Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/76

70 Why have men of uperior endowments ubmitted to uch degration? For, is it not univerally acknowledged that kings, viewed collectively, have ever been inferior, in abilities and virtue, to the ame number of men taken from the common mas of mankind—yet, have they not, and are they not till treated with a degree of reverence that is an inult to reaon; China is not the only country where a living man has been made a God. Men have ubmitted to uperior trength to enjoy with impunity the pleaure of the moment—women have only done the ame, and therefore till it is proved that the courtier, who ervilely reigns the birthright of a man, is not a moral agent, it cannot be demontrated that woman is eentially inferior to man becaue he has always been ubjugated.

Brutal force has hitherto governed the world, and that the cience of politics is in its infancy, is evident from philoophers crupling to give the knowledge mot ueful to man that determinate ditinction.

I hall not purue this argument any further than to etablih an obvious inference, that as ound politics diffue liberty, mankind, including woman, will become more wie and virtuous.