sex, when they do not keenly satirize our headstrong passions and
groveling vices. Behold, I should answer, the natural effect of
ignorance! The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices
to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when
there are no barriers to break its force. Women are told from
their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a
little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness
of temper, OUTWARD obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a
puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of
man; and should they be beautiful, every thing else is needless,
for at least twenty years of their lives.

Thus Milton describes our first frail mother; though when he tells
us that women are formed for softness and sweet attractive grace, I
cannot comprehend his meaning, unless, in the true Mahometan
strain, he meant to deprive us of souls, and insinuate that we were
beings only designed by sweet attractive grace, and docile blind
obedience, to gratify the senses of man when he can no longer soar
on the wing of contemplation.

How grossly do they insult us, who thus advise us only to render
ourselves gentle, domestic brutes! For instance, the winning
softness, so warmly, and frequently recommended, that governs by
obeying. What childish expressions, and how insignificant is the
being--can it be an immortal one? who will condescend to govern by
such sinister methods! "Certainly," says Lord Bacon, "man is of
kin to the beasts by his body: and if he be not of kin to God by
his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature!" Men, indeed,
appear to me to act in a very unphilosophical manner, when they try
to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them