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the reasoning In the world, how much the character of the sex is fade* 

 pendent of the influence of the uterus. A female was born and grew up 

 with all the external characteristics of her sex. At the age of twenty- 

 one, she wished to yield to her desires, but found it impracticable ; there 

 was nothing beyond the vulva, in other respeqts well formed. A small 

 canal, between two or three lines in diameter, occupied the place of the 

 vagina, and terminated in a cul de sac, and was about an inch in depth. 

 The most accurate examinations, by introducing a sound into the blad- 

 der, and the finger up the rectum, discovered nothing like the uterus. 

 With the finger in the rectum, the convexity of the sound in the bladder, 

 could be distinctly felt, so that it was evident, that, between the lower 

 part of the bladder and the anterior part of the rectum, there lay no o*- 

 gan corresponding to the uterus. The young woman, had never been 

 subject to the periodical evacuation which accompanies or precedes the 

 time of puberty. No haemorrhage supplied the place of this excretion. 

 She experienced none of the indispositions that are occasioned by the 

 absence of menstruation ; she enjoyed, on the contrary, the most perfect 

 health; she was deficient in none of the other characteristics of her sex, 

 only that her breasts were small. At the age of twenty-six or twenty- 

 seven, she became subject to a pretty frequent evacuation of bloody urine. 

 May not this affection, which recurred at irregular periods, be consider- 

 ed as a means by which nature supplied the deficiency of the menstrual 

 evacuation ? The bladder, in that case, would fulfil the office of the Ute<- 

 rus, and its capillary vessels must have been considerably evolved. 



The reproduction of the species is, in woman, the most important ob 

 ject of life 5 it is almost the only destination to which Nature has called 

 her, and the only duty she has to fulfil in human society. Wherever the 

 earth is fruitful, and furnishes man with abundant means of providing 

 for his wants, he dispenses with the services of woman, in obtaining from 

 it means of subsistence, he releases her from the burthen of social obliga- 

 lions. The Asiatic expects from the women he maintains in his seraglio, 

 in a state of inactivity, nothing but pleasures and children to perpetuate 

 his race. The women of Otaheite have no employment but pleasure and 

 the duties of mothers. Among some of the savage tribes of America, 

 man, abusing the right of power, tyrannizes, it is true, over woman, and 

 reserving to himself all the advantages of social life, makes her bear all 

 its weight; but this exception does not invalidate the general law de- 

 duced from observation of all nations. Whatever withdraws woman 

 from this primitive destination ; whatever diverts her from this end is 

 to her injury ; it is, the scope of all her actions and habits, every thing, 

 in her physical organization? has evident reference to it. Of all the pas- 

 sions, in woman, love has the greatest sway; it has even been said 

 to be her only passion. It is true* that all the others are modified by it, 

 and receive from it a peculiar cast, which distinguishes them from those 

 of man*. 



We will enter no further into the examination of the general differences 

 which characterize the two sexes ; no one has entered more deeply into 



*' Fontenelle used to say of the devotion of some women : One may see that love has 

 been here. It has been said in speaking of St. Theresa : To love God is still to love. 

 Thomas maintains that, ivith women, a man is more than a nation. Love is but an episode 

 in the life of man ; it is the whole history of the life of -woman. (Madame DE S 



