448 On Learning and the Arts. 
pected to accomplish, may be ascribed to the 
higher personages of these antient days, but the 
iufluence of woman on manners could not be 
experienced by them, because woman held not 
the same rank in society as in these later times ; 
and therefore this must constitute one charac- 
teristic feature in which the politeness of the most 
accomplished periods of Greece and Rome could 
bear no resemblance to that of modern days, 
Commerce, wealth, science, arts, and urbanity 
have made a rapid progress in Western Europe, 
and independant of any other cause must have 
produced their effects; but the state of woman, 
which is absolutely novel in the history of man, 
has given an appropriate character to our man- 
ners ; it preceded every other cause ; it operated 
in our rudest and most ignorant periods; it was 
the originating source, it has been the cradle, it 
is the highest aspiring of our politeness, and from 
this is derived whatever is peculiar in the manners 
of the masculine sex. 
It is certain that woman had little estimation in 
antient times, unless as subservient to a purpose 
which it becomes me not to name before this: 
assembly ; or, as necessary to posterity ; or, as 
the superior oeconomists of domestic supply and 
order, They were passed as a property from. 
the ‘parent to the husband; they were not 
introduced on the public stage of life; they were 
