Chapter III 65of the midnight hour; or, when, lost in poetic dreams, fancy has peopled the
scene, and the soul has been disturbed, till it shook the constitution, by the
passions that meditation had raised; whose objects, the baseless fabric of
a vision, faded before the exhausted eye, they must have had iron frames.
Shakspeare never grasped the airy dagger with a nerveless hand, nor did
Milton tremble when he led Satan far from the confi nes of his dreary
prison.— These were not the ravings of imbecility, the sickly effusions of
distempered brains; but the exuberance of fancy, that “in a fi ne phrenzy”
wandering, was not continually reminded of its material shackles.
I am aware that this argument would carry me further than it may be
supposed I wish to go; but I follow truth, and, still adhering to my fi rst
position, I will allow that bodily strength seems to give man a natural supe-
riority over woman; and this is the only solid basis on which the superior-
ity of the sex can be built. But I still insist, that not only the virtue, but the
knowledge of the two sexes should be the same in nature, if not in degree,
and that women, considered not only as moral, but rational creatures, ought
to endeavour to acquire human virtues (or perfections) by the same means
as men, instead of being educated like a fanciful kind of half being — one
of Rousseau’s wild chimeras.*
*“Researches into abstract and speculative truths, the principles and axioms of
sciences, in short, every thing which tends to generalize our ideas, is not the proper
province of women; their studies should be relative to points of practice; it belongs
to them to apply those principles which men have discovered; and it is their part to
make observations, which direct men to the establishment of general principles.
All the ideas of women, which have not the immediate tendency to points of duty,
should be directed to the study of men, and to the attainment of those agreeable ac-
complishments which have taste for their object; for as to works of genius, they are
beyond their capacity; neither have they suffi cient precision or power of attention to
succeed in sciences which require accuracy: and as to physical knowledge, it belongs
to those only who are most active, most inquisitive; who comprehend the greatest
variety of objects: in short, it belongs to those who have the strongest powers, and
who exercise them most, to judge of the relations between sensible beings and the
laws of nature. A woman who is naturally weak, and does not carry her ideas to any
great extent, knows how to judge and make a proper estimate of those movements
which she sets to work, in order to aid her weakness; and these movements are the
passions of men. The mechanism she employs is much more powerful than ours;
for all her levers move the human heart. She must have the skill to incline us to do
every thing which her sex will not enable her to do herself, and which is necessary
or agreeable to her; therefore she ought to study the mind of man thoroughly, not the
mind of man in general, abstractedly, but the dispositions of those men to whom she
is subject, either by the laws of her country or by the force of opinion. She should
learn to penetrate into their real sentiments from their conversation, their actions,
their looks, and gestures. She should also have the art, by her own conversation,