separate from the mission and the rights of Man--as if she and her
lord were creatures of independent kind, and of irreconcilable
claim. This, at least, is wrong. And not less wrong--perhaps even
more foolishly wrong (for I will anticipate thus far what I hope to
prove)--is the idea that woman is only the shadow and attendant
image of her lord, owing him a thoughtless and servile obedience,
and supported altogether in her weakness by the pre-eminence of his
fortitude.

This, I say, is the most foolish of all errors respecting her who
was made to be the helpmate of man. As if he could be helped
effectively by a shadow, or worthily by a slave!

Let us try, then, whether we cannot get at some clear and harmonious
idea (it must be harmonious if it is true) of what womanly mind and
virtue are in power and office, with respect to man's; and how their
relations, rightly accepted, aid and increase the vigour and honour
and authority of both.

And now I must repeat one thing I said in the last lecture: namely,
that the first use of education was to enable us to consult with the
wisest and the greatest men on all points of earnest difficulty.
That to use books rightly, was to go to them for help: to appeal to
them, when our own knowledge and power of thought failed: to be led
by them into wider sight,--purer conception,--than our own, and
receive from them the united sentence of the judges and councils of
all time, against our solitary and unstable opinion.

Let us do this now. Let us see whether the greatest, the wisest,
the purest-hearted of all ages are agreed in any wise on this point: