He,
reverentially I speak, sees the whole at once, and saw its just
proportions in the womb of time; but man, who can only inspect
disjointed parts, finds many things wrong; and it is a part of the
system, and therefore right, that he should endeavour to alter what
appears to him to be so, even while he bows to the Wisdom of his
Creator, and respects the darkness he labours to disperse.
The inference that follows is just, supposing the principle to be
sound. 'The superiority of address, peculiar to the female sex, is a
very equitable indemnification for their inferiority in point of
strength: without this, woman would not be the companion of man; but
his slave: it is by her superiour art and ingenuity that she preserves
her equality, and governs him while she affects to obey. Woman has
every thing against her, as well our faults, as her own timidity and
weakness; she has nothing in her favour, but her subtilty and her
beauty. Is it not very reasonable, therefore, she should cultivate
both?' Greatness of mind can never dwell with cunning, or address; for
I shall not boggle about words, when their direct signification is
insincerity and falsehood, but content myself with observing, that
if any class of mankind be so created that it must necessarily be
educated by rules not strictly deducible from truth, virtue is an
affair of convention. How could Rousseau dare to assert, after
giving this advice, that in the grand end of existence the object of
both sexes should be the same, when he well knew that the mind, formed
by its pursuits, is expanded by great views swallowing up little ones,
or that it becomes itself little?
Men have superiour strength of body; but were it not for mistaken
notions of beauty, women would acquire sufficient to enable them to
earn their own subsistence, the true definition of independence; and
to bear those bodily inconveniencies and exertions that are
requisite to strengthen the mind.
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