

186. 
a fubfiftence for.thew mutual offspring, 
and, in the prefent ftate of fociety, that 
thare is by no means the lighteft, nor the 
feat inimical to mental improvement. 
if it be granted, that a female Homer, 
Newton, or Shak!peare, have never yet 
arifen; thefe were extraordinary indiv1- 
duals, confidered as phenomena, even 
among men, with all thei- duperior in- 
citements, aids, and opportunities of.ac- 
quiring knowledge 3 and none but a pedant 
or afephifi wili attempt to cftablith ge- 
neral principles from individual excep- 
tions. Burt im every country 2nd pericd, 
3t is faid, women have been confidered, 
Examine 
and treated as inferior to men. 
the hiftory of the avorld, if, in all ages, 
the few have been found to fubjugate the 
many ; the weak, the lirong ; the defign- 
ing, the virtuous? if treachery, perhdy, 
and cunning, have prevailed over talents, 
yalour, and honefly: tyranny and pro- 
feripiion can furely afford no certain cri- 
zeyiox of mental, oral, or even phyfi- 
eal fuperiority! Is it the 
piilotophy, whe re known and obvious 
eaules exiit, to have recourfe tofuppofiticn 
and byporhebse _ The unirorm civil and 
focial difadvantages under which women 
have hitherto ne fufirciéntly ace 
eount for this feeming, or real, inferi- 
ority. With the p: ‘ogrels of civilization 
reafon on afferts its empire over prejud: e 
brute force; the confequences daily 
dimiaiih with the caufes which gavethem 
birth; if they are ftill too much infifted 
ene and exaggerated, may we, not 
ich nis »priety apply, on this eccafion, 
able of the lion and the painter? 
i is ae of late years, and ina {mall part 
of the world, that women have been 
" permitted: to partake ot the treafures of 
knowledge ; and, amidft the contempt 
of coxcom| bs, the jealoufly of tyrants, the 
ridicule of fools, and the difecuragement 
of Ss many of them have already 
made a_ rapid progrels, and have 
evinced a decided fuperiority over a great 
proporuon of the ather fex. ‘This, in it- 
v telf, ‘affords a fufficient proof of no phy- 
ficai incapacity. ‘Till withia the laft fifty 
years, the Germans had, made , little 
omparative advance in the cultivation of 
detiers, and were acjudged by their more 
poltthed neighbours to be a fiupid and 
phlegmetic people: they have not yest 
produced a Newton or a Shak{peare, yet 
- German literaturems daily and delervedly 
ay ing in efteem and reputation ; ise 
excepting the vulgar, who, having onc 
eftablithed a principle, pertinacioufly a 
ebitinatcly adhe:e to it in the face of 
The Talents of Women. 
part of fober > 
the temerity to affert their phyfical i in- 
capacity for the higheft advances in fci- 
ence and literature. .Poverty and hard 
labour debafe the minds of the common. 
people 5 5 opprefiion and difcouragement, 
thofe of every clafs, community, or fex. 
Encreafe, then, with a generous policy, 
our incitcments and rewards, and our im- 
provement will follow as a neceflary cons: 
fequence; while you, asfathers, de ich 
fons, will reap the advantege ! Of all 
monopolies, the moft odious and perni- 
cious, is a monopoly of mind! We afk © 
no favours, but nigicisio wherein 
to exert and difplay our powers! Prow- 
dence, which your correfpondent, in 
common with all ufurpers, whether f{pi- 
ritual or temporal, has enlified in his 
caufe, has afforded no revelation to en- 
join feeblenefs and ignorance, in any of 
their degrees, as the indifpenfabie duty 
of women; or, if it had, Rimulated by 
a fimiar laudable ambition with our ori+ 
ginal mother, daring the penalty, we 
an have feized the fruit of know- 
ledge of good and ewil,. “‘ the fruit te be 
defired to make. uswife,’’ rather than 
have prolonged an infipid exiftence, even 
in the blooming gardens ef Eden. Ong 
of the ftrongeit “mental inc itements, is 
the defire of glory ; toman, has this mos 
tive, in all ages and countries, iavariabl 
been afforded 5 to women, with but few 
Exceptions, nei Geraas ¥ denied ; or, what 
is eaely worte, perverted. Cama being, 
delirous of excellence, fix its fiandard top 
high? If nature has, indeed, placed 
grand and infuperable barriers between 
the virtues and attainments of the fexes 
(for virtue and intelleét have an infepa- 
rable conneéiion) why does man, with 
the little contemptible “jcaloufy of a def- 
pot, confcious of illegitimate claims, feek 
continually to reprets, infiead ot to fofter 
and cherith the noble ardour for ftrength 
and excellence, of which there is fo litthe 
reafon to expe€t that woman fhould ac- 
“quire too large a fhare? Let him prove 
the fuperiority of which he is fo tena- 
cious, by more generous, more gallant, 
lefs_ equivocal, methods. We feek- not 
to deprels, . but to emulate, him ; and 
; most dcevouily do we with him higher de- 
Brees (not “of affumpticn and vain pre- 
tence) but of real virtue and wifdom,, 
in which our own happinefs is fo mate- 
rially involved, We {fhould rejoice. te 
difcover more purity in his m anners, in- 
tegrity.in his privciples, magnanimity 
in his conduét, moderation and candour 
sbis temper, and wifdom in his initi- 
; aN? tutions, 
[Nove | 
conviction, few .would at prefent have © 

q 
