Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/79

Rh ought to endeavour to acquire human virtues (or perfections) by the ame means as men, intead of being educated like a fanciful kind of half being—one of Roueau's wild chimeras 'Reearches into abtract and peculative truths, the principles and axioms of ciences, in hort, every thing which lends to generalize our ideas, is not the proper province of women; their tudies hould be relative to point of practice; it belongs to them to apply thoe principles which men have dicovered; and it is their part to make obervations, which direct men to the etablihment of general principles. All the ideas of women, which have not the immediate tendency to points of duty, hould be directed to the tudy of men, and to the attainment of thoe agreeable accomplihments which have tate for their object; for as to works of genius, they are beyond their capacity; neither have they ufficient preciion or power of attention to ucceed in ciences which require accuracy: and as to phyical knowledge, it belongs to thoe only who are mot active, mot inquiitive; who comprehend the greatet variety of objects: in hort, it belongs to thoe who have the tronget powers, and who exercie them mot, to judge of the relations between enible beings and the laws of nature. A woman who is naturally weak, and does not carry her ideas to any great extent, knows how to judge and make a proper etimate of thoe movements which he ets to work, in order to aid her weaknes; and thee movements are the paions of men. The mechanim he employs is much more powerful than ours; for all her levers move the human heart. She mut have the kill to incline us to do every thing which her ex will not enable her to do of herelf, and which is neceary or agreeable to her; therefore he ought to tudy the mind of man thoroughly, not the mind of man in general, abtracted, but the dipoitions of thoe men to whom he is ubject, either by the laws of her country or by the force of opinion. She hould learn to penetrate into their real entiments from their converation, their actions, their looks, and getures. She hould alo have the art, by her own converation, actions, looks, and getures, to communicate thoe entiments which are agreeable to them, without eeming to intend it. Men will argue more philoophically about the human heart; but women will read the heart of man better than they. It belongs to women, if I may be allowed the expreion, to form an experimental morality, and to reduce the tudy of man to a ytem. Women have mot wit, men have mot genius; women oberve, men reaon: from the concurrence of both we derive the cleared light and the mot perfect knowledge, which the human mind is, of itelf, capable of attaining. In one word, from hence we acquire the mot intimate acquaintance, both with ourelves and others, of which our nature is capable; and it is thus that art has a contant tendency to perfect thoe endowments which nature has betowed.—The world is the book of women.' Roueau's Emilius. I hope my readers till remember the comparion, which I have brought forward, between women and officers. . But,&ensp;