Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Principal events in Wollstonecraft's life
- Bibliographical note
- Note on the edition
- A Vindication of the Rights of Men
- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Dedication
- Advertisement
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The rights and involved duties of mankind considered
- 2 The prevailing opinion of a sexual character discussed
- 3 The same subject continued
- 4 Observations on the state of degradation to which woman is reduced by various causes
- 5 Animadversions on some of the writers who have rendered women objects of pity, bordering on contempt
- 6 The effect which an early association of ideas has upon the character
- 7 Modesty. – Comprehensively considered, and not as a sexual virtue
- 8 Morality undermined by sexual notions of the importance of a good reputation
- 9 Of the pernicious effects which arise from the unnatural distinctions established in society
- 10 Parental affection
- 11 Duty to parents
- 12 On national education
- 13 Some instances of the folly which the ignorance of women generates; with concluding reflections on the moral improvement that a revolution in female manners might naturally be expected to produce
- Hints, chiefly designed to have been incorporated in the second part of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Biographical notes
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
6 - The effect which an early association of ideas has upon the character
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Principal events in Wollstonecraft's life
- Bibliographical note
- Note on the edition
- A Vindication of the Rights of Men
- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Dedication
- Advertisement
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The rights and involved duties of mankind considered
- 2 The prevailing opinion of a sexual character discussed
- 3 The same subject continued
- 4 Observations on the state of degradation to which woman is reduced by various causes
- 5 Animadversions on some of the writers who have rendered women objects of pity, bordering on contempt
- 6 The effect which an early association of ideas has upon the character
- 7 Modesty. – Comprehensively considered, and not as a sexual virtue
- 8 Morality undermined by sexual notions of the importance of a good reputation
- 9 Of the pernicious effects which arise from the unnatural distinctions established in society
- 10 Parental affection
- 11 Duty to parents
- 12 On national education
- 13 Some instances of the folly which the ignorance of women generates; with concluding reflections on the moral improvement that a revolution in female manners might naturally be expected to produce
- Hints, chiefly designed to have been incorporated in the second part of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Biographical notes
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
Educated in the enervating style recommended by the writers on whom I have been animadverting; and not having a chance, from their subordinate state of society, to recover their lost ground, is it surprising that women every where appear a defect in nature? Is it surprising, when we consider what a determinate effect an early association of ideas has on the character, that they neglect their understandings, and turn all their attention to their persons?
The great advantages which naturally result from storing the mind with knowledge, are obvious from the following considerations. The association of our ideas is either habitual or instantaneous; and the latter mode seems rather to depend on the original temperature of the mind than on the will. When the ideas, and matters of fact, are once taken in, they lie by for use, till some fortuitous circumstance makes the information dart into the mind with illustrative force, that has been received at very different periods of our lives. Like the lightning's flash are many recollections; one idea assimilating and explaining another, with astonishing rapidity. I do not now allude to that quick perception of truth, which is so intuitive that it baffles research, and makes us at a loss to determine whether it is reminiscence or ratiocination, lost sight of in its celerity, that opens the dark cloud. Over those instantaneous associations we have little power; for when the mind is once enlarged by excursive flights, or profound reflection, the raw materials will, in some degree, arrange themselves.
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- Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Men and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Hints , pp. 200 - 206Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995