Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/127

Rh Gracious Creator of the whole human race! hat thou created uch a being as woman, who can trace thy widom in thy works, and feel that thou alone art by thy nature, exalted above her,—for no better purpoe?—Can he believe that he was only made to ubmit to man, her equal; a being, who, like her, was ent into the world to acquire virtue?—Can he conent to be occupied merely to pleae him; merely to adorn the earth, when her oul is capable of riing to thee?—And can he ret upinely dependent on man for reaon, when he ought to mount with him the arduous teeps of knowledge?—

Yet, if love be the upreme good, let women be only educated to inpire it, and let every charm be polihed to intoxicate the enes; but, if they are moral beings, let them have a chance to become intelligent; and let love to man be only a part of that glowing flame of univeral love, which, after encircling humanity, mounts in grateful incene to God.

To fulfil dometic duties much reolution is neceary, and a erious kind of pereverance that requires a more firm upport than emotions, however lively and true to nature. To give an example of order, the oul of virtue, ome auterity of behaviour mut be adopted, carcely to be expected from a being who, from its infancy, has been made the weathercock of its own enations. Whoever rationally means to be ueful mut have a plan of conduct; and, in the dicharge of the implet duty, we are often obliged to act contrary to the preent impule of tendernes or compaion. Severity is frequently the mot certain, as&ensp;