Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/134

126 in the particular spheres for which God created them. The main point of equality which is contended for, and upon which all the rest is made to depend, is intellectual equality; and here the great error is committed, and it is committed by “intellectual” or “masculine” women, who hold the same false relation to their sex, that “effeminate” men hold to theirs. It is a little curious that the first use made, by these intellectual women, of their great mental powers, is to lead their followers into a most dangerous error!

That there does exist as great a difference between the mental as between the physical structure of the sexes, is clear, from common perception, to almost every one. That it must be so, will be seen from this: Every physical form that we see in nature is the outbirth of some spiritual and invisible cause; and the peculiarity of its form and quality depends solely upon the peculiarity of its cause. The cause that produces a rose is different from that which produces a lily, and ever remains different. The cause that produces a lion is different from that which produces a lamb. It is not circumstances, the peculiarity of education, nor any other external thing, that makes this difference, for it is radical. And as this is true in the broader, so