But I must be more
explicit.
With respect to the culture of the heart, it is unanimously
allowed that sex is out of the question; but the line of subordination
in the mental powers is never to be passed over.* Only 'absolute in
loveliness,' the portion of rationality granted to woman, is,
indeed, very scanty; for, denying her genius and judgment, it is
scarcely possible to divine what remains to characterize intellect.
* Into what inconsistencies do men fall when they argue without
the compass of principles. Women, weak women, are compared with
angels; yet, a superiour order of beings should be supposed to possess
more intellect than man; or, in what does their superiority consist?
In the same strain, to drop the sneer, they are allowed to possess
more goodness of heart, piety, and benevolence.- I doubt the fact,
though it be courteously brought forward, unless ignorance be
allowed to be the mother of devotion; for I am firmly persuaded
that, on an average, the proportion between virtue and knowledge, is
more upon a par than is commonly granted.
The stamen of immortality, if I may be allowed the phrase, is the
perfectibility of human reason; for, were man created perfect, or
did a flood of knowledge break in upon him, when he arrived at
maturity, that precluded error, I should doubt whether his existence
would be continued after the dissolution of the body. But, in the
present state of things, every difficulty in morals that escapes
from human discussion, and equally baffles the investigation of
profound thinking, and the lightning glance of genius, is an
argument on which I build my belief of the immortality of the soul.
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