
imperfections of our nature, we discover virtues, and various
circumstances attach us to our fellow creatures, when we mix with
them, and view the same objects, that are never thought of in
acquiring a hasty unnatural knowledge of the world.  We see a folly
swell into a vice, by almost imperceptible degrees, and pity while
we blame; but, if the hideous monster burst suddenly on our sight,
fear and disgust rendering us more severe than man ought to be,
might lead us with blind zeal to usurp the character of
omnipotence, and denounce damnation on our fellow mortals,
forgetting that we cannot read the heart, and that we have seeds of
the same vices lurking in our own.

I have already remarked, that we expect more from instruction, than
mere instruction can produce:  for, instead of preparing young
people to encounter the evils of life with dignity, and to acquire
wisdom and virtue by the exercise of their own faculties, precepts
are heaped upon precepts, and blind obedience required, when
conviction should be brought home to reason.

Suppose, for instance, that a young person in the first ardour of
friendship deifies the beloved object--what harm can arise from
this mistaken enthusiastic attachment?  Perhaps it is necessary for
virtue first to appear in a human form to impress youthful hearts;
the ideal model, which a more matured and exalted mind looks up to,
and shapes for itself, would elude their sight.  He who loves not
his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God? asked the
wisest of men.

It is natural for youth to adorn the first object of its affection
with every good quality, and the emulation produced by ignorance,
or, to speak with more propriety, by inexperience, brings forward
the mind capable of forming such an affection, and when, in the
lapse of time, perfection is found not to be within the reach of
mortals, virtue, abstractly, is thought beautiful, and wisdom
sublime.  Admiration then gives place to friendship, properly so
called, because it is cemented by esteem; and the being walks alone
only dependent on heaven for that emulous panting after perfection
which ever glows in a noble mind.  But this knowledge a man must
gain by the exertion of his own faculties; and this is surely the
blessed fruit of disappointed hope! for He who delighteth to
diffuse happiness and show mercy to the weak creatures, who are
learning to know him, never implanted a good propensity to be a
tormenting ignis fatuus.

Our trees are now allowed to spread with wild luxuriance, nor do we
expect by force to combine the majestic marks of time with youthful
graces; but wait patiently till they have struck deep their root,
and braved many a storm.  Is the mind then, which, in proportion to
its dignity advances more slowly towards perfection, to be treated
with less respect?  To argue from analogy, every thing around us is
in a progressive state; and when an unwelcome knowledge of life
produces almost a satiety of life, and we discover by the natural
course of things that all that is done under the sun is vanity, we
are drawing near the awful close of the drama.  The days of
activity and hope are over, and the opportunities which the first
stage of existence has afforded of advancing in the scale of
intelligence, must soon be summed up.  A knowledge at this period
of the futility of life, or earlier, if obtained by experience, is
very useful, because it is natural; but when a frail being is shown
the follies and vices of man, that he may be taught prudently to
guard against the common casualties of life by sacrificing his
heart--surely it is not speaking harshly to call it the wisdom of
this world, contrasted with the nobler fruit of piety and
experience.

I will venture a paradox, and deliver my opinion without reserve;
if men were only born to form a circle of life and death, it would
be wise to take every step that foresight could suggest to render
life happy.  Moderation in every pursuit would then be supreme
wisdom; and the prudent voluptuary might enjoy a degree of content,
though he neither cultivated his understanding nor kept his heart
pure.  Prudence, supposing we were mortal, would be true wisdom,
or, to be more explicit, would procure the greatest portion of
happiness, considering the whole of life; but knowledge beyond the
conveniences of life would be a curse.

Why should we injure our health by close study?  The exalted
pleasure which intellectual pursuits afford would scarcely be
equivalent to the hours of languor that follow; especially, if it
be necessary to take into the reckoning the doubts and
disappointments that cloud our researches.  Vanity and vexation
close every inquiry:  for the cause which we particularly wished to
discover flies like the horizon before us as we advance.  The
ignorant, on the contrary, resemble children, and suppose, that if
they could walk straight forward they should at last arrive where
the earth and clouds meet.  Yet, disappointed as we are in our
researches, the mind gains strength by the exercise, sufficient,
perhaps, to comprehend the answers which, in another step of
existence, it may receive to the anxious questions it asked, when
the understanding with feeble wing was fluttering round the visible
effects to dive into the hidden cause.

The passions also, the winds of life, would be useless, if not
injurious, did the substance which composes our thinking being,
after we have thought in vain, only become the support of vegetable
life, and invigorate a cabbage, or blush in a rose.  The appetites
would answer every earthly purpose, and produce more moderate and
permanent happiness.  But the powers of the soul that are of little
use here, and, probably, disturb our animal enjoyments, even while
conscious dignity makes us glory in possessing them, prove that
life is merely an education, a state of infancy, of which the only
hopes worth cherishing should not be sacrificed.  I mean, therefore
to infer, that we ought to have a precise idea of what we wish to
attain by education, for the immortality of the soul is
contradicted by the actions of many people, who firmly profess the
belief.

If you mean to secure ease and prosperity on earth as the first
consideration, and leave futurity to provide for itself, you act
prudently in giving your child an early insight into the weaknesses
of his nature.  You may not, it is true, make an Inkle of him; but
do not imagine that he will stick to more than the letter of the
law, who has very early imbibed a mean opinion of human nature; nor
will he think it necessary to rise much above the common standard.
He may avoid gross vices, because honesty is the best policy; but
he will never aim at attaining great virtues.  The example of
writers and artists will illustrate this remark.

I must therefore venture to doubt, whether what has been thought an
axiom in morals, may not have been a dogmatical assertion made by
men who have coolly seen mankind through the medium of books, and
say, in direct contradiction to them, that the regulation of the
passions is not always wisdom.  On the contrary, it should seem,
that one reason why men have superiour judgment and more fortitude
than women, is undoubtedly this, that they give a freer scope to
the grand passions, and by more frequently going astray, enlarge
their minds.  If then by the exercise of their own reason, they fix
on some stable principle, they have probably to thank the force of
their passions, nourished by FALSE views of life, and permitted to
overleap the boundary that secures content.  But if, in the dawn of
life, we could soberly survey the scenes before us as in
perspective, and see every thing in its true colours, how could the
passions gain sufficient strength to unfold the faculties?

Let me now, as from an eminence, survey the world stripped of all
its false delusive charms.  The clear atmosphere enables me to see
each object in its true point of view, while my heart is still.  I
am calm as the prospect in a morning when the mists, slowly
dispersing, silently unveil the beauties of nature, refreshed by
rest.

In what light will the world now appear?  I rub my eyes and think,
perchance, that I am just awaking from a lively dream.

I see the sons and daughters of men pursuing shadows, and anxiously
wasting their powers to feed passions which have no adequate
object--if the very excess of these blind impulses pampered by that
lying, yet constantly-trusted guide, the imagination, did not, by
preparing them for some other state, render short sighted mortals
wiser without their own concurrence; or, what comes to the same
thing, when they were pursuing some imaginary present good.

After viewing objects in this light, it would not be very fanciful
to imagine, that this world was a stage on which a pantomime is
daily performed for the amusement of superiour beings.  How would
they be diverted to see the ambitious man consuming himself by
running after a phantom, and, pursuing the bubble fame in "the
cannon's mouth" that was to blow him to nothing:  for when
consciousness is lost, it matters not whether we mount in a
whirlwind or descend in rain.  And should they compassionately
invigorate his sight, and show him the thorny path which led to
eminence, that like a quicksand sinks as he ascends, disappointing
his hopes when almost within his grasp, would he not leave to
others the honour of amusing them, and labour to secure the present
moment, though from the constitution of his nature he would not
find it very easy to catch the flying stream?  Such slaves are we
to hope and fear!

But, vain as the ambitious man's pursuit would be, he is often
striving for something more substantial than fame--that indeed
would be the veriest meteor, the wildest fire that could lure a man
to ruin.  What! renounce the most trifling gratification to be
applauded when he should be no more! Wherefore this struggle,
whether man is mortal or immortal, if that noble passion did not
really raise the being above his fellows?

And love!  What diverting scenes would it produce--Pantaloon's
tricks must yield to more egregious folly.  To see a mortal adorn
an object with imaginary charms, and then fall down and worship the
idol which he had himself set up--how ridiculous!  But what serious
consequences ensue to rob man of that portion of happiness, which
the Deity by calling him into existence has (or, on what can his
attributes rest?) indubitably promised; would not all the purposes
of life have been much better fulfilled if he had only felt what
has been termed physical love?  And, would not the sight of the
object, not seen through the medium of the imagination, soon reduce
the passion to an appetite, if reflection, the noble distinction of
man, did not give it force, and make it an instrument to raise him
above this earthy dross, by teaching him to love the centre of all
perfection! whose wisdom appears clearer and clearer in the works
of nature, in proportion as reason is illuminated and exalted by
contemplation, and by acquiring that love of order which the
struggles of passion produce?

The habit of reflection, and the knowledge attained by fostering
any passion, might be shown to be equally useful though the object
be proved equally fallacious; for they would all appear in the same
light, if they were not magnified by the governing passion
implanted in us by the Author of all good, to call forth and
strengthen the faculties of each individual, and enable it to
attain all the experience that an infant can obtain, who does
certain things, it cannot tell why.

I descend from my height, and mixing with my fellow creatures, feel
myself hurried along the common stream; ambition, love, hope, and
fear, exert their wonted power, though we be convinced by reason
that their present and most attractive promises are only lying
dreams; but had the cold hand of circumspection damped each
generous feeling before it had left any permanent character, or
fixed some habit, what could be expected, but selfish prudence and
reason just rising above instinct?  Who that has read Dean Swift's
disgusting description of the Yahoos, and insipid one of Houyhnhnm
with a philosophical eye, can avoid seeing the futility of
degrading the passions, or making man rest in contentment?

The youth should ACT; for had he the experience of a grey head, he
would be fitter for death than life, though his virtues, rather
residing in his head than his heart could produce nothing great,
and his understanding prepared for this world, would not, by its
noble flights, prove that it had a title to a better.

Besides, it is not possible to give a young person a just view of
life; he must have struggled with his own passions before he can
estimate the force of the temptation which betrayed his brother
into vice.  Those who are entering life, and those who are
departing, see the world from such very different points of view,
that they can seldom think alike, unless the unfledged reason of
the former never attempted a solitary flight.

When we hear of some daring crime--it comes full upon us in the
deepest shade of turpitude, and raises indignation; but the eye
that gradually saw the darkness thicken, must observe it with more
compassionate forbearance.  The world cannot be seen by an unmoved
spectator, we must mix in the throng, and feel as men feel before
we can judge of their feelings.  If we mean, in short, to live in
the world to grow wiser and better, and not merely to enjoy the
good things of life, we must attain a knowledge of others at the
same time that we become acquainted with ourselves-- knowledge
acquired any other way only hardens the heart and perplexes the
understanding.

I may be told, that the knowledge thus acquired, is sometimes
purchased at too dear a rate.  I can only answer, that I very much
doubt whether any knowledge can be attained without labour and
sorrow; and those who wish to spare their children both, should not
complain if they are neither wise nor virtuous.  They only aimed at
making them prudent; and prudence, early in life, is but the
cautious craft of ignorant self-love.  I have observed, that young
people, to whose education particular attention has been paid,
have, in general, been very superficial and conceited, and far from
pleasing in any respect, because they had neither the unsuspecting
warmth of youth, nor the cool depth of age.  I cannot help imputing
this unnatural appearance principally to that hasty premature
instruction, which leads them presumptuously to repeat all the
crude notions they have taken upon trust, so that the careful
education which they received, makes them all their lives the
slaves of prejudices.

Mental as well as bodily exertion is, at first, irksome; so much
so, that the many would fain let others both work and think for
them.  An observation which I have often made will illustrate my
meaning.  When in a circle of strangers, or acquaintances, a person
of moderate abilities, asserts an opinion with heat, I will venture
to affirm, for I have traced this fact home, very often, that it is
a prejudice.  These echoes have a high respect for the
understanding of some relation or friend, and without fully
comprehending the opinions, which they are so eager to retail, they
maintain them with a degree of obstinacy, that would surprise even
the person who concocted them.

I know that a kind of fashion now prevails of respecting
prejudices; and when any one dares to face them, though actuated by
humanity and armed by reason, he is superciliously asked, whether
his ancestors were fools.  No, I should reply; opinions, at first,
of every description, were all, probably, considered, and therefore
were founded on some reason; yet not unfrequently, of course, it
was rather a local expedient than a fundamental principle, that
would be reasonable at all times.  But, moss-covered opinions
assume the disproportioned form of prejudices, when they are
indolently adopted only because age has given them a venerable
aspect, though the reason on which they were built ceases to be a
reason, or cannot be traced.  Why are we to love prejudices, merely
because they are prejudices?  A prejudice is a fond obstinate
persuasion, for which we can give no reason; for the moment a
reason can be given for an opinion, it ceases to be a prejudice,
though it may be an error in judgment:  and are we then advised to
cherish opinions only to set reason at defiance?  This mode of
arguing, if arguing it may be called, reminds me of what is
vulgarly termed a woman's reason.  For women sometimes declare that
they love, or believe certain things, BECAUSE they love, or believe
them.

It is impossible to converse with people to any purpose, who, in
this style, only use affirmatives and negatives.  Before you can
bring them to a point, to start fairly from, you must go back to
the simple principles that were antecedent to the prejudices
broached by power; and it is ten to one but you are stopped by the
philosophical assertion, that certain principles are as practically
false as they are abstractly true.  Nay, it may be inferred, that
reason has whispered some doubts, for it generally happens that
people assert their opinions with the greatest heat when they begin
to waver; striving to drive out their own doubts by convincing
their opponent, they grow angry when those gnawing doubts are
thrown back to prey on themselves.

The fact is, that men expect from education, what education cannot
give.  A sagacious parent or tutor may strengthen the body and
sharpen the instruments by which the child is to gather knowledge;
but the honey must be the reward of the individual's own industry.
It is almost as absurd to attempt to make a youth wise by the
experience of another, as to expect the body to grow strong by the
exercise which is only talked of, or seen.

Many of those children whose conduct has been most narrowly
watched, become the weakest men, because their instructors only
instill certain notions into their minds, that have no other
foundation than their authority; and if they are loved or
respected, the mind is cramped in its exertions and wavering in its
advances.  The business of education in this case, is only to
conduct the shooting tendrils to a proper pole; yet after laying
precept upon precept, without allowing a child to acquire judgment
itself, parents expect them to act in the same manner by this
borrowed fallacious light, as if they had illuminated it
themselves; and be, when they enter life, what their parents are at
the close.  They do not consider that the tree, and even the human
body, does not strengthen its fibres till it has reached its full
growth.

There appears to be something analogous in the mind.  The senses
and the imagination give a form to the character, during childhood
and youth; and the understanding as life advances, gives firmness
to the first fair purposes of sensibility--till virtue, arising
rather from the clear conviction of reason than the impulse of the
heart, morality is made to rest on a rock against which the storms
of passion vainly beat.

I hope I shall not be misunderstood when I say, that religion will
not have this condensing energy, unless it be founded on reason.
If it be merely the refuge of weakness or wild fanaticism, and not
a governing principle of conduct, drawn from self-knowledge, and a
rational opinion respecting the attributes of God, what can it be
expected to produce?  The religion which consists in warming the
affections, and exalting the imagination, is only the poetical
part, and may afford the individual pleasure without rendering it a
more moral being.  It may be a substitute for worldly pursuits; yet
narrow instead of enlarging the heart:  but virtue must be loved as
in itself sublime and excellent, and not for the advantages it
procures or the evils it averts, if any great degree of excellence
be expected.  Men will not become moral when they only build airy
castles in a future world to compensate for the disappointments
which they meet with in this; if they turn their thoughts from
relative duties to religious reveries.

Most prospects in life are marred by the shuffling worldly wisdom
of men, who, forgetting that they cannot serve God and mammon,
endeavour to blend contradictory things.  If you wish to make your
son rich, pursue one course --if you are only anxious to make him
virtuous, you must take another; but do not imagine that you can
bound from one road to the other without losing your way.*

(*Footnote.  See an excellent essay on this subject by Mrs.
Barbauld, in Miscellaneous pieces in Prose.)

 Wollstonecraft tells us that she's going to devote this chapter of Vindication to examining and critiquing all the wrong things that men have written about women and women's education in her time. She'll start her critique by looking at her #1 enemy, Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau believes that women should be weak and passive, and that education should make them as weak and passive as possible. Oh yeah, and he also thinks that the whole point of a woman's life is to be pleasing to men, especially her husband. Rousseau says that we can clearly see how different boys and girls are from a young age. Boys like to play rough sports while girls like to sit and play with dolls. But Wollstonecraft insists that this is only because parents give their daughters dolls and tell their sons to play more active games. She also tells us that Rousseau writes what he does because in France , people care about appearances way more than substance. Wollstonecraft would like to think that the English have a little more faith in substance. Rousseau goes on to say that young women should be taught how to restrain themselves. If a young girl really loves to play with her doll, she must learn not to play with it. If she loves to run around the house, her parents must stop her from doing so. It's only by resisting every desire that a young woman can become a lady. Rousseau tells men to be aggressive and commanding with their wives. Otherwise the wives might get uppity and start acting like they run the show. Wollstonecraft warns people who agree with Rousseau that it isn't this easy. Women will become frustrated if men keep them in a cage, and one of the most common ways for women to express their frustration is to have an affair. Rousseau concludes by saying that the way things are is the way they're supposed to be. Wollstonecraft finds this nonsensical, since all of the rest of Rousseau's work talks about how people should change their behavior and change the world by returning to nature. Rousseau also thinks that girls talk too much when they're young, to which Wollstonecraft answers, "Good." Wollstonecraft once again points out all of the ways that women could be more useful to society if they were educated. They could have better conversations with their husbands and could give a better education to their children. Eventually, Rousseau advises women not to give their husbands too much sex or affection in the beginning of the marriage. They have to pace themselves or else their husbands will get bored of them too quickly. In either case, once the romance wears off , a husband and wife will be kept together by sheer habit. Children are also great for keeping couples together after the husband and wife stop loving each other. In short, all of Rousseau's advice on how to educate young women is calculated only to make them pleasing to men for a short time. Wollstonecraft wants to replace this kind of thinking with an education that can make women valuable their entire lives. Rousseau was already dead when Wollstonecraft was writing this book, and she claims she doesn't want to speak ill of the dead--only of his opinions. Wollstonecraft's next target for critique is a guy named Dr. Fordyce, who apparently wrote a bunch of sermons instructing young women how to behave. Her main beef with Fordyce seems to be that the guy teaches women to look and act graceful instead of teaching them the grace that really matters--the one you develop on the inside. Like Rousseau, Fordyce obsesses over the way women appear to men more than they way women are on the inside. At one point, Fordyce even instructs young women to look as angelic as possible when they're praying to God. To Wollstonecraft, this is a huge insult to religion and to God, because women's minds should be on God when they're praying, not on how good they look to other people. Fordyce goes on to say that he is often offended when women get mad at their husbands for ignoring them. Fordyce thinks that more often than not, this lack of attention is the women's fault. Maybe if women tried harder to encourage their husbands, overlook all of their husbands' mistakes, and submit to their opinions in every way, their husbands would pay them a little more attention. For Wollstonecraft, it might be time for men to get over themselves. What Dr. Fordyce is essentially saying is that men should never have to admit they're wrong about anything. Wollstonecraft doesn't accept this argument. If it were true, how would anyone ever improve? The next dude on Wollstonecraft's chopping block is Dr. Gregory, the same dude who instructs his daughters to be nothing more than pleasing objects for men. Once again, Wollstonecraft's main objection is that Dr. Gregory's text is obsessed with appearances and totally silent on the topic of women's true inner feelings. For Wollstonecraft, nothing will ever improve until women are changed from the inside out. Dr. Gregory even advises women to hide their knowledge of things whenever they can. No one likes a know-it-all, he says, and it's important for a woman never to make a man feel like she knows more than him. But Wollstonecraft says that women should become as smart as possible and then show it to the world. It's not up to women to hide their intelligence; it's up to men to get over themselves and become better people. In the end, Wollstonecraft insists that it's better to have a husband's respect than his sexual attraction. At the end of the day, people need to let go of their egos and not be afraid of improving themselves through knowledge. After finishing with Dr. Gregory, Wollstonecraft returns to her general points about how men have acted like tyrants over women and how nothing good can ever come from dominating people by force. That's why she wants her readers to reason through the issue of women's rights with her, calmly and respectfully. One writer named Mrs. Piozzi argues the women are willing to hear their intelligence insulted way more than their appearance. Wollstonecraft thinks this is an empty claim, since it's impossible to know what women really think because they've been trained their whole lives to hide their feelings. One lady named the Baroness de Stael praises the work of Rousseau and says that he has helped women learn to avoid acting like men and to be content with their natural role, which is to be beautiful objects for men to worship. Wollstonecraft can't criticize this view enough, since she thinks it's silly to argue that women have power over men by being dumb and weak. She doesn't want women going through life this way; she wants equality between the sexes, plain and simple. There is also a woman named Madame de Genlis who Wollstonecraft disagrees with. Breaking News: Wollstonecraft disagrees with a lot of people. Genlis argues that children should always obey the authority of their parents the way a commoner would obey a king. Wollstonecraft says that this kind of upbringing will never produce an independent thinker. While discussing the importance of reason, Wollstonecraft mentions a writer named Mrs. Macaulay, who she admires very much because Macaulay shows just how much a woman can understand good sense and reason. Wollstonecraft knows that she has pinned a lot of her arguments on her idea of reason. But she knows that if she's going to be convincing, she needs to go into deeper discussion of what she means by "reason" and what humanity can hope to gain by it. One thing Wollstonecraft knows for sure is that men tend to improve their intelligence more than women because they're allowed to make more mistakes than women. Regardless of their gender, young people should be allowed to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes. It's true, though, that sometimes the mistakes we make are too big and have an impact on the rest of our lives. But Wollstonecraft repeats that any knowledge worth having can't be attained without hard work and sorrow. For this reason, she can't stand it when she's at a party and people won't contradict each other because they think it's rude. For Wollstonecraft., you must devote yourself either to a life of moral goodness or a life of shallow opportunism. You can't have it both ways in her mind.

