Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/45

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O account for, and excue the tyranny of man, many ingenious arguments have been brought forward to prove, that the two exes, in the acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very different character: or, to peak explicitly, women are not allowed to have ufficient trength of mind to acquire what really deerves the name of virtue. Yet it hould eem, allowing them to have ouls, that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to either virtue or happines.

If then women are not a warm of ephemeron triflers, why hould they be kept in ignorance under the pecious name of innocence? Men complain, and with reaon, of the follies and caprices of our ex, when they do not keenly atirize our headtrong paions and groveling vices. Behold, I hould anwer, the natural effect of ignorance! The mind will ever be untable that has only prejudices to ret on, and the current will run with detructive fury when there are no barriers to break its force. Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weaknes, jutly termed cunning, oftnes of temper, outward obedience, and a crupulous attention Rh