Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/278

272 to enforce, an empty name; becaue they will not let it ret on the only bais on which a duty can ret ecurely: for unles it be founded on knowledge, it cannot gain ufficient trength to reit the qualls of paion, or the ilent apping of elf-love. But it is not the parents who have given the uret proof of their affection for their children, or, to peak more properly, who by fulfilling their duty, have allowed a natural parental affection to take root in their hearts, the child of excied ympathy and reaon, and not the over-weening offspring of elfih pride, who mot vehemently init on their children ubmitting to their will merely becaue it is their will. On the contrary, the parent, who ets a good example, patiently lets that example work; and it eldom fails to produce its natural effect—filial repect.

Children cannot be taught too early to ubmit to reaon, the true definition of that neceity, which Roueau inited on, without defining it; for to ubmit to reaon is to ubmit to the nature of things, and to that God, who formed them o, to promote our real interet.

Why hould the minds of children be warped as they jut begin to expand, only to favour the indolence of parents, who init on a privilege without being willing to pay the price fixed by nature? I have before had occaion to oberve, that a right always includes a duty, and I think it may, likewie, fairly be inferred, that they forfeit the right, who do not fulfil the duty.

It is eaier, I grant, to command than reaon; but it does not follow from hence that children cannot comprehend the reaon why they are made to&ensp;