Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Chapter V



CHAPTER V. ANIMADVERSIONS ON SOME OF THE WRITERS WHO HAVE RENDERED WOMEN 
OBJECTS OF PITY, BORDERING ON CONTEMPT.

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.

Sect. I.

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 woman ought to be weak and passive, because 
she has less bodily strength than man; and, 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.(1) Still, however, to give a little mock dignity to sensual 
desire, he insists that man should not exert his strength, but depend on 
the will of the woman, when he seeks for pleasure with her.

'Hence we deduce a third consequence from the different constitutions of 
the sexes; which is, that the strongest should be masters in appearance, 
and be dependent in fact on the weakest; and that not from any frivolous 
practice of gallantry or vanity of protectorship, but from an invariable 
law of nature, which, furnishing woman with a greater facility to excite 
desires than she has given man to satisfy them, makes the latter dependent 
on the good pleasure of the former, and compels him to endeavour to please 
in his turn, in order to obtain her consent that he should be 
strongest.(2) On these occasions, the most delightful circumstance a man 
finds in his victory is, to doubt whether it was the woman's weakness that 
yielded to his superiour strength, or whether her inclinations spoke in 
his favour: the females are also generally artful enough to leave this 
matter in doubt. The understanding of women answers in this respect 
perfectly to their constitution: so far from being ashamed of their 
weakness, they glory in it; their tender muscles make no resistance; they 
affect to be incapable of lifting the smallest burthens, and would blush 
to be thought robust and strong. To what purpose is all this? Not merely 
for the sake of appearing delicate, but through an artful precaution: it 
is thus they provide an excuse beforehand, and a right to be feeble when 
they think it expedient.'(3)

I have quoted this passage, lest my readers should suspect that I warped 
the author's reasoning to support my own arguments. I have already 
asserted that in educating women these fundamental principles lead to a 
system of cunning and lasciviousness.

Supposing woman 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.'(4)

'Whether I consider the peculiar destination of the sex, observe their 
inclinations, or remark their duties, all things equally concur to point 
out the peculiar method of education best adapted to them. Woman and man 
were made for each other, but their mutual dependence is not the same. The 
men depend on the women only on account of their desires; the women on the 
men both on account of their desires and their necessities: we could 
subsist better without them than they without us.'(5)

'For this reason, the education of the women should be always relative to 
the men. To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem them, 
to educate us when young, and take care of us when grown up, to advise, to 
console us, to render our lives easy and agreeable: these are the duties 
of women at all times, and what they should be taught in their infancy. So 
long as we fail to recur to this principle, we run wide of the mark, and 
all the precepts which are given them contribute neither to their 
happiness nor our own.'(6)

'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 mirrours, 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, &c. 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 that 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 the 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 were 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 like 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 
afterwards 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 constraint 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 play-thing 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? It is 
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 has 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 differ about words, when their 
direct signification is insincerity and falsehood; but content myself with 
observing, that if any class of mankind are to 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 English-woman 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 minutiæ 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.'(7) 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.'

'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 
to be 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, that an improved 
understanding can only 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 soothe or chide them; render 
them insolent or timid; she will make them formal coxcombs, or ignorant 
blockheads; but will never make these 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, 
descanting 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 minutiæ of education to his help-mate or to 
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 lose 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 in 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 connection 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.'(8)

Children, he truly observes, form a much more permanent connection 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 methods 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 tenour 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 women 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.

'Cursed 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 be 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.

Sect. II.

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 
meekness 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 
inferiours, 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, than any of you can be such barbarians, so supremely 
wicked, as to abuse it? Can you find in your hearts(9) 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.

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 love-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 
loved 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 he is almost overbearing, 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 dullness, 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, &c. &c. 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.

Sect. III.

SUCH paternal solicitute 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 have 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 uncivilized 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.(10) 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 superiour 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.

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 are 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!

Sect. IV.

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 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!' --(11)

The being who can govern itself has nothing to fear in life; but if any 
thing be 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(12) 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.

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 truly 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 person, 
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 shew 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 afterwards 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.(13)

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 passions, 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.(14)

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!

Sect. V.

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.(15)

For every thing, saith the wise man, there is a season; -- 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.(16) 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 shewn 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, abstractedly, 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 
shew 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 useful 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 shewn 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 horizen 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, to 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(17) 
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 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 shew 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 pursuits 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 be 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 into him 
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 shewn 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 on 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?(18) 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.(19) 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.(20) Many of those children whose conduct has been most narrowly 
watched, become the weakest men, because their instructors only instil 
certain notions into their minds, that have no other foundation than their 
authority; and if they be 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.(21)

(1. I have already inserted the passage, Chap. III, Note 4.)

(2. What nonsense!)

(3. Rousseau's Emilius, Vol. III. p. 168.)
(4. Ibid. p. 176.)
(5. Ibid. p. 179.)
(6. Ibid. p. 181.)

(7. 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.)

(8. Rousseau's Emilius.)

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

(10. 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.)

(11. 'He is the free man, whom the truth makes free!' -- Cowper.)

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

(13. 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.)

(14. 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.)

(15. That children ought to be constantly guarded against the vices and 
follies of the world, appears, to me, a very mistaken opinion; for in the 
course of my experience, and my eyes have looked abroad, I never knew a 
youth educated in this manner, who had early imbibed these chilling 
suspicions, and repeated by rote the hesitating if of age, that did not 
prove a selfish character.)

(16. I have already observed that an early knowledge of the world, 
obtained in a natural way, by mixing in the world, has the same effect: 
instancing officers and women.)

(17. 'I find that all is but lip-wisdom which wants experience,' says 
Sidney.)

(18. Vide Mr. Burke.)

(19. 'Convince a man against his will.
      He's of the same opinion still.')

(20. 'One sees nothing when one is content to contemplate only; it is 
necessary to act oneself to be able to see how others act.' -- Rousseau.)

(21. See an excellent essay on this subject by Mrs. Barbauld, in 
Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose.)