Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/195

Rh extorting alternate feelings of love and digut; but guarded againt as beats of prey, till every enlarged ocial feeling, in a word,—humanity, was eradicated.

In life, on the contrary, as we gradually dicover the imperfections of our nature, we dicover virtues, and various circumtances attach us to our fellow creatures, when we mix with them, and view the ame objects, that are never thought of in acquiring a haty unnatural knowledge of the world. We ee a folly well into a vice, by almot imperceptible degrees, and pity while we blame; but, if the hideous monter burt uddenly on our ight, fear and digut rendering us more evere than man ought to be, might lead us with blind zeal to uurp the character of omnipotence, and denounce damnation on our fellow mortals, forgetting that we cannot read the heart, and that we have eeds of the ame vices lurking in our own.

I have already remarked that we expect more from intruction, than mere intruction can produce: for, intead of preparing young people to encounter the evils of life with dignity, and to acquire widom and virtue by the exercie of their own faculties, precepts are heaped upon precepts, and blind obedience required, when conviction hould be brought home to reaon.

Suppoe, for intance, that a young peron in the firt ardour of friendhip deifies the beloved object—what harm can arie from this mitaken enthuiatic attachment? Perhaps it is neceary for virtue firt to appear in a human form to impres youthful hearts; the ideal model, which a more&ensp;