Subtilty is a talent natural to the
sex; and as I am persuaded, all our natural inclinations are right
and good in themselves, I am of opinion this should be cultivated
as well as the others: it is requisite for us only to prevent its
abuse."
"Whatever is, is right," he then proceeds triumphantly to infer.
Granted; yet, perhaps, no aphorism ever contained a more
paradoxical assertion. It is a solemn truth with respect to God.
He, reverentially I speak, sees the whole at once, and saw its just
proportions in the womb of time; but man, who can only inspect
disjointed parts, finds many things wrong; and it is a part of the
system, and therefore right, that he should endeavour to alter what
appears to him to be so, even while he bows to the wisdom of his
Creator, and respects the darkness he labours to disperse.
The inference that follows is just, supposing the principle to be
sound: "The superiority of address, peculiar to the female sex, is
a very equitable indemnification for their inferiority in point of
strength: without this, woman would not be the companion of man;
but his slave: it is by her superiour art and ingenuity that she
preserves her equality, and governs him while she affects to obey.
Woman has every thing against her, as well our faults as her own
timidity and weakness: she has nothing in her favour, but her
subtilty and her beauty. Is it not very reasonable, therefore, she
should cultivate both?" Greatness of mind can never dwell with
cunning or address; for I shall not boggle about words, when their
direct signification is insincerity and falsehood; but content
myself with observing, that if any class of mankind be so created
that it must necessarily be educated by rules, not strictly
deducible from truth, virtue is an affair of convention.
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