provement they are excited, by their ſtation in ſociety, to acquire. This overſtretched ſenſibility naturally relaxes the other powers of the mind, and prevents intellect from attaining that ſovereignty which it ought to attain to render a rational creature uſeful to others, and content with its own ſtation: for the exerciſe of the underſtanding, as life advances, is the only method pointed out by nature to calm the paſſions.
Satiety has a very different effect, and I have often been forcibly ſtruck by an emphatical deſcription of damnation:—when the ſpirit is repreſented as continually hovering with abortive eagerneſs round the defiled body, unable to enjoy any thing without the organs of ſenſe. Yet, to their ſenſes, are women made ſlaves, becauſe it is by their ſenſibility that they obtain preſent power.
And will moraliſts pretend to aſſert, that this is the condition in which one half of the human race ſhould be encouraged to remain with liſtleſs inactivity and ſtupid acquieſcence? Kind inſtructors! what were we created for? To remain, it may be ſaid, innocent; they mean in a ſtate of childhood.—We might as well never have been born, unleſs it were neceſſary that we ſhould be created to enable man to acquire the noble privilege of reaſon, the power of diſcerning good from evil, whilſt we lie down in the duſt from whence we were taken, never to riſe again.—
It would be an endleſs taſk to trace the variety of meanneſſes, cares, and ſorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion, that they were created rather to feel than reaſon,
