Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Wollstonecraft, Mary
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 520885
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 1
subject: women
subject: man
subject: reason
subject: mind
subject: woman
subject: read
subject: pleasure
subject: pamphlet
subject: lately
subject: published
subject: wollstonecraft
subject: mary
subject: vindication
subject: rights
subject: english
subject: literature
type: text
local mirror: wollstonecraft-vindication-197.txt
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sort title: Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman
full text: 1792 VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN by Mary Wollstonecraft DEDICATION To M. Talleyrand-Perigord, Late Bishop Of Autun. Sir, Having read with great pleasure a pamphlet which you have lately published, I dedicate this volume to you; to induce you to reconsider the subject, and maturely weigh what I have advanced respecting the rights of woman and national education: and I call with the firm tone of humanity; for my arguments, Sir, are dictated by a disinterested spirit- I plead for my sex- not for myself. Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue- and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath. It is then an affection for the whole human race that makes my pen dart rapidly along to support what I believe to be the cause of virtue: and the same motive leads me earnestly to wish to see woman placed in a station in which she would advance, instead of retarding, the progress of those glorious principles that give a substance to morality. My opinion, indeed, respecting the rights and duties of woman, seems to flow so naturally from these simple principles, that I think it scarcely possible, but that some of the enlarged minds who formed your admirable constitution, will coincide with me. In France there is undoubtedly a more general diffusion of knowledge than in any part of the European world, and I attribute it, in a great measure, to the social intercourse which has long subsisted between the sexes. It is true, I utter my sentiments with freedom, that in France the very essence of sensuality has been extracted to regale the voluptuary, and a kind of sentimental lust has prevailed, which, together with the system of duplicity that the whole tenour of their political and civil government taught, have given a sinister sort of sagacity to the French character, properly termed finesse; from which naturally flow a polish of manners that injures the substance, by huntin…