What nonsense! When will a great man arise with sufficient
strength of mind to puff away the fumes which pride and sensuality
have thus spread over the subject! If women are by nature inferior
to men, their virtues must be the same in quality, if not in
degree, or virtue is a relative idea; consequently, their conduct
should be founded on the same principles, and have the same aim.

Connected with man as daughters, wives, and mothers, their moral
character may be estimated by their manner of fulfilling those
simple duties; but the end, the grand end of their exertions should
be to unfold their own faculties, and acquire the dignity of
conscious virtue. They may try to render their road pleasant; but
ought never to forget, in common with man, that life yields not the
felicity which can satisfy an immortal soul. I do not mean to
insinuate, that either sex should be so lost, in abstract
reflections or distant views, as to forget the affections and
duties that lie before them, and are, in truth, the means appointed
to produce the fruit of life; on the contrary, I would warmly
recommend them, even while I assert, that they afford most
satisfaction when they are considered in their true subordinate
light.

Probably the prevailing opinion, that woman was created for man,
may have taken its rise from Moses's poetical story; yet, as very
few it is presumed, who have bestowed any serious thought on the
subject, ever supposed that Eve was, literally speaking, one of
Adam's ribs, the deduction must be allowed to fall to the ground;
or, only be so far admitted as it proves that man, from the
remotest antiquity, found it convenient to exert his strength to