Macaulay, the Empress
of Russia, Madame d'Eon, etc. These, and many more, may be
reckoned exceptions; and, are not all heroes, as well as heroines,
exceptions to general rules? I wish to see women neither heroines
nor brutes; but reasonable creatures.) who, from having received a
masculine education, have acquired courage and resolution; I only
contend that the men who have been placed in similar situations
have acquired a similar character, I speak of bodies of men, and
that men of genius and talents have started out of a class, in
which women have never yet been placed.
CHAPTER 5.
ANIMADVERSIONS ON SOME OF THE WRITERS WHO HAVE RENDERED WOMEN
OBJECTS OF PITY, BORDERING ON CONTEMPT.
The opinions speciously supported, in some modern publications on
the female character, and education, which have given the tone to
most of the observations made, in a more cursory manner, on the
sex, remain now to be examined.
SECTION 5.1.
I shall begin with Rousseau, and give a sketch of the character of
women in his own words, interspersing comments and reflections. My
comments, it is true, will all spring from a few simple principles,
and might have been deduced from what I have already said; but the
artificial structure has been raised with so much ingenuity, that
it seems necessary to attack it in a more circumstantial manner,
and make the application myself.
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