1792
VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN
by Mary Wollstonecraft
DEDICATION
To
M. Talleyrand-Perigord,
Late Bishop Of Autun.
Sir,
Having read with great pleasure a pamphlet which you have lately
published, I dedicate this volume to you; to induce you to reconsider
the subject, and maturely weigh what I have advanced respecting the
rights of woman and national education: and I call with the firm tone
of humanity; for my arguments, Sir, are dictated by a disinterested
spirit- I plead for my sex- not for myself. Independence I have long
considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue-
and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though
I were to live on a barren heath.
It is then an affection for the whole human race that makes my pen
dart rapidly along to support what I believe to be the cause of
virtue: and the same motive leads me earnestly to wish to see woman
placed in a station in which she would advance, instead of retarding,
the progress of those glorious principles that give a substance to
morality. My opinion, indeed, respecting the rights and duties of
woman, seems to flow so naturally from these simple principles, that
I think it scarcely possible, but that some of the enlarged minds who
formed your admirable constitution, will coincide with me.
In France there is undoubtedly a more general diffusion of knowledge
than in any part of the European world, and I attribute it, in a great
measure, to the social intercourse which has long subsisted between
the sexes.
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