The Merry Past 



a great power. In connection with the question 

 of conferring political rights upon women, it may be 

 of interest to examine the views of one of the in- 

 tellectual giants of the past who certainly knew 

 woman well. 



In 1784 Mirabeau wrote to Chamfort : 

 " As to my personal observations, I take the unani- 

 mous testimony of the whole of antiquity, which 

 I think has pushed the science of observation and 

 knowledge of the human heart infinitely further 

 than ourselves. I feel myself very well up in the 

 subject. You know what they thought about women 

 — of that sex which, nevertheless, has produced 

 prodigies in its time for the reason that it is a special 

 property of a mirror to show everything on the sur- 

 face. 



• • • ' • • 



" I would beg you to read what all the moralists 

 of antiquity have said whenever they have deigned 

 to speak (of women), which was rare enough, and, 

 what is much more important to remember, what 

 the institutions created by legislators prove that they 



thought. 



• • • • • 



" O my friend, those people were more profound 

 than we are, and yet they did not at all believe, 

 as we pretend to do, that the well-directed education 

 of woman could influence the happiness of society, 

 nor that it could assure the stability of the laws, as 

 we have so much afiirmed. 



" They looked upon those creatures as machines 



294 



