Let men prove this, and I shall grant that woman
only exists for man. I must, however, previously remark, that the
power of generalizing ideas, to any great extent, is not very
common amongst men or women. But this exercise is the true
cultivation of the understanding; and every thing conspires to
render the cultivation of the understanding more difficult in the
female than the male world.
I am naturally led by this assertion to the main subject of the
present chapter, and shall now attempt to point out some of the
causes that degrade the sex, and prevent women from generalizing
their observations.
I shall not go back to the remote annals of antiquity to trace the
history of woman; it is sufficient to allow, that she has always
been either a slave or a despot, and to remark, that each of these
situations equally retards the progress of reason. The grand
source of female folly and vice has ever appeared to me to arise
from narrowness of mind; and the very constitution of civil
governments has put almost insuperable obstacles in the way to
prevent the cultivation of the female understanding: yet virtue
can be built on no other foundation! The same obstacles are thrown
in the way of the rich, and the same consequences ensue.
Necessity has been proverbially termed the mother of invention; the
aphorism may be extended to virtue. It is an acquirement, and an
acquirement to which pleasure must be sacrificed, and who
sacrifices pleasure when it is within the grasp, whose mind has not
been opened and strengthened by adversity, or the pursuit of
knowledge goaded on by necessity? Happy is it when people have the
cares of life to struggle with; for these struggles prevent their
becoming a prey to enervating vices, merely from idleness! But, if
from their birth men and women are placed in a torrid zone, with
the meridian sun of pleasure darting directly upon them, how can
they sufficiently brace their minds to discharge the duties of
life, or even to relish the affections that carry them out of
themselves?
Pleasure is the business of a woman's life, according to the
present modification of society, and while it continues to be so,
little can be expected from such weak beings.
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