A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
philosophical assertion, that certain principles are as practically
false as they are abstractly true. Nay, it may be inferred, that
reason has whispered some doubts, for it generally happens that
people assert their opinions with the greatest heat when they begin
to waver; striving to drive out their own doubts by convincing
their opponent, they grow angry when those gnawing doubts are
thrown back to prey on themselves.
The fact is, that men expect from education, what education cannot
give. A sagacious parent or tutor may strengthen the body and
sharpen the instruments by which the child is to gather knowledge;
but the honey must be the reward of the individual's own industry.
It is almost as absurd to attempt to make a youth wise by the
experience of another, as to expect the body to grow strong by the
exercise which is only talked of, or seen.
Many of those children whose conduct has been most narrowly
watched, become the weakest men, because their instructors only
instill certain notions into their minds, that have no other
foundation than their authority; and if they are loved or
respected, the mind is cramped in its exertions and wavering in its
advances. The business of education in this case, is only to
conduct the shooting tendrils to a proper pole; yet after laying
precept upon precept, without allowing a child to acquire judgment
itself, parents expect them to act in the same manner by this
borrowed fallacious light, as if they had illuminated it
themselves; and be, when they enter life, what their parents are at
the close. They do not consider that the tree, and even the human
body, does not strengthen its fibres till it has reached its full
growth.
There appears to be something analogous in the mind. The senses
and the imagination give a form to the character, during childhood
and youth; and the understanding as life advances, gives firmness
to the first fair purposes of sensibility--till virtue, arising
rather from the clear conviction of reason than the impulse of the
heart, morality is made to rest on a rock against which the storms
of passion vainly beat.
I hope I shall not be misunderstood when I say, that religion will
not have this condensing energy, unless it be founded on reason.
If it be merely the refuge of weakness or wild fanaticism, and not
a governing principle of conduct, drawn from self-knowledge, and a
rational opinion respecting the attributes of God, what can it be
expected to produce? The religion which consists in warming the
affections, and exalting the imagination, is only the poetical
part, and may afford the individual pleasure without rendering it a
more moral being. It may be a substitute for worldly pursuits; yet
narrow instead of enlarging the heart: but virtue must be loved as
in itself sublime and excellent, and not for the advantages it
procures or the evils it averts, if any great degree of excellence
be expected. Men will not become moral when they only build airy
castles in a future world to compensate for the disappointments
which they meet with in this; if they turn their thoughts from
relative duties to religious reveries.
Most prospects in life are marred by the shuffling worldly wisdom
of men, who, forgetting that they cannot serve God and mammon,
endeavour to blend contradictory things. If you wish to make your
son rich, pursue one course --if you are only anxious to make him
virtuous, you must take another; but do not imagine that you can
bound from one road to the other without losing your way.*
(*Footnote. See an excellent essay on this subject by Mrs.
Barbauld, in Miscellaneous pieces in Prose.)
CHAPTER 6.
THE EFFECT WHICH AN EARLY ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS HAS UPON THE
CHARACTER.
Educated in the enervating style recommended by the writers on whom
I have been animadverting; and not having a chance, from their
subordinate state in society, to recover their lost ground, is it
surprising that women every where appear a defect in nature? Is it
surprising, when we consider what a determinate effect an early
association of ideas has on the character, that they neglect their
understandings, and turn all their attention to their persons?
The great advantages which naturally result from storing the mind
with knowledge, are obvious from the following considerations. The
association of our ideas is either habitual or instantaneous; and
the latter mode seems rather to depend on the original temperature
of the mind than on the will. When the ideas, and matters of fact,
are once taken in, they lie by for use, till some fortuitous
circumstance makes the information dart into the mind with
illustrative force, that has been received at very different
periods of our lives. Like the lightning's flash are many
recollections; one idea assimilating and explaining another, with
astonishing rapidity. I do not now allude to that quick perception
of truth, which is so intuitive that it baffles research, and makes
us at a loss to determine whether it is reminiscence or
ratiocination, lost sight of in its celerity, that opens the dark
cloud. Over those instantaneous associations we have little power;
for when the mind is once enlarged by excursive flights, or
profound reflection, the raw materials, will, in some degree,
arrange themselves. The understanding, it is true, may keep us
from going out of drawing when we group our thoughts, or transcribe
from the imagination the warm sketches of fancy; but the animal
spirits, the individual character give the colouring. Over this
subtile electric fluid,* how little power do we possess, and over
it how little power can reason obtain! These fine intractable
spirits appear to be the essence of genius, and beaming in its
eagle eye, produce in the most eminent degree the happy energy of
associating thoughts that surprise, delight, and instruct. These
are the glowing minds that concentrate pictures for their
fellow-creatures; forcing them to view with interest the objects
reflected from the impassioned imagination, which they passed over
in nature.
(*Footnote. I have sometimes, when inclined to laugh at
materialists, asked whether, as the most powerful effects in nature
are apparently produced by fluids, the magnetic, etc. the passions
might not be fine volatile fluids that embraced humanity, keeping
the more refractory elementary parts together--or whether they were
simply a liquid fire that pervaded the more sluggish materials
giving them life and heat?)
I must be allowed to explain myself. The generality of people
cannot see or feel poetically, they want fancy, and therefore fly
from solitude in search of sensible objects; but when an author
lends them his eyes, they can see as he saw, and be amused by
images they could not select, though lying before them.
Education thus only supplies the man of genius with knowledge to
give variety and contrast to his associations; but there is an
habitual association of ideas, that grows "with our growth," which
has a great effect on the moral character of mankind; and by which
a turn is given to the mind, that commonly remains throughout life.
So ductile is the understanding, and yet so stubborn, that the
associations which depend on adventitious circumstances, during the
period that the body takes to arrive at maturity, can seldom be
disentangled by reason. One idea calls up another, its old
associate, and memory, faithful to the first impressions,
particularly when the intellectual powers are not employed to cool
our sensations, retraces them with mechanical exactness.
This habitual slavery, to first impressions, has a more baneful
effect on the female than the male character, because business and
other dry employments of the understanding, tend to deaden the
feelings and break associations that do violence to reason. But
females, who are made women of when they are mere children, and
brought back to childhood when they ought to leave the go-cart
forever, have not sufficient strength of mind to efface the
superinductions of art that have smothered nature.
Every thing that they see or hear serves to fix impressions, call
forth emotions, and associate ideas, that give a sexual character
to the mind. False notions of beauty and delicacy stop the growth
of their limbs and produce a sickly soreness, rather than delicacy
of organs; and thus weakened by being employed in unfolding instead
of examining the first associations, forced on them by every
surrounding object, how can they attain the vigour necessary to
enable them to throw off their factitious character?--where find
strength to recur to reason and rise superior to a system of
oppression, that blasts the fair promises of spring? This cruel
association of ideas, which every thing conspires to twist into all
their habits of thinking, or, to speak with more precision, of
feeling, receives new force when they begin to act a little for
themselves; for they then perceive, that it is only through their
address to excite emotions in men, that pleasure and power are to
be obtained. Besides, all the books professedly written for their
instruction, which make the first impression on their minds, all
inculcate the same opinions. Educated in worse than Egyptian
bondage, it is unreasonable, as well as cruel, to upbraid them with
faults that can scarcely be avoided, unless a degree of native
vigour be supposed, that falls to the lot of very few amongst
mankind.
For instance, the severest sarcasms have been levelled against the
sex, and they have been ridiculed for repeating "a set of phrases
learnt by rote," when nothing could be more natural, considering
the education they receive, and that their "highest praise is to
obey, unargued"--the will of man. If they are not allowed to have
reason sufficient to govern their own conduct--why, all they
learn--must be learned by rote! And when all their ingenuity is
called forth to adjust their dress, "a passion for a scarlet coat,"
is so natural, that it never surprised me; and, allowing Pope's
summary of their character to be just, "that every woman is at
heart a rake," why should they be bitterly censured for seeking a
congenial mind, and preferring a rake to a man of sense?
Rakes know how to work on their sensibility, whilst the modest
merit of reasonable men has, of course, less effect on their
feelings, and they cannot reach the heart by the way of the
understanding, because they have few sentiments in common.
It seems a little absurd to expect women to be more reasonable than
men in their LIKINGS, and still to deny them the uncontroled use of
reason. When do men FALL IN LOVE with sense? When do they, with
their superior powers and advantages, turn from the person to the
mind? And how can they then expect women, who are only taught to
observe behaviour, and acquire manners rather than morals, to
despise what they have been all their lives labouring to attain?
Where are they suddenly to find judgment enough to weigh patiently
the sense of an awkward virtuous man, when his manners, of which
they are made critical judges, are rebuffing, and his conversation
cold and dull, because it does not consist of pretty repartees, or
well-turned compliments? In order to admire or esteem any thing
for a continuance, we must, at least, have our curiosity excited by
knowing, in some degree, what we admire; for we are unable to
estimate the value of qualities and virtues above our
comprehension. Such a respect, when it is felt, may be very
sublime; and the confused consciousness of humility may render the
dependent creature an interesting object, in some points of view;
but human love must have grosser ingredients; and the person very
naturally will come in for its share--and, an ample share it mostly
has!