Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/163

Rh Secondary, in fact, are all her virtues and qualities, for, repecting religion, he makes her parents thus addres her, accutomed to ubmiion—'Your huband will intruct you in good time.'

After thus cramping a woman's mind, if, in order to keep it fair, he has not made it quite a blank, he advies her to reflect, that a reflecting man may not yawn in her company, when he is tired of careing her.—What has he to reflect about who mut obey? and would it not be a refinement on cruelty only to open her mind to make the darknes and miery of her fate viible? Yet, thee are his enible remarks; how conitent with what I have already been obliged to quote, to give a fair view of the ubject, the reader may determine.

'They who pas their whole lives in working for their daily bread, have no ideas beyond their buines or their interet, and all their undertanding eems to lie in their fingers' ends. This ignorance is neither prejudicial to their integrity nor their morals; it is often of ervice to them. Sometimes, by means of reflection, we are led to compound with our duty, and we conclude by ubtituting a jargon of words, in the room of things. Our own concience is the mot enlightened philoopher. There is no need to be acquainted with Tully's offices, to make a man of probity: and perhaps the mot virtuous woman in the world, is the leat acquainted with the definition of virtue. But it is no les true, that an improved undertanding can only render ociety agreeable; and it is a melancholy thing for a father of a family, who is&ensp;