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98 in her eyes, would have been of small importance had it not been instituted by man's Creator. It is because there is a God, and because the soul is immortal, that men and women must exercise their reason. Otherwise, they might, like animals, yield to the rule of their instincts and emotions. If women were without souls, they would, notwithstanding their intellects, have no rights to vindicate. But, though sincerely pious, she despised the meaningless forms of religion as much as she did social conventionalities, and was as free in denouncing them. The clergy, who from custom cling to old rites and ceremonies, were, in her opinion, "indolent slugs, who guard, by liming it over, the snug place which they consider in the light of an hereditary estate," and "idle vermin who two or three times a day perform, in the most slovenly manner, a service which they think useless, but call their duty." She believed in the spirit, but not in the letter of the law.

Even the warmest admirers of Mary Wollstonecraft must admit that the faults of the Vindication of the Rights of Women are many. Criticised from a literary stand-point, they exceed its merits. Perfection of style was not, it is true, the aim of the writer, as she at once explains in her Introduction. She there says, that being animated by a far greater end than that of fine writing,—

I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style. I aim at being useful, and sincerity will render me unaffected; for wishing rather to persuade by the force of my arguments than to dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, nor in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings, which, coming from the head, never reach the heart. I shall be employed about things, not words! and, anxious to render my sex