84 results
Chapter XII - On National Education
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 167-186
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The good effects resulting from attention to private education will ever be very confined, and the parent who really puts his own hand to the plow, will always, in some degree, be disappointed, till education becomes a grand national concern. A man cannot retire into a desert with his child, and if he did he could not bring himself back to childhood, and become the proper friend and play-fellow of an infant or youth. And when children are confined to the society of men and women, they very soon acquire that kind of premature manhood which stops the growth of every vigorous power of mind or body. In order to open their faculties they should be excited to think for themselves; and this can only be done by mixing a number of children together, and making them jointly pursue the same objects.
A child very soon contracts a benumbing indolence of mind, which he has seldom sufficient vigour afterwards to shake off, when he only asks a question instead of seeking for information, and then relies implicitly on the answer he receives. With his equals in age this could never be the case, and the subjects of inquiry, though they might be influenced, would not be entirely under the direction of men, who frequently damp, if not destroy, abilities, by bringing them forward too hastily: and too hastily they will infallibly be brought forward, if the child be confined to the society of a man, however sagacious that man may be.
Besides, in youth the seeds of every affection should be sown, and the respectful regard, which is felt for a parent, is very different from the social affections that are to constitute the happiness of life as it advances. Of these equality is the basis, and an intercourse of sentiments unclogged by that observant seriousness which prevents dis-putation, though it may not inforce submission. Let a child have ever such an affection for his parent, he will always languish to play and prattle with children; and the very respect he feels, for filial esteem always has a dash of fear mixed with it, will, if it do not teach him cunning, at least prevent him from pouring out the little secrets which first open the heart to friendship and confidence, gradually leading to more expansive benevolence.
Chapter IV - Observations on the State of Degradation to Which Woman Is Reduced by Various Causes
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 67-88
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
That woman is naturally weak, or degraded by a concurrence of circumstances, is, I think, clear. But this position I shall simply contrast with a conclusion, which I have frequently heard fall from sensible men in favour of an aristocracy: that the mass of mankind cannot be any thing, or the obsequious slaves, who patiently allow themselves to be driven forward, would feel their own consequence, and spurn their chains. Men, they further observe, submit every where to oppression, when they have only to lift up their heads to throw off the yoke; yet, instead of asserting their birthright, they quietly lick the dust, and say, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Women, I argue from analogy, are degraded by the same propensity to enjoy the present moment; and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain. But I must be more explicit.
With respect to the culture of the heart, it is unanimously allowed that sex is out of the question; but the line of subordination in the mental powers is never to be passed over. Only “absolute in loveliness,” the portion of rationality granted to woman, is, indeed, very scanty; for, denying her genius and judgment, it is scarcely possible to divine what remains to characterize intellect.
The stamen of immortality, if I may be allowed the phrase, is the perfectibility of human reason; for, were men created perfect, or did a flood of knowledge break in upon him, when he arrived at maturity, that precluded error, I should doubt whether his existence would be continued after the dissolution of the body. But, in the present state of things, every difficulty in morals that escapes from human discussion, and equally baffles the investigation of profound thinking, and the lightning glance of genius, is an argument on which I build my belief of the immortality of the soul. Reason is, consequentially, the simple power of improvement, or, more properly speaking, of discerning truth. Every individual is in this respect a world in itself.
Index
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 365-370
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Introduction
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 21-26
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
After considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess, that either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial. I have turned over various books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but what has been the result?—a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity.—One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilized women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.
In a treatise, therefore, on female rights and manners, the works which have been particularly written for their improvement must not be overlooked; especially when it is asserted, indirect terms, that the minds of women are enfeebled by false refinement; that the books of instruction, written by men of genius, have had the same tendency as more frivolous productions; and that, in the true style of Mahometanism, they are treated as a kind of subordinate beings, and not as a part of the human species, when improveable reason is allowed to be the dignified distinction which raises men above the brute creation,
Bibliography
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 347-364
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
List of Contentmatter
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 12-12
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Chapter XIII - 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
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 187-224
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
There are many follies, in some degree, peculiar to women: sins against reason of com-mission as well as of omission; but all flowing from ignorance or prejudice, I shall only point out such as appear to be particularly injurious to their moral character. And in animadverting on them, I wish especially to prove, that the weakness of mind and body, which men have endeavoured, impelled by various motives, to perpetuate, prevents their discharging the peculiar duty of their sex: for when weakness of body will not permit them to suckle their children, and weakness of mind makes them spoil their tempers—is woman in a natural state?
SECTION I
One glaring instance of the weakness which proceeds from ignorance, first claims atten-tion, and calls for severe reproof.
In this metropolis a number of lurking leeches infamously gain a subsistence by practising on the credulity of women, pretending to cast nativities, to use the technical phrase; and many females who, proud of their rank and fortune, look down on the vulgar with sovereign contempt, shew by this credulity, that the distinction is arbitrary, and that they have not sufficiently cultivated their minds to rise above vulgar prejudices. Women, because they have not been led to consider the knowledge of their duty as the one thing necessary to know, or, to live in the present moment by the discharge of it, are very anxious to peep into futurity, to learn what they have to expect to render life interesting, and to break the vacuum of ignorance.
I must be allowed to expostulate seriously with the ladies who follow these idle inventions; for ladies, mistresses of families, are not ashamed to drive in their own carriages to the door of the cunning man. And if any of them should peruse this work, I entreat them to answer to their own hearts the following questions, not forgetting that they are in the presence of God.
Do you believe that there is but one God, and that he is powerful, wise, and good?
Do you believe that all things were created by him, and that all beings are dependent on him?
Do you rely on his wisdom, so conspicuous in his works, and in your own frame, and are you convinced that he has ordered all things which do not come under the cognizance of your senses, in the same perfect harmony, to fulfil his designs?
Chapter II - The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 35-54
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
To account for, and excuse the tyranny of man, many ingenious arguments have been brought forward to prove, that the two sexes, in the acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very different character: or, to speak explicitly, women are not allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls, that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to either virtue or happiness.
If then women are not a swarm of ephemeron triflers, why should they be kept in ignorance under the specious name of innocence? Men complain, and with reason, of the follies and caprices of our sex, when they do not keenly satirize our head-strong passions and groveling vices.—Behold, I should answer, the natural effect of ignorance! The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive 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 weakness, justly termed cunning, softness or temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, every thing else is needless, for, at least, twenty years of their lives.
Thus Milton describes our first frail mother; though when he tells us that women are formed for softness and sweet attractive grace, I cannot comprehend his meaning, unless, in the true Mahometan strain, he meant to deprive us of souls, and insinuate that we were beings only designed by sweet attractive grace, and docile blind obedience, to gratify the senses of man when he can no longer soar on the wing of contemplation.
How grossly do they insult us who thus advise us only to render ourselves gentle, domestic brutes! For instance, the winning softness so warmly, and frequently, recommended, that governs by obeying. What childish expression, and how insignificant is the being—can it be an immortal one?
Chapter 1 - Scripturally Annotated: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 9-11
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
What follows is a copy of the first edition (1792) of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman published by Joseph Johnson. The only changes in this copy to the original were the replacing of double quotation for single quotation marks around quotes, replac-ing a modern “s” for the long “s,” adding notations, and formatting. Inconsistent spellings and punctuation and grammatical errors have remained untouched. The purpose of reproducing this edition was not to edit it but to identify in the original edition its biblical rhetoric, moral undergirding, quotes, concepts, and references. Wollstonecraft’s notes have been removed as well since none of them are relevant to this biblical study. All biblical references are from the King James Bible (KJB), the 1769 version edited by Benjamin Blayney and published by Oxford University Press. Since this was considered “our Authorized version” in 1792, it was most likely the version that Wollstonecraft read. It included the Apocrypha, fourteen books that are in the Vulgate, but Jerome declared them not to be Scripture Legitimate. The controversy about its inclusion as being too “Catholic” for Protestant tastes was already festering and but would not be eliminated until 1826. Given Wollstonecraft’s anti-Catholic stance, none of the citations below will come from the Apocrypha, with the assumption that Wollstonecraft would not have read these books and would not have considered them canonical.
Chapter III - The Same Subject Continued
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 55-66
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Bodily strength from being the distinction of heroes is now sunk into such unmerited contempt that men, as well as women, seem to think it unnecessary: the latter, as it takes from their feminine graces, and from that lovely weakness the source of their undue power; and the former, because it appears inimical to the character of a gentleman. That they have both by departing from one extreme run into another, may easily be proved; but first it may be proper to observe, that a vulgar error has obtained a degree of credit, which has given force to a false conclusion, in which an effect has been mistaken for a cause.
People of genius have, very frequently, impaired their constitutions by study or careless inattention to their health, and the violence of their passions bearing a proportion to the vigour of their intellects, the sword’s destroying the scabbard has become almost proverbial, and superficial observers have inferred from thence, that men of genius have commonly weak, or, to use a more fashionable phrase, delicate constitutions Yet the contrary, I believe, will appear to be the fact; for, on diligent inquiry, I find that strength of mind has, in most cases, been accompanied by superior strength of body,—natural soundness of constitution,—not that robust tone of nerves and vigour of muscles, which arise from bodily labour, when the mind is quiescent, or only directs the hands.
Dr. Priestley has remarked, in the preface to his biographical chart, that the majority of great men have lived beyond fortyfive. And, considering the thoughtless manner in which they have lavished their strength, when investigating a favourite science they have wasted the lamp of life, forgetful of themidnight hour; or, when, lost in poetic dreams, fancy has peopled the scene, and the soul has been disturbed, till it shook the constitution, by the passions that meditation had raised; whose objects, the baseless fabric of a vision, faded before the exhausted eye, they must have had iron frames. Shakespeare never grasped the airy dagger with a nerveless hand, nor did Milton tremble when he led Satan far from the confines of his dreary prison—These were not the ravings of imbecility, the sickly effusions of distempered brains; but the exuberance of fancy, that “in a fine phrenzy” wandering, was not continually reminded of its material shackles.
Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Brenda Ayres
-
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024
-
Ever since Godwin announced to the world in Memoirs that Wollstonecraft had had little use for religion, most biographers, scholars, historians and readers have regarded her as an apostate. Further, the existing scholarly texts fail to demonstrate the pervasiveness of biblical references in 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman'. The true tally of scriptural references approaches over 1,100 as identified in this study. Wollstonecraft's biblical allusions, besides sheer volume, are noteworthy because they gave women a biblical basis upon which to contend for better education and occupational opportunities as well as for legal and political independence. That the arguments were couched in biblical rhetoric most likely contributed to their initial reception and tolerance of what were incendiary ideas and searing social criticism. The recognition and analysis of biblical underpinnings in Wollstonecraft and Religion not only of 'Rights of Woman' but also of her other publications and letters propose new consideration regarding the Mother of Feminism and her work. The chapters that accompany the annotated text of 'Rights of Woman' furnish biographical and historical context that offer fresh perspectives about Wollstonecraft's religious convictions and faith, many of which have not been published elsewhere.
Chapter 5 - The Crafters of Wollstonecraft’s Religion
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 279-304
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
As demonstrated in the previous chapter, Wollstonecraft’s husband seemed to have been either misinformed about his wife’s religious training and beliefs or else was narcissistic in allowing his own cynicism about religion to skew his understanding and representation of hers. One aspect that he failed to reconcile in his rendering was the steady stream of religious people with whom she forged relationships who wielded a tremendous amount of influence on her. This chapter will identify those who had a hand in crafting her religious beliefs, those that appear in her works and letters. Thusly it refutes Godwin’s allegation that Wollstonecraft “received few lessons of religion in her youth” (Memoirs 35).
The Wollstonecrafts
Godwin claimed that Wollstonecraft’s parents were lapsed members of the Church of England, that she “received few lessons of religion in her youth,” that she created her own religion, and that she did not attend church services after 1787 (Memoirs 35–36). Yet Godwin contradicted himself earlier in the same paragraph when he wrote, “Mary had been bred in the principles of the church [sic] of England” (34). When did this breeding happen if not in her youth, especially if he argued that she stopped going to services after 1787?
Wollstonecraft’s parents were members of St. Botolph Without Bishopsgate and did have Wollstonecraft christened there on May 20, 1759 (Gordon 2005, 6). If she regularly attended church until 1787 as Godwin wrote (Memoirs 36), then why would he assume that she did not have many “lessons of religion in her youth” (35), for what else is taught in church other than religion?
Perhaps he meant that her parents were not religious, but there is no evidence of this, and how would have Wollstonecraft gone to church as a child if her parents had not taken her? There is no reference in any biography of her having any relatives outside her immediate family that had any influence or involvement with her when she was a child and was attending services. She had no evangelical aunt as had George Eliot (Marian Evans). When Wollstonecraft was four, the family left Spitalfields, the home of Wollstonecraft’s grandfather. After that they lived on farms. She would have been 14 when she came to know the Ardens, who would have influenced her greatly in forming her religious and philosophical ideas.
Chapter V - Animadversions on Some of the Writers Who Have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 89-122
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The opinions speciously supported, in some modern publications on the female character and education, which have given the tone to most of the observations made, in a more cursory manner, on the sex, remain now to be examined.
SECTION I
I shall begin with Rousseau, and give a sketch of his character of woman, in his own words, interspersing comments and reflections. My comments, it is true, will all spring from a few simple principles, and might have been deduced from what I have already said; but the artificial structure has been raised with so much ingenuity, that it seems necessary to attack it in a more circumstantial manner, and make the application myself.
Sophia, says Rousseau, should be as perfect a woman as Emilius is a man, and to render her so, it is necessary to examine the character which nature has given to the sex.
He then proceeds to prove that woman ought to be weak and passive, because she has less bodily strength than man; and hence infers, that she was formed to please and to be subject to him; and that it is her duty to render herself agreeable to her master—this being the grand end of her existence. Still, however, to give a little mock dignity to lust, he insists that man should not exert his strength, but depend on the will of the woman, when he seeks for pleasure with her.
“Hence we deduce a third consequence from the different constitutions of the sexes; which is, that the strongest should be master in appearance, and be dependent in fact on the weakest; and that not from any frivolous practice of gallantry or vanity of protectorship, but from an invariable law of nature, which, furnishing woman with a greater facility to excite desires than she has given man to satisfy them, makes the latter dependent on the good pleasure of the former, and compels him to endeavour to please in his turn, in order to obtain her consent that he should be strongest. On these occasions, the most delightful circumstance a man finds in his victory is, to doubt whether it was the woman’s weakness that yielded to his superior strength, or whether her inclinations spoke in his favour: the females are also generally artful enough to leave this matter in doubt.
Chapter XI - Duty to Parents
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 161-166
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
There seems to be an indolent propensity in man to make prescription always take place of reason, and to place every duty on an arbitrary foundation. The rights of kings are deduced in a direct line from the King of kings; and that of parents from our first parent.
Why do we thus go back for principles that should always rest on the same base, and have the same weight today that they had a thousand years ago—and not a jot more? If parents discharge their duty they have a strong hold and sacred claim on the gratitude of their children; but few parents are willing to receive the respectful affection of their offspring on such terms. They demand blind obedience, because they do not merit a reasonable service: and to render these demands of weakness and ignorance more bind-ing, a mysterious sanctity is spread round the most arbitrary principle; for what other name can be given to the blind duty of obeying vicious or weak beings merely because they obeyed a powerful instinct?
The simple definition of the reciprocal duty, which naturally subsists between parent and child, may be given in a few words: The parent who pays proper attention to helpless infancy has a right to require the same attention when the feebleness of age comes upon him. But to subjugate a rational being to the mere will of another, after he is of age to answer to society for his own conduct, is a most cruel and undue stretch of power; and, perhaps, as injurious to morality as those religious systems which do not allow right and wrong to have any existence, but in the Divine will.
I never knew a parent who had paid more than common attention to his children, disregarded; on the contrary, the early habit of relying almost implicitly on the opinion of a respected parent is not easily shook, even when matured reason convinces the child that his father is not the wisest man in the world. This weakness, for a weakness it is, though the epithet amiable may be tacked to it, a reasonable man must steel himself against; for the absurd duty, too often inculcated, of obeying a parent only on account of his being a parent, shackles the mind, and prepares it for a slavish submission to any power but reason.
I distinguish between the natural and accidental duty due to parents.
Abbreviations
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp vii-viii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Chapter 4 - Femme Godwin and Her Religion
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 251-278
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Since Joseph Johnson published Memoirs of the Author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” in January 1798, just a few months after Wollstonecraft’s untimely demise, arguably she became one of the most controversial figures in all literary history. To many readers at the end of that century and decades that would follow, the Christian piety apparent in Rights of Woman was nullified by the revelation of her “non-Christian” lifestyle. “Reviewers and commentators were increasingly unable to separate the writer from her texts,” Harriet Jump noted (2003, 1:5). Wollstonecraft’s texts were reconsidered, deemed dangerous and capable of spreading moral contagion, and then buried for nearly 50 years (5). However, there have been those who questioned Godwin’s rendition of his wife. To Anna Seward, Romantic poet and author of Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin (1804), Godwin’s Memoirs was a “needless display of his own infidelity.” Godwin’s writing implicated his wife in his own skepticism and offered no proof that Wollstonecraft gave up on religion. Indeed, Seward questioned Godwin’s motives for “expos[ing his wife] to the censure of irreligion from the mass of mankind” (1811, 5:74).
As I theorized in my Betwixt and Between the Biographies of Mary Wollstonecraft,
When biographers write about a person’s life, they prioritize what is important to themselves: what interests them, what resonates with them, what helps them, what teaches them, what makes sense to them, and most significantly, what advances their own political agenda whether it is conscious or not.
(2017, 1)Even though Godwin’s critics and most scholars have agreed that Memoirs is biased and unreliable, his “account” of Wollstonecraft’s religious beliefs has continued to be accepted as gospel truth and repeated by some of the very same scholars that have disparaged his reliability. In 1981 Mitzi Myers observed that despite the profusion of discredit imputed to Memoirs, even after two centuries his biography “remains the substratum on which even the newest live erects their varying portrayals” of Wollstonecraft (299). In Margaret Kirkham’s words,
with a genuine respect for truth, but a total lack of interest in how the truth would be received and what effects it would have, he disclosed full details of his wife’s relationship with Imlay, her suicide attempts, and her having conceived his child before marriage. He also praised, without full regard for the truth, her rejection of Christianity.
Chapter I - The Rights and Involved Duties of Mankind Considered
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 27-34
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In the present state of society it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning is built; though, when entangled with various motives of action, they are formally contradicted, either by the words or conduct of men.
In what does man’s pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; in Reason.
What acquirement exalts one being above another? Virtue; we spontaneously reply.
For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes; whispers Experience.
Consequently the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness, must be estimated by the degree of reason, virtue, and knowledge, that distinguish the individual, and direct the laws which bind society: and that from the exercise of reason, knowledge and virtue naturally flow, is equally undeniable, if mankind be viewed collectively.
The rights and duties of man thus simplified, it seems almost impertinent to attempt to illustrate truths that appear so incontrovertible; yet such deeply rooted prejudices have clouded reason, and such spurious qualities have assumed the name of virtues, that it is necessary to pursue the course of reason as it has been perplexed and involved in error, by various adventitious circumstances, comparing the simple axiom with casual deviations.
Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they can scarcely trace how, rather than to root them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves. Yet the imperfect conclusions thus drawn, are frequently very plausible, because they are built on partial experience, on just, though narrow, views.
Going back to first principles, vice skulks, with all its native deformity, from close investigation; but a set of shallow reasoners are always exclaiming that these arguments prove too much, and that a measure rotten at the core may be expedient.
Chapter IX - Of the Pernicious Effects Which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 149-158
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
From the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such a dreary scene to the contemplative mind. For it is in the most polished society that noisome reptiles and venomous serpents lurk under the rank herbage; and there is voluptuousness pampered by the still sultry air, which relaxes every good disposition before it ripens into virtue.
One class presses on another; for all are aiming to procure respect on account of their property: and property, once gained, will procure the respect due only to talents and virtue. Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demigods, religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors.
There is a homely proverb, which speaks a shrewd truth, that whoever the devil finds idle he will employ. And what but habitual idleness can hereditary wealth and titles produce? For man is so constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties by exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity, of some kind, first set the wheels in motion. Virtue likewise can only be acquired by the discharge of relative duties; but the importance of these sacred duties will scarcely be felt by the being who is cajoled out of his humanity by the flattery of sycophants. There must be more equality established in society, or morality will never gain ground, and this virtuous equality will not rest firmly even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind be chained to its bottom by fate, for they will be continually undermining it through ignorance or pride.
It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are, in some degree, independent of men; nay, it is vain to expect that strength of natural affection, which would make them good wives and mothers. Whilst they are absolutely dependent on their husbands they will be cunning, mean, and selfish, and the men who can be gratified by the fawning fondness of spaniel-like affection, have not much delicacy, for love is not to be bought, in any sense of the words, its silken wings are instantly shrivelled up when any thing beside a return in kind is sought.
Chapter VII - Modesty—Comprehensively Considered, and Not as a Sexual Virtue
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp 129-138
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Modesty! Sacred offspring of sensibility and reason!—true delicacy of mind!—may I unblamed presume to investigate thy nature, and trace to its covert the mild charm, that mellowing each harsh feature of a character, renders what would otherwise only inspire cold admiration—lovely!—Thou that smoothest the wrinkles of wisdom, and softenest the tone of the sublimest virtues till they all melt into humanity;—thou that spreadest the ethereal cloud that, surrounding love, heightens every beauty, it half shades, breathing those coy sweets that steal into the heart, and charm the senses—modulate for me the language of persuasive reason, till I rouse my sex from the flowery bed, on which they supinely sleep life away!
In speaking of the association of our ideas, I have noticed two distinct modes; and in defining modesty, it appears to me equally proper to discriminate that purity of mind, which is the effect of chastity, from a simplicity of character that leads us to form a just opinion of ourselves, equally distant from vanity or presumption, though by no means incompatible with a lofty consciousness of our own dignity. Modesty, in the latter signification of the term, is, that soberness of mind which teaches a man not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, and should be distinguished from humility, because humility is a kind of self-abasement.
A modest man often conceives a great plan, and tenaciously adheres to it, conscious of his own strength, till success gives it a sanction that determines its character. Milton was not arrogant when he suffered a suggestion of judgment to escape him that proved a prophecy; nor was General Washington when he accepted the command of the American forces. The latter has always been characterized as a modest man; but had he been merely humble, he would probably have shrunk back irresolute, afraid of trusting to himself the direction of an enterprise, on which so much depended.
A modest man is steady, an humble man timid, and a vain one presumptuous:—this is the judgment, which the observation of many characters, has led me to form. Jesus Christ was modest, Moses was humble, and Peter vain.
Thus, discriminating modesty from humility in one case, I do not mean to confound it with bashfulness in the other.
Frontmatter
- Brenda Ayres , Liberty University, Virginia
-
- Book:
- Wollstonecraft and Religion
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 27 March 2024
- Print publication:
- 16 January 2024, pp i-iv
-
- Chapter
- Export citation