Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/12

vi to weigh what I have advanced repecting the rights of woman, and national education—and I call with the firm tone of humanity. For my arguments, Sir, are dictated by a diintereted pirit—I plead for my ex—not for myelf. Independence I have long conidered as the grand bleing of life, the bais of every virtue—and independence I will ever ecure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.

It is then an affection for the whole human race that makes my pen dart rapidly along to upport what I believe to be the caue of virtue: and the ame motive leads me earnetly to wih to ee woman placed in a tation in which he would advance, intead of retarding, the progres of thoe glorious principles that give a ubtance to morality. My opinion, indeed, repecting the rights and duties of woman, eems to flow o naturally from thee imple principles, that I think it carcely poible, but that ome of the enlarged minds who formed your admirable contitution, will coincide with me.

In France there is undoubtedly a more general diffuion of knowledge than in any part of the European world, and I attribute it, in a great meaure, to the ocial intercoure which has long ubited between the exes. It is true, I utter my entiments with freedom, that in France the very&ensp;