'
* What nonsense!
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, be
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.
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