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A STUDY

OF

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

AND

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN

BY

EMMA RAUSCHENBUSCH-CLOUGH, PH.D.

i]

OF THB

UNIVERSITY

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1898

All rights reserved

7

PEEFACE.

MY attention was first directed to the subject of this
book by Professor Dr. M. Heinze, of the Univer-
sity of Leipzig. He observed, in conversation, that
though much was being written on the subject of the
position of woman and on the movement in connec-
tion with her emancipation, comparatively little was
being done by way of patient research in the annals
of the past, to define the influences which have resulted
in the social revolution of the present day. As a center
for possible investigation of this kind, he mentioned
Mary Wollstonecraft. her work and her times.

Following his suggestion, I took a survey of
that which had been done in this particular direction,
and found that Mr. C. Kegan Paul, Mary Wollstone-
craft's biographer in recent times, had done valuable
work in editing letters by her in connection with
his work on William Godwin, his Friends and Con-
temporaries, London, 1876. His work had formed
the foundation for several biographical sketches. A
full analytical and critical investigation of her views,
as they had found expression in her life and works,
with a survey of the influences which had moulded
her thought, had yet to be given. This was the task
which I made my own.

In the spring of 1894, the result of my research in
form of an Inaugural Dissertation was presented to the

IV PREFACE.

Faculty of the University of Bern in Switzerland, and
was accepted by Professor Dr. Ludwig Stein of the
Department of Philosophy, as a part of the usual ex-
amination for the Doctorate in Philosophy.

Meantime I had come to a realization that my sub-
ject was far from being exhausted. Professor Stein
suggested further research in several directions. Mr.
C. Kegan Paul kindly placed at my disposal several of
the works 'of Mary Wollstonecraft, which it had previ-
ously been impossible for me to obtain. Dr. Richard
Garnett of the British Museum aided me in my
search for additional material during a short sojourn in
London. During a summer vacation spent at Donau-
eschingen in the Black Forest in Germany, the
Librarian of the Fiirstlich Fiirstenbergische Bibliothek,
located there, spared no pains in helping me to find
traces of Mary Wollstonecraft's influence upon her
German contemporaries. At the University Libraries
of Zurich and Vienna I gathered the material for my
hypothesis concerning the literary indebtedness of
Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel to Mary Wollstonecraft.

With this accumulation of additional material I
returned to my home in India and began again,
enlarging everywhere, adding much that was new.

Perhaps my work may be of some little service as a
contribution toward historical research in a direction
which has not received a large degree of attention
thus far, though it has strong claims upon the
student of to-day.

E. R. C.

ONGOLE. INDIA, 1896.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
HER LIFE.

Childhood. — Efforts to obtain an education. — Unhappy-
family circumstances. — A school at Newington Green
opened. — Journey to Lisbon. — Engagement as gov-
erness.— Beginning of her literary career. — Sojourn
in Paris. — Marriage to Mr. Imlay. — The birth of her
daughter Fanny. — Her journey to Norway. — Imlay 's
desertion. — Return to literary work. — Marriage to
William Godwin. — Birth of her daughter Mary. —
Death. — Her fame as an author. — Mary and Shelley.
—Death of Fanny.— Shelley's Revolt of Islam.—
Death of Godwin. — Mary Wollstonecraft's name
well-nigh forgotten. — Mr. C. Kegan Paul's publica-
tion of her letters. — Renewed interest . . . 1 — 28

CHAPTER II.
HER LITERARY WORK.

Versatility of her mental powers. — Pedagogical writings. —
Translations. — Writings of a revolutionary nature. —
A contribution to history. — Description of travel. —
The writing of a novel interrupted by her death. —
Relation of her Letters to Imlay to the genius of
Rousseau. — Her chief work : TheVindication of the
Rights of Woman. — Attitude of the English public
toward the book. — Horace Walpole's epithet. —
Hannah More's conservatism. — Critics waver be-
tween dissent and approval. — General recognition in
England that the book proclaimed a new system . 24 — 45

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.
HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS.

First Phase: A Christian of the evangelical type. —
Second Phase : a thinker of the rationalistic school.
— Her theism. — Her ethical views more closely allied
to those of Locke than of Rousseau. — Distinction
between speculative and moral truths. — Her concep-
tion of the nature of reason. — Importance attached
to the contest between reason and the passions. —
Her attitude toward Deism. — Her conception of evil
opposed to that of Rousseau. — Third Phase : A
change in her views, characterized by silence rather
than expression of new views. — Effect of Godwin's
description of her last days. — Reproach of irreligious -
ness. — Her criticism of religious institutions resented
by her contemporaries 46 — 66

CHAPTER IV.

THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND HER REPLY TO
EDMUND BURKE.

Her early championship of the rights of man. /^Her place -~
among reformers in London. — Edmund Burke's
Reflections on the Revolution in France. — Charac-
teristics of her Reply. — Her explanation of Burke's
attitude toward the French Revolution. — Burke's
policy as statesman compared with the tenets of the
School of Revolutionists. — Her discussion of Burke's
faith in historical growth, his respect for rank, for
the English constitution, for English security of prop-
erty.—The nature of liberty discusse.d by Rousseau
and Locke. — Recognition in her volume on the
French Revolution of the principle of growth in his-
tory.— Locke's enunciation of revolutionary principle
conservative as compared to hers. — Effect of her
journey among uncivilized nations: A tempered
enthusiasm 67—86

CONTENTS. vii

CHAPTER V.

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN AND HER POLEMICS AGAINST
WRITERS ON FEMALE EDUCATION.

The rights of woman as the logical sequence of the rights
of man. — Rousseau's investigation of the character
given by nature to woman. — His views on the educa-
tion of woman : Her virtues to make her useful to man,
her knowledge to render her pleasing to man. — Mary
Wollstonecraft's polemics against Rousseau's argu-
ment, against Madame de Stael, Mrs. Piozzi, Madame
Genlis. — Her tribute to Mrs. Macauley. — The advice
contained in Dr. Fordyce's Sermons in its bearing
upon the attitude of the church toward woman. — Dr.
Gregory in his solicitude for the welfare of his
daughters a type of the parent of that day. — Mary
Wollstonecraft's hesitation in the training of her
daughter. — Solution of the problem then in progress
in America . . 87 — 106

CHAPTER VI.

HER INVESTIGATION OF THE CAUSES OF WOMAN'S

INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY.

Woman regarded physically inferior to man a century
ago. — The change wrought by scientific research. —
Mary Wollstonecraft's statement of the cause of
woman's intellectual inferiority. — The evils of class^
distinction visited upon woman. — Sensibility as part
of the so-called female character. — The neglect of the
understanding in female education. — Instinct sub-
stituted for reason not a peculiarity of sex. — Example
of military men. — Mary Wollstonecraft fails to prove
that sexual difference does not enter the region of
mind. — Mrs. Shelley's opinion. — Godwin's compari-
son between his own and his wife's mental charac-
teristics.— Intuitive powers of mind as found in
women. — Hartmann's philosophy showing new cause
for denying women the rights of reason. — Dr.
Simmers theory . of the greater degree of mental

Vlll CONTENTS.

differentiation attained by men. — The solution of the
question lies in the future .... 107 — 124

CHAPTER VII.
HER DISCUSSION OF WOMAN'S MORAL INFERIORITY.

Mary Wollstonecraft a pupil of the Intuitional School of
English Ethics rather than the Utilitarian School. —
Woman's criterion of morals not the same as man's.
— The negative virtues to be practised by woman to
the exclusion of the positive. — Benevolence not a

virtue peculiar to woman. — Unsparing criticism of

the women of her times. — Normal development of
character not reached. — The effects of the prevailing
system upon wifehood and motherhood. — Woman
incapacitated even for the duties of her own natural
sphere. — Criticism of the discussion of woman's
moral inferiority 125 — 139

CHAPTER VIII.

HER DEMANDS FOR THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN.
The object of education. — Influence of Locke and
Rousseau upon Mary Wollstonecraft 's pedagogical
views. — Her argument in favor of National Educa-^ -
tion. — Democratic measures to be introduced in
National Schools. — Godwin's threefold argument
against National Education. — Mary Wollstonecraft's
criticism of the system of education then in vogue in
England. — The influence of the home and the school
to be blended. — The rights and duties of motherhood
vindicated.— Co-education, advocated. — Moderation
in her demands for the higher education of women. —
Her suggestions point to Sociology as a field of
investigation awaiting the special researches of
women . 140 — 163

CHAPTER IX.

HER VINDICATION OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN.
Her appeal to the French Republicans. — The reciprocal
relation between the individual and the state. — Her

CONTENTS. ix

description of the evils attending monarchical govern-
ment.— A representative government with universal _
suffrage her political ideal. — The enfranchisement of
women and the hopes vested by her in Talleyrand's
championship. — The political, civil and economic
rights of women in need of vindication. — The abject
nature of the economic existence of the women of her
times. — In her grasp upon economic problems among —
the most progressive thinkers of her times . 164 — 175

CHAPTER X.

THE RELATION OF HER VIEWS TO THOSE OF GODWIN
AND LATER SOCIALISTS.

Godwin the first scientific socialist of later times. — Points
of contact between him and Mary Wollstonecraft. —
His radicalism tempered by her influence. — Her last
work, Maria ; or, the Wrongs of Woman, considered
as giving evidence of his influence. — The purpose of
the story not antagonistic to the family. — The touch
of anarchy due to Godwin's influence. — The attitude
of socialism toward marriage. — Saint Simon, Fourier
and Owen in favor of the emancipation of woman. —
Possibility of influence wielded over them by Mary
Wollstonecraft. — The tenets of the Socialism of later
times fore-shadowed by her in some of her demands
for the social amelioration of women . . 176 — 190

CHAPTER XI.
THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK IN GERMANY.

Conditions of thought in England and Germany com-
pared.— The attitude of contemporary German
periodicals toward the Vindication of the Rights of
Woman.— Salzmann's attempt to tone down the
revolutionary character of the book in introducing it
to the German public. — The announcement of a new
system not understood by German critics. — Impres-
sions made by the book upon two Germans then

CONTENTS.

residing in England. — Friendship of the author with
Count Schlabrendorf. — An hypothesis that Theodor
Gottlieb von Hippel was indebted to her work for a
radical change in his views, supported by coincidence
as to time, by the literary character of Hippel, by an
investigation of the views set forth by him before and
after the appearance of the Vindication of the Rights
of Woman. — Examination of theories previously set
forth to account for the change. — Hippel's later
writings regarding the position of woman contain an
innate contradiction viewed in connection with his
life, position and surrounding influences, and point to
the influence of Mary Wollstonecraft . . 191 — 217

CONCLUSION.

Changes wrought since the time of Mary Wollstonecraft,
apparent in the general ideas of the present time and
in the attitude of women and men toward the sub-
ject.— Professions entered by women. — The enfran-
chisement of women. — The relation of the modern
woman to the home. — Mary Wollstonecraft 's place
as pioneer in the movement for the emancipation of
women 218—228

INDEX 229-234

A STUDY OF

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT,

AND THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

CHAPTER I.
HER L,IFE.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT was born near London,
April 27, 1759. Her parents were of Irish descent,
and evidently passed the earlier years of their mar-
ried life under favorable circumstances. They were
both of good family and were in possession of some
wealth. Mary's father had inherited ^10,000 from
his father, who owned a large factory in Spitalsfield.
He engaged in fanning and was an active man but
not prosperous, and therefore sought to better his
affairs by frequent change. A deeper fall in
poverty marked each move made by him. When
Mary was six years old the family moved to Bark-
ing in Essex, and three years later to Beverly in
Yorkshire. There they remained for six years,

2 HER LIFE.

then moved to Wales for a year, and finally return-
ed to L,ondon.

Mary was the second of six children. She
enjoyed the advantages of an out-door life and
seems to have been a strong and healthy child.
Dolls had no attraction for her ; she preferred to
play and run about with her brothers. Her delight
in nature was keen, and animals were friends whom
she cherished. Her mother seems to have been a
woman of firm character and good intentions, but
in her decided preference for her eldest son, she
was unjust to Mary, and gave her but a slight share
of the affections which the warm-hearted child
craved. In later life she admitted that in her
treatment of Mary she had been too severe. Her
father was a man of unstable character; trifles
could rouse his temper, and neither his dogs nor
his family were safe from the bursts of his violence.
Even as a child, Mary could not conceal her indig-
nation, and fearlessly interposed when her mother
was the victim of his rage. Though the heavy
pressure of sad circumstances rested upon her
childhood, she was far from being crushed. Superi-
ority of mind and heart seems early to have
manifested itself. Her mother leaned upon her,
and her father respected her.

Mary seems to have attended the common day
school until she was fifteen years old. While the
family lived at Beverly, she was a frequent visitor
at the house of a Mr. Clare, a clergyman of literary
taste, who seems to have lent her books and directed
her reading. Through his wife she became ac-

HER LIFE. 3

quainted with Fanny Blood, a young woman some-
what older than herself, of noble character, who
possessed the accomplishments of a young lady, and
by her skill in music and drawing did much toward
the support of her family. Mary's heart went out
to Fanny at sight in a strong and enthusiastic
friendship ; and in several ways the beginning of
this friendship may be termed a crisis in her young
life. Thus far Mary seems to have read simply to
quench her thirst for knowledge. Fanny's studies
had been carried on more systematically. But
Mary's ambition to excel in intellectual pursuits
was now fully roused, and the latent spirit of inde-
pendence within her asserted itself in the deter-
mination to make her way in life by her own
exertions.

This two-fold ambition however met with little
sympathy in Mary's home. Her plans for study-
were left unheeded, and a position that was offered
her, she declined, persuaded by the earnest entreaties
of her mother. Three years thus passed by and the
financial difficulties of the family grew more op-
pressive. Mary finally decided to accept the position
of companion to a Mrs. Dawson in Bath. She was
now nineteen years old. Mrs. Dawson's temper
made her new office a difficult one, which few of her
predecessors had been able to fill for any length of
time. Man- stayed for two years.

The occasion of her return home was a
lingering illness of her mother, w*ho longed for the
presence of her eldest daughter and refused to
accept the slightest service from anyone else.

4 HER LIFE.

She died, and Mary's father soon married again.
His house ceased to offer a suitable home for his
daughters.

Mary now went to live with her friend Fanny for
a time, helped her mother, who took in needle-work,
and under Fanny's guidance pursued her studies.
Fanny's home life was rendered unhappy by causes
similar to those which had rested like a blight on
Mary's life. Family life presented itself to her in
its darkest aspects. A year of work and study had
passed, when Mary's sister Eliza, who had married
a Mr. Bishop, possibly in order to escape the ills
connected with life in her father's house, called for
Mary's presence. Her marriage was a most un-
happy one. Eliza was very young, hasty tempered
and apt to exaggerate trifles. Mr. Bishop was a
man of violent temper. Eliza's reason had well-
nigh given way under her trials. This was the
first occasion on which any of the great social ques-
tions presented itself to Mary ; and the motives that
prompted her actions in her sister's behalf, were
decisive in her own affairs in later years. She con-
sidered her sister's marriage as practically dissolved
by reason of the brutality of her husband. She
arranged a sudden and secret flight, and after she
had remained in hiding with her sister for a time, a
legal separation was effected.

Thus far Mary had largely devoted herself to her
family, strong to help in trouble, a gentle nurse in
sickness. She now saw that she must engage in
some work, in which Eliza and her sister Everina
also could find a livelihood, and in which Fanny

HER LIFE. 5

could join. Mary was now twenty-four years old.
Her talents had asserted themselves, and notwith-
standing her meagre educational advantages, she
had the attainments necessary to open a school.
This was her first public venture.

The school which the sisters and Fanny Blood
opened at Newington Green in 1783 seemed for a
time to succeed. They soon had twenty day pupils
and a few boarders. But discordant notes marred
the harmony which they had hoped would make
their work a pleasure. The heavier share of the
burdens fell upon Mary, yet it was not without some
jealousy that her sisters saw her the recipient of a
larger degree of respect and admiration than they
themselves received. Fanny, to whom Mary in
earlier days looked up as a friend of larger attain-
ments than she herself possessed, now leaned upon
Mary for support. Their relations were reversed.
Fanny's life was being worn out with the ills of
poverty, and when she married Mr. Hugh Skeys
and went with him to Lisbon, her health was
already undermined. He had feared the dis-
pleasure of his friends, and had delayed his mar-
riage until it was too late. Mary's heart clung to
Fanny ; and, when after a time, Fanny begged for
her presence, she refused to listen to the voice of
friends, who advised her not to go, she left the
school in charge of her sisters, and arrived in
Lisbon but just in time to nurse her friend during
her last days. Fanny died, and Mary returned to
England almost heart-broken ; for she loved Fanny
with all the devotion of her nature. At Newing-

6 HER LIFE.

ton she found fresh troubles awaiting her. Her
sisters had not been equal to the responsibility rest-
ing upon them. The pupils had scattered, and
means with which to meet debts incurred for house-
rent were not forthcoming. There was nothing
left to do but to close the school.

The sad circumstances of Mary's early life now
seemed to reach their climax. She wrote in later
years : "I have never had either father or brother."
Her eldest brother was now an Attorney in London
and might have helped his family, but he was a
selfish man, and Everina, who had sought a home
with him, found the shelter grudgingly given. Her
father's poverty was growing more distressing.
Far from having a home to offer his children, he
had begun to look to them for support. Fanny's
parents too were in trouble, and her brother George,
whom Mary loved as an own brother, was without
a situation. Poverty, sorrow and trouble surround-
ed Mary on every hand. A note of deep despond-
"f" ency vibrates through her letters of this period.
Life with her had been one hard struggle. Even
childhood's joys had fled before the harshness
which she experienced at the hands of those who
should have been her best friends. Her unweary-
ing efforts to obtain an education had been met by
almost insurmountable difficulties, and now her
first attempt to carve for herself an independent and
useful place in life had proved a failure. Above all,
in the death of her friend Fanny, she had lost the
kindliest ray of sunshine that had thus far smiled
upon her path.

HER I JFK. 7

Two prominent men rendered Mary service at
this time, that was destined to influence the further
development of her career ; and it is significant of
the influences that surrounded her at that time, that
both were clergymen. One, the Rev. J. Hewlett,
introduced her to Mr. Johnson, the publisher in
vSt. Paul's Churchyard, to whom she offered her first
literary venture, Thoughts on /he Education of
Daughters. Ten guineas this effort brought her,
and with characteristic unselfishness, she put the
money into the hands of Fanny's parents, that they
might carry out their desire of going to Ireland and
settling in Dublin. The other friend, who helped
Mary at this juncture, was Dr. Richard Price, the
famous Dissenting preacher. Through his recom-
mendation Mr. Prior, Assistant Master at Eton,
obtained for her a situation as governess in the
family of Lord Kingsborough in Ireland. In the
autumn of 1787, after a short stay in Eton, with
Mr. and Mrs. Prior, she sailed with these friends
to Ireland.

Her new position as governess was not one in
which Mary could long rest satisfied. Her craving
for independence could not be silenced. She soon
became attached to her pupils, but the tone ol
society at the castle was far from congenial. In her
hours of leisure she wrote a story, Mary, a Fie-
tion, a record of her friendship with Fanny Blood.
Mr. Johnson, the publisher, whose interest in her
had been roused before she went to Ireland, saw in
this second literary attempt fresh indication of her
talent. He advised her to come to London and

8 HER IJFK.

promised her constant literary work, to consist
chiefly in translating from the French. Man-
gladly entered upon these plans. L,ady Kings-
borough had cause to be jealous of the hold which
Mary had on the affections of her pupils. The
regret which the eldest of them showed when left
by Mary for a short time, was the pretext for her
dismissal. She left behind her scenes of gaiety at
Dublin, Bristol, Hotwells and Bath, where she had
gone with the family of her employer. Most of the
women with whom she came in contact were frivol-
ous, most of the men were coarse. The insight
which she gained into the ways of those favored
by rank and fortune was not without its mould-
ing influence upon her views in the years that
followed.

Under the direction of her publisher, Mary, during
the following five years, 1787 — 1792, developed an
unusual activity. Besides attending to the daily
recurring smaller tasks, incidental to her position,
she increased her knowledge of modern languages
and made translations of several books, popular at
that time. A few books for children issued from
her pen. Contributions to the Analytical Rcric:c,
lately started by Mr. Johnson, also formed part ol
her activity. By reason of her exertions she was
now able to help her family. Her father in his
poverty had come to look to her for support.
Everina and Eliza, who continued as governesses,
frequently made Mary's scantily furnished rooms
their home. They and Mary's two younger brothers
were offered educational advantages through her

HER LIFE. 9

generosity. Not less than ^200, as Mr. Johnson
says, did she expend on her brothers and sisters
during those years.

Through her relations to her publisher, Mary was
introduced to men and women who were congenial.
The literary society which frequented the house of
Mr. Johnson, where Mary was always welcome, was
composed of men of liberal views, in favor of reform ;
who gathered to discuss the great questions of those
stirring times and to watch eagerly the develop-
ments of the Revolution in France. This social
intercourse could not but stimulate Mary's mental
activity. Yet she worked on, comparatively unno-
ticed, until in 1790, Edmund Burke published his
famous Reflections on Mie Revolution in France.
The first of the numerous replies from the liberal
party came from the pen of Mary Wollstonecraft.
Written with an eloquence somewhat too heedless,
her reply nevertheless called forth applause, for it
breathed throughout the spirit of liberty. Concern-
ing Mary's attitude toward the questions of her
times, there could not now be any doubt. She
belonged to the Revolutionists, and demanded re-
form, political and social. Soon after this, her
views again found expression in her best-known
work, the I 'indication of tJie Rights of Women.

Mary was now thirty-three years of age. Her
work had been crowned with unusual success.
Through her last-named book she had become
famous not only in England but also in Germany
and France. In the literary circles of London she^/
was now a distinguished personage. She took

TO HER LIFE.

the brevet rank of Mrs. Wollstonecraft. In ap-
pearance she was dignified and attractive. Regu-
lar features and large expressive eyes were sur-
rounded by masses of brownish auburn hair. There
is thus far no trace of a romance in Mary's life.
A report, which was later discussed in Mary's biog-
raphy as well as in Fusel Ts, that Mary's friendship
with that distinguished artist, whose wife was also
her friend, had become intensified to a degree that
made the relations of a merely friendly nature
equivalent to a torment to her, is found by Mr. C.
Kegan Paul, who has had opportunity to weigh the
evidence for and against, to be without foundation.
Whether this circumstance, as Godwin says, decid-
ed her to seek a change by a short sojourn in France,
or whether it was to study on the spot the nature
of the events that perplexed the minds of friends
and foes alike of the Revolution is uncertain ; with
regard however to her private affairs her journey
was destined to usher her into sad complications.

Mary went to Paris toward the end of the year
1792. As yet there was peace between France and
England. Mary had very good introductions. At
the house of a friend she met an American,
Captain Gilbert Imlay, who had, in the service of
the United States, gained some slight reputation as
an author. He wrote a monograph entitled, . /
Topographical Description of the Western Territory
of North America, which in its day went through
many editions. To him Mary gave her whole
heart, and with it an unbounded confidence. Mean-
time the relations between England and France had

HKR UFK. 1 i

become strained to such an extent, that all commu-
nication between the two countries had ceased.
Mary's position, as a British subject, was full of
danger ; Imlay was safe, since the Americans were
considered friends and allies by the Revolutionists.
Mary's nationality had to be concealed, and a legal
marriage with Imlay was therefore out of the ques-
tion ; moreover it was doubtful whether such would
have been valid in England. She was regarded in
the circle of their acquaintances as Imlay \s wife, and
the American consul gave her a certificate to that
effect.

In the autumn of 1/93 Imlay was called to
Havre on business, and after a few months Mary
followed him. In the spring of the following year
Mary gave birth to a daughter, named Fanny in
memory of the dear friend of her youth. Until
September she enjoyed the sunshine of happiness
and then Imlay went to London and this separation
was the beginning of Imlay's desertion. His letters
grew cool in tone and when she followed him to
London, in April 1795, his attentions were strained,
and his interest in her and her child but slight.
After a few weeks he asked Mary to undertake a
journey to Norway, where he had engaged in busi-
ness ventures, and gave her a legal document, in
which he speaks of her as " Mary Imlay, my best
friend and wife," giving her plenary powers to act
for him. She travelled in Sweden, Norway and
Denmark. Her health, worn out by cruel uncer-
tainty, was recuperated, but mentally she was nigh
unto despair. When after an absence of four

12 HER LIFE.

months she returned to England with her little
daughter, she found that her most harrassing fears
were not without foundation. Driven to despair
by the discovery that an unworthy intrigue was
being carried on under her own roof, she sought
death in the waters of the Thames. Some passing
boatmen rescued her when life was almost extinct.
Their kindness seemed but cruelty ; for she still
could not bear the thought of a permanent separa-
tion from Imlay. During the five months that
followed, he frequently offered her pecuniary assist-
ance, which she declined. u I never wanted but
your heart — that gone, you have nothing more to
give." ' With regard to Fanny's maintenance, she
wrote : " You must do as you please with respect
to the child." Imlay gave a bond for a sum to
be settled on his child ; but neither interest nor
principal was ever paid. In March 1796, Mary saw
that all hope of reconciliation was futile. Imlay
now vanished completely from her life.

As before her journey to France, she lived again
in London, and by the aid of Mr. Johnson, always
the most helpful of her friends, she again support-
ed herself by her pen. She had her daughter
Fanny with her, and at Imlay's request they both
bore his name. Otherwise there was no change.
During her sojourn in France she had written the
first volume of An Historical and Moral View of
the Origin and Progress of ike French Revolution,
and the effect it has produced in Rnrope, which

1 Letters to Imlay. p. 188. - Ibid., p. 206.

IIKR LIFE. 13

was now published. This would have been a
valuable work, if she could have completed it
in three or four additional volumes as she in-
tended. The letters which she had written to Imlay
during her travel in northern countries, she divest-
ed of personal matters, and published them on
account of their descriptive merit, as Letters written
during a short residence in Sweden, Norway and
Denmark.

Mary was sad and depressed in spirit, but gradu-
ally she found pleasure in frequenting, as before her
journey to France, the literary society of L,ondon. ,
William Godwin was one of those with whom
she renewed her acquaintance. Her Letters from
Sweden had charmed him, for he saw in them
every indication of matured literary talent and a
spirit grown gentle and calm with suffering. Her
late experiences had roused his sympathy. The
friendship which they now conceived for each other
soon ripened into love.

William Godwin was at this time forty years old,
and stood at the height of his literary success.
His Political Justice represented as bold a stride
in a new direction as did Mary Wollstonecraft's
Rights of Jl'ometi. He was the most radical of
the liberal party in England, and as their most
prominent thinker was of very pronounced influ-
ence in his day. One of the radical consequences of
his philosophy was that " marriage is law, and the
worst of all laws." It was not a light matter with
him to decide to act contrary to his own theories.
Mary had just passed through a sad experience to

i4 HER UFB:.

which some degree of publicity had been given.
She had no wish to encounter again the ordeal of
public comment. Moreover, the experiences of her
life had brought her in vivid contact with all the
distressing aspects of marriage as a civic institution.
She hesitated to take any decisive step. They did
not at once declare thei^ attachment to the world.
The ceremony took pjace at St. Pancras Church,
March 26th, 1797. V

It was a union of two, who may be counted
among the most remarkable people of their times.
A rare blending of mental endowments was to be
expected. Mary was at work on a novel, Maria ;
or, the Wrongs of Woman, upon which she bestow-
ed a degree of painstaking labor unusual with
her. But the season of calm in her stormy life was
of short duration. She gave birth to a daughter,
Mary, August 3Oth, 1797, and after lingering
between life and death for ten days, the best physi-
cians in London doing their utmost to save her,
she died September loth, 1797.

A year later, Godwin published his Memoirs of
Mary Wollst oncer aft Godwin. He hoped by a clear
statement of the principles, which had actuated
her in the arrangements of her life, to call forth a
more kindly attitude towards her memory. But he
was not the one to do her this service. Too many
of his own radical views found their way into the
book ; nor did he succeed in representing Mary's life
in a way that would lessen the. asperity with which
her character was denounced. He also published
the Posthumous Works of Mary Wollstonecraft in

HER LIFE. 15

four volumes, which again excited much adverse
criticism. The volumes contained chiefly the novel
Maria ; oi\ the Wrongs of Woman, which, owing to
the author's death remained incomplete, and also
the personal part of her letters to Imlay, which
Mary had retained, when she published the Letters
from Sii'eden.

Two years after his wife's death, Godwin publish-
ed a work of fiction, St. Leon, in which he paid
an indirect tribute of a high order to Mary Woll-
stonecraft. In Marguerite, one of the most charm-
ing female characters in the fiction of that day, the
reader recognizes her leading traits. The story is
remarkable for the exalted place which the joys of
family life afford when centered in a woman like
Marguerite. The married life of St. Leon with
Marguerite is an idealized description of the enjoy-
ment which Godwin drew from the companionship of
his wife during the short season of their united lives.

The writings of Mary Wollstonecraft continued
to be read ; her fame as one of the most gifted
authors of her time was spread abroad. Her works
were read in Germany and France in translations,
and in America also her name seems to have been
well known ; for Aaron Burr during his residence
in Europe writes to his daughter Theodosia : " I
have seen the two daughters of Mary Wollstone-
craft." ' The facts of her late life, however, as they
had been brought before the public were viewed

1 The Private Journal of Aaron Burr, during his residence of
four years in Europe. Edited by Matthew L. Davis, New York,
1838, Vol. I, p. 98.

16 HER LIFE.

with little favour and scant justice. It pleased critics
to look upon them, not as due to unfortunate circum-
stances, but as wilful transgressions against the laws
of society. Caustic remarks were made and pass-
ed on. But while newspapers after a time ceased
to make comments, sketches of her life and works
found their way into histories of English litera-
ture, and into books of reference, great and small.
The same unjust estimate of her character is found
in most of these. An anonymous defender in 1803
claimed that it was " want of attentive enquiry,
which has induced the public to pass a general vote
of censure upon an unfortunate woman, who, in
many instances might have advanced a claim to
their warmest approbation." ' A tone however pre-
vails in this Defence, that is not without its hidden
drop of poison.

Once more, in 1844, an edition of the [^indication
of the Rights of IVomen was published, because, as
is said in the Preface, " it is undoubtedly one of the
most extraordinary productions of the time at which
it appeared," and also " because it is character-
ized by an originality, a boldness, a love of truth
and a generous earnestness of purpose, which show
with what an ardent desire to accomplish a great
and noble purpose the fair and gifted author
entered upon her hazardous undertaking." After

1 A Defence of the Character and Conduct of the late Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin ; in a series of letters to a Lady, London,
1803.

2 A Vindication of the Rights of Women ; 3rd Edition, revis-
ed and re-edited, London, William Strange, 1844.

HER LIFE. 17

this there is silence, and during the several decades
that followed, the memory of Mary Wollstonecraft
was more and more neglected, and she well-nigh for-
gotten ; while the movement to which she had given
perhaps the first conscious expression, was taking
its first timid steps toward general recognition.

Meantime Mary's two daughters passed their
childhood's days in the house of Godwin and grew
up into womanhood. Fanny took the name of
Miss Godwin. Mary, beautiful and gifted, was
wont to take her books to the lonely St. Pancras
cemetery to read in the shade of the willow-tree by
the side of her mother's grave, and thus to satisfy
her thirst for knowledge undisturbed by an unloved
step-mother. Here the poet Shelley, who during
that period of his life looked upon Godwin as his
tutor and mentor, found Mary, then sixteen years
old, over her books, and told her the story of his
life and of his love for her, a though legally bound,
he held himself morally free to offer himself to her
if she would be his."1 She, a mere child, imbued
with her father's philosophy and overcome by a
profound admiration for the poetical genius of
Shelley, " conceived that she wronged by her action
no one but herself, and she did not hesitate."2
Harriet, the wife of Shelley, deserted by her hus-
band, supplanted by Mary, ere long found herself
involved in serious trouble ; death seemed prefer-
able to life ; she sought a watery grave. There

1 Mrs. Julian Marshall : The Life and Letters of Mary Woll-
stonecraft Shelley, Vol. I, p. 64.
- Ibitl.. page 65.

3

T<S HER UFK.

was intense mental activity in the house of Godwin ;
there was genius and noble thought. But wrong-
was done in the enunciation of principles dangerous
to the welfare of society ; wrong was done by re-
ducing these principles to action. Mary Shelley,
not only as the wife of the poet, but also through
the display of her own genius won for herself a
place in English literature.

Fanny, the gentle girl, full of thoughtful, lov-
ing care for those about her, has a place in the
biographies of four remarkable people. Her win-
some baby ways are exquisitely described in her
mother's letters. In Godwin's biography she takes
the place of his eldest daughter, helpful and sym-
pathetic in his financial troubles. As Mr. C. Kegan
Paul says, Fanny, after her mother, is the most
attractive character met with in the whole enor-
mous mass of Godwin's MSS. Mary's maturer
nature expanded under Shelley's influence, not
under Godwin's. Fanny had a warm place in Shel-
ley's affections. In his biography as well as in
Mary's, she is the gentle adviser, who seeks to make
peace, when Godwin refused to know his daughter
Mary, after she had left his house with Shelley ; and
takes upon herself the niediatorship between the
two households. Gentle words issue from the pens
of the biographers, when they come to the place
where Fanny " withdrew from life, because in her
weakness and her melancholy she looked upon her-
self as a sad encumbrance to the world ; she with-
drew, not in violence or passion, but stealing away
with hopeless eye and rapid step to darkness, silence

HKk IJFK. 19

and oblivion/'1 Godwin's mind was filled with
anxious attempts to extricate himself from his finan-
cial embarrassments ; Mrs. Godwin, never of gentle
temper, had perhaps reminded the poor girl that she
wras a burden to the household. Moreover the
extreme depression to which her mother had been
subject, seized hold of Fanny from time to time.
She was twenty-two years old when she travelled to
Swansea, stopped for the night at the Mackworth
Arms Inn, and ended her life by a dose of laudanum.
Godwin and Shelley hastened to Swansea and re-
turned overwhelmed with grief. Even Godwin's
habitual equanimity was shaken; for he had loved
this gentle girl, who had found her way to his affec-
tions during the brief period, when both he and she
found a rare warmth of affection in the presence of
Mary Wollstonecraft.

In the year 1817 Shelley wrote his epic poem
" The Revolt of Islam." The Dedication is to Mary
and contains a verse which refers to the mother,
whose memory Mary cherished with a deep and
peculiar affection :

11 They say that thou \vert lovely from thy birth,
Of glorious parents thou aspiring child :
1 woiuler not- for One then left this earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild,
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
Of its departing glory ; still her fame
Shines on thee, through the tempests dark and wild
Which shake these latter days ; and thou canst claim
The shelter, from thy Sire, of an immortal name."

» Edward Powden, 1,1,. D. : The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Vol. II, p. 50.

2O HER LIFK.

Laon, the hero of this poem, was one who suffered
and died because his entreaties to break the fetters
of despotism had incited men to rebellion and revolt.
And Cythna was but his other self. Hers is a lofty
character, of a type perhaps unknown before the
dawn of the nineteenth century ; a stranger in
fiction until Shelley's fiery spirit gave her birth.
Cythna mourns with L,aon the servitude in which
one-half of mankind languish, u Victims of lust and
hate, the slaves of slaves." The light of exultation
breaking from her. eyes, Cythna assumes the task of
proclaiming freedom and equality between man and
woman..

" The wild -eyed women throng around her path
From their luxurious dungeons, from the dust
Of meaner thralls, from the oppressors' wrath.
Or the caresses of his sated lust,

The}' congregate

Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach
To women, outraged and polluted long ; "

Mary, the loved companion of Shelley's aspira-
tions, had a cast of genius different from that which
belongs to the reformer ; but the mother, whose
life was hushed when hers began, presented in real
life a type of womanhood, which found its idealized
image in Cythna.

The years passed by, Godwin, after a long life
of literary toil, had died at the ripe age of eighty.
Shelley had found an early, sadly lamented death
in the waves of the Mediterranean Sea. Mary Shel-
ley, the freshness of her powers spent during the
eight years of active life with Shelley, had passed

HRR IJFK. 21

her twenty-nine years of lonely widowhood in
literary labour and thought. Her grave was in
Bournemouth Churchyard, the burial-place nearest
the home of her only surviving child, Sir Percy Shel-
ley, who transferred the remains of his grand-parents,
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft to the
same spot, when the old St. Pancras cemetery was
invaded by busy London life. In the house of Sir
Percy Shelley, near by, was kept the silver urn con-
taining the ashes of his father. Here too the pic-
ture of Mary Wollstonecraft, painted by Opie at the
request of Godwin, during her short married life
with him, had its place. As Mr. Kegan Paul says,
its tender, wistful, childlike, pathetic beauty, with
a look of pleading against the hardness of the world,
he knows in one only other face, that of Beatrice
Cenci.

Not until eighty years had passed ; since the
publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's / 'indication
of Hie Rights of }\7owan were steps taken to set
her right in the eyes of the world. Sir Percy
Shelley placed the whole of the papers in his posses-
sion relating to his grandfather, William Godwin,
at the disposal of Mr. C. Kegan Paul, the well-
known publisher in London, in order that he might
compile a Life of the philosopher. Among these
papers were found letters written by Mary Woll-
stonecraft during the period of ten years that preced-
ed the publication of her I 'indication of the Rights
of Woman concerning which so little was known.
They are addressed to members of her family and to
intimate friends and reveal a woman, who suffered

22 UIvR UKK.

much, who courageously met the difficulties that
confronted her and others, whose heart ever craved
for love, and whose consolation was found in a
warm and tender allegiance to the beliefs of the
Christian religion.

Mr. C. Kegaii Paul undertook to vindicate the
memory of Mary Wollstonecraft, and what he had
commenced in his Life of Godwin, largely by
letting her speak herself through her letters, he
carried through three years later. He published
again the personal part of those Letters to I ml ay
and in the full Prefatory Memoir he accomplish-
ed, what was attempted with so slight a degree
of success many years before by Godwin. Mary
Wollstonecraft found her defender in him. He
protests against the obloquy and scorn which have
been heaped upon her character. As for the views,
for which she fought, he well says : " Her opinions
have become in many particulars the common-
places of our own day, while she who was first to
proclaim what is now held innocently, was for-
gotten or assailed."

Mr. Paul's effort had its immediate effect ; for
the eyes of the literary world could no longer ignore
the memory of Mary Wollstonecraft. The AVrr
Quarterly Review soon after brought out an essay, by
Mathilde Blind, on Mary Wollstonecraft, which did
her full justice. A similar essay was published in
the Deutsche Rundschau, 1889, by Helen Zim-
mern. And in the Eminent Women Series a full
biographical sketch of Mary Wollstonecraft was
written by Elizabeth Robins Pennell, in which her

HER LIFE. 23

memory is fully vindicated. So lively an interest
was awakened, that several new editions of the
/ 'indications of the Rights of Woman were called for.

The story of the life of Mary Wollstonecraft is
pathetic throughout, full of wrong inflicted, of suffer-
ing endured. Much as she was maligned, not even
the severest of her critics has been able to bring
forward a charge against her, that she neglected
her parents, her brothers and sisters ; that she was
faithless in her relations to any man or woman.
The vindicator of the rights of her sex is not known
to have betrayed a woman during the whole course
of her sad, eventful life. She disdained to tamper
with the affections of any man.

The charge which must ever stand unanswerably
against her memory, is that she wronged herself in
the excess of trustfulness bestowed upon Imlay, in
her reluctance to enter upon her marriage relation
with Godwin in the lawful form. After this charge
has been admitted, it behoves the student of history
to enquire, whether there was aught in her message
to humanity that was good, true and right.

Resentment was felt a century ago against that in
her life, which seemed an application of some of the
most dangerous principles that found expression in
the French Revolution. A calmer judgment to-day
sifts good from evil ; and that innate sense of justice
in the human race, that stands ready to vindicate
the memory of its benefactors has asserted itself in
behalf of Mary Wollstonecraft.

CHAPTER II.
HER LITERARY WORK.

THE works of Mary Wollstonecraft display unusual
versatility of mental powers. She was able to turn
her mind to new tasks in a way that made her
eminent in several directions. She may be classed
among pedagogical writers, but she also wrote on
historical subjects and took part in discussions in
political principles. She wrote fiction, and her let-
ters descriptive of experiences in travel, and letters
personal, take a high rank even to this day, among
productions of that kind. And more than all this,
her genius furnished, in her Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, the motive power, derived from
originality of conception, which helped to carry
forward an historic movement.

Her intellectual endowments then, were of a
wide scope. She was a born educator. Her prac-
tical skill in education was even superior to her
speculations upon that subject,"1 is the tribute

1 The Gentleman's Magazine, 1797. Among " Obituaries of
Remarkable Persons."

HKR LITERARY WORK. 25

paid her by one of her contemporaries. Godwin
says of her : u No person was ever better formed
for the business of education ; if it be not a sort of
absurdity to speak of a person as formed for an in-
ferior object, who is in possession of talents, in the
fullest degree adequate to something on a more
important and comprehensive scale." u I have heard
her say, " he continues, a that she never was con-
cerned in the education of one child, who was not
personally attached to her, and earnestly concerned
not to incur her displeasure. Another eminent
advantage she possessed in the business of education,
was that she was little troubled with scepticism and
uncertainty. She saw, as it were by intuition, the
path which her mind determined to pursue, and
had a firm confidence in her own power to effect
what she desired."1 She wrote but little on strictly
educational matter, but she brought to bear upon
her Vindication of the Rights of Woman all the
skill, practical and theoretical, which she possessed,
as an educator. It is, as the Analytical Review
said, " in reality an elaborate treatise on female
education." The educator was here merged in the
reformer.

The leading traits of the reformer were hers.
Courage and strength of conviction marked her
attitude ; nor did she hesitate to place implicit trust
in her own opinions, however much at variance

1 \V. Godwin : Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of
the Rights of Woman, p. 43.

- The Analytical Review, March 1792.

4

26 HER LITERARY WORK.

they might have been with those held by the great
majority. The enthusiasm which inspires belief in
success, however insurmountable the obstacles might
seem, was hers and carried her forward.

Her love for humanity was on a grand scale and
gave her a keen insight into the causes that lay at
the root of social evils, lent her a firm hand to open
out these causes and lay them bare, and inspired
her with a burning desire to see the wrongs of
humanity set right, and justice meted out to that
part of the human race, whose rights had thus far
been largely overlooked.

Blended with the eminently practical tendency
of the reformer, displayed in the measures which
she a4vocated, was the speculative reasoning of
the philosopher. She possessed the high mental
power of seeing truth intuitively ; and at the same
time aimed at accurate expression of terms and
thus sought a rational basis for ideas, which she
had attained by way of intuitive perception. The
great questions, that have engaged thinkers in all
ages, concerning the liws of the universe and their
invisible law-giver ; concerning the destiny of man
and the ultimate triumph of right over wrong, had
early confronted her, and she had come to her
own conclusions regarding them. This speculative
reasoning forms the background of her practical
applications.

This threefold gift : The practical skill of the
educator, the zeal of the reformer, and the thought-
fulness of the philosopher, supported as it was by an
unusual command of language, made her a woman

HER LITERARY WORK. 27

u well known throughout Europe by her literary
works.''1

Mary Wollstonecraft began her public career as
a teacher, and as a consequence her first literary
efforts were put forth in the direction of education.
Her first production2 did not enjoy great success.
It is full of precepts, full of counsel, and is written
in a sombre tone, with little of the joyousness of
life and youth vibrating in it. The burdens of her
life seemed to her insupportably heavy at the time,
and the heaviness of spirit is apparent in her writing.
Yet the germs of later, riper thought are there.

Her vSecond attempt as a writer of educational
books was in a happier vein, and met with far
greater success. In Original Stories from Real
Life 3 she abandoned the somewhat stilted form of
precept, and in the form of stories, taught the
children to see the deeper meanings in the daily
occurrences of their lives.

A prominent educator in Germany, C. S. Salz-
inann, had adopted a similar method. His book
accidentally fell into Mary Wollstonecraft's hands
while she was learning German, and as an exercise
in language, she began to translate it. She was
soon so pleased to find, as she says in the preface,

1 The Gentleman's Magazine, 1797.

2 Thoughts on the Education of Daughters with Reflections
on Female Conduct in the more important Duties of Life.
London, 1787.

3 Original Stories from Real Life. London, 1788, 1791, 1796
(with illustrations designed and engraved by W. Blake).
London, 1807, 1820, 1835. Dublin, 1799.

28 HER LITERARY WORK.

that the writer coincided with her in opinion res-
pecting the method, which ought to be pursued to
form the heart and temper of children, that she
made her translation1 an English book, by avoid-
ing the introduction of German customs and local
opinions, thus giving it the spirit of an original.
" All the pictures," she says, "are drawn from real
life, and that I highly approve of this method, my
having written a book on the same plan, (Entitled
Original Stories from Real Life} is the strongest
proof." It is interesting, as an indication of the
later, development of her thought, that in her own
book she inserted a little tale to lead children to
consider the Indians as their brothers, u because the
omission of this subject appeared to be a chasm in
a well-digested system."

Both these books, her own Original Stories from
Real Life and her rendering of Salzinann's Morali-
schcs Elementarbuch were much read in their day.

Mary Wollstonecraft's other translations did not
enjoy so great a degree of popularity. She trans-
lated Necker's Opinions Religieuses* and Lavater's
Physiognomy from the French. A translation from
the Dutch of Young Grandison was put into her
hands, which she almost re-wrote. She also com-
piled a French Reader, introducing some original

1 C. S. Salzmann : Elements of Morality. Translated by
Mary Wollstonecraft. London, 1790, 2 vols. ; 1792, 3 vols. ;
1793, 2 vols. ; Baltimore, U. S. A.. 1811 ; Edinburgh, 1821.

a Jacques Necker: Of the Importance of Religious Opinions.
Translated by Mary Wollstonecraft. London. 1788 ; Philadel-
phia, 1791.

HER LITERARY WORK. 29

pieces, and adding a preface. The nature of this
work offered little opportunity for display of genius ;
on the contrary, perhaps her talent was suppressed.
Yet it increased no doubt that readiness of expres-
sion, that is so conspicuous in the two productions,
which followed each other closely toward the end
of the period of her work in Mr. Johnson's employ.
Had her literary activity ceased here, she might
rightly have been classed among the pedagogical
writers of her time. But she now entered into
a new sphere of activity. The revolutionary
element, that had thus far lain dormant, now burst
forth. While she had heretofore, as an educator,
watched the development of the individual, she
now turned her attention to the evolution of the
human race. In her Rights of Man1 she ex-
pressed her general views, in her Rights of Woman 2

1 A Vindication of the Rights of Man, in a letter to the Right
Honorable Edmund Burke. London, 1790. Two Editions in
the same year.

2 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, with Strictures on
Political and Moral subjects. London, 1792. Two editions.
Boston, U. S. A., Thomas and Andrews, 1792.

Defense des droits des femmes, suivie de quelques consider-
ations sur des sujets politique et moreaux. 2 parties, 8°, Paris,
Buisson, 1792. Also I, yon, Bruyset freres, 1792.

•Rettung der Rechte des Weibes. Schnepfenthal bei Gotha,
1793, Mit Vorwort und Anmerkungen von Christian Gotthilf
Salzmann, 2 Bande.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. London, William
Strange, 1844. This edition was revised and re-edited.

Another edition: London, T. Fisher Urnvin, 1891. With an
Introduction by Mrs. Henry Fawcett.

Another edition : London, Walter Scott, 1892. With an Intro-
duction bv Elizabeth R. Pe nil ell.

30 HER LITERARY WORK.

which followed soon after, she directed her full
attention to woman as constituting that part of the
human race, which had not been allowed to partake
to the full extent in the true progress of civilization ;
and as the result had forfeited its own best interest ;
and at the same time had endangered the advance-
ment of the whole. This was a task suited to the
courage and zeal of the reformer. She attacked
the social structure, wrought by the laborious
evolution of many centuries, and made firm by the
customs and usages of Church and State. It was
an age when the French Revolution marked a
crisis in history, and thinking minds were busy
with the problem of how to save ancient institutions
by expanding them in order to give room to a new
principle, that found expression in the demand for
the rights of men. Mary Wollstonecraft stood in
the very midst of the currents of thought that made
her time remarkable. In her Rights of Man she
took opportunity to range herself against conserva-
tism, and to express herself in favor of all that was
liberal and progressive. She showed her grasp upon
the discussion of the rights of man in every aspect.
The application of the same reasoning to the rights/
of women was a novel undertaking and was carried'
through with boldness and courage.

Her volume 1 on the French Revolution is the
next literary production, and seems a natural step
from the discussion of the abstract principles in-

1 An Historical and oral View of the Origin and Progress of
the French Revolution ; and the effect it has produced in Europe.
Vol. I, London, 1794.

HKR UTKRARY WORK. 31

volved iii that catastrophe to an historical survey of
their embodiment in facts and events. It is a
philosophical book. The author never loses sight
of the causes that underlie events ; she never forgets
the principles which she believed must ultimately
be crowned with victory. It is a matter of regret
that she did not complete her work in four or five
volumes. She does not bring the record further
than to the time of the King's removal to Paris.
The events, which she herself witnessed — the pas-
sage of Lrouis XVI. to his trial and later to his
death, and the intense excitement attendant upon
these extreme measures — were not depicted by her
pen, except in short letters. She was accurate in
her descriptions and preserved a good degree of
calmness amid the feverish throbbing of national
excitement. The writings of foreigners, who were
at that time in Paris, are to-day a valuable source of
information to the student of history. Mary Woll-
stonecraft's work would have ranked with the best
of these, had she carried it farther.

Written under different circumstances, in a
mood melancholy but receptive, her next book1
reveals a new aspect of her literary talent. Away

1 Letters written during a short residence in Sweden,
Norway and Denmark. London, 1796.

Another edition in Wilmington, Del., U. S. A., 1796.

A German translation appeared in Hamburg. Date uncertain.

Extractos das cartas de Mary Wollstonecraft relativas a
Suecia, Noruega e Dinamarca, e huma breve noticia de sua vida,
offerecidos .... por H. X. Baeta. Lisboa, 1806.

New English edition, Cassell, 1889.

Natur-und Sittengemlilde aus Schweden. Leipzig, 1893.

32 HER LITERARY WORK.

from scenes of strife and bloodshed, she wanders in
Northern countries, in paths far removed from the
beaten track of the ordinary traveller. She looks
upon the scenes that unfold before her through the
medium of unusual powers of perception of the
beautiful in nature ; the wealth of her imagination
gives rise to charming interludes ; and her observa-
tions on man and the various conditions in which
she finds him, are worthy of one who has made the
progress of humanity her life's study. It is a
thoroughly charming book. Much appreciated in
its time, it has claim upon the student of to-day,
who would acquaint himself with the conditions
existing in Norway and Sweden a century ago. Its
recent editions show that this claim is respected.

This was the last book published during her life-
time. While in the midst of her next task, her
pen was laid aside, and her mental activities were
hushed in death. Godwin published The Wrongs
of Woman : or Maria. A Fragment l in its un-
finished condition, as she left it. It fills Volumes I
and II of her Posthumous Works. *

With mingled feelings the reader of to-day fol-
lows her in this last effort to take the part of the
oppressed. The Wrongs of Woman is a novel
written with a purpose. The author does not use
argument this time, but draws pictures of degra-

1 French Translation : Maria, ou le malheur d'etre feiume.
Ouvrage posthume invite de 1 'anglais, par B. Duros, Paris,
1798.

- Posthumous Works of the Author of a Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, Four volumes. London, 1798.

HER LITERARY WORK. 33

dation and horrors so vivid, that he who has admired
her idealism can scarcely believe that realism, so
repulsive, could issue from the same pen. Yet it
was a portrayal of the wrongs which she had known
women to endure. Twice in the course of her
literary career Mary Wollstonecraft attempted in
works of fiction to describe the feelings and pas-
sions that govern human beings ; and both times
with the purpose of showing how the brutal force
of men may triumph over the helpless resistance
of women, whom circumstances have placed in
their power. In Mary, a Fiction^ the heroine is
bound for life to a man, whose approach fills her
with horror. In The Wrongs of Woman this theme
is carried farther. The author's main object, as she
says in the fragmentary Preface, was "to exhibit
the misery and oppression, peculiar to women, that
arise out of the partial laws and customs of society."
This she accomplished. And he who lays bare the
festering sores of suffering humanity is also its
benefactor.

The fourth volume of the Posthumous Works of
Mary Wollstonecraft contains a series of lessons
written by the author for the use of her little
daughter Fanny ; a number of letters written to
Mr. Johnson, the Publisher ; a Letter on the Present
Character of the French Nation; The Cave of
Fancy, a Tale, begun in earlier years and never
finished ; and an Essay On Poetry and our Relish
for the Beauties of Nature. These Miscellaneous

1 Mary, a Fiction, London, 1788.

34 HER LITERARY WORK.

pieces are interesting as giving fresh glimpses of
the niind and talent of the author. But their value
is slight, compared to the Letters to Imlay, which
fill the whole of the third and part of the fourth
volume.

It is certainly a rare occurrence in the his-
tory of Literature, that a man should publish after
her death, the letters of his wife to a former lover or
husband. It was evidently not her wish, that was
thus carried out ; for she says in one of the last of
the letters : " And whatever I may think and feel,
you need not fear that I shall publicly complain.
No ! If I have any criterion to judge of right and
wrong, I have been most ungenerously treated :
but, wishing now only to hide myself, I shall be
silent as the grave in which I long to forget myself.
I shall protect and provide for my child. I only
mean by this to say, that you have nothing to fear
from my desperation." l But Godwin evidently
believed it due to his wife's memory, that it should
be proven to the world in this most conclusive way,
that Mary Wollstonecraft's relations to Imlay,
though not sanctioned by English law, were con-
sidered by her sacred and binding, that the tie
between them was not sundered by her, and that
untold anguish preceded the last words she penned
to Imlay : "I part with you in peace." Mr. C.
Kegan Paul, Mary Wollstonecraft's vindicator in
the present century, in re-publishing these Letters
to Imlay may have been guided by the same motive.

1 Posthumous Works, Vol. IV, p. 21 ; or C. Kegan Paul :
letters to Imlay, p. 193.

HER LITERARY WORK. 35

The literary discrimination however of both men,
may have actuated them ; for these letters are an
unusual production viewed from the literary stand-
point. Godwin boldly claims in his Preface that
" the following letters may possibly be found to
contain the finest examples of the language of
sentiment and passion ever presented to the world."
He points out that "they bear a striking resem-
blance to the celebrated romance of Werther, though
the incidents to which they relate are of a very
different cast." Hettner, in his able sketch of
Rousseau says l : Goethe's Werther is the continua-
tion and completion, marked by highest genius, of
the key-note struck by Rousseau." Do the Letters
to Imlay also bear the imprint of Rousseau upon
them ? They reveal a heart possessing rare possi-
bilities of response to the touch of love. With an
unusual glow and warmth of language they give
glimpses of the freshness and depth of new-found
happiness; the charm of which gradually vanishes,
giving way to passionate expressions of anxious
longing; till finally the note of despair vibrates
through the long continued pain of deception and
desertion. Rousseau's New Heloise, which Mary
Wollstonecraft mentions in the Wrongs of Woman,
thus speaks the language of the heart.

In one of the letters, she tells Imlay how their
little daughter, then six months old, was delighted
with the scarlet waistcoats and loud music at the
fete of the previous day in memory of Rousseau,

1 Hettner : Geschichte der franzdsischen Literatur im XVIII
Jahrhundert, p. 459.

36 HER LITERARY WORK.

and adds; "to honour J. J. Rousseau, I intend to
give her a sash, the first she has ever had round
her, and why not? for I have always been half in
love with him." l

However, the admission that the Letters to Imlay
may bear relationship to the genius of Rousseau
must be hedged round by limitations. If " the
historical significance of Rousseau lies in his vin-
dication of the idealism of the heart, making its
inalienable rights the foundation of social order," a
then it must be admitted that the influence of
this dangerous doctrine, offers a key to the tragedy
of Mary Wollstonecraft's life. Farther than this a
comparison can not extend ; for there is in her life
no trace of the contradictions of character, which
make it difficult even for the most well-meaning
of Rousseau's biographers to free his memory from
serious reproach.

Mary Wollstonecraft's literary career was closed
by death when she was thirty-eight years old. Her
first literary venture was made ten years before.
Much was condensed into this short period. It is
vain to conjecture as to what might have been her
further career by the side of a man of the literary
and critical abilities of Godwin. She was planning
to strike out again in pedagogical lines, in a series
of letters on the management of children in their
infancy. A number of Hints, to be incorporated
in what was to be Part Second of her Vindication

1 C. Kegan Paul : Letters to Imlay, p. 57.

2 Hettner : Geschichte der franzosischen Literatur ini XVIII
Jahrhundert, p. 476.

HER IJTERARY WORK.

37

of the Rights of Woman, also point to work planned.
A rounded-out, complete life and career were not to
be hers. In glancing over the period of her activity,
it is not the more finished products of her later
years, that rivet the attention of the student. It is
that rugged outburst of ardent love for her sex, her
Vindication of the Rights of Woman, that will prob-
ably pass down her name to the centuries to come.

Judged according to the standard of literary
merit, the book has serious faults. It is replete
with logical argument ; yet there is a looseness in
the arrangement of the material, that seriously
detracts from its value. The author says in her
Introductory Chapter : " I shall disdain to cull my
phrases or polish my style ; I aim at being useful,
and sincerity will render me unaffected." Yet had
she pruned the luxuriance of her eloquence, and
toned down the harshness, with which she ex-
presses many of her opinions, the same end would
have been accomplished, while much of the outcry
against the book might have been prevented.

The subject-matter of the book had evidently
been the growth of years, but it seems to have been
committed to writing with unusual rapidity. God-
win says : u The censure of the liberal critic as to
the defects of this performance, will be changed
into astonishment, when I tell him, that a work of
this inestimable moment, was begun, carried on, and
finished in the state in which it now appears, in
a period of no more than six weeks." l This state-

1 W. Godwin : Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, p. 84.

38 HER LITERARY WORK.

inent seems almost incredible, for in its last edition
the book contains 287 pages 8vo., of fairly fine print.
Yet to all appearances it is a piece of work written
under the rapid dictates of genius and given to the
world, without allowing room to riper reflection or
aiming at more methodical arrangement.

As a literary production then, the Vindication of
the Rights of Woman cannot lay claim to a place
among books of first rank. Godwin predicted that
on account of the importance of its doctrines, and
the eminence of genius displayed, it did not seem
very improbable that it would be read as long as
the English language endures. But looking back
upon the rapid succession of historical events since
that time, there is an additional reason for its
eminent place in literature : it marks an epoch in
the history of civilization relative to the position
of woman. The second half of the Eighteenth
f Century gave birth to many problems, which the
' present century has sought to solve ; and one of
them is the emancipation of woman. The discus-
' sion of the rights of men furnished the arguments
for the rights of women. It was Mary Wollstone-
craft's achievement, to see that out of the one
must naturally follow the other, by way of logical
sequence ; and to gather into full expression the
sentiments that were then beginning to force their
way into the minds of men, was the service that
she rendered her times. The Vindication of the
Rights of Woman then is the first proclamation of
one of the movements peculiar to the history of the
\ Nineteenth Century.

HER LITERARY WORK. 39

Books that serve as the battle-cry in the war of
opinions frequently have no value to posterity save
that of historical interest. They testify to the slow
and contested growth of ideas, and stand as evid-
ence that the facts of to-day are but the ideals of
yesterday. The Vindication of the Rights of Woman
shares to some degree in the fate of books of its
kind. Few people to-day would care to read it from
beginning to end. There are pages of reasoning on
matters which to-day are commonplaces. But on
the other hand, Mary WollstonecrafVs theses still
stand before the world as theses. One of them :
Equality in education, has advanced somewhat
farther than its counterpart : Equality in civil
rights. One century has grappled with the prob-
lem, which will be bequeathed to the next still
unsolved. If then the Vindication of the Rights of
Woman stands among the very outposts of the
movement at the present time, it must have been
more than a century in advance of average public
opinion of its own time.

Godwin gives a glimpse of the attitude of the
public toward this " very bold and original produc-
tion." He says :

' ' The public at large formed very different opinions respect-
ing the character of the performance. Many of the sentiments
are undoubtedly of a rather masculine description. The spirited
and decisive way in which the author explodes the system of
gallantry, and the species of homage with which the female sex
is usually treated, shocked the majority. Novelty produced a
sentiment in their mind, which they mistook for a sense of
injustice. The pretty, soft creatures that are so often to be
found in the female sex, and that class of men who believe they
could not exist without such pretty, soft creatures to resort to,

40 HER LITERARY WORK.

were in arms against the author of so heretical and blasphemous
a doctrine." '

In looking over the pages of periodicals of that
day, abundant evidence is found, that this book was
considered to proclaim a " new system," to announce
the tenets of a " new school." The most adverse of
the criticisms of her contemporaries are to-day the
surest evidence of the bold and valiant service which
Mary Wollstonecraft rendered the cause for which
she fought. But her friends too, incidentally testify
to the novelty of her propositions. The Analytical
Revieiv, to which she was a contributor, seems to
bring the earliest notice of the book, and antici-
pated the reception, which to all probability awaited
" this singular and, on the whole, excellent pro-
duction," by saying :

"The lesser wits will probably affect to make themselves
merry at the title and apparent object of this publication ; but
we have no doubt, if even her contemporaries should fail to do
her justice, posterity will compensate the defect ; and have no
hesitation in declaring, that if the bulk of the great truths
which this publication contains were reduced to practice, the
nation would be better, wiser and happier, than it is upon the
wretched, trifling, useless and absurd system of education which
is now prevalent." 2

As translations and new editions in rapid succes-
sion abundantly testify, the civilized world was better
prepared, at least to give attention to this work,
strange and new in title and object though it seemed,
than this friendly critic was ready to predict.

1 W. Godwin : Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, p. 81.

2 The Analytical Review, March 1792, p. 241 — 249.

HKR LITERARY WORK. 41

The Monthly Review criticizes the book in an
equally fair though more conservative spirit.
Admitting that the author u is possessed of great
energy of intellect, vigour of fancy and command
of language ; and that the performance suggests
many reflections, which deserve the attention of
the public," the critic proceeds with his strictures :
il We do not, however, so zealously adopt Miss
Wollstonecraft's plan for a revolution in female
education and manners, as not to perceive that
several of her opinions are fanciful and some of her
projects romantic." Among the latter he seems
specially to include the proposition of letting
women assume an active part in civil government.
However, the critic agrees with the fair writer, that
" both the condition and the character of women
are capable of great improvement."1 There is here
the wavering between assent and disapproval, that
seems to have been the common attitude toward
the book. Few endorsed it as unhesitatingly as the
Analytical Review ; few attempted so elaborate a
condemnation as The Critical Review. "

This journal gave unlimited space to its review
of this new book, evidently very soon after it made
its appearance. The critic quotes at length, tries
to show the fallacies in the reasoning and to refute
the argument ; but with little success. He first
objects to the method applied. One of the strictest

~ ^

1 The Monthly Review or Literary Journal, June 1792, p. 198
— 209.

- The Critical Review or Annals of Literature, April 1792,

P- 389— 398> and June 1792. p. 132-141-

f. ^

42 HER LITERARY WORK.

proofs in mathematical demonstrations is the
reductio ad ctbsurdum. The reasoning of the
author, as she applies the boasted principles
of the rights of men to those of women, must
be admitted as correct. Many of her conclusions
however, are so absurd, that he finds it evident,
that the premises must be, in some respects, falla-
cious. After thus condemning the method on
account of the conclusions which are reached, he
pronounces the work "weak, desultory and trifling.1'
The language he finds u flowing and flowery, but
weak, diffuse and confused." He speaks of indeli-
cacy of ideas and expressions, and with prudish
respect for his readers, decides to draw the veil,
rather than recount them. If the author meant
this as a trial of skill with the stronger sex, he
thinks she has wholly failed and has betrayed her
own cause by defending it.

This critic also ventures on personal advice to
the author of the book under review. He says :

" It may be fancy, prejudice or obstinacy, we contend not for
a name, but we are infinitely better pleased with the present
system ; and, in truth, dear young lady, for by the appellation
sometimes prefixed to your name, we must suppose you to be
young, endeavour to attain ' the weak elegancy of mind,' ' the
sweet docility of manners,' 'the exquisite sensibility,' the
former ornaments of your sex ; we are certain you will be more
pleasing and we dare pronounce that you will be infinitely hap-
pier."

The temper of the book evidently roused curio-
sity concerning the person of the author. Many
expected to find in the champion of her sex, who
was described as endeavouring to invest woman with

HKR UTKRARY WORK. 43

all the rights of man, as Godwin says, " a sturdy,
muscular, raw-boned virago ; and they were not a
little surprised, when, instead of all this, they found
a woman, lovely in her person, and, in the best and
most engaging sense, feminine in her manners." l
The Genticmai? s Magazine gives a description of
her personality in the Obituary Notice : " Her
manners were gentle, easy and elegant ; her con-
versation intelligent and amusing, without the least
trait of literary pride, or the apparent consciousness
of poXvers above the level of her sex ; and for
soundness of understanding and sensibility of heart,
she was, perhaps, never equalled."8 The contrast
between these words of admiration and Horace
Walpole's epithet : u that hyena in petticoats, Mrs.
Wollstonecraft " is indeed great !

This epithet occurs in a letter to Miss Hannah
More, who, moving in a sphere of work very differ-
ent from that of Mary Wollstonecraft, and sur-
rounded by influences orthodox and conservative,
had no sympathy for the cause which Mary Woll-
stonecraft made her own. The letter was written
after the latter's volume on the French Revolution
had appeared. In it Horace Wai pole addresses
Hannah More : u Adieu, them excellent woman !
thou reverse of that hyena in petticoats, Mrs.
Wollstonecraft, who to this day discharges her ink
and gall on Made Antoinette, whose unparalleled

1 W. Godwin, Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, p. 83.

2 The Gent! email's Magazine, 1797. Obituariesof Remarkable

44 HKll LITERARY WORK.

sufferings have not yet staunched that Alecto's
blazing ferocity." ' At the time when the I 'indi-
cation of the Rights of Woman appeared, Hannah
More wrote to him as follows : —

" I have been much pestered to read the ' Rights of Woman,'
but am invincibly resolved not to do it. Of all jargon, I hate
metaphysical jargon ; beside, there is something fantastic and
absurd in the very title. Ho\v many ways there are of being
ridiculous ! I am sure I have as much liberty as I can make a
good use of, now I am an old maid ; and when I was a young
one I had, I daresay, more than was good for me .... To be
unstable and capricious, I really think, is but too characteristic
of our sex ; and there is, perhaps, no animal so much indebted
to subordination for its good behaviour as woman."

To this Horace Walpole replies : —

"It is better to thank Providence for the tranquillity and
happiness we enjoy in this country, in spite of the philosophis-
ing serpents we have in our bosom, the Paines, Tookes and the
Wollstonecrafts. I am glad you have not read the tract of the
last mentioned writer. I \vould not look at it, though assured
it contains neither metaphysics nor politics ; but as she entered
the lists of the latter, and borrowed the title from the demon's
book which aimed at spreading the irroity* of men, she is ex-
communicated from the pale of my library. \Ve have had
enough of new systems, and the world a great deal too much
already." -

Horace Walpole with his aristocratic birth and
tastes could not find a congenial element in revolu-
tionary agitation of any kind. He says of himself :
" My opinions are for myself, I meddle not with
those of others.1' And again : 4l I know I have
always been a coward on points of religion and

The Letters of Horace Walpole ; Kdited by Peter Cunning-
ham, London, 1859. Volume IX.

1 Letter to Miss Hannah More, January 24, 1795, p. 452.

- Ibid.. AllgUSt 21, 1792, p. 385.

II KR UTKRARY WORK. 45

politics." ' He looked with undisguised horror
upon the proceedings of the French Revolution ;
and the French Republicans were to him u hosts of
banditti," ua leg-ion of assassins," who, he believed,
had " blasted and branded liberty perhaps for cen-
turies." There was therefore the widest diver-
gency between him and Mary Wollstonecraft.

The critic, who had the presumption to recom-
mend to Mary Wollstonecraft the former ornaments
of her sex, that she might be more pleasing and in-
finitely happier, makes the following appeal :

" We call on men therefore to speak, if they would wish the
women to be pupils of this new school ! We call on the women
to declare, whether they will sacrifice their pleasing qualities for
the severity of reason, the bold unabashed dignity of speaking
what they feel, of rising superior to the vulgar prejudices of
decency and propriety. We may easily anticipate the answer,
and shall leave Miss Wollstonecraft at least to oblivion; her best
friends can never wish that her work should be remembered." :{

Conservatism, in accordance with its nature, is
ever willing to see progressive thought shrink
away into oblivion, and has ever been ready to
spread the mantle of silence ; too often in the course
of history it has been the silence of death, over him
who dares to give the new truth a powerful utter-
ance. Mary Wollstonecraft's book is still remem-
bered, and the new school, the tenets of which she
was perhaps the first to fully enunciate, is an
historical fact, which inevitably must find its place
in the records of the history of civilization in the
nineteenth century.

Ibid., p. 390. -'Ifr/flL p. 389.

The Critical Review, June 1792.

CHAPTER III.
HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS.

THE letters of Mary Wollstonecraft, which for the
first time were published in 1876 by Mr. C. Kegan
Paul in his Life of Godwin, constitute a valuable
source of biographical interest. Not until after
their publication could it be demonstrated that she
passed through several phases of religious thought ;
that she was not always a rationalist ; that there was
a time when she was a Christian in the evangelical
sense of the term, when she questioned not the
doctrines of the Church, but sought to bear her
troubles with Christian fortitude, looking for com-
fort to the One, who with the Christian world, she
believed, is nigh unto them that trust in Him.

The series of letters begins in November 1783,
at the sickbed of her younger sister, Eliza. An
account is given of the progress of the illness and
the growing determination in the mind of Mary to
end the wretchedness of the sufferer by aiding her
in her flight from her husband. These letters give
a very vivid glimpse of Mary's struggle with
poverty, while attempting to conduct a school at
Newington Green ; they relate the death of her
friend, Fanny, at Lisbon, cover the period of her

HER RKUGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS. 47

stay at the castle of Lord Kingsborough in Ireland,
and contain an account of the motives and circum-
stances which led to her residence in London, and to
the literary work in which she there engaged.
Addressed to members of the family and intimate
friends, they give a detailed record of a period of
her life, that had been but very briefly touched
by Godwin in his Memoirs of his wife.

Those who would charge Mary Wollstonecraft
with a spirit of defiance against received traditions,
find nothing in these letters to uphold them. On
the contrary, a very humble spirit characterizes, at
least, that first bold act of the kind, when she helped
her sister Eliza to escape from marriage-ties that had
become unbearable. In a letter telling her sister
Hverina of friends who had turned from her be-
cause of " this scheme, that was contrary to all
the rules of conduct that are published for the bene-
fit of new married ladies," she adds :

"Don't suppose I am preaching, when I say uniformity of
conduct cannot in any degree be expected from those whose
first motive of action is not the pleasing the Supreme Being,
and those who humbly rely on Providence will not only be
supported in affliction, but have a peace imparted to them that
is past all describing."1

The same deeply pious tone pervades other
letters. To a friend she writes : " It gives me the
sincerest satisfaction to find that you look for com-
fort where only it is to be met with, and that Being
in whom you trust will not desert you.m

1 C. Kegan Paul : William Godwin, his Friends and Contem-
poraries, Vol. I, p. 171.

2 Ibid., p. 175.

48 HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS.

Watching by the side of the deathbed of her
friend Fanny, she writes to her sisters : u Could I
not look for comfort, where only 'tis to be found, I
should have been mad before this, but I feel that I
am supported by that Being who alone can heal
a wounded spirit."1 Nor is she in this early
period in any sense at variance with the faith
and the hopes that inspire the Christian world.
She writes in a letter to a friend : u I feel myself
particularly attached to those, who are heirs of the
promises and travel on in the thorny path with
the same Christian hopes that render my severe
trials a cause of thankfulness when I can think."

Godwin's statements regarding his wife's reli-
gious views are very meagre and must be accepted
with some degree of hesitation ; for here, as else-
where in her Memoirs, he seems inclined to sub-
stitute his own philosophical views for the actual
facts of the case. The following sentence is an
instance of this tendency. He says : u In fact, she
had received few lessons of religion in her youth, and
her religion was almost entirely of her own crea-
tion.":! If this had been the case, Mary would
not, in the letters under review, have used the
phraseology of Christendom, nor would she have
quoted passages from the Bible with so much
readiness. Godwin is probably correct, however,
in saying that his wife had been brought up in
the tenets of the Church of England ; that until

i Ibid., p. 178. - Ibid., p. 175.

3 W. Godwin : Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, p. 34.

HER RKUGIOUS AND KTHICAL VIEWS. 49

tlie year 1787, she regularly frequented public
worship, for the most part, according to the forms
of that Church ; and that after that period her
attendance became less constant, and in no long time
was wholly discontinued. There is also no doubt
with regard to Mary's friendship with Dr. Richard
Price, known in the scientific world as a writer
on financial, political and ethical questions ; in
history as the man who called forth Edmund
Burke's fiery outburst against the French Revolu-
tion. Godwin indicates that it was respect for the
man, u which was not accompanied with a super-
stitious adherence to his doctrines," that led her
occasionally to listen to the sermons of Dr. Price.
He would not have made this assertion, had he been
aware of the contents of the letters, which now lie
before the world, which, in their religious fervor
were deeply in sympathy with the spirit and teach-
ings of the famous Dissenting preacher.

In her earlier literary work this trend of thought
is also manifest. The two books of this period,
Thoughts on tJic Education of Daughters, and Mary,
a Fiction, are deeply religious in spirit. Had this
attitude of mind and heart continued, it is safe to
say, that her career would have been far different.
She might have become a writer like Hannah
More, gifted and much read, yet without the leaven
of new and radical thought ; and her Rights of
Woman might have been a book, so subdued in
tone, that it could have been read and widely read
without causing a ripple in the minds of conserva-
tive, orthodox readers.

7

50 HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS.

But it was not to be thus. Religious influences
ceased to be paramount in her life. She found her-
self within a circle of friends and associates in
London, who represented various schools of English
and Continentak thought, and all were engaged
in trying to solve by the light of reason the prob-
lems peculiar to those times. Descartes had a cen-
tury previous pointed out the road. He had left
the old beaten track of accepted opinions and had
turned to reason as the one sure proof of exist-
ence itself. His Cogito ergo sum rang in various
changes through the Deist controversy that squan-
dered so much of valuable energy in endless
discussion. It dictated to Locke his task, when
he set himself to explore the laws according to
which the human understanding converts impres-
sions upon the senses into ideas. It opened the
investigation in the school of Moral Philosophy in
England concerning the nature of virtue, whether
dependent upon a moral sense, or whether the
product of reason.

Mary Wollstonecraft's mental activity during
those years must have been rich in the experience
which is the heritage of an honest effort to answer
the question : What is truth ? As she says :

" A few fundamental truths meet the first enquiry of reason,
and appear as clear to au unwarped mind, as that air and bread
are necessary to enable the body to fulfil its vital functions ; but
the opinions which men discuss with so much heat must be sim-
plified and brought back to first principles ; or who can dis-
criminate the vagaries of the imagination, or scrupulosity of
weakness, from the verdict of reason?" *

A Vindication of the Rights of Man, p. 37.

HKR RKUGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS. 51

She gathered together what appealed to her as
truth, from various systems of thought that com-
manded attention in her time and formed her own
system of thought on which she built her opinions.
Every question that confronted her, she brought to
the test of reason. Before her sojourn in London
the heart and its claims had been predominant ; now
reason stands at the front and demands satisfaction.
This period of her thought is decidedly rationalistic
in character ; yet, it is not without rich notes that
come straight from the heart. One of the richest
of these is contained in the following passage :

" Religion, pure source of comfort in this vale of tears ! how
has the clear stream been muddled by the dabblers, who have
presumptuously endeavoured to confine in one narrow channel
the living waters that ever flow towards God — the sublime
ocean of existence ! What would life be without that peace
which the love of God, when built on humanity, alone can
impart ? Kvery earthly affection turns back, at intervals, to
prey upon the heart that feeds it ; and the purest effusions of
benevolence, often rudely damped by man, must mount as a
free-will offering to Him who gave them birth, whose bright
image they faintly reflect."1

Mary Wollstonecraft remained a theist to the
last. It seems the existence of God was to her
mind a fundamental truth, perceived and accepted
intuitively. But during the period under review,
even her theism had its rationalistic tendency.
It is reason that scans the attributes of the Almighty,
that perceives the infinite harmony with which
one attribute seems to imply the other. And this
lofty worship, that satisfies the soul in beholding
the perfections of the Divine Being is the only

1 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 241.

52 ITKR RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS.

worship, which she considers worthy of rational
beings. She says :

" I disclaim the specious humility which, after investigating
nature, stops at the author. The High and Lofty One, who in-
hahiteth eternity, doubtless possesses many attributes of which
we can form no conception ; but reason tells me that they can-
not clash with those I adore - and I am compelled to listen to
her voice."1

She here probably refers to Rousseau, who in
his famous Profession de Foi rfu Vicaire Savoyard
had reasoned concerning a God, who must be an
intelligence, who must possess spirituality, power,
and will, and then had made a halt, and confessed
his inability to discover the nature of God. Locke
on the other hand, had demonstrated the existence
of God, and his attributes according to the laws
of the human understanding. Mary Wollstone-
craft made the conviction, that human reason is
able to penetrate into the nature of, at least, some
of the attributes of God, the pivotal point in
her reasoning on ethical questions. She calls
the attributes of God " the everlasting foundation
on which reason builds both morality and reli-
gion." 2 She asserts that "the darkness, which
hides our God from us, only respects speculative
truths, it never obscures moral ones ; they shine
clearly, for God is light, and never, by the constitu-
tion of our nature, requires the discharge of a duty
the reasonableness of which does not beam on us
when we open our eyes." 3 That only is virtue,
which the judgment of reason distinguishes as

1 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 85.

- A Vindication of the Rights of Man, p. 9.

3 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 231.

HKR RKIJGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS. 53

virtue ; for reason speaks in moral questions with
divine authority.

This tendency to identify ethics with intel-
lectual apprehension shows that Mary Wollstone-
craft was in touch with the controversy carried on
in the school of Moral Philosophy. Dr. Richard
Price looked with disfavor upon the theory con-
cerning; a Moral Sense, but found it necessary to
draw a distinction between Speculative Reason and
Moral Reason,1 a distinction which coincides with
Kant's Theoretical and Practical Knowledge.
Mary Wollstonecraft speaks of speculative and
moral truths, and claims that the latter are per-
ceived by an act of intelligence and not by the
exercise of a special moral faculty. She is in this
respect a pupil of Dr. Price.

If then so much importance is attached to the
functions of reason, what would Mary Wollstone-
craft say concerning the nature of reason ? She
calls it " the simple power of improvement, the
power of discerning truth." '* Locke gives a
definition of reason that expresses to some extent
Mary Wollstonecraft's conception of it. He says :
u Reason is natural revelation, whereby the Eternal
Father of Light, and Fountain of all knowledge,
communicates to mankind that portion of truth
which he has laid within the reach of their natural
faculties." 3 But Mary Wollstonecraft goes beyond

1 J)r. Richard Price: Review of the Principal Questions and
Difficulties in Morals. 1758, p. 393.

2 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 94.

'•' J. Locke : Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book
IV, Chap. 19, § 4.

54 HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS.

this definition and adds a mystic element, that finds
no place in Locke's philosophy. Reason she con-
siders not only a natural revelation, but " a tie that
connects the creature with the Creator," and she
goes still further, when she says : u the nature of
reason must be the same in all, if it be an emana-
tion of divinity." l These are conceptions that
evade the grasp of Locke's Empiricism and bear
relation to Plato's Idealism.

She considers the passions necessary auxiliaries
of reason, and in direct contradiction to other mor-
alists, who, she claims, have coolly seen mankind
through the medium of books, she asserts that the
regulation of the passions is not always wisdom.
Life, as Mary Wollstonecraft looks upon it, offers
opportunity for a contest between the passions
and reason, and no one who lays claim to perfecti-
bility, can withdraw from it. v A state of inno-
cence is impossible, and a knowledge of the world,
which theoretically acquaints itself with life, in
order practically to avoid the heat of the contest is
hurtful ; for great talents as well as great virtues
must have ample room for development, and should
not with calculating prudence be laid in fetters.
And though she admits that the knowledge thus
acquired may sometimes be purchased at too dear a
rate, she says she can only answer, that she very
much doubts whether any knowledge can be ob-
tained without labour and sorrow.

The individual finds, after the force of passions,
that raised some object above its surroundings, as

1 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 94.

HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS. 55

specially desirable, has spent itself, that he is in
possession of new ideas, a habit of thinking, and
some stable principles. But not only to himself
does he find that benefit has accrued ; his attitude
toward his fellowmen is affected. He cannot judge
their failings harshly ; for he realizes that "we are
formed of the same earth and breathe the same
element." '

She does not give assent to the doctrine in the
theology of her times, according to which the weak-
ness and the vices of men call forth positive
punishment from God. It appears to her so con-
trary to the nature of God, discoverable in all his
works and in our reason, that he should punish
without the benevolent design of reforming, that
she " would sooner believe that the Deity paid
no attention to the conduct of men." * This con-
clusion, which she did not draw, would have been
in harmony with Deism ; she had a strong belief
in God's immanent power in the world. Her
rationalistic attitude toward religion as revealed
in sacred writings is deistic. She declines to believe
anything contrary to reason, possibly that which
is beyond reason ; but in either case, reason deter-
mines the norm, according to which the decision
falls. As Lechler3 says of Locke, so it may be
said of her, that as regards that aspect of her
thought that seems to make religion equivalent to
mere reasonableness, she is a Deist. But as regards

1 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 206.

- 77/M/., p. 271.

3 G. V. Lechler : Geschichte des Englischen Deismus, p. 179.

56 HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS.

the supra-naturalistic tendency of her thought, her
place is on the side opposed to Deism.

Her conception of evil is far more in harmony
with philosophical speculation than with the accept-
ed dogma of the church. Rousseau ranges himself
on the side of theological opinion in saying : " Oh
man ! Seek not the originator of evil, for them
thyself art he !m He considers evil the result of a
misuse of the liberty granted by Providence to man.
In the universe he sees a conformity with divine
law, which never fails, and evil lies in the violation
of that law, " but that which man does with full
freedom of choice, cannot be considered as part of
the divine order of the universe."" In her Rights
of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft opposes Rousseau's
proposition that God had made all things right and
error had been introduced by the creature, as equally
unphilosophical and impious. u Could the helpless
creature, whom that wise Being called from nothing,
break loose from his Providence and boldly learn to
know good by practising evil, without his permis-
sion ?" 3

The inevitable sequence of her argument, that
evil is not the work of man, but a part of
Divine Providence, could not but iiltimately lead
to conclusions, that seemed directed against the
existence of God. She faces this aspect of the
problem in Paris, in the sight of the excesses to
which the passions of men impelled them, driven
by the memory of past misery and a lively sense of

1 Rousseau : Emile IV, \ 269. - Ibid., \ 267.

3 A Vindication of the Rights ot Woman, p. 42.

HKR RELIGIOUS AXD ETHICAL VIHWS. 57

present wrong. She writes in a letter intended for
print :

" Before I came to France, I cherished, you know, an opinion,
that strong virtues might exist with the polished manners pro-
duced by the progress of civilization ; and I even anticipated
the epoch, when, in the course of improvement, men would
labour to become virtuous, without being goaded on by misery.
But now, the perspective of the golden age, fading before the
attentive eye of observation, almost eludes my sight ; and,
losing thus in part my theory of a more perfect state, start not,
my friend, if I bring forward an opinion, which at the first
glance seems to be levelled against the existence of God ! I am
not become an Atheist, I assure you, by residing at Paris :
yet I begin to fear that vice, or, if you will, evil, is the grand
mobile of action, and that, when the passions are justly poised,
we become harmless, and in the same proportion useless."1

Tliis letter is the expression of a change in her
views that had taken place during' her sojourn in
Paris. Thus far she had been decidedly optimistic.
She said : >v Rousseau exerts himself to prove that
all wis right originally : a crowd of authors that
all A now right : and I, that all will be right'1
She then believed in the ultimate victory of good
o\vr evil. When doubt arose in her mind, whether
such victory in its effects would be conducive
to the best interests of the race, she was aware
that this doubt conflicted with her belief in the
existence of God ; for she had made his ' Provid-
ence responsible for the origin of evil. But this
note of pessimism does not endure. Her spirit
could not but rise to heights of faith, to see from
afar a time, when men would lk do unto others,

1 Posthumous Works. Vol. IV, p. 45.

- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 43.

58 HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAI, VIEWS.

what they wish they should do unto them." That
she quotes these words of Christ in one of her later
works,1 as the ray of light, which, if followed, must
broaden out to the full light of a glorious day, is
an indication of the profound reverence in which
she holds him and his precepts.

To gauge that which is said, not said or only
implied, in order to determine, whether there is a
new attitude of mind, is a task beset with the possi-
bilities of error. In the case of Mary Wollstone-
craft it was not difficult to find a degree of change
sufficient to mark out a period of religious thought
that was evangelical, a worship of the heart ; and
another that was rationalistic, an eager seeking for
truth as acceptable to reason. Rationalism never
ceased to assert its hold upon her, and thus the
second period cannot be said to have terminated.
It continued to the end. Yet with the beginning of
her sojourn in Paris there is a change, imperceptible
almost, and characterized not by any new views
expressed by her, but rather by silence on subjects,
which were up to that time prominent topics of
discussion with her. In the books of this period
she no longer enters wide digressions, in order to
deliver her opinion regarding religious and ethical
subjects. She had worked her way through the
tangle of conflicting opinions. She had argued for
and against. But that was over now. Yet he
who looks for them, finds the same foundations, so
carefully laid in previous years.

The Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, p. 15.

HKR RELIGIONS AXD ETHICAL VIEWS. 59

There is a trace in her Letters to Imlay of the
spirit that pervaded those early letters, written when
sorrow and poverty pressed heavily at her door.
The same attempt to rest humbly in the unsearch-
able will of an Almighty God impels her to
% write to Imlay: " The tremendous power who
formed this heart, must have foreseen that, in a
world in which self-interest, in various shapes,
is the principal mobile, I had little chance of
escaping misery. To the fiat of fate I submit." '
Not by way of mere ejaculation, but rather as an
appeal to the highest power, does she write to
Imlay : " For God's sake, keep me no longer in
suspense."' She frequently closed her letters to
him with u God bless you!" Before she went on
that cruel errand, — walking for hours in the rain
on the bridge of the Thames, that her clothes
might be drenched and she the more certain to
sink, when she sought death in the waters below,
— she wrote to him : " God bless you ! May you
never know by experience what you have made
me endure."3

But the silence on religious subjects deepens,
and a change now begins in her ethical views.
Imlay vanishes from our sight, and we have before
us the letters written to Godwin during the short
period of their attachment, and the fragment of
her novel Maria; or, the Wrongs of Woman.
Maria, the heroine of her last book, is a woman who
is a stranger evidently to the warm impulses of

1 Letters to Imlay, p. 178. - Ibid., p. 205. '•> Ibid., p. 186.

60 HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS.

religious thought. Ethically considered, this book
advocates individual liberty somewhat to the dis-
advantage of those principles of law and order,
which the human race has evolved amid so much
of pain and struggle.

Death came and found her in a frame of mind
of which Godwin says : " Nothing could exceed the
equanimity, the patience and affectionateness of the
poor sufferer."1 Miss Hayes, a lady of some little
literary fame, in whose house Mary Wollstonecraft
met William Godwin, and who was with her during
the last four days of her life, wrote to Mr. Hugh
Skeys, the husband of the Fanny of those early
days of devoted friendship :

"Though I have had but little experience in scenes of
this sort, yet I confidently affirm that my imagination could
never have pictured to me a mind so tranquil, under affliction so
great. Her whole soul seemed to dwell with anxious fondness
on her friends ;and her affections, which were at all times more
alive than perhaps those of any other human being, seemed to
gather more disinterestedness upon this trying occasion. The
attachment and regret of those who surrounded her appear-
ed to increase every hour, and if her principles are to be judged
of by what I saw of her death, I should say that no principles
could be more conducive to calmness and consolation." -

Nothing of a strictly religious nature seems to
have been said by the side of Mary Wollstonecraft \s
death-bed. Clergymen were not among the friends
of those later days. Godwin, was not the man to
invite expressions of feeling called forth by the
near approach of death. Mr. C. Kegan Paul relates

1 Godwin : Memoirs of the Author of the Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, p. 184.
- C. Kegan Paul : William Godwin, etc., Vol. I, p. 282.

HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS. 6l

the following incident, characteristic of the un-
sentimental materialism of Godwin :

"In one of Mary Wollstonecraft's last hours, when she was
suffering acute agony. Mr. Basil Montagu ran to Dr. Carlisle,
and returned before the physician with an anodyne. The
medicine had an immediate effect, and she turned to her
husband, who held her hand, with a sigh of relief, and said,
"Oh Godwin, I am in heaven." But even at that moment
Godwin declined to be entrapped into the admission that heaven
existed, and he calmly replied, "You mean, my dear, that
your physical sensations are somewhat easier." l

Iii his memoir of his wife, so little calculated to
hush the voice of vituperation, Godwin, in speaking
of her last days, says : " During her whole illness,
not one word of a religious cast fell from her lips."-
" Mr. Godwin seems more especially to triumph in
this circumstance," writes one, Philalethus, in the
Gcntlemarfs Magazine of that year, and adds :
" For a dying person, perfectly sensible of his con-
dition, not to utter one word about a future state,
not even to advert for a moment to prospects of
immortality, is singularly strange and unaccount-
able ?" ' Another writer, under the signature
''Constant Reader," says in a letter to the Editor
of the same Magazine, nearly a month later : " It
would be highly honorable to the female sex, if
some expressive writer would contrast Mr. Godwin's
boast of his wife's dying hours with the manner in

1 C. Kegan Paul : Prefatory Memoir to Letters to Imlay,
p. LIX.

- \V. Godwin : Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, p. 190.

3 The Gentleman's Magazine. March 13, 1798.

62 HER RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS.

which some excellent characters live."1 And then
follows a comparison of Mary Wollstonecraft with
Mrs. E. Carter.

Harsh, discordant notes are these, sounded over
the grave of one, who, five years before, had claimed
that every difficulty in morals, that equally baffles
the investigation of profound thinking, and the
lightning glance of genius, is an argument on
which to build the belief of the immortality of the
soul. Even a year before her death she wrote :
" Surely something resides in this heart that is not
perishable — and life is more than a dream."

The reproach of irreligiousness clung to the
memory of Mary Wollstonecraft until of late years,
and even now the statement is made by way of
biographical fact, that she, " unlike her husband,
was a decided theist, though not a Christian."3 As
her family correspondence testifies, she was, until
she was nearly thirty years old, in every sense of
the term, a Christian. What was she in her later
years ? As a thinker she belonged to the rational-
istic school. As to her religious views, where is
her place ? She certainly was not an atheist ; nor
could scepticism ever assert its hold upon her ;
neither can she be ranked among Freethinkers,
still prominent in her time in England ; for her
attitude toward Christianity was not hostile. With
regard to some of her views, she was a Deist, but

1 The Gentleman's Magazine, April 12, 1798.

2 Letters from Sweden, Norway and Denmark, p. 97.

3 Leslie Stephen : History of English Thought in the
Eighteenth Century. Vol. IT, p. 276.

HKR RKUGIOUS AX1) KTIIICAL YIKAYS. 63

these were not sufficiently vital to give her a place
in that school. True, she did not accept the
doctrine of original sin ; she did not believe in the
eternal torments of hell ; Satan was to her an
allegorical person ; and parts of the Bible she con-
sidered in the light of tradition rather than as
verbal inspiration. This deviation from orthodoxy
cannot, however, have been the reason why she
should have been regarded as standing apart from
the host of men and women, who as Christians
represent a tremendous force towards the uplifting
of humanity.

It cannot but be considered unfortunate that
it was Godwin's hand that painted the picture of
Alary Wollstonecraft, that was passed down to
posterity and was regarded until recent years, as
the authentic record of her life and the true general
statement of the chief characteristics of her thought.
He was an atheist and moreover had accustomed
himself to look upon the phenomena of the mind
as subject to the same calm demonstration which
is applied to Mathematics. His wife's belief in
God, and the impulses of a devout nature which
were born of this faith, eluded both his logic and
his psychological insight. Yet he too mentions
her delight in nature, and her custom when walk-
ing amidst the wonders of nature to converse with
her God. Even five years after the time, when as
Godwin says, " the prejudices of her early years
suffered a vehement concussion," she wrote pass-
ages in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
that seem to indicate plainly a belief in the

64 HKR RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS.

divinity of Christ. She rarely mentions him and
his precepts, but never in aught but the tone
of profound reverence.

Mary Wollstonecraft did not call upon the
religious institutions which seek to represent the
principles of Christianity, to serve as allies in
vindicating to woman her rights. Her attitude
toward the Church was negative. She criticized
freely, and with an unsparing hand, the abuses that
had crept into the Church, but never as one who
delights to scoff at that, which seems to others
holy and without a flaw. Yet she seems to have
given offence to some of her contemporaries by
her stringent criticism of practices, then current
in some of the English schools, which, she
thought, made religion worse than a farce. kk What
good," she asks, " can be expected from the youth
who receives the sacrament of the Lord's Supper,
to avoid forfeiting half a guinea, which he probab-
ly afterwards spends in some sensual manner?"
Boys sought to elude the necessity of attending
public worship, and she thought this justified,
"for such a constant repetition of the same thing
must be a very irksome restraint on their natural
vivacity." " As these ceremonies," she adds,
"have a most fatal effect on their morals, and
as a ritual performed by the lips, when the heart
and mind are far away, is not now stored up by our
Church as a bank to draw on for the fees of the
poor souls in purgatory, why should they not be
abolished?"1

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. .239.

HER RKUGTOUS AND ETHICAL VIEWS. 65

Mrs. West in her Letters to a young Man
misquotes this passage, and is consequently taken
to task by Mary Wollstonecraft's anonymous de-
fender, for mutilating the language of one, whom
she harshly classes with " infidels, deists, the ene-
mies of Christ, of law, morality and decency." In
corroboration of what Mary Wollstonecraft affirms,
he addresses Mrs. West as follows :

" And if you yourself, uiy dear madam, knew hut one-half
of what I have been both an ear and eye witness to, from men
as well as boys, respecting the compulsory attendance on the
sacrament and prayers ; you would not hesitate to acknowledge,
that these ceremonies have a most fatal effect on the morals
of such persons ; not as a necessary, but as an accidental cause ;
which is all that Mary Wollstonecraft ever meant to imply."1

Perhaps also there was some occasion for the
impatience, with which Mary Wollstonecraft regards
the conduct and character of the clergy, designated
by her as "indolent slugs, who guard, by sliming
it over, the snug place, which they consider in the
light of an hereditary estate ; and eat and drink
and enjoy themselves, instead of fulfilling the duties,
excepting a few empty forms, for which it was
endowed."*

These criticisms, not undeserved in some cases,
perhaps, were yet severe, and may account somewhat
for the degree of hostility, with which some of her-
contemporaries consigned Mary Wollstonecraft to a
place among those, who, by the Christian world

1 A Defence of the Character and Conduct of the late Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin ; in a series of Letters to a Lady, London,
1803, p. 159.

- A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 239.

9

66 IIRR RKTJGIOUS AND RTHICAI, VTFAVS.

were regarded with a species of abhorrence. Few
were aware of the faith, the Christian hopes, that
characterised the early part of her career. Her
criticism of the dogmas of the church, of the short-
comings of the clergy, during the years of her
greatest popularity as a writer, were well known,
and were more or less resented. The silence on
religious subjects, of the last year of her life, the
one spent by the side of Godwin, in whatever way
it may be interpreted, is one of the saddest aspects
of a life that was full of pathos.

CHAPTER IV.

THE RIGHTS OF MAX AND HER REPLY TO
EDMUND BURKE.

GODWIN'S account of his wife's childhood conveys
the impression, that she early respected her own
rights, and that she contended for the rights of
others. Her father was a despot in his family.
His violent temper, when manifested toward her-
self, roused Mary's indignation. " Upon such occa-
sions," Godwin says, "she felt her superiority,
and was apt to betray marks of contempt." '
When her mother was threatened with violence,
she threw herself between the tyrant and his
victim. " She has even spent whole nights upon
the landing-place near their chamber-door, when,
mistakenly, or with reason, she apprehended that her
father might break out into paroxysms of violence. "-
Godwin relates5 an incident, significant of the
championship, which she was ever ready to assume
in behalf of those wronged. It happened when

1 W. Godwin : Memoirs of the Author of the Vindication of
the Rights of Woman, p. 9.

- ibid., p. 9. 3 Ibid., p. 49.

68 THK RIGHTS OF MAX.

she was on her way back to London from Lisbon,
where she had watched by the side of the death-bed
of her dearest friend, Fanny. The captain of the
English vessel, on which she had embarked, was
hailed by the crew of a French vessel in distress,
and entreated to take the ship-wrecked sailors on
board. He was a hard man, and replied, that his
stock of provisions was by no means adequate to
feed an additional number of mouths, and abso-
lutely refused compliance. Mary took up the
cause of the sufferers and threatened, that she would
have the captain called to a severe account, when
he arrived in England. She finally prevailed, and
the lives of the men were saved.

When she found herself in the midst of fashion-
able life on the castle of Lord Kingsborough, she
was far from being overwhelmed by the show of
wealth and station. She soon detected the glamor
of false refinement of manners. In the very first
letter to her sister Everina, she writes : "A fine

lady is a new species to me of animals The

forms and parade of high life suit not my mind."'
A few days later she writes to Eliza,

" You have a sneaking kindness, you say, for people of
quality, and I almost forgot to tell you I was in company with
a Lord Fingal in the packet. Shall I try to remember the titles
of all the Lords and Viscounts I am in company with, not for-
getting the clever things they say ? I would sooner tell you a
tale of some humbler creatures ; I intend visiting the poor
cabins ; as Miss Kingsborough is allowed to assist the poor, and
I shall make a point of finding them out."2

1 C. Kegan Paul : William Godwin, etc., Vol. I, p, j<S6.

2 Ibid., p. 187.

THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 69

Four months later she read Rousseau's Emile
with evident enjoyment. She writes to her sister
(March 24, 1788) :

" I am now reading Rousseau's Emile. and love his para-
doxes. He chooses a common capacity to educate, and gives as a
reason that a genius will educate itself. However he rambles
into that chimerical world in which I have too often wandered,
and draws the usual conclusion that all is vanity and vexation
of spirit.1'1

As yet there is no evidence of theory and specula-
tion with regard to political subjects. She was
bent rather on psychological research. Her books
of this period abound in delineation of character
and observation of human nature, and have a very
strong background of religious thought and feeling.
The hope of Heaven finds fervent expression in the
heroine of Mary, a Fiction, a picture, no doubt,
of Mary Wollstonecraft's own state of mind at that
time. Her letters give evidence of an almost
morbid weariness of life. While staying for a few
weeks in the house of Mr. Prior, a teacher at Eton,
on her way to her appointment as governess in the
family of Lord Kingsborough, she writes to her
sister :

" My thoughts and wishes tend to that land where the God
of love will wipe away all tears from our eyes, where sincerity
and truth will flourish, and the imagination will not dwell on
pleasing illusions, which vanish like dreams, when experience
forces us to see things as they really are."2

The possibilities of her nature, both for happi-
ness and for wretchedness were great. L,lfe had

1 C. Kegan Paul : William Godwin, etc., Vol. I, p. 189.

- Ibid., p. -184.

70 THE RIGHTS OF MAN.

brought her much of the latter, and the former,
she realized, was tinged with much of delusion.
She was weary of this and sick at heart. The con-
ditions for happiness, which she sought in vain
in this existence, must be present, she believed,
in a life to come. Upon this she placed her hopes.
This utter dissatisfaction with existing conditions,
was perhaps a necessary prelude to the zeal, which
later inspired her as a reformer.

A change however was wrought. The languor
of weary waiting, till life might be over, was replaced
by a fervent desire to live and serve humanity.
Her eyes turned from the possibilities of a life to
come, and became intently fixed upon the means of
creating conditions for happiness in the present life.
Various causes worked together, no doubt, to make
life seem attractive and desirable to her, after she
had settled as a writer in London ; but one of them
must have been this eager planning for a new
world, which she and others hoped to see arise from
the downfall of old and time-worn institutions.

The change came after she had become a member
of the social circle in London, that represented the
extreme side of liberal thought in England during
those stirring times. The house of the publisher,
Mr. Johnson, who was not only Mary Wollstone-
craft's employer, but also a friend of almost fatherly
solicitude, was the place where the school of
English reformers were wont to meet for dis-
cussion and exchange of opinion concerning the
developments of the Revolution in France. It
was well known, that books, which, by reason of

THE RIGHTS OF MAX. 71

their radical tendency, had been declined by other
publishers, would not, on this account, be unfavor-
ably regarded by him. This temerity worked mis-
chievously for him, during the troubled years in the
latter part of the reign of George III., when he was
fined and imprisoned, on account of the publication
of writings too outspoken.

Thomas Paine was one of the frequenters of
Mr. Johnson's house. Fuseli, full of enthusiasm
for Rousseau's ideas and for revolutionary matters,
came several times each week. Godwin, specu-
lating on matters social and political, also came on
stated days. There was Priestly, who suffered more
than others in that circle, because of his pronounced
antagonism to all establishments, political and reli-
gious. Bonnycastle, Dr. Geddes, and Dr. George
Fordyce were frequent guests. Distinguished visitors
from abroad too, whose interests were with liberty,
were wont to seek the acquaintance of those to be
found here. It was thus that Mary Wollstonecraft
made the acquaintance of Lavater, while in Eng-
land ; and of Talleyrand on his occasional visits.

Surprise and indignation was called forth in this
circle of thinkers by Edmund Burke's Reflections
on tJic Revolution in France. It caused surprise
because he had not heretofore shown himself in-
tolerant ; and had raised a powerful note of warning
when King George ILL refused to lend ear to the
demands of the American colonies. It caused in-
dignation ; for it was full of bitter invectives and
angry accusations. Burke had reached the close of
a long and eventful political career. Sorrow had

J2 THE RIGHTS OF MAX.

overtaken him in his family life, sickness cast its
gloom about him. Once more he gathered his
gigantic powers of oratory together ; and it was to
hurl curses upon political events, which were yet
of a nature to gladden the heart of the enthusiast.
Those dark days, when it became apparent, that
liberty had become but the cover, beneath which
human passions could work their worst, had not
yet come. Burke's dismal forebodings struck a
most discordant note.

The immediate cause of this fiery outburst on the
part of Edmund Burke was an anniversary sermon
preached by Dr. Richard Price, to commemorate
the Revolution of 1688. He, on this occasion,
expressed the warm approbation, with which he
and the society of Revolutionists regarded the pro-
ceedings of the French Republicans. There were
few men of liberal principles in those days, who
did not look upon the events, transpiring in France,
as the rising of the day-star. This sermon had
been printed ; and furnished to Burke the target
for sarcasms, without number.

Mary Wollstonecraft's reply to Burke was the
first of the numerous replies which his Reflec-
tions on the Revolution in France evoked. Godwin
asserts this at a time, when many were living,
who might have denied the statement, had it

o

not been true. Not less than thirty-eight replies
appeared within the first year or two after its
publication.1 Ultimately, Thomas Paine's Rights
of Man voiced, in so incisive a manner, the senti-

1 James Prior : Life of Edmund Burke, p. 322.

THE RIGHTS OF MAN. j3

meiits of the liberal party, that other similar
expressions were laid aside and overlooked. But
Mary Wollstonecraft's reply went through two edi-
tions ; and was in the fervor of its sentiment, and
its impassioned language eminently calculated to
attract attention. It was evidently written at the
spur of the moment. Excitement carried the writer
forward. When she had come to abdut the middle
of her book, the fire of enthusiasm began to burn
low, and seemed to have spent itself. With her
wonted frankness and confidence, she complained
to Mr. Johnson, that lassitude had overtaken her,
which made it impossible to complete her task.
He asked her not to do violence to herself, and
readily offered to throw away the first sheets of her
book, which had already been printed. Stung by
this easy compliance on his part, her pride was
roused, and she went home to complete her book.
It is no disparagement to Mary Wollstonecraft's
powers of discrimination, to say, that she did not
interpret correctly Burke's attitude toward the
French Revolution. This was a task suited to
calmer minds of the present century, not to those
who stood in the heat of the controversy. It is not
however thus easy to excuse the lack of courtesy
to her opponent. She defends Dr. Price in say-
ing to Mr. Burke: u In reprobating Dr. Price's
opinions, you might have spared the man ; and if
you had had but half as much reverence for the grey
hairs of virtue as for the accidental distinctions of
rank, you would not have treated with such indecent
familiarity and supercilious contempt, a member

10

74 THE RIGHTS OF MAN.

of the community whose talents and modest virtues
place him high in the scale of moral excellence." *
She is open to the same reproof ; for she too might
have spared the man of grey hairs, remembering
his staunch adherence to liberal principles, through-
out a long and honorable career as statesman.

Why had hatred of the French Revolution taken
possession of Burke ? This is the question that
confronts Mary Wollstonecraft at the very outset.
The following passage does credit to her psycho-
logical insight, as placed side by side with the
theory of a great historian of the present century.

" However, as you have informed us that respect chills love,
it is natural to conclude, that all your pretty flights arise from
your pampered sensibility ; and that, vain of this fancied pre-
eminence of organs, you foster every emotion till the fumes,
mounting to your brain, dispel the sober suggestions of reason.
It is not in this view surprising, that when you should argue
you become impassioned, and that reflection inflames your im-
agination, instead of enlightening your understanding."2

She gives here, though not couched in words
of profound pity, a forecast of Buckle's theory,
who says :

" At this distance of time, when his nearest relations are no
more, it would be affectation to deny that Burke, during the
last few years of his life, fell into a state of complete hallucina-
tion When the crimes of that great revolution,

instead of diminishing, continued to increase, then it was that
the feelings of Burke finally mastered his reason, the balance
tottered ; the proportions of that gigantic intellect were dis-
turbed His mind, once so steady, so little swayed

by prejudice and passion, reeled under the pressure of events
which turned the brains of thousands. ' ' 3

1 A Vindication of the Rights of Man, p. 34. 2 Ibid., p. 6.
3 Buckle : History of Civilization, Vol. I, p. 424.

THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 75

Burke was not at any period of his career, as
statesman, on the side of the revolutionary princi-
ple ; though he was eminently in favor of reform ;
and anticipated many of the great measures of the
present century. In possession of ample materials
for generalization, and of large capacity as a specu-
lative thinker, his political principles were yet
altogether practical. The empiric, not the specu-
lative method was his. " Politics," he says, " ought
to be adjusted, not to human reasonings, but to
human nature ; of which the reason is but a part,
and by no means the greatest part."1 Burke's
policy as statesman may be said to be without
philosophical basis.2

Mary Wollstonecraft belonged to the school of
Revolutionists. She believed in laying the found-
ation of the political structure upon abstract prin-
ciples. The evils of political and social life, which
to her eager eyes had assumed such great pro-
portions, would, she believed, yield to the sway
of reason. Her rationalism, so prominent in her
religious and ethical views, could not but assert
itself in her political views also. She goes to the
heart of the controversy, when she attacks Burke's
latest expression of his belief in the development
of history, in accordance with an unerring impulse,
an instinct. He says : "In England we still feel
within us, and we cherish and cultivate, those
inbred sentiments which are the faithful guardians,

1 Burke's " Observations on a late state of the Nation."

2 R. VonMohl : Geschichte und L,iteratur der Staatswissen-
schaften. Vol. I, p. 257.

76 THE RIGHTS OF MAN.

the active monitors of our duty, the true supporters
of all liberal and manly morals."1

The Rights of Man, logically considered, could
not but command Burke's assent. It was the appli-
cation of the principle, that seemed to him danger-
ous, and caused him to hold back and to talk rather
of an "ancient, permanent sense of mankind," of
u the judgment of the human race,"2 as opposed
to the judgment of individuals. u The pretended
rights of these theorists," he says, u are all ex-
tremes : and in proportion as they are metaphysical-
ly true, they are morally and politically false."3
To passages of this kind Mary Wollstonecraft
refers, when she says : " I perceive, from the whole
tenor of your Reflections, that you have a mortal
antipathy to reason ; but if there is anything like
argument, or first principles, in your wild declama-
tion, behold the result : — that we are to reverence
the rust of antiquity, and term the unnatural
customs, which ignorance and mistaken self-interest
have consolidated, the sage fruit of experience."*
She comes to the point in making her request :
" Will Mr. Burke be at the trouble to inform us, how
far we are to go back to discover the Rights of Man,
since the light of reason is such a fallacious guide
that none but fools trust to its cold investigation ? "

She reviews his discussion of this aspect of the
subject. He speaks of the Magna Charta as our

1 Burke : Reflections on the Revolution in France. Burke's
Works, London, Bell and Daldy ; 1867. Vol. II, p. 358.
. -' Ibid., p. 435. a Ibid., p. 335.

* A Vindication of the Rights of Man, p. 9. 5 Ibid., p. 13.

THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 77

oldest reformation, but " the Magna Charta of King
John, was connected with another positive Charter
from Henry L, and both the one and the other,
were nothing more than a re-affirmance of the still
more ancient standing law of the Kingdom."1
Englishmen thus claimed their rights as hereditary
title ; they asserted their liberties as an entailed
inheritance, derived from their forefathers, to be
transmitted to their posterity. There lies deep
truth in this interpretation of history. If Burke was
one-sided in banishing the speculative element from
politics, the school of Revolutionists was equally
one-sided in ignoring the significance of historical
growth. The very demands for the Rights of Man
were not a mushroom growth, but had their roots
in the centuries that had passed. Mary Wollstone-
craft, during this controversy, overlooks the intri-
cate windings of these roots and rootlets. She sees
in the infancy of society in England naught but
lawlessness, gross prejudice and immoral supersti-
tion. If Magna Charta, she says, rests for its
chief support on a former grant, which reverts to
another, then chaos becomes the base of the
mighty structure. Yet this chaos contained the
spark, that gathered to itself fuel, until, even in her
day, the mighty conflagration caused the civilized
world to tremble.

If reason was never to assert itself, to bend
beneath its sway existing conditions, then it was
difficult to see on what principle Mr. Burke could

1 Burke : Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke's
Works, Vol. II, p. 305.

78 THE RIGHTS OF MAN.

defend American independence ; or how he could
justify the Reformation, which tore up by the roots
an old establishment. She says :

"To go further back;" "had you been a Jew, you would
have joined in the cry, crucify him !— crucify him ! The pro-
mulgator of a new doctrine, and the violator of old laws and
customs, that not melting, like ours, into darkness and
ignorance, rested on Divine authority, must have been a danger-
ous innovator, in your eyes, particularly if you had not been
informed that the Carpenter's Son was of the stock and lineage
of David."1

It was a peculiar turn of the argument, that
Burke, who feared "that France might throw off
that Christian religion, which has hitherto been our
boast and comfort, and one great source of civiliza-
tion amongst us and amongst many other nations,"2
should have been asked to meet the question, which
he, whose mind is bent on revolution, must ever
ask of him, who frowns upon upheavals.

Burke's respect for rank could not but rouse
Mary Wollstonecraft's democratic spirit. " Some
decent, regulated pre-eminence," he says, " some
preference given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor
unjust, nor impolitic."3 He mourned the fate of
Marie Antoinette, the unfortunate queen of France ;
but to the poor his advice was, that they must
labour to obtain what by labour can be obtained,
and be taught their consolation in the final pro-
portions of eternal justice. This advice Mary
Wollstonecraft calls : " contemptible, hard-hearted

1 A Vindication of the Rights of Man, p. 21.

2 Burke : Reflections on the Revolution in France, Vol. II,
P. 363- 3 Ibid., p. 325.

THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 79

sophistry, in the specious form of humility, and
submission to the will of Heaven. " It is, Sir,
possible," she says, " to render the poor happier
in this world, without depriving them of the con-
solation, which you gratuitously grant them in
the next." i

Rank and property go hand in hand. Burke ex-
pressed himself in favor of the one as much as of
the other. " The power of perpetuating our pro-
perty in our families," he says, " is one of the most
valuable and interesting circumstances belonging
to it, and that which tends the most to the per-
petuation of society itself." * The desire of
Englishmen to preserve the family estate, to per-
petuate a name, which Burke here commends,
seems to Mary Wollstonecraft a relic of barbarous,
feudal institutions. In this arrangement the
younger children were sacrificed to the eldest son ;
they were sent into exile, or confined in convents,
" that they might not encroach on what was called
with shameful falsehood, the family estate." 3

Burke was proud of English customs, proud of
the English constitution. It angered him to have
the example of the French Republicans held out to
shame British conservatives. " I wish my country-
men," he says, " rather to recommend to our
neighbours the example of the British constitution
than to take models from them for the irnprove-

1 A Vindication of the Rights of Man, p. 144.

2 Burke : Reflections on the Revolution in France, Vol. II,

P- 324-

3 A Vindication of the Rights of Man, p. 46.

80 THE RIGHTS OF MAN.

ment of our own." J " The Revolution Society has
discovered that the English nation is not free,"
he remarks with some sarcasm. Mary Wollstone-
craft meets this reproach by pointing out the in-
security of the liberty of the poor man under that
"immaculate constitution." The game-laws, she
mentions, as a venerable vestige of the law, that
rendered the life of a deer more sacred than that of
a man. She protests against the arbitrary custom
of pressing men for the sea service. " You should
have hinted to the French," she says, " that pro-
perty in England is much more secure than liberty,
and not have concealed that the liberty of an honest
mechanic — his all — is often sacrificed to secure the
property of the rich." 3

It is the glaring contrast between the stately
palace and the wretched hovel, that seems to her
the curse of civilization. She draws an attractive
picture of the farmer's hut, with its homely palings
and twining woodbine ; the cow grazing near that
supports the children ; the chubby babes feeding the
cheerful poultry, and breathing the bracing air, far
from the diseases and the vices of cities. And then
come her questions : " Why cannot large estates be
divided into small farms? Why does the brown
waste meet the traveller's view, when men want
work ? But commons cannot be enclosed without
acts of parliament to increase the property of the

1 Burke : Reflections on the Revolution in France, Vol. II,
p. 516.

2 Ibid., p. 328.

3 A Vindication of the Rights of Man, p. 25.

THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 8 1

rich ! Why might not the industrious peasant be
allowed to steal a farm from the heath ? l

Revolutionary in tone, as well as in tendency, are
these demands. The demon of property, that has
ever been at hand to encroach on the sacred rights
of men, she claims, has rendered liberty but a fair
idea, that has never yet received a form in the
various governments. But fearlessly she turns to
Mr. Burke : " The birthright of man, to give you,
Sir, a short definition of this disputed right, is such
a degree of liberty, civil and religious, as is com-
patible with the liberty of every other individual,
with whom he is united in a social compact, and
the continued existence of that compact." -

The nature of liberty was a theme under frequent
discussion during the latter part of the eighteenth
century. Rousseau's genius had made it promi-
nent ; for he emphasized strongly, that the liberty
of man, in its very essence, is an inalienable
possession, because it has its ever reproducing
source in human nature itself. Mary Wollstone-
craft, too, speaks 3 of natural rights, which men
inherit at their birth, as rational creatures, and
which, since they are received not from their fore-
fathers, but from God, cannot be undermined by
proscription.

Rousseau's teachings on the founding of states,
and the sovereignty of the people were of great
influence. The English Revolutionists could not
disclaim their vital connection with his thought.

1 A Vindication of the Rights of Man, p. 48.
- Ibid., p. 8. » Ibid., p. 22.

n

82 THE RIGHTS OF MAN.

Godwin, in a note to the first chapter of his Poli-
tical Justice, acknowledges his indebtedness to
Rousseau ; but also to Locke's Essay concerning
Human Understanding. Mary Wollstonecraft was
in touch with the thought of both philosophers, as it
had crystallized in the opinions of the day ; and she
had evidently made the works of both a careful
study. She was well aware, that Locke had opened
out paths, in which others followed. In the Introduc-
tory Chapter to her volume on the French Revo-
lution, she gives an historical sketch of the growth
of the desire among men for their rights.

" Locke, following the track of other bold thinkers, recom-
mended in a more methodical manner religious toleration,
and analyzed the principles of civil liberty : for in his defini-
tion of liberty, we find the elements of the Declaration of the
Rights of Man, which in spite of the fatal errors of ignorance,
and the perverse obstinacy of selfishness, is now converting
sublime theories into practical truths."1

The volume on the French Revolution gives
glimpses of a change in the mind of the author
since the days, two years previously, when she
engaged in the controversy with Edmund Burke.
She had gone to Paris to watch with her own eyes
the development of events. The king of France
passed by her window to his trial. " I can scarcely
tell you why," she writes in a letter to her pub-
lisher, Mr. Johnson, " but an association of ideas
made the tears flow insensibly from my eyes, when
I saw Louis sitting, with more dignity than I
expected from his character, in a hackney coach,
going to meet death, where so many of his race

1 The Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, p. 4.

THK RIGHTS OF MAN. 83

have triumphed.'" With eager interest and quick
sympathies, she watched to see what use French-
men would make of their liberty.

' ' Whilst the heart sickens over a detail of crimes and follies,
and the understanding is appalled by the labour of unravelling
a black tissue of plots, which exhibits the human character in
the most revolting point of view ; it is perhaps, difficult to
bring ourselves to believe, that out of this chaotic mass a fairer
government is rising than has ever shed the sweets of social
life on the world. But things must have time to find their
level."-'

The principle of growth in the history of
nations, which she was inclined to ignore during
her controversy with Burke, now meets with just
appreciation in her manner of sketching the origin
and progress of the French Revolution. She says :

" It was neither produced by the abilities or intrigues of
a few individuals ; nor was the effect of sudden and short-
lived enthusiasm ; but the natural consequence of intellectual
improvement, gradually proceeding to perfection in the ad-
vancement of communities, from a state of barbarism to that of
polished society."3

When in speaking of " acts of ferocious folly,
which have justly brought much obloquy on
the grand revolution," she says : " Yet I feel con-
fident of being able to prove, that the people are
essentially good, and that knowledge is rapidly
advancing to that degree of perfectibility, when
man will be considered as man, acting with the
dignity of an intelligent being."4" There is in this
trust in the essential goodness of the people, a

1 Posthumous Works, Vol. IV, p. 93.

2 The Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, p. 73.
:i Ibid., p. VII. 4 Ibid., p. 72.

84 THE RIGHTS OF MAN.

leaning toward Burke's confidence in "those in-
bred sentiments, which are the faithful guardians,
the active monitors of our duty."1
^ Locke had maintained,- that when the people
I are made miserable, and find themselves exposed to
h ill-usage of arbitrary power, it will invariably
happen that they will be ready to rid themselves
of a burden that sits heavy upon them. Mary
Wollstonecraft goes further than Locke, when she
considers a revolution justifiable, not only with a
view to liberation from tyranny, but also because the
laws and customs, which serve society in one period
of development, are insufficient for the next. There
lay between her days and Locke's times a century
of tremendous changes, of upheavals in Europe,
upbuilding in America. In the old world
existing institutions and conditions were regarded
with impatience, as blocking the way of progress.
In the new world a rational government was
rising on new foundations, untrammelled by the
antiquated laws and customs of by-gone barba-
rism. Americans were proud of their achieve-
ment. Their sympathies were on the side of French
Republicans. Mary Wollstonecraft came in contact
with Americans, who, for causes similar to those
which brought her to Paris, were sojourning there.
Imlay too was an American. As appears from her
letters to him, she was entering gladly upon a plan
of returning to America with him, to buy a farm
there, and settle to the enjoyments of a home.

1 See p. 75-

2 John I^ocke : Treatise on Civil Government, XIX, $ 224.

- \

THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 85

But this was not to be. She left France and its
scenes of turmoil and bloodshed, its advanced civili-
zation and the evils attending it, to wander among
the quiet hamlets of Sweden and Norway ; to ponder
on the state of man when he follows the dictates of
his animal nature, and his reason is dormant and
inactive. She came to Tonsberg in Norway, where
the farmers had commenced to cut away the forests
and clear the ground, because they had learned,
that lumber was of value in commerce. Half a
century previously, they had allowed the Dutch to
take the wood, asking nothing, but that they should
be paid for the labor of cutting it. Now the
character of the country was being changed. The
vast tracts of forest were decreasing ; meadows and
fields were on the increase. In their patient
toil lay the development of the mental resources of
the inhabitants. Mary Wollstonecraft writes :

" I never, my friend, thought so deeply of the advantages
obtained by human industry as since I have been in Norway.
The world requires, I see, the hand of man to perfect it ; and as
this task naturally unfolds the faculties he exercises, it is physi-
cally impossible that he should have remained in Rousseau's
golden age of stupidity. And, considering the question of
human happiness, where, oh ! where does it reside ? Has it
taken up its abode with unconscious ignorance, or with the
high -wrought mind?" l

She returned to England, after her brief sojourn
in those northern countries, with less of the
revolutionary spirit. " An ardent affection for
the human race," she says in the Appendix to
her Letters from Sweden, " makes enthusiastic

1 Betters from Sweden, Norway and Denmark, p. 115.

86 THE RIGHTS OF MAN.

characters eager to produce alteration in laws and
governments prematurely." This was her attitude
while in France. But now her entlmsiasm was
tempered by reason and intelligent observation.
She adds : "To render these alterations useful and
permanent, they must be the growth of each parti-
cular soil, and the gradual fruit of the ripening
understanding of the nation, matured by time, not
forced by an unnatural fermentation."

Her northern journey had convinced her, that
this "gradual change is gaining ground ;" that the
grand causes, which she saw at work in France,
" were carrying mankind forward ;" and that ulti-
mately, " the sum of human misery would be dimin-
ished." Hope for the future still inspired her.
That noble optimism, which must ever be the
mark of the reformer, was hers. Neither the
glimpse of the vices and follies of the polished
circles of the world, nor the sight of man but just
above the brute creation, could quench the ardent
desire within her, to see man in possession of all
his rights.

CHAPTER V.

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN AND HER POLEMICS
AGAINST WRITERS ON FEMALE EDUCATION.

NOT the impulsive expression of fervid desire for
a change, but the inevitable sequence of the demand
for the rights of man, the Vindication of the
Rights of Woman must be regarded as a product of
the times. Mary Wollstonecraft was a child of her
times, and her views with regard to the rights of
man form with her the basis of her demand for the
rights of woman. The same principles are applied
in both cases. " If the abstract rights of man will
bear discussion and explanation," she says in the
Dedication of her book, " those of woman, by a
parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same
test."

In her controversy with Edmund Burke, she
attacked his policy of aiming at expediency, of
adjusting principles to practice. The same con-
troversy is carried over into the polemical part of
the Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Much
was written in that day concerning the education

88 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

and conduct of women. A trivial tone pervades
some of the books of this kind. There were
writers who resorted to satire, and in turn ridiculed
or pitied women, as they endeavored to instruct
them. The pages of the Spectator, in those days,
were frequently filled with witty sallies, exposing
the weaknesses of women. There were sober
attempts also, of giving advice to parents and young
women. ^Writers of this class had the avowed
object of making the subordinate position of woman
as endurable to her as possible under the circum-
stances, by advising that which seemed expedient?
Edmund Burke's trust in an " ancient permanent
sense of mankind," carried over into the contro-
versy for the rights of woman, appeared in the
(tacit admission of writers on female education,
that the instinct of the race had asserted itself in
assigning to woman a subordinate place. ~~)

Though the influence of Rousseau is undoubt-
edly visible in some of the opinions of Mary
Wollstonecraft ; they are diametrically opposed to
each other in their views of the nature and
position of woman. He was her chief opponent.
In the polemical part of the Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, she enters upon an elaborate
protest against his system. Again and ^gain
throughout her book, she finds occasion to contradict
and oppose him. He had expressed with seeming
logical correctness and a finished eloquence that,
which was really the opinion of the civilized world,
concerning the nature of woman. To disprove
Rousseau, therefore, went far toward refuting the

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 89

whole false system of woman's education and
position.

Rousseau, after tracing in his famous book on
education, his Emile, which, in its day, furnished
much inspiration to pedagogical research, how his
pupil's character was gradually formed until he
finally became a man, says :

" Thus far we have sought to educate a man in accordance
with the principles of nature. In order not to leave our work
incomplete, it remains to show how to educate woman, the
counterpart to man. He who wishes to be guided aright, must
follow the precepts of nature." '

He then proceeds in a truly masterly way, blend-
ing truth and sophistry, to interpret the qualities,
with which nature has endowed woman. He
exalts that, which he considers the work of nature ;
and marks as perversions the effects, which civiliza-
tion has had upon woman. Later in his discussion
he says : "I always come back to my guiding
principle and it, without fail, offers the solution of
all difficulties. I study that which is, seek the
cause, and finally come to the conclusion that that
which is, is right." 2 Rousseau in his investigation
often loses sight of that high ideal of human
character, which includes intellectual pre-eminence.

The doctrine of a return to nature, as the only
way to a normal condition for human beings,
found a practical application in Rousseau's Emile.
Mary Wollstonecraft agreed with him, so far as he
demanded that the unnatural distinctions of rank
and wealth were to be abolished, and that ancient

1 Rousseau : Emile V, $ 25. - Ibid., % 95.

12

90 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

prejudices and useless and injurious customs were
to be rendered powerless. In her criticism of exist-
ing conditions, she runs parallel with Rousseau ;
many passages in her Vindication of the Rights q/
Woman, where she censures estrangement from
nature and her laws are similar to passages in
Rousseau's Emile. His keen observations may have
stimulated her; so that in this aspect of her work,
she may seem to walk in his footsteps. But when
Rousseau portrays this state of nature in favor of
physical well-being; and when he considers strength,
health and especially self-approbation the most
desirable possessions ; and assigns to moral laws and
ethical motives a subordinate place, Mary Woll-
stonecraft dissents. His thesis was : The nearer
to nature, the better ; while she looked forward to
a higher and more perfect civilization, to be reached
by means of the improvement of human reason.

In describing the education of Sophia, who was,
like Emile, to remain untouched by the hand
of civilization, Rousseau seeks to examine the char-
acter which nature has given to woman. His
starting point is*' that woman has less bodily strength
than man ; and that in consequence he is her
master. The education of woman should therefore
always be relative to man ; every precept that fails
to recur to this relation must necessarily run wide
of the mark ; for nature has ordained that she
should serve him.

One of the first precepts of this system is, that
care should be bestowed upon outward appearance.
Rousseau describes, how girls, from their earliest

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 91

infancy are fond of dress. They show by their
little airs, that they are desirous of being thought
pretty ; and unconsciously they realize that the phy-
sical part of the art of pleasing lies in dress. They
soon become anxious to know how to dress up
their dolls ; and though they learn with reluctance
how to read and write, they apply themselves very
readily to the use of their needles. As soon as
they are capable of understanding what is said to
them, they are willing to be governed by the con-
sideration of what people will think of their
behaviour.

Many a protest is launched by Mary Wollstone-
craft against writers, who, like Rousseau, speak of
the natural fondness of women for dress, of their in-
nate desire to please. To her these are but the
outcome of perverted nature, of a false system of
education. She unhesitatingly dissents from his
interpretation of the hand of nature, and claims
that she too has read in nature's book, and this
was her result :

" I have, probably, had an opportunity of observing more
girls in their infancy than J. J. Rousseau. J can recollect my
own feelings, and I have looked steadily around me ; yet so far
from coinciding with him in opinion respecting the first dawn
of the female character, I will venture to affirm, that a girl,
whose spirits have not been damped by inactivity, will always
be a romp, and the doll will never excite attention unless con-
finement allows her no alternative." l

Brought up to please man, the riper virtues of
woman are, according to Rousseau, to be of a
nature to render her useful and convenient for man.

1 Rights of Woman, p. 81.

92 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

The first and most important qualification in a
woman, he says, is good-nature or sweetness of
temper. An habitual restraint should be exercised
over her, so that a tractableness may result, for
wlfich woman has occasion ; since during her whole
life she remains under subjection either to man,
or to the opinions of mankind. But in making
her tractable, she should not be made unhappy.
It is not necessary to make her dependence burden-
some, but only to let her feel it. Rousseau ad-
vises, that she should be allowed to "exempt her-
self from the necessity of obeying." Subtilty
should even be cultivated, as a talent natural to
the sex ; for he thinks every natural inclination is
good and right.

Mary Wollstonecraft admits that " formed to live
with such an imperfect being as man, women
ought to learn, from the exercise of their faculties,
the necessity of forbearance." ' But she questions
whether a state of dependence is natural to them.
" Considering the length of time that w*omen have
been dependent," she says, u is it surprising that
some of them hug their chains?"2 She quotes a
naturalist as saying : " These dogs at first kept
their ears erect ; but custom has superseded nature,
and a token of fear is become a beauty." By this
observation she meets Rousseau on his own ground.
When he claims that women oiight to have but
little liberty, because they are apt to indulge them-
selves excessively in what is allowed them, she
again meets him with a parallel case : u Slaves and

1 Rights of Woman, p. 136. 2 Ibid., p. 135.

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 93

mobs have always indulged themselves in the
same excesses, when once they broke loose from
authority. The bent bow recoils with violence,
when the hand is suddenly relaxed that forcibly
held it." ' As for calling subtil ty a talent
peculiar to women, she insists that " greatness of
mind can never dwell with cunning," and that if
any class of mankind be so created, that it must
necessarily be educated by rules not strictly dedu-
cible from truth, virtue is an affair of convention.
Woman, according to Rousseau, should be kept in
a state of moral inferiority. Where does he rank
her intellectually ?

She is to know but little, and the little she knows
is to be of a nature pleasing to man. She should
ever have in mind the question : How will your
discourse be received ? Reason in women is a
practical reason, says Rousseau, capacitating them
artfully to discover the means of attaining a known
end, but which would never enable them to discover
that end itself. As the conduct of women is
subservient to public opinion, their faith in matters
of religion should, for that very reason, be subject
to authority. The wife ought to be of the same
religion as her husband ; for though such religion
might be false, that docility which induces her to
submit to the order of nature, takes away, in the
sight of God, the criminality of error. It is not
so needful to explain to them the reasons for their
belief, as to lay down precisely the tenets they are
to believe. After thus cramping woman's intellec-

1 Rights of Woman, p. 135.

94 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

tual powers, and checking the growth of character,
he advises her to reflect, that a reflecting man may
not yawn in her company !

Rousseau's argument was, to a degree, consist-
ent, provided his thesis, that nature formed woman
for man, was granted. But Mary Wollstonecraft
touched its weakest spot, when she pointed out,
that the sacrifice of woman's mental and moral
development, which is involved in this system,
served but for a short time. According to Rous-
seau's interpretation, nature gives but a slight
degree of permanency to a relation, which religion
and ethics make almost absolutely binding. His
system, as here becomes apparent, may justly be
regarded as lacking a moral basis. It is difficult
to conceive of precepts more degrading to woman,
than those set forth by the " Apostle of Nature,"
as Rousseau has been called. Mary Wollstone-
craft rightly asks, why a girl should be educated
for her husband with the same care as for an
Eastern harem ; why the important years of youth,
the usefulness of age, and the rational hopes of
futurity should be sacrificed to render her an object
of desire for a short time. Her rationalism was
intensely antagonistic to a system that magnified
the physical aspects of human life, and hopelessly
cramped the faculty of reason in one-half of the
human race. She considered the unfolding of
reason the chief end in life ; and believed that it
is the right of man to seek to attain this end.
Rousseau denied this right to woman. His system
of necessity called forth her fierce opposition.

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 95

Rousseau's doctrine was as dangerous as it was
pernicious. Set forth with a finished eloquence,
he gave what seemed to be a philosophical basis to
the corruptions of his time. Mary Wollstonecraft
detected the poison in the crystal cup. It must
have been of an alluring nature in her day ; for
those who look for the cause of the tragedies of
her later life, find, that a drop of the poison passed
her lips. Yet in her Vindication of the Rights of
Woman she speaks forth the indignation of a sober-
minded Englishwoman, and arraigns one of Rous-
seau's most distinguished countrywomen, because,
far from sharing her indignation, she pleads his
cause. The Baroness de Stael in her Eulogium on
Rousseau, grants his pardon ; though he denies
woman reason, shuts her out from knowledge and
turns her aside from truth, simply because his
admiration for woman, as nature formed her, amounts
almost to adoration. What signifies it, the Baron-
ess de Stael argues, to women, that his reason
disputes with them the empire, when his heart is
devotedly theirs. That she and other women
should thus unite with men in adopting sentiments,
that had the direct tendency of degrading them,
calls forth Mary Wollstonecraft's scorn.

One of her own countrywomen, Mrs. Piozzi,
known specially by her literary relations to Dr.
Johnson, reasoned after the same fashion as the
Baroness de Stael. The contempt with which men,
in that day, treated woman's understanding, seemed
to her a slight grievance. She was convinced,
however, that not a woman could be found, who

96 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

would contradict the assertion, that " all our attain-
ments, all our arts are employed to gain and keep
the heart of man ; and what mortification can exceed
the disappointment, if the end be not obtained?" l
If Mrs. Piozzi's estimate of the women of her
times was to any degree correct, Mary Woll-
stonecraft had little encouragement in pleading for
the rights of reason in behalf of women.

Madame Genlis, a prominent pedagogical writer
of her day, is taken to task by Mary Wollstonecraft
for error in another direction. The books of
Madame Genlis were numerous, and were widely
read. She sought to uphold the power of the
Roman Catholic Church and of the aristocracy ;
and carried her respect for authority into her
educational views by insisting on blind obedience
to the will of parents. An accomplished young
woman, according to Madame Genlis, is ready to
marry anybody, whom her mother is pleased to
recommend. So rigid are the lines drawn by
her, that she insists that " a well-educated girl has
not time to be in love."

It might perhaps seem as if the spirit of criticism
had taken hold of Mary Wollstonecraft and blinded
her to the merits of other writers. But this was
not the case. In mentioning Mrs. Chapone's Letters,
she indicates, that she cannot always coincide in
opinion with her; but this does not affect her
respect for the writer. Words of great esteem are
bestowed by her upon the memory of Mrs.
Macaulay, the famous author of a History of

1 Rights of Woman, p. 160.

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 97

England, who, in possession of an unusual degree
of knowledge and talent, had been remarkable
among her contemporaries for her conflict with the
atheistical and sceptical tendencies of her times.
The approbation of this great woman Mary Woll-
stonecraft expected, when she first thought of writing
her book ; but soon heard with deep regret that
she was no more. She called attention to the
fact, that sufficient respect had not been paid to the
memory of Mrs. Macatilay.

In the light of this noble tribute, which frees
Mary Wollstonecraft from the suspicion of undue
eagerness to condemn, it is all the more surprising
to see how she challenges writers of her own and
past times. I^ord Chesterfield was among them.
Pope and Milton are attacked, the latter because
in his Paradise Lost Eve says to Adam :

" My author and disposer, what thou bidst
Unargued I obey ; so God ordains ;
God is thy law, thou mine : to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise."

Perhaps the most daring part of her polemics
is her bold attack upon Dr. Gregory's Legacy to
his Daughters and Dr. Fordyce's Sermons 1o
Young Women. Both were popular writers, who
had a large circle of readers ; and whose views were
in harmony with the current opinions of the day.
Of Dr. Fordyce's sermons l she says : " They have
long made a part of a young woman's library ; nay,
girls at school are allowed to read them, yet," she

1 Rev. James Fordyce, D.D. Sermons to Young Women, 1762.
2 Volumes. Many Editions.

13

98 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

adds, u I should not allow girls to peruse them, unless
I designed to hunt every spark of nature out of
their composition, melting every human quality
into female meekness and artificial grace." She
objects to the lover-like phrases, with which a grave
preacher should not embellish his discourse. He
addresses u the British fair, the fairest of the fair,
as if they had only feelings," and makes florid
appeals to Heaven, and to u the beauteous innocents,
the fairest images of Heaven here below."

Dr. Fordyce proceeds from the same proposition
that forms the basis of Rousseau's argument :
Woman is created for man. Her character is to be
one of yielding softness and gentle compliance. He
would not justify men in anything wrong on their
part, but is astonished at the folly of many women,
who complain of the indifference of their husbands.
He tells them :

" Had you behaved to them with more respectful observance,
and a more equal tenderness, studying their humours, over-
looking their mistakes, submitting to their opinions in matters
indifferent, passing by little instances of unevenness, caprice or
passion, giving soft answers to hasty words, complaining as
seldom as possible, and making it your daily care to relieve
their anxieties, to enlighten the hour of dulness, and call up the
ideas of felicity : had you pursued this conduct, I doubt not but
you would have maintained and even increased their esteem, so
far at to have secured every degree of influence that could
conduce to their virtue or your mutual satisfaction, and your
home might at this day have been the abode of domestic bliss/'1

Not a trace of the human character does Mary
Wollstonecraft find in a woman according to this
description ; she is simply a domestic drudge, whose

Rights of Woman, p. 152.

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 99

being- is absorbed in that of a tyrant. Moreover,
she thinks Dr. Fordyce must have had very little
acquaintance with the human heart, if he really
supposed that such conduct would bring back
wandering love, instead of exciting contempt.

It is true that there is little apparent difference
between the advice given by Rousseau and that of
Dr. Fordyce ; and yet, there is a distinction.
An interest in the well-being of woman is
displayed in Dr. Fordyce's advice, that is absent in
Rousseau's. The sentiment of the Church, which
Dr. Fordyce voices, has an ethical aspect that is
foreign to the sentiments of the "Apostle of Nature."
The advice of the Church was to the servant to be
obedient to his master, to woman to submit herself
to her own husband. Meekness, gentleness, the
bearing of injuries without retaliation, were virtues
extolled by the founder of the Christian religion.
Men in the early days of Christianity frequently
laid aside their courage and strength and assumed
the garb of meekness, which their master had worn.
Side by side with this spirit of self-renunciation,
there dwelt in the new religion an appreciation of
the intrinsic value of the individual, as an object of
salvation, and a broad conception of liberty as the
product of faith, that sent its waves of influence
along the course of the history of the nations.

The Greek first conceived the idea of the free-
dom of the individual.1 But man is free, meant to
him : The Greek is free ; the slave and the bar-

1 See Wilhelm Preger : Entfaltung der Idee des Meuschen
durch die Weltgeschichte. Miinchen, 1870.

100 THp; RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

barian were not included. Christianity ushered
into the world principles, according to which the
slave and woman, the conquered and the wretched
were placed on the same footing with the strongest
and the mightiest, so far as the highest spiritual
gifts which the religion of Christ had to offer, were
concerned. And these principles, combined with
the Anglo-Saxon love of active independence, are
destined ultimately to vindicate to all the right
of personal freedom. But meantime Dr. Fordyce
represents those who preached that which seemed
expedient, and gave but a faint reflection of the
true relation which Christianity bears to woman.

Another passage in Dr. Fordyce's sermons, quoted
by Mary Wollstonecraft seems a curious mixture of
religious sentiment and ill-advised flattery. Dr.
Fordyce says :

" Never, perhaps, does a fine woman strike more deeply than
when, composed into pious recollection, and possessed with the
noblest considerations, she assumes, without knowing it, supe-
rior dignity and new graces ; so that the beauties of holiness
seem to radiate about her, and the bystanders are almost in-
duced to fancy her already worshipping amongst her kindred
angels ! "

Mary Wollstonecraft asks, " Why are women
to be thus bred up with a desire of conquest ? the
very word, used in this sense, gives me a sickly
qualm ! Do religion and virtue offer no stronger
motives, no brighter reward ?"

Even in perversions, as great as the above
passage by Dr. Fordyce, a deep truth may be found
hidden somewhere. The Church has ever had in
woman a mighty ally to keep the flame of piety

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN IOI

bright in a community ; and piety in turn exalted
woman ; for there is something in man that res-
ponds to a visible token of communion between one
of his kind and his Creator.

"Where the husband's attention is wholly absorbed by the
struggle for daily bread, the only aspirations, frequently, that
are left to the family, are those of a religious nature, and they
are nourished by the wife. A deep sense of piety, that
centres in the mother of the family is often the best safeguard
of morality." l

This too is conquest ; not the conquest of
men's hearts, by youth and beauty with the aid
of religious devotion ; but the conquest of the
hearts of her family by the mother, who can
thus best guard her charge against its foes. It is
the perversion of truth that forms the butt of the
attacks of the revolutionists. Mary Wollstonecraft
valued most highly the religious aspirations of
which man is capable. To see them given a place
with other accomplishments, that please the eyes
of men, rightly roused her opposition.

Free from flattery, and filled with a loving regard
for the welfare of his daughters, who had lately lost
their mother, Dr. Gregory's Legacy to his Daugh-
ters" is a touching instance of the vacillation of
opinion, which must inevitably have been the state
of mind of an affectionate father in those days.
Dr. Gregory feared the consequence of instilling
sentiments, that might draw his daughters out of

1 Wundt : Die Bthik, p. 534.

- John Gregory, M. D. "A Father's Legacy to his Daugh-
ters," 1774. Many editions. The last in 1877.

102 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

the track of common life, without enabling them to
act with consonant independence and dignity. In
the preface he tells them a mournful truth, u that
they will hear, at least once in their lives, the
genuine sentiments of a man, who has no interest in
deceiving them." Mary Wollstonecraft exclaims :

" Hapless woman ! what can be expected from thee when the
beings on whom thou art said naturally to depend for reason
and support, have all an interest in deceiving thee ? This is the
root of the evil that has shed a corroding mildew on all thy
virtues ; and blighting in the bud thy opening faculties, has
rendered thee the weak thing thou art ! It is this separate
interest, this insiduous state of warfare, that undermines moral-
ity and divides mankind ! " l

The very parental solicitude with which Dr.
Gregory would mould the conduct of his daughters,
shows forth in bold lines the deceptive character
of his advice. If girls possessed strength and
vigor, they should conceal it, lest men suppose that
they were not entirely dependent on their pro-
tection for safety. u Be even cautious," he says,
" in displaying your good sense. But if you
happen to have any learning, keep it a profound
secret, especially from the men, who generally look
with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of
great parts and a cultivated understanding." Men
of real merit, Dr. Gregory afterwards observes, are
superior to this meanness. " Where is the neces-
sity," demands Mary Wollstonecraft, " that the
behaviour of the whole sex should be modulated
to please men, who, having little claim to respect
as individuals, choose to keep close in their pha-

1 Rights of Woman, p. 154.

THF, RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 103

lanx? " ' Marriage was to be the chief end of exist-
ence, yet on no account should it be apparent, that
a young- woman's thoughts were bent in this direc-
tion. A wife should keep her husband in ignor-
ance concerning the extent of her affection, so that
uncertainty might prove an attraction. This tangle
of dissimulations and pretences Mary Wollstone-
craft brushes aside with the sound advice : " Make
the heart clean, and give the head employment, and
I will venture to predict that there will be nothing
offensive in the behaviour."

Notwithstanding the popularity, which Dr.
Gregory's book enjoyed, even down to recent times,
some of his contemporaries were alive to the defects
of the book and the system it sets forth. One of
Mary Wollstonecraft's severest critics agrees with
her on one point, that Dr. Gregory's Legacy shows
that u his system of female excellence was formed
in consequence of confined views, and a state
of society, neither the best nor the most eligi-
ble." But while granting all that can be said
against this book and against the wisdom of its
author, yet the father who speaks through its pages
is not an isolated example, but is a type of many a
parent, who wavered and hesitated, fearing that in
his most earnest effort to advance the best welfare of
his daughter, he might unfit her for the world in
which she lived. Mary Wollstonecraft faced the
practical aspect of the question some years after her
denunciation of Dr. Gregory's book, when the happi-

1 Rights of Woman, p. 155.

2 The Critical Review, June 1792, p. 132.

104 THK RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

ness of her little daughter, Fanny, lay very close to
her heart. She wrote to the father of her child :

" You know that as a woman I am particularly attached to
her, I feel more than a mother's fondness and anxiety, when I
reflect on the dependent and oppressed state of her sex. I
dread lest she should be forced to sacrifice her heart to her
principles, or principles to her heart. With trembling hand I
shall cultivate sensibility, and cherish delicacy of sentiment,
lest, while I lend fresh blushes to the rose, I sharpen the thorns
that will wound the breast I would fain guard. I dread to
unfold her mind, lest it should render her unfit for the world
she is to inhabit. Hapless woman ! What a fate is thine !" '

There is a note of sad resignation in this letter, a
tacit admission that existing conditions are more
powerful than the individual who wages war against
them. She says with reference to Dr. Gregory :
" Surely it would have been wiser to have advised
women to improve themselves till they rose above
the fumes of vanity ; and then to let the public
opinion come round, for where are rules of accom-
modation to stop?" 2 But public opinion generally
moves slowly. It is conservative in its nature.
She, who dares to outrun it, must needs pay the
penalty.

The problem was passing through a natural
process of solution at the time when Mary Woll-
stonecraft was writing her book, fearlessly facing an
array of writers, who if not mighty, were yet
numerous and influential ; and when, a few years
later, she shrank with the dread prompted by her
love from bringing up her own daughter in the
way which she had advocated so unhesitatingly.

1 Letters from Norway, etc., p. 66.

2 Rights of Woman, p. 155.

THK RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 105

Mary Wollstonecraft looked to France as the
country, where the rights of women would first
receive consideration. Not France, but those newly
settled colonies in America proved to be the place,
where there was that absence of coercion, which
she desired. " L,et there be then no coercion
established in society, and the common law of
gravity prevailing, the sexes will fall into their
proper places." l

The opinions, which the settlers carried away
with them as their heritage from the home of their
fathers had to pass the test of stern realities, when
they came to seek for daily bread in an unsettled
country. The ballast of perversions, concerning
life and its meanings, savouring of an over-wrought,
time-worn civilization, had to be cast overboard in
the face of relentless necessity. The old doctrine,
which Mary Wollstonecraft seemed to fight single-
handed, that woman was created to please man,
could not take root, where woman ranged herself
by the side of man, to make a home where but
lately primeval forests had covered the soil.
Women had been burden-bearers from time imme-
morial. There was nothing new in this aspect
of the character of the American woman of
those early days. The new feature lay in the fact,
that men and women had fled from oppression,
with the hope of building up a state, where the
rights of men would be guarded. Such an atmos-
phere was conducive to a respect for the rights of

Rights of Woman, Dedication.

14

106 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

women and offered opportunities to women to claim
their rights.

Dr. Fordyce and Dr. Gregory have had their
day ; for the reader of the present time lays aside
their books with a smile of wonder, not of con-
tempt ; for the race must work its way into
the light of truth after its own fashion. Mary
Wollstonecraft's hand aimed a powerful stroke at
the system that had worn itself threadbare. She
eminently proved herself endowed with the courage
of the reformer; for she set her own opinion over
against that of most of her contemporaries, and,
inspired with a firm belief in its soundness, she
dealt blow after blow, to destroy the false foundation
and make way for the upbuilding of the rights of
woman on the same basis as the rights of man.

CHAPTER VI.

HER INVESTIGATION OF THE CAUSES OF WOMAN'S
INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT in her I/indication of
the Rights of Woman demands for woman, as a
rational being, a place by the side of man, with
equality of rights and privileges. True to the
spirit of the Revolutionary School, she makes these
demands on the ground of abstract principles ;
yet abstractions are of little value where reali-
ties speak against them. The facts of the past
and present seemed to indicate, that woman's posi-
tion had ever been subordinate to that of man ; and
that thus far, woman had not given evidence of
ability to rank with man, whether regarded ac-
cording to physical, ethical or intellectual standard.
It was therefore a very essential part of her under-
taking, to prove that this subordination was merely
a result of education and circumstances and did
not have its source in a natural inferiority of the
sex. If she failed to prove this, her demands were
without foundation ; for she could not claim equal

108 THE CAUSES OK WOMAN'S

rights for those, who did not at least possess the
potentiality of equality.

She admits throughout, that woman has less
physical strength than man ; nor does she seem, to
entertain the hope, that education can essentially
alter this divergency. She says : " In the govern-
ment of the physical world it is observable that
the female in point of strength is, in general, in-
ferior to the male. This is the law of nature ; and
it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated in
favor of woman." 1 But she does protest against the
prejudices of her times, that led men to think
bodily strength inimical to the character of a
gentleman ; and seemed to women to " take from
their feminine graces and from that lovely weak-
ness, the source of their undue power." She tells
of a woman of fashion, whom she had known, who
thought ua distinguishing taste and a puny ap-
petite the height of all human perfection." "I
have seen this weak, sophisticated being neg-
lect all the duties of life, yet recline with self-
complacency on a sofa, and boast of her want of
appetite, as a proof of delicacy that extended to,
or, perhaps arose from her exquisite sensibility."
With these perversions of her times Mary Woll-
stonecraft had no patience. She claimed that by
their mode of dress, the nature of their employ-
ment, the rules of etiquette and by their whole
education women have been rendered artificial
beings, who are not even in possession of that

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 32. - Hid., p. 74.

3 Ibid., p. 82. •

INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY. 109

smaller share of physical strength, which atuern
has allotted to them. If women would but lead
rational lives, they would have sufficient strength
to engage in various activities, to support them-
selves and thus to enjoy a life of usefulness and
independence.

Physical superiority is a noble prerogative and
has its far-reaching effects even into the realm of
the mental and moral activities. A dependence of
spirit is frequently bred by physical weakness,
that proves a most effectual check upon a full dis-
play of mental resources and that firmness of
character that lead to success. Mary Wollstone-
craft says : "I will allow that bodily strength
seems to give man a natural superiority over wo-
man, and this is the only solid basis on which the
superiority of the sex can be built." l It may be
argued that if woman must depend upon man to
encounter with his superior strength the harsh
vicissitudes of life ; if he is the one to meet danger
and to stand between the world and his family as
its protector, then he has claim to certain rights,
from which he may exclude woman. Responsible
position is never without its peculiar rights. This
is true to some extent ; yet it is also true, that it is
not in the end physical force, but intellect that
governs. Man's superior physical strength may
meet the brunt of pressure from without, while at
the same time the moral and intellectual force, that
keeps him at the front, is furnished by the female

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 75.

110 THE CAUSES OF WOMAN'S

members of the household. " There have been
many women in the world," says Mary Wollstone-
craft, " who, instead of being supported by the
reason and virtue of their fathers and brothers, have
strengthened their own minds by struggling with
their vices and follies." l

The onward tread of science during the present
century has had marked effect upon this aspect of
Mary Wollstonecraft's argument. Writers cannot
to-day speak of woman as a " fair defect in na-
ture." 8 The position which Mary Wollstonecraft
deplored of being denied equality with man, yet
not belonging to the brutes, is undermined ; for no
one to-day speaks of woman in her normal condi-
tion, as a being physically inferior to man ; weaker
in some respects she may be and differently con-
stituted, but not inferior. Mary Wollstonecraft
reasoned in her day unaided by much of the valu-
able material, that empiric science now offers as a
foundation to the deductions of the philosopher.
Biology unfolds the secrets of life ; and the theory
of evolution, which has revolutionized some aspects
of thought during the present century, renders the
trivial teaching of a century ago put of place. Nor
does the abstruse terminology of the man of science
keep the general facts, with which he deals, from
finding their way into the common opinions
of the day.

Researches in the direction of Anthropology
during the past few decades have had a similar

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 148. - Hid., p. 84.

INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY. Ill

effect. One of the tenets of common belief in Mary
Wollstonecraft's day was, that woman had ever
been held in a condition subject to man. She
also reckons with this assertion as a known factor
in her argument. The investigations of Bachofeu,
Morgan, Lappert and others during the present
century, in the direction of the Matriarchate,
indicate that history, from antiquity down to the
present time, shows distinct traces of a condition
of society, in which the mother is the center of the
joint family and the governing head. Among
certain races the matriarchal family preceded the
patriarchal family. These researches belong to our
own times ; and it seems a return to barren soil
with scant fruitage to regard Mary Wollstone1 craft,
with her feet firmly planted on the one stretch of
undisputed territory, the human reason.

Descartes, after emerging from a sea of doubt,
had come to an indisputable point, his Cogito,
ergo sum, and from this point his argument
proceeded. Mary Wollstonecraft started from a
similar point. Woman is in possession of reason,
she argued. Reason is an emanation of divinity,
the tie that connects the creature with the Creator,
and must therefore in its nature be the same in all,
though varying in the strength and perceptibility
with which it becomes manifest in individuals.
It follows, that since reason in its nature is the
same in all, knowledge and virtue must be of
the same nature in all, and with this conclusion
principles of expediency are denied the right
to control the kind of knowledge which woman

112 THE CAUSES OF WOMAN'S

should seek and the nature of the virtues which
she should make her own. Teachers of female
excellence are brushed aside ; every thing is thrown
open to woman, nothing can be withheld ; for she is
a rational being. Taken by itself, this conclusion
is that of one-sided rationalism. Taken in connec-
tion with Mary Wollstonecraft's wise word : " Let
there be then no coercion established in society, and
the common law of gravity prevailing the sexes
will fall into their proper places," l it is evident, that
reason was but to serve as the hinge, on which the
door to liberty was to swing open.

But would women avail themselves of the rights,
which reason opened out before them ? Those of
the sex, who were forced by pressure of circum-
stances to strain their ability to the utmost, in order
to provide the necessities of life for themselves and
others, had Mary Wollstonecraft's full appreciation.
She did not deal with women of this kind ; nor
with the exceptional woman. Her attention was
fixed upon that large majority of women, who, in
accordance with the social arrangements of the
civilized world, were supported by their fathers or
husbands and, dependent as they were, were twice
fettered by the wish of him who supported them,
and by the iron law of public opinion. In her
descriptions of the condition of the woman of her
times, in her appeals to arise and shake off the
unworthy yoke, and in her demand for a revolution
in female manners, there is a rare mingling of psycho-

1 Dedication to the Rights of Woman.

INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY. 113

logical insight into the causes of social evils and
the reformer's righteous indignation at the weak-
ness of human nature.

Gathering together the scattered threads of her
argument, the first cause of woman's subordinate
position, as unfolded by her, may be given as
follows : Man, in order to maintain the ascendancy
which his physical strength gives to him, needs
superiority of reason, in order to make his rulership
permanent and secure. Weakness, with its conse-
quent yielding, is therefore far more pleasing to
him, than that rational independence, which is a
necessary accompaniment of equality. Woman, on
the other hand, is satisfied by the homage which
she receives from man, and does not find it
necessary by the application of all her facul-
ties to earn for herself that respect, which one
human being desires to receive from another. And
as the helpless loveliness of women induces man
most readily to " lend his reason to guide their
tottering steps aright,"1 weakness virtually becomes
an attraction and the impulse to all higher aspira-
tions receives a deadly check. This, Mary Woll-
stonecraft considered the first cause of woman's
inferiority, the effects she found everywhere
apparent.

The etiquette of society illustrated the peculiar
attitude of men toward women. Men thought it
manly to pay those trivial attentions, with which
they in reality insultingly supported their own

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 218.

15

114 THE CAUSES OF WOMAN'S

superiority. u It is not condescension," says Mary
Wollstonecraft, " to bow to an inferior. So ludicrous,
in fact, do these ceremonies appear to me" she says,
"that I scarcely am able to govern my muscles,
when I see a man start with eager and serious
solicitude to lift a handkerchief or shut a door,
when the lady could have done it herself, had she
only moved a pace or two." l She earnestly wished
that the distinction of sex might cease to exist in
society, unless where love animates the behaviour.
It seemed to her as if men tried, by these trivialities,
to compensate women for the loss of important
advantages ; and women, blinded by the show of
respect, played the role of queens as long as possi-
ble, instead of insisting upon the more noble social
forms, dictated by equality.

^It was but natural that women should desire
position and honor ; the craving for the love and
respect of members of the race is inherent in
human nature. The perversion lies in the way in
which this desire is gratified. Mary Wollstone-
craft's opposition to class privileges here found its
application to women ; for as a class, she says, they
are born in possession of certain privileges. Hard-
working women of the laboring classes were above
the reproach, which fell upon women of the higher
classes, who considered homage and flattery their
chie, not because they had done anything to
deserve it, but because they were women. They
expected consideration and respect to be paid them,

The Rights of Woman, p. 100.

INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY. 115

not as a well-earned right, but because they were
accustomed to seeing it gratuitously granted ; hence
the evils which always follow the use of advantages
obtained without exertion were visited upon them.
Their ready acceptance of privileges, which were not
the result of exertion, did not however display a
species of weakness peculiar to the sex ; but simply
showed that their moral fibre was neither more nor
less tense than that of the men whose lives were cast
in similar moulds. Mary Wollstonecraft classes
them with the rich and quotes from Adam Smith's
Theory of Moral Sentiments, whose description of
the character of the rich she finds equally applica-
ble to that of women. As an observation on human
nature, she remarks : " Birth, riches, and every
extrinsic advantage that exalt a man above his
fellows, without any mental exertion, sink him in
reality below them." l

A woman of sensibility was the ideal woman in
i Mary Wollstonecraft's day. She quotes a writer
as saying, that " woman's power is her sensibility."
Naturally women regarded the means of increasing
this power as the most important question of their
lives. They employed their time with novels,
music, poetry and gallantry ; all their thoughts
turned on subjects calculated to excite emotion.
The result was that peculiar female character, which,
as Mary Wollstonecraft told her contemporaries,
could scarcely be called a human character. She
described it as possessing neither harmony nor
stability ; for the imagination was heated and the

n6 THE CAUSES OF WOMAN'S

feelings rendered fastidious ; the understanding
was neglected, and since feeling predominated when
reason should rule, the opinions wavered and con-
duct was unstable. A strange character, it is true,
but poets depicted it with attractive coloring, and
men yielded admiringly to its sway.

Who shall say that this character belongs entirely
to the women of a century ago ? The causes that
produced it have by no means disappeared ; the
effects must continue their existence, though in a
somewhat altered form. Bebel, in his widely cir-
culated book on the relation of woman to socialism,
describes female character in almost the same
language used by Mary Wollstonecraft. Where
she uses the word sensibility, Bebel employs the
German word Gemilth. Sensibility, defined as " the
capacity of the soul to exercise, or to be the subject
of emotion or feeling, as distinguished from the
intellect and will," has its equivalent in the
German Gemuth. And when Bebel complains,
that in the education of women too much emphasis
is laid upon Vertiefung des Gemilths^ he gives
expression to one of the chief contentions of Mary
Wollstonecraft. Dr. Johnson's definition of sensibi-
lity as " quickness of sensation ; quickness of percep-
tion ; delicacy ;" gives to her no other idea than that
of most exquisitely polished instinct. " I discern,"
she says, " not a trace of the image of God in either
sensation or matter. Refined seventy times seven,
they are still material ; intellect dwells not there ;

1 August Bebel : Die Frau und der Socialismus, Stuttgart,
1895. 24. Auflage.

INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY. 117

nor will fire ever make lead gold/'1 Ever consistent
in her pronounced rationalism, she seems to over-
look here the fact that sensibility too has its place.
Her contention was against exaggerated sensi-
bility ; perhaps she could not afford to lessen the
force of her argument by pointing out, that an
absence of sensibility is also to be deplored.

In the education of women, the cultivation of the
understanding was always subordinate to the ac-
quirement of some corporeal accomplishment. Girls
were therefore expected to dedicate a great part of
their time to needlework; yet, this employment
contracted their faculties more than any other that
could have been chosen for them, by confining their
thoughts to their persons. Men ordered their
clothes to be made and had done with the subject ;
women often made their own clothes and were
continually talking about them. It was not the
making of necessaries that weakened the mind, but
what Mary Wollstonecraft calls " the frippery of
dress." 2

The straight path to the store-house of knowledge
was closed to women. They were not admitted to
serious scientific study, and if they had natural
sagacity it was turned too soon on life and /
manners. They frequently^ent into society, and I
soon acquired a certain knowledge of human nature;
but this too was of a superficial kind, rather the
result of sheer observation on real life than the
outcome of comparison between that, which has

The Rights of Woman, p. 108. - Ibid., p. 125,

Il8 THE CAUSES OF WOMAN'S

been individually observed and the results of ex-
perience generalized by speculation. They dwelt
on effects and modifications, without tracing them
back to causes. The complicated rules to adjust
behaviour became the weak substitute for simple
principles. In the absence of that sound reasoning,
which forms the basis of morality, women cultivated
a ready tact, to guide their steps. Instinctively they
found their way, and this faculty was admired as
one of the charming aspects of female character.
Mary Wollstonecraft did not look upon it in that
light. She regarded it as a faculty cultivated by
woman under stress of the necessity upon her.

To prove this, she cited the example of military
men. They too were sent into the world before their
minds had been stored with knowledge or fortified
by principles. The consequences were similar.
Soldiers acquired a little superficial knowledge,
snatched from the muddy current of conversation;
and by continually mixing with society, they gained,
what is termed, a knowledge of the world.
If they had any sense, it was a kind of
instinctive glance, that catches proportions and
decides with respect to manners, but fails when
arguments are to be pursued below the surface, or
opinions analyzed. Where was then the difference,
when the education had been the same ? Yet
soldiers did not lose their rank in the distinction
of sexes ; for they were still reckoned superior to
women, though in what their superiority consisted,
it was difficult to discover. This comparison found
much favor in the eyes of contemporary critics

INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY. 119

and was thought witty and to the point. It was
an ingenious attempt at proving that the distinc-
tions of sex do not enter the realms of mind.

Mary Wollstonecraft refused to admit that there
is any inherent difference in the mental proclivi-
ties of man and woman. That oft-repeated obser-
vation, that man is swayed by thought, woman
by feeling, and that by the intermingling of both,
harmonious completeness ensues, seemed to her but
the entering-wedge to argument, that ended in com.
pletely separating the mental functions, and cul-
minated in comparing women to angels. But as
only young women were compared with angels, the
comparison was proven unsound. Any attempt at
separation seemed to end in anomalous position.
As Mary Wollstonecraft frequently reiterates :
Woman has always been either slave or tyrant, f
She is either considered to move in a sphere above
man, to which he looks up in worshipping attitude,
as to a being of entirely different nature ; or else
she is thought incapable of reason, and as having
her place somewhere between man and the brute
creation.

It cannot however be said that Mary Wollstone-
craft has proven that the nature of sex does not
in some way affect the functions of the mind. To
attempt such proof would have been inconsistent
with the rationalistic basis of her argument ; for
reason must be the same in all. A poetical admirer
of Mary Wollstonecraft's genius, who reproduced
in verse, what she had maintained ; but whose
poetry was less poetical than occasional passages

f " OF THB

| UNIVERSITY

120 THE CAUSES OF WOMAN'S

of her prose, voiced her leading sentiment in the
following couplet :

" 'Twixt mind and mind, then say, ye learned and wise,
In what and where the sexual difference lies ?" 1

But is there no intrinsic difference between the
powers of mind displayed by man, and those of
woman ? Is all the apparent divergency merely
due to outward circumstances? Mrs. Shelley, the
gifted daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, writes in
her later years: u My belief is, whether there be
sex in souls or not, that the sex of our material
mechanism makes us quite different creatures, better
though weaker, but wanting in the higher grades
of intellect."2 Godwin, in sketching the leading
traits of Mary Wollstonecraft's intellectual character,
draws a comparison between her mental powers and
his own, that is of peculiar interest in this connec-
tion. Of himself he says :

" One of the leading passions of my mind has been an anxious
desire not to be deceived. This has led me to view the topics
of my reflection on all sides ; and to examine and re-examine
without end, the questions that interest me. I have been stimu-
lated, as long as I can remember, by an ambition for intellectual
distinction ; but as long as I can remember, I have been discour-
aged, when I have endeavored to cast the sum of my intellectual
value, by finding that I did riot possess, in the degree of some
other men, an intuitive perception of intellectual beauty."

" What I wanted in this respect," he continues,
" Mary possessed, in a degree superior to any other
person I ever knew."

1 " A Poetical Epistle addressed to Miss Wollstouecraft.
Occasioned by reading her celebrated Essay on the Rights of
Woman." By John Henry Colls. London, 1795.

2 Mrs. J. Marshall : The Life and Letters of Mary Wollstone-
craft Shelley, 1889, Vol. II, p. 269.

INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY. 121

" The strength of her mind lay in intuition. She was often
right, by this means only, in matters of mere speculation. She
adopted one opinion, and rejected another, spontaneously, by a
sort of tact, and the force of a cultivated imagination ; and yet,
though perhaps, in the strict sense of the term, she reasoned
little, it is surprising what a degree of soundness is to be found
in her determinations. In a robust and unwavering judgment
of this sort, there is a kind of witchcraft ; when it decides
justly, it produces a responsive vibration in every ingenuous
mind. In this sense, my oscillation and scepticism were fixed
by her boldness."1 ^

This contrast, pointed out by Godwin, is gene-
rally thought characteristic of man and woman.
Man is said to reach his conclusions by the slow
process of logical reasoning, while woman takes a
shorter road, led by an unerring instinct, which some
designate intuition. But intuitive perception is
not to be confounded with that instinctive glance
of the proportion of things, which women are said to
possess. Spinoza distinguishes between three kinds
of knowledge : That which is attained through opi-
nions or perceptions ; that which is the product of
reason ; and that which is intuitive. The last he con-
siders the highest, for it seeks to explore the nature
of things/' Genius has its home amid intuitive per-
ceptions; and the idea, that comes spontaneously
and unlooked-for, passes the threshold of the uncon-
scious to the conscious as an intuition. But the
idea, if born in the artists' mind, demands industry
and skill of execution, before it can be of value
to the human race ; if it is a gift to the scientist, it

1 W. Godwin : Memoirs of the author of a Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, London, 1798, p. 197.

2 Spinoza : Ethica. Part II. Proposition 41.

16

122 THK CAUSKS OF WOMAN'S

is but the beginning of a long process of laborious
experiments, before it can even be called a discovery ;
and in the same way, the speculative mind may see
clearly as with an eagle's eye ; yet if discursive
thought is lacking, carefully to mark the steps that
lead to a demonstration of the truth, this power of
intellectual sight, as a fresh source of knowledge, is
lost to the world.

Though it may perhaps be said, that women
are in possession of intuitive powers of mind,
if not to as great a degree, yet with a greater
number of instances, than is the case with men,
they certainly have been lacking in that patient
plodding of reason, that converts the new-found
thought into a real acquisition to the treasure-
house of human knowledge. On the other hand,
it has undoubtedly often been the case, that
women have uttered a thought, which men have
made their own, which they have worked out and
given to the world, unconscious, perhaps, that they
have merely decked out an idea which another
furnished.

Hartmann claims that women are closer to the
Unconscious, i.e., to the ultimate ground of exist-
ence, than men. Woman is to man, he says,
as instinctive, unconscious action is to reasonable
or conscious action. He is therefore not in favor
of a movement, which is to make women like unto
men, so far as the training and application of reason
is concerned ; though according to his philosophy,
the intuitive perceptions, which the mind draws
from the Unconscious, are utilized in behalf of

INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY. 123

the human race, only as they pass through a process
of close reasoning- and demonstration. He would
see woman retain her place as a tie, that aids the
connection between man and that ultimate ground
of existence, which he calls the Unconscious.*
Thus German Pessimism has found new cause why
woman should be denied the rights of reason ; not
in this case to gratify individual man, as in Mary
Wollstonecraft's days, but for the good of the race.
An explanation on psychological grounds is
offered by Dr. G. SimmeL* As the body of woman
resembles more that of a child, and is less differ-
entiated than that of man, so her mental proclivities,
her preferences and activities are gathered more
closely about a center, and present an existence
less specialized and independent. He defines
feeling as the sum of infinitely minute conceptions.
Where, as in the case of woman, feeling predomi-
nates, any single conception has little opportunity
to rise into prominence, by reason of the infinite
number of conceptions crowded together. The
whole receives attention rather than the parts ;
the result is considered rather than the factors ;
a decision is reached without dwelling on the
reasons that lead to it. This is the contrast
between feeling and conscious thought. Man's
mental activities are more differentiated ; he reaches
a logical conclusion by slow process. Woman

1 E. Von Hartniann : Philosophic desUnbewussten, Abschnitt.
B. Capitel xi.

- Dr. G. Simmel : Zur Psychologic cler Frauen. Zeitschrift
fur Volker Psychologic. Band xx. 1890.

124 INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY.

arrives at her conclusions with great rapidity, simply
because the abundance of conceptions do not call
forth searching thought, but yield their decision as
by an impulse. Development in the case of women
would thus lie in the direction of greater differ-
entiation, which implies training that would decrease
the tendency to feeling and increase the realm of
reason. This theory seems much in harmony with
the whole tenor of Mary Wollstonecraft's argument.
The solution of this question cannot be reached
until after women, for a number of generations,
have had perfect freedom to cultivate their powers
as they will. If the needs of the race continue to
demand of the majority of women a development
of mental functions, not of close resemblance to
those of men, they will not therefore be considered
intellectually inferior. Uniformity is not to be
gained at the cost of that healthful diversity which
perhaps nature intended.1 Mary Wollstonecraft's
proposition that reason must be the same in all,
does not to-day require proof. The nature of reason
is the same in man and woman, but the work which
the world requires of them may not, in some of its
aspects, be the same, and may therefore determine
shades of difference in the development of mental
resources. It is the problem of the future to give
free scope to the intellectual activities of all, to
break the fetterTwhichlEHe^Istinctions of sex have
laid upon the mental life of women, and thus to
utilize in behalf of the race the diversity of
natural endowment.

CHAPTER VII.

HER DISCUSSION OF WOMAN'S MORAL
INFERIORITY.

THE moral inferiority of women was to Mary
Wollstonecraft, in her day, as apparent as their
intellectual inferiority. In pointing out the causes,
that left the understanding of women in an un-
developed or perverted state, she dealt with the
facts of environment. Given the circumstances in
which women were placed, and the result must
inevitably be the condition, which she deplored. In
explaining the moral inferiority of women, her task
was beset with greater difficulties. The contro-
versy between the Intuitional and Utilitarian
Schools of English Ethics, the one taking a com-
plete set of ultimate ethical truths for granted, the
other making utility, or conduciveness to pleasure,
the standard of conduct, found its echo in the
Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The author
repeatedly refers to the nnsettled state of ethical
conceptions, and desires to see the time, when
morality will have a fixed basis, for then, she

126 HER DISCUSSION OF WOMAN'S

believed, women also would realize more fully, that
they are conscious moral agents.

There is little trace of the tenets of the
Utilitarian School in her views ; she was rather on
the side of the Intuitional School. Her friend,
Dr. Richard Price, was a member of this School.
In his Review of the Chief Questions and Difficul-
ties of Morals, he speaks of moral ideas as derived
from the u intuition of truth or immediate discern-
ment of the nature of things by the understanding."
Dr. Price revived the views of Cudworth of the
Cambridge School of Moralists, who maintained the
" essential and eternal distinctions of good and evil"
as independent of mere arbitrary will, whether
human or divine. The philosophers of this School
claimed, that the distinctions of good and evil have
an objective reality, and the knowledge of them
conies to the human mind from the divine. These
are views which Mary Wollstonecraft evidently
adopted, and in her Vindication of the Rights of
Woman they are to be found in their application to
her subject.

She argued, that one of the first and most far-
reaching causes of woman's moral inferiority, was
to be found in her inability to order her conduct
/according to the same eternal standard of virtue,
'which man considered binding to himself. The
principles, wrhich determined his conduct, were based
upon his relation to the supreme Being ; the conduct
of woman was made sufeject to the will of man.
Women were not permitted to turn to the founda-
tion of light, but were u forced to shape their

MORAL INFERIORITY. 127

course by the twinkling of a mere satellite.'' l
Hence not only the degree of virtue attained was
different in man and woman, but it was not the
same in kind, for they had not the same criterion
of morals. The virtues of women were often
fluctuating, having no other foundation than utility,
and of that utility men pretended arbitrarily to
judge, shaping it to their own convenience.

" To account for, and excuse the tyranny of
man," Mary Wollstonecraft says,

"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. ' ' -

That little hypothetical clause, " allowing them
to have souls," takes for granted, what in the early
centuries of the Christian era was a cause for
ecclesiastical controversy. The council at Macon,
in the sixth century, discussed at length the
question whether woman was in possession of a
soul. Mary Wollstonecraft is not called upon to
meet the foe thus openly ; he had hidden in her
day behind a tacit understanding, that though
women have souls, yet the distinction of sex must
confine these souls within certain limits.

With a view to enhancing woman's usefulness to
man, she was to practise those virtues, which fitted
her for her subordinate position. They were the

1 Rights of Woman, p. 50. - Ibid., p. 49.

128 HER DISCUSSION OF WOMAN'S

negative virtues, sometimes designated female
virtues, principally gentleness, forbearance and long-
suffering. But Mary Wollstonecraft makes a dis-
tinction between these virtues, when applied to the
Deity in poetic strains, bearing on their front all
the characteristics of grandeur, combined with the
winning graces of condescension, and these same
virtues when practised by helpless, oppressed women.
Gentleness, she says, loses its godlike character,
when it becomes the submissive demeanour of
dependence, the support of weakness that loves,
because it wants protection. It might be strictly
philosophical to recommend gentleness on a broad
basis to frail beings, but it could not then be termed
a virtue. Forbearance too, when it confounds
right and wrong, must cease to be a virtue. Thus
not even the negative virtues could nourish beneath
the sceptre of authority.

In Mary Wollstonecraft's day, as in ours, women
were credited with possessing more goodness of
heart, piety and benevolence than men. She doubts
this assumption, for ignorance would thus be made
the mother of devotion ; and is persuaded, that
" the proportion between virtue and knowledge
is more upon a par than is commonly granted."1
She is here in touch with some of the greatest
philosophers of her own times and previous times.
Spinoza, in the form of geometrical proof, gave the
most classical demonstration of the close connection
between reason and virtue. The existence of
altruistic impulses, that seemingly arise spontane-

1 Rights of Woman, p. 94.

MORAL INFERIORITY. 129

ously, without conscious relation to the intellect, is
not admitted by Mary Wollstonecraft. She would
not have the sensibility of women, their strong
attachments and instantaneous emotions of com-
passion interpreted as humanity, benevolence or
generosity ; for these qualities belong to mind as
well as nerves. " Besides," she says, " how can
women be just or generous, when they are the
slaves of injustice?" L

That woman should have been just, was thus to
her mind out of the question ; that she should have
been benevolent, again, was not to be expected ;
for ignorance kept her affections confined in a
narrow channel, concentrated upon her husband
and children, simply because they were her own.
Friendship, too, requiring reason as its cement, she
considered rare among women. Moreover with
respect to each other, she reasoned, they were all
rivals, and friendship was therefore almost im-
possible. Nor did she believe honesty and upright-
ness virtues peculiar to women ; she found that
they resorted rather to cunning and intrigue, the
qualities of him, who is subordinate and yet craves
power. Meanness and selfishness, Mary Wollstone-
craft considered the characteristics of women, not
because they were naturally so, but because their
absolute dependence upon men made them so.

With an unsparing hand Mary Wollstonecraft
pictures the women of her time as almost destitute
of virtue. Not one of her critics accuses her of

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 280.

17

130 HER DISCUSSION OF WOMAN'S

over-stepping the bounds of truth and fact ; on the
contrary, this portion of her work was commended
as applicable to a large proportion of women. With
/her intense hatred of shams, she accused her country-
women of undermining morality by substituting
the show for the substance. They desired the
appearance of virtue, though true worth was want-
ing. She cites the example of women, whom she
had known, who neglected every domestic duty, even
squandered away the money, which should have been
saved for their helpless young children ; and yet
plumed themselves on their unsullied reputation,
as if the whole compass of their duty as wives and
mothers was only to preserve it. She had seen
others, who were indolent and wanting in every
virtue, and yet thought they had a claim upon
their husband's affection, because they were faithful.
It is an indirect tribute to the state of morality
in England at that time, that women desired, above
all things, to be considered virtuous and true with
respect to very important phases of civilized society.
Mary Wollstonecraft refused to admit that it was
binding upon woman more than upon man, to keep
pure the hidden springs of social life. She speaks
with pity of the outcast from society, and demands
for her not mercy, but justice. With indignation
she points to the woman, who spurns contact with
her, who has offended against the laws of society ;
but receives into her presence him, who is also
guilty. She is not unfair in her demands for
\ equality in virtue ; for while she expects, that
women practise the whole range of virtues, even

i

MORAL INFERIORITY. 131

those, which are thought peculiar to men; she
expects equally, that men take their part in creating
an environment of healthful morality. So thorough
a student of the causes of woman's inferiority could
not overlook the fact, that an atmosphere of social
purity is an essential factor in the uplifting
of woman.

Character is formed by engaging in the acti-
vities of life. Women were hedged in by limita-
tions of various kinds, to the extent that normal
development of character was not within their
reach. They dared not pass out of the confined range
of their surroundings, in order to strive for some-
thing that seemed to them useful and desirable. By
carefully keeping them from contact with the con-
tending forces of active life, they were not, however,
made passionless ; in their little narrow scope, they
too had their passions. u By fits and starts they
are warm in many pursuits ; yet this warmth, never
concentrated into perseverance, soon exhausts itself;
exhaled by its own heat, or meeting with some
other fleeting passion, to which reason has never
given any specific gravity, neutrality ensues." l
Reason, which makes the steady, unflinching pur-
suit of some object possible, is not there to lend aid.
"When," Mary Wollstonecraft exclaims, "do we
hear of women, who, starting out of obscurity,
boldly claim respect on account of their great
abilities or daring virtues ? Where are they to be
found?" 2 In another place she gives her answer :

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 105. - Ibid., p. 101.

132 HER DISCUSSION OF WOMAN'S

" They were made to be loved, and must not aim at
respect, lest they should be hunted out of society
as masculine." l

The members of human society are necessarily
dependent upon each other, in the various relations
of life. Mary Wollstonecraft reasoned that the
dependence of women upon men had assumed an
exaggerated form. One of the occasional passages
of humour in her book describes the reliance of
women upon the physical support of men.

" In the most trifling dangers," she says, " they cling to their
support, with parasitical tenacity, piteously demanding succour ;
and their natural protector extends his arm, or lifts up his voice,
to guard the lovely trembler— from what? Perhaps the frown
of an old cow, or the jump of a mouse ; a rat would be a serious
danger. In the name of reason, and even common sense, what
can save such beings from contempt, even though they be soft
and fair?" -

This, she found was the result of confining
women to close rooms, till their muscles were
relaxed and those infantine airs were bred, that
degrade a rational being. She insisted that girls
should be sent out of doors to exercise, and that
fear, when displayed by them, instead of being
cherished, perhaps created, should be treated in
the same manner as cowardice in boys. "It is
true," Mary Wollstonecraft remarks, "they could
not then with equal propriety be termed the
sweet flowers that smile in the walk of man ;
but they would be more respectable members of
society." 3

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 69. 3 /&«?., p, 106.

3 Ibid., p. 107.

MORAL INFERIORITY. 133

But their physical dependence was only an accom-
paniment of their mental dependence. "Women,"
Mary Wollstonecraft claims, "are told from their
infancy, and are taught by the example of their
mothers, that a little knowledge of human weak-
ness, justly termed cunning, softness of 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 beauti-
ful, everything else is needless, for, at least, twenty
years of their lives."1 This was the character
which obtained for girls all their mothers desired
for them, and thus moral inferiority was passed
down from generation to generation.

Mary Wollstonecraft upbraids the women of her
times for their love of pleasure. Yet at the same time,
she points out, that this was simply another outcome
of their dependence on man. Had he desired a com-
panion in toil, they would have fitted themselves
for this place; for the seeking of pleasure was not a
quality belonging specifically to women. On the
other hand, he devoted his hours of leisure to them,
and wanted a toy, u a rattle, to jingle in his ears
whenever, dismissing reason, he chose to bej
amused." But virtue, in order to thrive, requires
healthier atmosphere than the pursuit of pleasure
can afford. The ambition to be man's companion
in his hours of leisure brought the activities of
women within very narrow limits. As Mary Woll-
stonecraft says : " Confined in cages like the feathered

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 49. 2 Ibid., p. 68.

134 HER DISCUSSION OF WOMAN'S

race, they have nothing to do but to plume them-
selves, and stalk with mock majesty from perch to
.perch. It is true, they are provided with food and
f raiment, for which they neither toil nor spin; but
t health, liberty, and virtue, are given in exchange."

It might almost seem as if Mary Wollstonecraft
had entered the ranks of writers of her day, who
spoke lightly of women, and found occasion for
witticism, as they reviewed the distorted form, which
virtue assumed in their lives. Yet how different
was her motive ! She described the symptoms of
the disease, in order to show, that her diagnosis
was correct. It is difficult, in our day, to appreciate
fully the serious drawbacks, experienced by the
women, in certain classes of society, a century ago,
who had been educated according to the approved
standard of female excellence of the day, and were
then called upon to meet the difficulties of life.
They had been educated for man ; yet man was not
educated for them. They were ill prepared for the
experience that awaited them, when dreams and
sentiment were made subordinate to the hard facts
of existence ; or perhaps wholly crushed by coldness
and harshness. Marriage could not eradicate the
habitude of life ; and the serious question then was,
whether a woman had sufficient native energy to
look into herself for comfort, and cultivate her
dormant faculties. Often the spirit may have been
broken by discontent, and moral inferiority estab-
lished to an extent, that might almost be termed
a human wreck.

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 98.

MORAL INFERIORITY. 135

The discussion of the causes of woman's inferi-
ority, as Mary Wollstonecraft traces them in their
effects even in the hidden springs of action, that
bless or curse private life, is not without its utili-
tarian element. She did not embrace the tenets of
the Utilitarian School in Ethics in its tendency to
make utility the sole standard of morality. Ques-
tions of mere utility had little hold upon her.
There is, instead, a deep conviction in her writings,
that happiness cannot be attained, when sought for
its own sake. She believed that that, which is 1
really of value in life, has to be attained amid stress I
and suffering. Yet she made the sound practical
demand to know to what extent human happiness
is attained by the prevailing system. Could woman,
made inferior intellectually and morally by a vari-
ety of causes, thus contribute to the fullest extent to
the well-being of the race? Did they, whose whole
education had had for its object, that they should be
made agreeable and useful to man, really make the
best wives? And did the women, who had been
rendered weak and trifling by surrounding condi- ,
tions make the best mothers ? This was bringing |
the problem to the practical test.

Mary Wollstonecraft answers these questions
emphatically in the negative. She pictures women
in the home ; at work, it is true, but in a restless,
unsystematic way ; and points to the quiet resolu-
tion and the serious kind of perseverance, that is
required to fulfil domestic duties. In the discharge
of even the simplest duties, she thinks, there must
be some plan of conduct ; yet how can a sense of

136 HER DISCUSSION OF WOMAN'S

order be expected " from a being who, from its
infancy, has been made the weathercock of its own
sensations. " i By the neglect of the understanding,
Mary Wollstonecraft claims, woman was detached
from domestic employments to a greater degree, than
could ever have been the case, by means of the most
serious intellectual pursuits. Reason is absolutely
necessary to aid in the performance of any duty,
and again she repeats that sensibility is not reason.
But does not feeling guide a woman aright in the
discharge of the duties, which motherhood lays upon
her ? An opinion prevailed, in her day as in ours ;
and no doubt much is to be said in favor of it ; that
by an innate instinct a mother knows what to do for
her child ; that her delicate tact can best devise
the means that lead to its development. This opi-
nion is directly opposed to the rationalistic basis of
Mary Wollstonecraft's reasoning in general, and she
makes no exception when her subject is the rela-
tion between mother and child. She demands an
enlightened maternal affection, as opposed to that
selfish attachment, which women have for their chil-
dren merely because they are their own. Mary Woll-
stonecraft unsparingly censures the women of her
times as neglectful of their duties as mothers.
Some sent their babes to a nurse, and only took
them from the nurse to send them to school.
Others, women of sensibility, who wished to do
their duty, but had not the sober, steady eye of
reason, that plans conduct equally distant from
tyranny and indulgence, vacillated between these

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 114.

MORAL INFERIORITY. 137

two extremes, and proved themselves unfit to
educate their children.

" To be a good mother," Mary Wollstonecraft says,
" a woman must have sense, and that independence
of mind, which few women possess, who are taught
to depend entirely on their husbands. Meek wives
are, in general, foolish mothers. They want their
children to love them best, and take their part, in
secret, against the father, who is held up as a scare-
crow." L The author recognizes the transgressions
against the law of heredity, of which men had been
guilty by demanding unconditioned obedience from
women, in exclaiming : " Who can tell, how many
generations may be necessary to give vigour to the
virtue and talents of the freed posterity of abject
slaves?" Moreover she thinks it "vain to expect
the present race of weak mothers either to take
that reasonable care of a child's body, which is
necessary to lay the foundation of a good consti-
tution ; or, to manage its temper so judiciously
that the child will not have, as it grows up, to
throw off all that its mother, its first instructor,
directly or indirectly taught."

Thus Mary Wollstonecraft pictures v/oman as
incapacitated even for that sphere, which, in accord-
ance with the laws of nature, and the common
opinion of mankind, is peculiarly her own ; weak,
because she leans on a being, who, like herself is
often in need of support ; unable to see in the true
light her relation to her kindred, and therefore
deprived of comfort and satisfaction, which should

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 227. z Ibid., p. 126.

18

138 HER DISCUSSION OF WOMAN'S

be the outcome of family relation ; shut out from
participation in those broad interests that concern
the welfare of the nation and of the human
race. In the performance of their duties, women
fell short in rendering to society that, which
was due. Yet though Mary Wollstonecraft points
out the failures and the weakness of women, as they
faced every important duty of life, justice compels
her again and again to call attention to the prin-
ciple, which has been slow in gaining a foothold in
human society, that where there are duties, there
are also rights. Authority, she says, cannot compel
women to discharge their duties in a virtuous
manner. But if, after they have received their
rights, and have learned how to use them, they
should continue to fail in the performance of their
duties, then, and not until then, it would be just to
term them beings, who are morally inferior by
nature.

Mary Wollstonecraft's discussion of the moral
inferiority of women is peculiarly one-sided. There
were many in her day, who shared her opinion that
women are morally inferior. She does not in this
respect stand isolated. Moreover, since she had set
herself the task of showing, that women suffered
because deprived of their rights, she was justified in
making her argument as forcible as she could, con-
sistent with truthfulness. If, to-day, her language
seems severe, it must be remembered that she
possessed the traits of the reformer, and shared the
reformer's tendency to exaggerate the evils against
which he is at war.

MORAL INFERIORITY. 139

It is not in this respect that her discussion is
open to criticism. A subtle error runs through her
argument, which has its root in her excessive ration-
alism. She makes the mistake of applying to the
moral nature of women a formula of rationalism,
and, according to this, demonstrates their inferiority.
To argue, that reason and virtue stand to each other
in close relation, that women have not learned to
use their reason, and that therefore they have no
virtue, is manifestly a proceeding that leads to a
false conclusion. Mary Wollstonecraft could not
arrive at a correct estimate of the moral status of
women, by exalting reason, and ignoring the func-
tion of conscience, of spontaneous impulses, that
gather strength from family traits, race characteris-
tics, general environment and religious motive.

CHAPTER VIII.

HER DEMANDS FOR THE EDUCATION OF
WOMAN.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT in her study of history,
and in her observations of the condition of man,
came to the conclusion, that either nature had made
great difference between man and man, or that the
civilization, that had hitherto taken place, had been
very partial. She says : "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." l

Her definition of education is as follows : "By
individual education, I mean, such an attention to a
child as will slowly sharpen the senses, form the
temper, regulate the passions as they begin to fer-
ment, and set the understanding to work before the
body arrives at maturity ; so that the man may only
1 The Rights of Woman, p. 31.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 141

liave to proceed, not to begin, the important task of
learning to think and reason." l She claims that
education is viewed in a false light, if it is regarded
as a preparation for life ; it is in itself and for all
human beings a good and desirable possession.

The conception of education, which makes human
perfection the end in view, has a strong ethical back
ground Where education is regarded in the light
of a preparation for life, there is necessarily a '
bending of ideals to mere questions of utility. Mary
Wollstonecraft's rationalistic tendencies here serve *
to form the basis of her views on education. The -•
perfectibility of human reason is the cornerstone,
and all the various schemes of life, which demand
a preparation, that runs counter to the claims of
human reason, to attain to a perfection, which should
be sought for its own sake, are set aside. She thus
lays the foundation for equality in pedagogical
lines. Distinction of sex is obliterated, where
reason and its perfectibility constitute the claim f
upon educational opportunities. Woman's right
to an education, regardless of the question whether
it will fit her, or unfit her, for her peculiar duties, is
thus established ; for she is endowed with reason,
and the demands of reason must first be satisfied,
the question of utility will find its own answer in
each individual case, as the mind unfolds.

Undoubtedly, Mary Wollstonecraft, not only in
the tendency of her philosophical, but also of her
pedagogical thought, sat at the feet of her great
countryman, John Locke. Locke's pedagogy is an

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 51.

142 THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN.

organic part of his philosophy. Since he considers
the mind as tabula rasa at birth, it is the object
of education to direct the impressions, which the
soul receives through the senses, in such a way,
that the powers of reason may be unfolded and
moral development keep pace with intellectual
growth. Reason and virtue stand in very direct
relation in his philosophy ; for reason guides the
will, and to think right, is to act right. Virtue and
happiness are to each other as cause and effect, and
virtue is cultivated by an habitual restraint upon
the desires and passions that seek those minor
possessions of life, which are calculated to satisfy
only temporary needs.

In her first little treatise on education, Mary
Wollstonecraft refers to Locke in the following
words : u To be able to follow Mr. Locke's system,
(and this may be said of almost all treatises on
education) the parents must have subdued their
own passions, which is not often the case in any
considerable degree." * There are sentences in this
little book that seem to point directly to Locke.
She says : " It is the duty of a parent to preserve
a child from receiving wrong impressions." 2 And
again : " Above all, try to teach them to combine
their ideas. It is of more use than can be con-
ceived, for a child to learn to compare things that
are similar in some respects, and different in
others." 3 This reasoning is certainly much after

1 Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, p. n, Condon 1787.

2 Ibid., p. 20.

3 The Rights of Woman, p. 22.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 143

the manner of Locke, and seems to indicate, that
she had followed his precepts, converted them into
practice, and was then coining them into advice,
which was the result of her own experience ; for
when she wrote her Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters, she was a teacher. The foundation of
her pedagogical views was therefore laid under the
influence of Locke. Rousseau's Emile, the second
great pedagogical treatise of the century, came into
her hands when her strictly educational career had
nearly come to a close. She found the book most
attractive, yet there is little direct trace of its
influence upon her educational views.

Locke's pedagogy was decidedly rationalistic,
while Rousseau's method in education was the
method of mental inactivity."1 Emile, until he is
fifteen years of age, is to be educated by the senses ;
reflection does not have a place ; for ideas are signs
that have to him no meaning. " Childhood," says
Rousseau, "is the sleep of reason,"2 and since
children are not capable of independent judgment,
it would not be wise to make them acquainted with
subjects, that are beyond their comprehension.
These expressions were plainly directed against
Locke, who says : "Children are at an early age
susceptible to reason, and consider it an honor to
be treated as reasonable beings." 3 Mary Woll-
stonecraft agrees with Locke: "It is easier, I grant,"
she says, " to command than reason ; but it does

1 Rousseau : Emile, Book II. \ 152.

2 Ibid., £114.

9 J. Locke : Some Thoughts on Education, $ 81.

144 THB EDUCATION OF WOMAN.

not follow that children cannot comprehend the
reason, why they are made to do certain things
habitually." L

In a short chapter on Duty to Parents^ in The
Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she protests
against the misuse of authority, which she had
often seen in the attitude of parents toward
their children. She says: "A slavish bondage to
parents cramps every faculty of the mind," and
quotes Mr. L,ocke as judiciously observing that, " if
the mind be curbed and humbled too much in
children ; if the spirits be abased and broken much
by too strict a hand over them ; they lose all their
vigour and industry." 2 Locke in his Treatise on
Civil Government claims in cool, logical argument,
that " the time comes when a child is as free from
subjection to the will and command of his father, as
the father himself is free from subjection to the will
of anybody else." 3 This thought is clothed by
Mary Wollstonecraft in more passionate language.
The memory of the species of tyranny, which she
endured under her parental roof adds warmth to
her protests. The revolutionary spirit penetrates
her views on education. She attacks the vestiges
of the patriarchal system, which, in its strongest
development, gave the father unlimited power even
over the life of his children.

Both I/ocke and Rousseau were in favor of
private education. The former, in Some Thoughts
concerning Education dealt with the education

i The Rights of Woman, p. 233. 2 Ibid., p. 232.

3 J. Locke : Treatise in Civil Government, VI. $ 66.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 145

by his tutor of a nobleman's son ; and the
latter, in his Emile took a boy of common capa-
city and depicted the help given by a tutor to
aid his natural course of development. Mary
Wollstonecraft evidently refers to this, when she
says : " 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." 1 Children
confined to the society of men and women soon
acquire, she thinks, a kind of premature manhood,
that stops the vigorous growth of mind or body. If
a number of children are made to pursue the same
objects, their faculties open and they are excited to
think for themselves. But however great a child's
affection for his parent may be, he will always long
to play and prattle with other children, and it is
only in the society of his equals in age, that he
acquires frank ingenuousness of behaviour and lays
the foundation of that broad love for humanity that
should mark the citizen.

Mary Wollstonecraft voiced the sentiments of
the French Republicans, in advocating national
education. She thus favored measures not sanction-
ed by Locke, and strenuously opposed by Rousseau.
Locke decided against it largely because a
teacher, who has charge of a number of children,
cannot give adequate attention to the individuali-
ty of each pupil. Rousseau, in the opening
remarks of his first chapter in Emile, discusses
the question, as to whether the end in view in

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 236.

19

146 THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN.

the education of his pupil is, to train him to be a
human being, or to be a citizen. As he made a
distinction between natural liberty and civil liberty,
so he distinguishes between man as nature moulds
him, who is everything in himself, and man the
citizen, whose value can only be determined by his
relations to social life. Emile, until he is fifteen
years of age, cultivates those virtues only, which
refer to himself. He is industrious, temperate,
patient, persistent, and full of courage. Of social
virtues he is ignorant; until after a period of rapid
transition, warm love for humanity springs up in
his heart, and with it the appreciation of the virtues
that bind society.

This course does not commend itself to Mary
Wollstonecraft. She would begin early to train
children to be good citizens. In the national schools,
which she advocated, in place of the various kinds of
private schools, then in vogue in England, she
desired various measures to be adopted, that would
nourish public spirit. Every species of tyranny
was to be excluded. She would banish the office
of ushers, who in their dependent position, were
often looked upon by the master in the light
of servants ; yet the pupils were expected to obey
them. " I believe," she says, " that experience will
ever prove, that this kind of subordinate authority
is particularly injurious to the morals of youth.
What indeed, can tend to deprave the character
more than outward submission and inward con-
tempt."1 This humane spirit was even to extend

1 The Rights_of Woman, p. 250.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 147

to the treatment of animals. " Humanity to
animals," she remarks, " should be particularly
inculcated as a part of national education, for it is
not at present one of our national virtues." l In
advocating this, she looked not only to the well-being
of the animals, that fell into the way of boys at
school and furnished them rare sport ; she looked to
the consequences of habitual cruelty practised during
school-days. " The transition, as they grow up,
from barbarity to brutes, to domestic tyranny over
wives, children and servants, is very easy ; justice,
or even benevolence, will not be a powerful
spring of action unless it extend to the whole
creation."

A peculiarly democratic measure, which Mary
Wollstonecraft would see introduced into national
schools, was that of making children and youths
independent of the masters respecting punishments.
" They should be tried by their peers, which would
be an admirable method of fixing sound principles
of justice in the mind, and might have the happiest
effect on the temper, which is very early soured or
irritated by tyranny, till it becomes peevishly
cunning or ferociously overbearing." 2 Objections
might be raised against this measure, on the ground
that children would have the character of the citizen
impressed upon them, at too early an age; for
justice seems rather to be a virtue peculiar to riper
years. Yet children, who passed through schools,
where they had not become accustomed to dread
the display of despotic power, on the part of the

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 256. 2 Ibid., p. 254.

148 THF, EDUCATION OF WOMAN.

master, and had learned to look upon each other as
equals, associating with each other as such ; and
had even been introduced to the science of weighing-
each other's conduct in the balance of justice, would
be in possession of training, that would tend to
ripen the powers for an early participation in the
duties of a democratic government.

This measure had been advocated by Prince
Talleyrand, in his pamphlet on The Improvement of
National Education. Some of the opinions express-
ed in this pamphlet, had been adopted by Mary
Wollstonecraft. Talleyrand, whose views in the
direction of ecclesiastical reform had had such mark-
ed effect upon the National Assembly in France,
had opinions to offer on educational matters also ;
for France was at that time in a political position to
revise its system of education. The new constitu-
tion, drawn up by the French Republicans, shortly
before Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her Vindication of
the Rights of Woman, provided for general educa-
tion, but omitted measures for the education
of girls after the age of eight. They were to be
trained by their parents at home, chiefly in the
domestic arts, since they only were considered
useful for them. Condorcet alone believed in the
intellectual equality of the sexes. In England
education did not become a national concern until
the latter part of the present century. An English
author writes : " Three centuries have passed
away since England, through the Protestant
Reformation, declared that light was better than
darkness, and only seventeen years since we

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 149

decided that light was better for the mass of the
people." '

However much may be said in favour of national
education, the system has its defects, and some of
these were pointed out by Godwin in his Political
Justice. In his chapter on National Education,
after stating the arguments generally brought for-
ward in its favour, he mentions, under three heads,
the injuries which may result from it. In the first
place, all public establishments include the idea of
permanence. Though they realize the most substan-
tial benefits at the time of their introduction, this
must inevitably become less and less the case, as they
increase in duration, until finally they actively res-
train the flights of mind, and fix it in the belief of
exploded errors. God win says; " It has frequently
been observed of universities, and extrusive estab-
lishments for the purpose of education, 'that the
knowledge taught there, is a century behind the
knowledge, which exists among the unshackled
and unprejudiced members of the same political
community." 2 His charge is, that public education
has always expended its energies in the support of
prejudice ; that it teaches its pupils, not the forti-
tude, that shall bring every proposition to the test of
examination, but the art of vindicating such
tenets, as may chance to be established; and this

1 Thomas Kirkup : An Inquiry into Socialism, p. 23. Condon
1887.

2 William Godwin : Enquiry concerning Political Justice and
its influence on Morals and Happiness. Fourth Edition,

1842. Volume II, p. 143.

150 THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN.

charge is not a light one. Godwin is jealous for
intellectual freedom. The instant, when a man
decides upon closing the career of enquiry, is equiva-
lent to him, to the instant of his intellectual
decease.

The second defect in the system of national
education is psychological. It is in accordance
with the nature of man's mind, that whatever each
man does for himself, is done well ; whatever his
neighbours, or his country, undertake to do for him,
is done ill. There must be desire, either to teach
or to learn, before enthusiasm and energy carry the
effort forward to success. Man estimates at its
true value, that, which he acquires, because he
desires it, while that, which is thrust upon him, may
make him indolent, but cannot make him respect-
able. This reverts to one of Godwin's funda-
mental propositions, that "unpatronized truth is in-
adequate to the purpose of enlightening mankind."

The third point which Godwin makes, is that
national education means the alliance between edu-
cation and the government, an alliance, which seems
to him more formidable, than the much contested
alliance between church and state. Government,
he believes, would not fail to strengthen its hands,
and to perpetuate its institutions. The views of
its agents, as institutors of a system of education,
would be analogous to the data, upon which their
conduct as statesmen is vindicated. Godwin says :
" Had the scheme of a national education been
adopted, when despotism was most triumphant, it
is not to be believed, that it could have for ever

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 15!

stifled the voice of truth. But it would have been
the most formidable and profound contrivance for
that_purpose, that imagination can suggest. "

Professor Menger says of Godwin, that the germs
of the ideas of modern socialism and anarchism are
to be found in his work.1 Looking at this small
chapter of his work, it is evident that his argument
is turned against socialism. In the objection on
psychological grounds, he uses the argument, which
is one of the strongest, that socialism has to face.
Equality of opportunity, the watchword of social-
ism, finds no place in this most important factor in
human development. He is, in this case, on the
side of anarchy, advocating complete negation of
government control, while all power is vindicated
to the individual, to carry on his investigations
concerning truth and justice in his own way. The
question, as to how opportunity is to be offered,
finds its answer in his views on property, which
give him an important place in the historical
part of the discussions of to-day, on this vexed
question in economic science. His theory is,
that each member of the community has a perma-
nent right to the use of those things, which,
attributed to him, result in a greater sum of
benefit or pleasure, than if otherwise appropriated.
This theory seems Utopian, even after a century of
much agitation, concerning the unequal distribution
of wealth. Yet the principle is one that governs
many well regulated families ; communistic socie-

1 Dr. Anton Menger : Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitser-
trag. Zweite Auflage. Stuttgart, 1891, p. 40.

152 THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN.

ties have applied it to practice on a larger scale.
Godwin, however, admits, that a complete moral
change must be wrought in mankind, before this
principle can to any extent be reduced to practice.
Mary Wollstonecraft deals with the actual facts
in the economic conditions of her times, that made
it desirable, that the nation should carry on the
work of education. Her course is in the direction
of socialism. Her criticism of the system of edu-
cation prevalent in England at the time, was all
levelled against the interference of property with
pedagogical principles. Two kinds of schools
were in vogue, boarding schools and day schools,
and both were private enterprises. The evils, which
follow in the train of private property, foremost of
which is competition, were of peculiar effect here.
Mary Wollstonecraft spoke from experience ; for she
too had conducted a day-school, and had found herself
dependent on the caprice of parents. She describes,
how the master finds himself under necessity of
giving the parents some sample of the boy's abilities,
which during vacation is shown to every visitor ;
how he loads the memory of the pupil with un-
intelligible words, of which to make a show ; and
winds the poor machine up to some extraordinary
exertion, that injures the wheels and stops the
progress of gradual improvement. " Yet how can
these things be remedied," she says, " whilst school-
masters depend entirely on parents for a subsistence ;
and, when so many rival schools hang out their
lures to catch the attention of vain fathers and
mothers, whose parental affection only leads them

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 153

to wish that their children should outshine those
of their neighbours ?m This evil must have had
unusual scope at that time in England; for she
adds : " Without great good luck, a sensible, con-
scientious man would starve before he could raise a
school, if he disdained to bubble weak parents by
practising the secret tricks of the craft."

In boarding schools the strain was apparent in
another direction. The parents were often in quest
of the cheapest schools, and the master could not
live, if he did not take a much greater number than
he could manage. Many crammed together, the
body, heart and understanding were equally stunted.
Boys, who, at great expense, lived with the masters
and assistants, were never domesticated ; for the
former kept up an intercourse with the nobility,
which introduced vanity and extravagance into
their families. Those professions, says Mary Woll-
stonecraft, are most debasing, whose ladder is patron-
age ; yet out of one of these professions the tutors
of the boys were chosen. " But, can they be ex-
pected to inspire independent sentiments, whose
conduct must be regulated by the cautious prudence
that is ever on the watch for preferment?" She
continues : "So far, however, from thinking of
the morals of boys, I have heard several masters of
schools argue, that they only undertook to teach
Latin and Greek ; and that they had fulfilled their
duty, by sending some good scholars to college."2

Her remarks in this connection show how closely
she occasionally touches the doctrines of socialism.

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 244. 2 Ibid., p. 242.

20

154 THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN.

She admits, that a few good scholars may have
been formed by emulation and discipline, but she
regrets the health and morals of the large number,
who have been sacrificed to bring forward these few
clever boys. "It is not for the benefit of society,"
she says, " that a few brilliant men should be
brought forward at the expense of the multitude.
It is true that great men seem to start up, as great
revolutions occur, at proper intervals, to restore
order, and to blow aside the clouds that thicken
over the face of truth ; but let more reason and
virtue prevail in society, and these strong winds
would not be necessary." 1 Her contention is
against an aristocracy of learning ; though she
perceives, that where there is equality of opportu-
nity, and the survival of the fittest does not imply
so much of stress, exceptionally great men will no
longer arise, but the average will rise to a higher
level. She is in favour of a high average.

The restraint and wearisome confinement, in
boarding schools for girls, was even greater than that
endured by boys. Even in their hours of recre-
ation, as Mary Wollstonecraft had seen in some
institutions, they were not allowed to play in the
garden, in healthful exercise, but were obliged to
pace with steady deportment, stupidly backwards
and forwards, in the one broad walk ; holding up
their heads and turning out their toes, with shoul-
ders braced back. " The pure animal spirits, which
make both mind and body shoot out, and unfold
the tender blossoms of hope, were turned sour, and

Rights of Woman, p. 242.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 155

were vented in vain wishes or pert repinings, that
contract the faculties and spoil the temper." * Some
of the characteristics of the female mind, that Mary
Wollstonecraft deplores, she traces to the influences
that stunted the development of girls in these
boarding schools.

The author draws a pleasing picture of the
country day-school, where a boy trudged in the
morning, wet or dry, carrying his books, and
returned in the evening to recount the feats of the
day close at the parental knee. She appeals to
many superior men, who were educated in this
manner, whether their father's home was not ever
after fondly remembered ; and whether the recol-
lection of some shady lane, where they conned their
lesson, or of some stile, where they sat making a
kite, did not endear their country to them. Those
day-schools, she believed, contained the most impor-
tant elements of a sound education ; for they gave
opportunity for that blending of home influences and
school discipline, that tends to mould the citizen.
" Public education, of every denomination," she
says, "should be directed to form citizens ; but if you
wish to make good citizens, you must first exercise
the affections of a son and a brother. This is the
only way to expand the heart ; for public affections
as well as public virtues must ever grow out of the
private character."1

This is a beautiful vindication of home life and
family ties. In the State, the individual finds his
highest development ; yet this cannot be attained

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 246. 2 Ibid., p. 242.

156 THE EDUCATION OK WOMAN.

without the nurture of the heart, and that exercise
of youthful sympathies, to which family life gives
play. Affection for mankind is seldom found in
those, " who did not first love their parents, their
brothers, sisters, and even the domestic brutes, their
first play-mates." * If children were separated from
their parents for educational purposes, Mary Woll-
stonecraft doubts, whether they would become better
citizens, by sacrificing the preparatory affections
and thus " destroying the force of relationships
that render the marriage state as necessary as it is
respectable." 2

Those who, judging from the title, expected to
find that the Vindication of the Rights of Woman
attacked the sanctity of the family, had here the
strongest evidence, that this was not the case. The
claims, which children have upon that permanent
union of their parents, that forms the foundation of
the influences, that have the most powerful bearing
upon their lives, is here respected and insisted
upon. Moreover, since the immediate care of the
children devolves upon the mother, Mary Woll-
stonecraft marked out to a majority of women their
chief employment, for at least a term of years. She
expresses this in another connection in the follow-
ing words : " Speaking of women at large, their
first duty is to themselves as rational creatures, and
the next in point of importance, as citizens, is that,
which includes so many, of a mother." The
duties of motherhood do not, according to her

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 243. 2 Ibid., p, 243.

3 Ibid., p. 218.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 157

opinion, take the first place. Woman owes it to
herself and to the family, which she may rear, to
strive in the direction of a rich intellectual and
moral maturity, that shall fit her to choose the
kind of work, to which she would give herself,
whether this work is dictated by the claims of
maternity, or by fitness for other pursuits.

Mary Wollstonecraft is in advance of her time, in
her demand, that mothers should represent person-
ality in themselves. They are not to sink into the
daily routine of caring for their children's wants,
generally the material wants only ; for the
mother, who is reduced to the drudge, has lost the
elasticity of mind, that keeps step with the
mental growth of her children. "If children
are to be educated to understand the true prin-
ciple of patriotism, their mother must be a
patriot," Mary Wollstonecraft rightly says. The
Vindication of the Rights of Woman has the aim of
making women better mothers ; and by insisting
that education should not take children out of
their homes, the author leaves the full range of
those maternal activities open, that put into the
hands of women some of the highest and most far-
reaching duties, which the State can call upon its
citizens to perform. So far then from cramping
maternal instincts, their rightful and honored place
in the organism of the State is vindicated to them.

The object, which Mary Wollstonecraft seeks
mainly to accomplish by advocating national edu-
cation is the introduction of co-education. Her
plan for the establishment of national schools is as

158 THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN.

fallows : The teachers are to be chosen by a select
committee in each parish, to whom complaints of
negligence can be made ; if signed by six of the
children's parents. Without distinction of sex or
wealth, children under nine years of age are to
be taught in schools absolutely free to all, and
obliged to submit to the same discipline, or leave
the school. In order to prevent any distinctions of
vanity, she would even see the children dressed
alike. But study is not to be made irksome to the
little ones ; they are not to be confined to sedentary
employment for more than an hour at a time ; but
much is to be taught them by way of relaxation.
The school-room is to be surrounded by a large
piece of ground, and here they are to be taught the
elements of botany, astronomy and mechanics ; for
" many things improve and amuse the senses, when
introduced as a kind of show, to the principles of
which, dryly laid down, children would turn a
deaf ear." i

She evidently anticipates in these sensible
measures the modern Kindergarten. She would
also see the Socratic form of teaching by conver-
sation introduced, as the best way of teaching
children the elements of religion, history and
politics. It is to be noticed, that she does not
omit the study of religion in her plan for national
education. After the age of nine, differentiation
is to begin, natural aptitude and individual choice
is to be taken into consideration ; and while all
remain together in the morning, to continue their
1 The Rights of Woman, p. 251.

THE: EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 159

studies, the afternoons may be devoted by boys to
learning mechanical trades, by girls to learning
to do house- work and millinery. She would
thus place industrial training also under national
protection.

Co-education forms the central and well defined
thought of the chapter on national education. In
advocating the desirability of educating young
people together, she tread on new ground ; for at
that time not even a limited practical experience
offered foundation for theory. Yet, as she had
claimed throughout, that the nature of reason is the
same in all ; and had denounced the system of
female education, which exaggerated feeling and
neglected the understanding, it remained to be
shown, how that reason was to receive the training,
that would enable woinan^jto take her place by the
side of man. Nothing could seem a simpler solu-
tion than co-education.

She did not hesitate, lest by advocating something
new, she might destroy that, which had borne well
the test of experience. There is a touch of sarcasm
in the last sentence of the following appeal, which
she makes to the French nation :

" Let an enlightened nation then try, what effect reason
would have, to bring women back to nature, and their duty ;
and allowing them to share the advantages of education and
government with man, see whether they will become better as
they grow wiser and become free. They cannot be injured by
the experiment ; for it is not in the power of man to render
them more insignificant than they are at present." l

Women had nothing to lose, and much to gain.

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 250.

l6o THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN.

It is significant of the socialistic tendency of the
demands of Mary Wollstonecraft, that she expects
equality in education not through individual effort,
but as a right granted by broad national policy.
The only criticism that can be made to-day, is, that
her demands did not reach far enough. She rightly
demanded that primary schools should be national
establishments ; had she followed this to its logical
consummation, she would have demanded, that
higher education likewise should be sheltered by
national institutions, open to rich and poor, man and
woman, regardless of colour and creed. This would
have been in accordance with the inherent tendency
of the process of social development at the present
time. She took the first step ; in the midst of the
second she halted. In sketching her plan for a
system of national education, after speaking of
primary education, she says : " The young people of
superior abilities, or fortune, might now be taught,
in another school, the dead and living languages,
the elements of science, and continue the study of
history and politics, on a more extensive scale." l
This would make the right of entry, to the institu-
tions for higher education, the privilege of wealth.
Class distinction would thus remain, to divide
society into two classes, the educated and the unedu-
cated. Equality of opportunity cannot be realized,
where the mere possession of riches can secure one
of the most influential privileges, that of education.

Mary Wollstonecraft is very moderate in her
demands for the higher education of women. She

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 251.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. l6l

was treading on unknown territory ; for though the
brilliant achievements of some of the women of her
times might have fanned her hopes; yet, in her
book, she resolutely looks away from the excep-
tional cases, and confines herself to the plain, dull
average ; and there she had nothing to inspire hope
beyond the fact, that woman is in possession of
reason, and that reason in its nature must be the
same in all. Her hints and suggestions are given
largely with a view to fitting them for their posi-
tion in the home ; for it is her chief contention, that
the ignorance, in which women are kept, tends to
incapacitate the maternal character, and thus takes
woman out of her sphere. The ignorance of
women, she claims, renders the infancy of man
a much more perilous state than that of animals.
If it were only on this account, she deems the
national education of women of the utmost im-
portance. u In public schools therefore, to guard
against the errors of ignorance, women should be
taught the elements of anatomy and medicine, not
only to enable them to take care of their own
health, but to make them rational nurses of their
children, parents and husbands."1 They should be
led to observe the progress of the human under-
standing in the improvement of the sciences and
arts; "never forgetting the science of morality,
or the study of the political history of mankind."

It might seem, in considering these special lines
of study, which Mary Wollstonecraft recommends
to women, that, after all, the distinction of sex is to

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 263.

1 62 THE EDUCATION OK WOMAN.

enter education. She says nothing of a classical
education, of the severe mental drill, which men
must undergo. Expediency seems to be the motive
that inspires her advice ; she would have women
trained to fulfil domestic duties, to be wise mothers.
Even if this were the case, there would be a wide
difference, between this end in view, and that of
writers of her day, who merely sought to educate
women in a way, that they might be pleasing to
men. Does Mary Wollstonecraft merit the charge,
that after she had fought sexual distinction in the
realm of mind everywhere else, she leaves space
here for the entering wedge ?

It might seem so on the surface. Looking
deeper, however, it appears that Mary Wollstone-
craft had an insight into the needs of the human
race, beyond that of many educationalists even of
the present time. Her observations concerning
higher education do not extend very far, but she
insists on co-education throughout. She does not
give a forecast of the college woman of to-day, nor
does she discuss the advisability of Medical Colleges
for women, distinct from those of men. It is suffi-
cient, that at a time, seventy-five years in advance
of the first woman, who held her diploma as a medical
practitioner, she possessed the optimism to say :
" Women might certainly study the art of healing
and be physicians as well as nurses." * Her remarks,
which seemingly look to expediency only, indicate
a perception, dim perhaps, and not fully enunciated,
that after the whole range of educational advantages

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 221.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 163

had been opened out to women, by means of
eo-education ; and after individualism had thus
received its just dues, in an unrestrained opportunity
of choice, that then differentiation according to sex
may begin, and that women, to a good degree,
must specialize in the studies, that pertain to home-
life. The study of sociology has opened out, in our
own day, avenues of research, which seem specially
inviting to women. Mary Wollstonecraft's scant
suggestions seem to point to this field of enquiry,
as offering opportunity for investigation of both
theoretical and practical nature. The true constitu-
tion of the family and its various functions, the
bearing of domestic economy upon political econo-
my, the prevention of crime, and many other
social problems await their solution, to some extent,
at the hands of women.

Mary Wollstonecraft left the widest scope to the
self-assertiveness of the individual, but combines
with this a full appreciation of the relation of
the individual to the progress of the race. The
individual must be subordinate to the process of
development, that carries forward humanity ; yet
in serving the interests of the whole, he takes the
path, that leads most readily to the furtherance of
his personal welfare. This conception Mary Woll-
stonecraft has embodied in her views concerning
the education of women ; and has thereby given
to her demands the character of reasonableness and
applicability.

CHAPTER IX.

HER VINDICATION OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS
OF WOMAN.

SHORTLY before Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her
Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Talley-
rand Perigord, late Bishop of Autun, with whom
she was personally acquainted, had published a
pamphlet on National Education, in which he
observed, that u to see one-half of the human race
excluded by the other from all participation of
government, was a political phenomenon that,
according to abstract principles, it was impossible
to explain." She took for granted, that he had
herewith admitted the correctness of the principles,
which lay at the basis of her demands. With full
confidence in him as a staunch supporter of liberal
views, she hoped that opportunity would offer,
when his influence could do much to bring those
principles to the practical test in behalf of women.
In the beginning of that century, authors were
wont, in a somewhat slavish spirit, to dedicate their
books to their patrons of rank and means, in the

THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 165

hope, that their words of flattery would realize for
them an adequate recompense. Motives of this
kind were far from influencing the author of the
Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She was
animated by the democratic spirit of her times.
The commendation of the people was the reward
she sought; and the acceptance of the measures,
which she advocated, her highest ambition. The
French nation seemed to her to stand foremost
among the nations, in its readiness to examine new
thoughts, and its ability to apply them. She thought
that some of the great minds, who formed the
constitution of the French Republicans, would coin-
cide with her, and that when this constitution was
revised, the rights of woman would be respected.

Mary Wollstonecraft opposed the commonly ac-
cepted opinion, that woman's activities could be
confined to domestic affairs. The events of the
French Revolution had plainly shown, that women,
however ignorant they might be, would interest
themselves in political affairs ; and that, " if they
were not permitted to enjoy legitimate rights, they
would intermeddle with cunning tricks and dark
intrigues, in order to obtain illicit privileges." She
maintained, that unless it could be proven, that
women are not in possession of reason, the State
has no right to exclude them from a participation
in the natural rights of mankind. This she con-
siders the flaw in the New Constitution, in which
French Democracy gloried. It seemed to indicate
that man must, in some shape, act like a tyrant ;
" and tyranny, in whatever part of society it rears

1 66 THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

its brazen front, will ever undermine morality."
A people like the French, who had contended for
their freedom, and for the privilege of being allowed
to judge for themselves, respecting their own happi-
ness, could not now, she thought, be so inconsistent
and unjust^ that they should continue to subjugate
women. That they firmly believed, that they were
acting in the manner best calculated to promote
the happiness of women, did not, she thought,
detract from the injustice ; for "who made man the
exclusive judge, if woman partake with him the
gift of reason ? "

To some extent Mary Wollstonecraft shared in
the confidence, which some of the reformers of her
times had in the efficacy of liberty. She thought
the boon of freedom would be an effectual means of
the regeneration of women. Her appeal to men is :
" Make them free, and they will quickly become
wise and virtuous." 1 There is a touch of im-
patience in this demand, as if the application of a
single formula could work the change, which im-
proved conditions only can bring about in the slow
process of growth. This was but the noble species
of impatience, that possesses the reformer. Yet, she
was too practical and withal had too much of that
philosophical trait, which traces effects back to
their causes, to consider freedom, by itself, a solution
of the real and positive difficulties and necessities
of social life.

As an educator, Mary Wollstonecraft reposed
confidence in the exercise of the understanding, and

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 261.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 167

in the habits of virtue that form the heart. But
she did not believe that private education could
work the wonders, which some writers had attrib-
uted to it ; for men and women must be educated in
a great degree by the opinions and manners of the
society in which they live. " In every age there
has been a stream of popular opinion, that has
carried all before it, and given a family character,
as it were, to the century."1 Unless, therefore,
society be differently constituted, education must,
in a degree, be ineffectual. There is here a broad
conception of the state. With all her individual-
ism, that claimed for each the right to strive un-
hindered for perfection, Mary Wollstonecraft yet
perceives, that the state is an organic whole, of
which the individual forms but a part. Education,
which is directed to the individual, is well-nigh
powerless, if its precepts do not run parallel with
the principles, that govern the state.

This reciprocal relation between the individual
and the state lends substance to her claim, that
women must either advance or retard progress.
They form a part of the whole, and legislators
cannot set aside, lightly, so prominent a factor in
the weal or woe of a nation. Public virtues are
based upon private virtues, which send their roots
deep into the life of the home. The purity of
private life, without which a nation cannot be
strong and free, has its hidden springs in the posi-
tion of woman ; impure and foul, if the charms of
her sex form her claim upon a place in society ;

1 Ibid., p. 52.

l68 THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

pure and invigorating, if she earns for herself that
respect, which soundness of understanding and
firmness of character call forth. Children, the hope
of the nation, receive the nurture of true patriotism,
when the mothers have that broad love of mankind,
that can only be produced, by habitually consider-
ing the moral and civil interests of mankind.

What then, is the form of government, that would
offer to woman that ample opportunity, without
which education must remain one-sided and in-
effectual ? Of monarchy Mary Wollstonecraft sees
naught but the abuses, and overlooks the fact, that
monarchies, forming a necessary step in the progress
of the human race, must possess some portion of
intrinsic merit. The Revolutionists in England
were wont to point to the court of the king of
France, as the hot-bed of vice, which poisoned the
nation. Their own king, George III., was not an
example of a great and enlightened ruler. His
narrow despotism was scarcely in keeping with
British independence. History seemed to support
the general statement, that "it is impossible for any
man, even when the most favorable circumstances
concur, to acquire sufficient knowledge and strength
of mind to discharge the duties of a king, entrusted
with uncontrolled power." * Though actuated by
the best of intentions, he was surrounded by an
indolent court, from which the contagion of luxury
spread and became the instrument of tyranny.

The days of true heroism, when men fought
for the safety of their country, Mary Wollstone-

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 44.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 169

craft thought, were over; and now soldiers could
only gather their vainglorious laurels, whilst
they adjusted to a hair the European balance.
Standing armies had become schools of despotism,
because despotism was necessary, to give vigour to
enterprizes, that one will directed. The statesman,
too, whose chief merit lay in the art of keeping
himself in place, considered a war a fortunate oppor-
tunity for himself. " The whole system of British
politics, if system it may courteously be called, con-
sists in multiplying dependents and contriving taxes
which grind the poor to pamper the rich." l Every
rank in society was eager to get the gold, which
so surely paved the way to respect. Poverty,
Mary Wollstonecraft claimed, in her time, could
degrade a man more than vice in the eyes of his
fellowinen. The preposterous distinctions of rank,
dividing the world between voluptuous tyrants and
cunning, envious dependents, corrupted almost
every class of people, because respectability was not
attached to the discharge of the relative duties of
life, but to the station.

This is the picture, which Mary Wollstonecraft
unrolls before the reader, of the conditions, as she
saw them, existing under monarchical government.
She did not share in the admiration of Montesquieu,
and other great minds of that century, for British
constitutional government, but pointed to the abuses
of power, rank and wealth, which stifled the best
aspirations of the individual. " For a man," she says,
"there are still some loop-holes, out of which he may

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 216.

22

THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

creep, and dare to think and act for himself ; but
for a woman it is an Herculean task, because she
has difficulties peculiar to her sex to overcome,
which require almost superhuman powers."

A representative government, with universal
suffrage, is evidently the ideal, which Mary Woll-
stonecraft desires to see realized. Such a system of
government could give to women a civil and politi-
cal existence in the most natural way. It would
open a road, by which women of a superior cast
could pursue more extensive plans of usefulness
and independence. She pointedly remarks, " I
may excite laughter by dropping a hint, which I
mean to pursue some future time, for I really think
that women ought to have representatives, instead
of being arbitrarily governed, without having any
direct share allowed them in the deliberations of
government." * This thought she intended to
elaborate in a second volume of the Vindication
of the Rights of Woman, which, however, owing
to her early death, was never written. Her next
remark shows, that she had little confidence in the
British system of representation, as it then was.
She thinks women need not complain ; u for they
are as well represented as a numerous class of hard-
working mechanics, who pay for the support of
royalty, when they can scarcely stop their children's
mouths with bread." *

To France she turns, with the hope of seeing
the suffrage of women included in universal
suffrage. Bluntschli speaks of a petition, signed

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 220. 2 Ibid., p. 221.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 171

by many women and addressed to the king, in the
early days of the French Revolution, requesting
that women be admitted to the rights of citizens,
that suffrage be extended to them, and that they
receive power to elect representatives from their
own number. Condorcet, the philosopher, recom-
mended this petition, nevertheless the National
Assembly, with scorn and derision expressed their
unwillingness to receive it. L It is very probable
that Mary Wollstonecraft knew of this circum-
stance ; and if she did, it could but have encouraged
her, to believe that a strong appeal, backed
by argument such as her book contained, would
prepare the minds of legislators to regard a
second attempt to introduce woman's suffrage
with more favor. Talleyrand, who was yet
regarded with favor by the French Republicans,
and who had shown, that his powers to carry his
point in the National Assembly ranked very high,
was sent to England in the beginning of 1792 on a
political mission. It must have been on this occa-
sion, that his visit to Mary Wollstonecraft's lodg-
ings in George Street, which Fuseli's biographer2
records, took place ; when they drank tea together,
and discussed social and political problems. The
time of his visit in England coincides with that of
the publication of the Vindication of the Rights
of Woman.

There is room for conjecture concerning the
hopes, which Talleyrand may have held out, of

1 J. C. Bluntschli : Allgemeine Staatslehre, p. 228.

2 John Knowles : The Life of Fuseli ; Volume I, p. 160.

1 72 THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

championship in the cause, that she had made her
own, which led her to dedicate her book to him,
and in doing so, to make a direct appeal to the
French nation. But the days of Talleyrand's popu-
larity with the French Republicans soon after came
to an end. Exiled from France and England, he
embarked to America. A man of unusually
chequered career, Mary Wollstonecraft's confidence
in him was misplaced. Equally futile was her hope,
that French Republicans would seriously consider
her appeal. Had she turned to those colonists
across the Atlantic, who were then framing laws
and drawing up their constitution, she would have
addressed the nation, which was destined to be the
first to extend suffrage to women.

In demanding the enfranchisement of women,
Mary Wollstonecraft looked to their political exist-
ence. But she considered the civil rights of women
equally in need of vindication. When a woman
discharged her civil duties, when, while her hus-
band was employed in any of the departments of civil
life, she was intent on managing her family,
educating her children and assisting her neighbours,
as an active citizen, it seemed but right that she
should enjoy, individually, the protection of civil
laws. That ancient opinion, which considers the
husband the representative of his wife's opinions
and interests before the law, finds no justification
in Mary Wollstonecraft's eyes. She says : " The
laws respecting woman, which I mean to discuss
in a future part, make an absurd unit of a man and
his wife ; and then by the easy transition of only

THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 173

considering him as responsible, she is reduced to a
mere cypher." l Not only a political and a civil
existence does she vindicate for woman, but also an
economic existence.

She claims for women the right to work, and this
demand gives her a place among the thinkers of her
century, who foreshadowed the claims of the
various socialistic and communistic systems, which
characterized the early part of the present century.
" Is not that government very defective," she says,
"and very unmindful of the happiness of one-half of
its members, that does not provide for honest
independent women, by encouraging them to fill
respectable stations?" How many women waste
life away, the prey of discontent, "who might have
practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed
a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own
industry." The few employments open to women
at that time, so far from being liberal, were menial.
When women were in possession of superior educa-
tion, they could take charge of the education of
children as governesses ; yet these situations were
often rendered humiliating. Women, educated
like gentlewomen, when forced by necessity to fill
them, were looked upon as degraded thereby. This
offers a glimpse of economic conditions, in their
influence upon the position of woman, in the days
before the doctrine, that work is a right and the
only legitimate means of retaining an honorable
place in society, had made much headway among
civilized nations. Mary Wollstonecraft makes the

1 The Rights of Woman, p. 218. 2 Ibid., p. 223.

174 THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

charge, that men performed their duties by deputies,
and women desired above all things to be ladies,
which meant, u simply to have nothing to do, but
listlessly to go, they scarcely know where, for they
cannot tell what." L

It was very natural, that Mary Wollstonecraft
should dwell upon this aspect of the position of
woman ; for she herself had, at an early age, been
under necessity to provide for her own wants and to
aid her family. She had thus learned by experience,
that the path of the woman at that time, who must
earn her own bread, was far from smooth. More-
over, she had tasted of the fruit of toil in the
independence, which it brought, which seemed to her
a grand blessing, to be secured, if need be, even at
the expense of contracting her wants. Her ob-
servations, therefore, had a practical basis. They
contain, besides, an element that gives evidence of
a grasp upon economic problems, which were at
that time barely stated. Adani j&iith in his
Wealth of Nations had pointed^ to labor, as the
source of all economic values. The wide discrepan-
cy between the rights of capital and the proceeds
of labor, between the honour attached to station and
the pittance allowed to him, who, as proxy, per-
formed the duties of that station, were not only
apparent, but were becoming the subject of economic
speculation. No socialist or communist, of later
days, could have looked with greater dissatisfaction
upon the unequal distribution j^ wealth, than Mary
Wollstonecraft. She was undoubtedly acquainted
1 The Rights of Woman, p. 221.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMAN. 175

with Adam Smith's works, though she quotes only
from his Theory of Moral Sentiments. With much
adroitness, she applies his observations concerning
the evil effects, morally, upon that part of the com-
munity, which is, for some reason exempt from
labour, to the morally inferior condition of women.
Mary Wollstonecraft did not live to see three
schools of thought arise, each of which, tried,
independently of each other, to solve the problems
of the social revolution, which went side by side
with political revolution. Whatever the diver-
gency, each emphasized the right to labor, and the
right to the proceeds of labour. Fourier's elaborate
system propounded associated labor, Saint Simon
attempted the organization of labor, and Robert
Owen sought a practical solution in his Equitable
Labor Exchange. These systems were to appear
some decades later, but even at that time, the
elements, that composed them, were in process of
evolution in the minds of thinkers. Mary Woll-
stonecraft proved herself in this direction also, one
of the most progressive thinkers of her times ; for
she wove into her argument the conviction, that
there can be no real political advance without a
corresponding moral improvement, and that both
must rest on a sound economic basis.

CHAPTER X.

THE RELATION OF HER VIEWS TO THOSE OF
WILLIAM GODWIN AND LATER SOCIALISTS.

PROFESSOR Menger in his valuable work on the
right to the full proceeds of labor, points to William
Godwin as the one, who first demonstrated this
right in a scientific manner. He says : " Godwin
may be regarded as the first scientific socialist_of
later times ; the germs of all the ideas of later so-
cialism and anarchism are to be found in his work.
He wielded the most powerful influence over Hall,
Owen and Thompson, and through them upon the
development of socialism."1

There are points of contact between the views
of Godwin and those of Mary Wollstonecraft. They
were stirred by the same events ; the same currents
of contemporary thought moulded them. They
shared in the tendency of the Revolutionary school
toward deification of pure intellect. Both held that
reason and virtue are closely allied. Both believed

1 Dr. Anton Menger : Das Recht an deu vollen Arbeitsertrag
in geschichtlicher Darstellung. Stuttgart. 1891, p. 40.

HER RELATION TO GODWIN 177

in the perfectibility of the human race. The
omnipotence of reason with Godwin involved
the abolition of all political institutions. Mary
Wollstonecraft did not go to such length. Of
anarchy there is no trace in her writings, with the
exception perhaps of her last book, Maria ; or, the
Wrongs of Woman. This was written during the
year of her married life with Godwin. She had
talked over with him the subject-matter of this
book; he was her critic. It may be assumed,
therefore, that Godwin's influence is evident in this
unfinished novel. Beyond this, it cannot be main-
tained, that she was indebted to him for her creed,
though he was the chief thinker of the political
school to which she belonged. Her Vindication
of the Rights of Woman appeared in 1792, his
Political Justice was published in 1793. He was
at that time as little pleased with her production,
as she was with the views, which he had set forth.
Personally they seem to have regarded each other
in a somewhat antagonistic spirit, during the early
days of their acquaintance, when they met at the
house of the publisher, Mr. Johnson, where both
were frequent guests.

Godwin gives an account of an interview, which
shows that they were apt to clash rather than to
agree. At the time of the first appearance of the
Vindication of the Rights of Woman, they both,
together with Thomas Paine and several others,
were invited to dine at the house of a friend.
Godwin wished specially to make the acquaintance
of Thomas Paine, who, however, was not a great

23

178 HER RELATION TO GODWIN

talker ; and, with the exception of an occasional
shrewd remark, did little to gratify Godwin's
wish. , The conversation lay principally between
himself and Mary Wollstonecraft. They touched
on a variety of topics, particularly on the character
and habits of certain eminent men, among them
Voltaire, upon whom she bestowed censure with
a plentiful hand, while Godwin was inclined, since
Voltaire possessed genius, to the supposition of
generous and manly virtue. They also discussed
some questions of religion, in which Godwin found
her opinions approached much nearer to the received
ones, than his own. They separated thoroughly
dissatisfied with each other. Godwin says : "I did
her the justice, in giving an account of the conver-
sation, though I was not sparing of my blame, to
yield her the praise of a person of active and
independent thinking. On her side, she did me
no part of what perhaps I considered as justice."1
Godwin's vanity had evidently been stung repeated-
ly by her sarcasm. He refers to this in a note,
accepting the invitation of Miss Hayes to meet her,
when, soon after her separation from Imlay, she
went once more into society. He wrote : " I will
do myself the pleasure of waiting on you on Friday,
and shall be happy to meet Mrs. Wollstonecraft,
of whom I know not that I ever said a word of harm,
and who has frequently amused herself with depre-
ciating me." 2

1 W. Godwin : Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, p. 96.

2 C. Kegan Paul : Prefatory Memoir to Letters to Imlay, p. LI.

AND LATER SOCIALISTS. 179

It does not appear in what respect Mary Woll-
stonecraft found fault with Godwin's philosophy;
perhaps with some aspects of his argument in
general ; perhaps with those portions of his Political
Justice, which are very radical, and found little
acceptance in the minds even of those of his con-
temporaries, who were otherwise in sympathy with
him. In his conception of property, Godwin boldly
struck out in new paths. He dealt with marriage
as coming under the head of property, and in his
treatment of the subject, strikes a blow at the mar-
riage relation as a permanent institution. Among
uncivilized races, even to the present day, the wife
is regarded as her husband's property. That
Godwin should have overlooked the higher con-
ceptions of marriage, evolved among Christian
nations, and taken a conception common to the
barbarian, as the foundation of his argument on this
subject, seems singularly repugnant, even though
this discussion is confined to a few pages in a trea-
tise of abstract reasoning. His biographer explains,
that Godwin's real objections to marriage are those
which are bound up with the whole idea of his book ;
and "his book gave cohesion and voice to philosophic
radicalism ; it was the manifesto of a school without
which the milder and more creedless liberalism of
the present day had not been."1

It was not wholly to Mary Wollstonecraft's ad-
vantage, that her name, by her marriage to Godwin,
became connected with his. Even a writer in our

1 C. Kegan Paul : William Godwin, his Friends and Contem-
poraries, Vol. I., p. 115.

l8o HER RELATION TO GODWIN

own day, after an exposition of Godwin's philosophy
and his relation to contemporary thought, says :
"Godwin's attack upon marriage may be illustrated
by the remarkable declaration in favor of woman's
rights by Mary Wollstonecraft, afterwards his
wife." 1 There is nothing either in the letter or
the spirit of her books, written before her marriage to
Godwin, that could be construed as an attack upon
the family. The divergency between Godwin's
views and her attempt to strengthen the ties of
family life, where she found them weakest, is great.
A strong appreciation of the benefit accruing to the
individual and to the nation from pure and health-
ful family influences, is one of the distinct features
of Mary Wollstonecraft's writings. This is especial-
ly evident in her views of the education, which best
forms the citizen. Not in any sense would she see
children deprived of the influences of home to
mould character. By granting to women their
rights, she firmly believed the home would be
emancipated.

It is a remarkable fact, that the influence of the
author of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman
led Godwin to a recognition of the grave defect in
his social philosophy. In the preface to the novel
St. Leon, published two years after his wife's death,
Godwin takes occasion to point out the inconsist-
ency between the sentiments expressed in this
novel, which exalts the affections and charities of
private life, and his Political Justice, in which

1 Leslie Stephen : History of Thought in the Eighteenth
Century. London, 1876, Vol. II., p. 276.

AND LATER SOCIALISTS. l8l

they are treated with no great degree of favor.
He remarks :

" For four years, I have been anxious for opportunity and
leisure to modify some of the earlier chapters of that work in
conformity to the sentiments inculcated in this. Not that I see
cause to make any change respecting the principle of justice, or
anything else fundamental to the system then delivered ; but
that I apprehend domestic and private affections inseparable
from the nature of man, and from what may be styled the
culture of the heart, and am fully persuaded that they are not
incompatible with a profound and active sense of justice in the
mind of him that cherishes them. ' ' l

This modification of his former expression of
extreme views, and the appreciation of the value of
domestic relations, may be regarded as the legacy
of Mary Wollstonecraft to the philosophy of
Godwin.

It is a question, however, whether in modifying
Godwin's views, she did not, in turn, adopt from
him some of the radical consequences, which he had
relentlessly drawn, but which she had thus far left
untouched. Does the unfinished novel, Maria ; or,
the Wrongs of Woman, written under Godwin's
influence, contain elements of social disintegration ?
The purpose of the story, as she says in her preface,
is " to exhibit the misery and oppression, peculiar
to women, that arise out of the partial laws and
customs of society." uln the invention of the
story," she adds, " this view restrained my fancy ;
and the history ought rather to be considered, as of
woman, than of an individual." In setting forth the
wrongs of women this novel is a master-piece.
Every species of wrong that women endure, from

1 W. Godwin : The Travels of St. Leon, London, 1799.

1 82 HER RELATION TO GODWIN

the series of revolting cruelties and outrage heaped
upon the daughter of the outcast, to the refinement
of cruelty endured by the daughter of better
circumstances, is represented, until the mind of the
reader turns with horror from such scenes of
degradation.

In this story, as everywhere in her life and in
her books, it is apparent that the author belonged
to the Revolutionary School. She attacked monar-
chy and the distinctions of wealth and rank. Her
criticism of the educational system of England was
caustic and severe. Her experience of family life
had been unusually sad. It need not be a matter
of surprise therefore, that she placed the institution
of the family by the side of other ancient institu-
tions, as in need of reform. She was right in
exposing the wrongs, which women suffered within
the precincts of the family. The question is,
whether she preserved to the last that clear percep-
tion, which characterized her earlier works, of the
harmonious blending, which is possible between
woman's emancipation and the conservative aspects
of family life. In seeking to tear up by the root,
that which is evil, did she injure the roots that
nourish a growth of great value ?

Her attack is directed against the excess of
power with which the law, at that time, permitted
men to subjugate women. The book is not charac-
terized by a heedless sacrifice of the affections,
that constitute the sacred ties of family life. Maria,
the heroine of the story, supports her father
and seeks to advance the interests of her brothers

AND LATER SOCIALISTS. 183

and sisters. One of the gravest and most vital
of all the questions, connected with the sub-
ject of the family, is touched, when Maria grieves,
because she perceived in her babe a slight resem-
blance to him, to whom it owed its existence;
she longed to purify her child from the heritage of
vice, that must have descended to it through its
father. * Jemima, whose mother died, broken-
hearted, at her birth, evidently voices the senti-
ments of the author regarding the importance of
motherhood, in saying : " I cannot help attributing
the greater part of my misery to the misfortune of
having been thrown into the world without the
grand support of life, a mother's affection. I had
no one to love me ; or to make me respected, to
enable me to acquire respect. I was despised from
my birth, and denied the chance of obtaining a
footing for myself in society." 2 Moreover, in the
case of Maria, motherhood proves triumphant mid
the wreck of other relations, when she decides to
live for her child.

Several minor characters are introduced in the
story, to illustrate the fact, that women at that time
had not an economic existence in society. Gentle
women, as well as honest women of the labouring
classes, were all oppressed beyond measure in their
attempt to claim for themselves the right to work.
Incidentally the history of women is told, whose
hard-earned savings were squandered by husbands,
who came home but to ill-treat them; for "women

1 Maria ; or, the Wrongs of Woman, Vol. II., p. 107.

2 Ibid., Vol. I., p. 90.

184 HER RELATION TO GODWIN

have always the worst of it, where law is
to decide."

The heroine of the story represents the type of
woman, who, though educated, and in possession
of wealth, was denied a civil existence. Her
husband could violate every vow that bound him to
her, and heap outrage upon her ; he could rob her
with impunity ; he could goad her soul almost to
madness; he could hunt her from place to place,
rob her of her child and imprison her in a mad-
house; yet, since he had never struck her, had
never threatened her life, she had no resource ; the
law was on his side, and afforded her neither pro-
tection nor redress from the oppressor. The
attitude of law-courts toward the crimes of men
was indulgent ; harshness was characteristic of the
treatment received by women.

A serious touch of anarchy is displayed, when
Maria, the heroine of the story, takes the law into
her own hands. Her reason tells her when to con-
sider her marriage null and void, and her reason
again, she thinks, tells her, that since she is free, she
has the right to re-marry. Maria says : "If laws
exist, made by the strong to oppress the weak, I
appeal to my own sense of justice." L This reasoning
is very much after the manner of Godwin's social
philosophy. If his influence had been eliminated,
critics would have found less in the book that
could rightly be considered objectionable. Those
rationalistic principles, which make reason in every
question the arbiter, were introduced where crys-

1 Maria ; or, the Wrongs of Woman, Vol. II., p. 153.

AND LATER SOCIALISTS. 185

tallization into practice is beset with most dangerous
consequences. The author displays here too strong
a tendency to consider the rights of the individual
as of primary importance ; she gives a secondary
place to the claim of civilized humanity, upon a
just appreciation of the sanctity of the marriage-
vow, when once taken. This feature of anarchy
mars the last service, which Mary Wollstonecraft
sought to render the cause of woman.

A tone pervades the speculations of a century
ago, concerning the antagonism between woman's
personal freedom and the binding nature of the mar-
riage tie, that cannot be called morally refreshing.
Liberty is a glorious possession, but the point that
marks its transition to license is almost impercept-
ible. Mary Wollstonecraft preserved even to the
last an attitude that compares favorably with others,
whose speculations were directed toward the same
end. There was much extraneous matter of an objec-
tionable kind in the writings of the early socialists ;
but this should not be regarded as belonging
to the essence of the movement. By elimina-
ting the mercenary element which enters so largely
the considerations of marriage ; by relieving the
drudgery of women, both indoors and out of doors,
the tendency of socialism should be to make woman
the happy and cultured friend and companion of man.
Kirkup claims that the socialism of to-day is but "the
economic and social side of a vaster movement, which
in politics is democracy, and in ethics means tolera-
tion, humanity, and unselfish service to society. m

1 Thomas Kirkup : An Inquiry into Socialism, 1887, p. i.

24

1 86 HER RELATION TO GODWIN

While the aim of socialism is toward the renova-
tion and progress of the entire human society,
it is not therefore in its central principle adverse
to marriage and the family.

It may not be possible, at this distance of time, to
determine whether the works of Mary Wollstonecraft
were known to the leaders of socialistic thought ;
and whether she wielded even some slight influence
over them. When civilization is ripe for the in-
troduction of new measures, the same thought
springs up in different guise in various places. Her
works were probably known to Saint Simon, who
was in Paris, during the time of her sojourn there
in 1793. He shared the fate of Mary Wollstone-
craft's friend, Count Schlabrendorf, who, as a victim
of the Revolution, was imprisoned. She often
visited her friend in prison and may have been
acquainted with Saint Simon. Her Vindication of
the Rights of Woman had appeared but recently
in French translation in Paris, and had probably
come to the notice of Saint Simon. Another edition
appeared simultaneously in L,yons, the home of
Fourier, who at that time had commenced to
elaborate his social scheme, which included the
emancipation of woman.

Ten years later, in 1803, Saint Simon published
the first exposition of his system in his Lettres d^un
habitant de Geneve a ses contemporains. A sentence
occurs in this pamphlet, which gives to woman the
right to cast her vote in the new association, and the
right to be elected to its offices. After Saint Simon's
death the school, which bears his name, insisted

AND LATER SOCIALISTS. 187

on allowing women an equal share in the rights
of their associated labour. In 1830 the Saint
Sirnonians published a manifesto, in which they
defined their general position, and with regard
to their attitude toward woman they say : " Chris-
tianity has released woman from servitude but
has condemned her to religious, political and
civil inferiority. The Saint Sirnonians have
announced her emancipation, but they have not
abolished the sacred law of marriage, proclaim-
ed by Christianity. On the contrary, they give a
new sanctity to this law." 1 The popularity of
Saint Simonism was greatly increased by this
manifesto. Many prominent men, who had thus
far ridiculed the school, now became its supporters.
u The dogma of reward, according to individual
ability and work, carried with it the force of con-
viction ; and the prospect of the abolition of all
privileges of birth, with the emancipation, political
and economic, of the working man and of woman,
charmed the minds of men." 2 A year later a
schism of a deplorable nature took place in the
Saint Simonian Church, because Bnfantin, who,
with Bazard, had been leader of the assemblies,
made propositions concerning the position of woman
in their midst, which forced Bazard and many
others of the best members, both men and women,
to withdraw.

1 Quoted by R. T. Ely, Ph. D. : French and German Social-
ism in Modern Times.

2 Dr. Otto Warschauer : Saint Simon und der Saint Simon-
ismns. I/eipzig, 1892.

1 88 HER RELATION TO GODWIN

Concerning Robert Owen, the English commu-
nist, we have direct evidence, that he was acquaint-
ed with the views of Mary Wollstonecraft. He was
well known in the Godwin household. Fanny
tells Mary, who, with Shelley, was at that time
sojourning by Lake Geneva, in company with Lord
Byron, in a long letter, dated July 29, 1816,
of Owen's plans ; of his address to the people of
New Lanark, delivered on the opening of the
Institution for the Formation of Character ; of
impending riots and 26,000 men out of employ-
ment ; and of the hopes which Mr. Owen was
holding out of a speedy renovation of society,
by reason of his schemes. She speaks of his
proposition that no human being should work more
than three hours every day ; and after discussing
this and other aspects of his system, she closes by
saying: "So much for Mr. Owen, who is, indeed, a
very great and good man. He told me the other
day that he wished our mother was living, as he
had never met with a person, who thought so
exactly as he did, or who would have so warmly
and zealously entered into his plans." *

It is not difficult to link the leading thoughts
of Mary Wollstonecraft's argument with the social-
istic ideals of the present time. Socialism is
generally understood to mean the systematic inter-
ference of the state in favor of the suffering
classes. Laveleye affirms this in defining social-
ism thus : "In the first place, every socialistic

1 Mrs. Julian Marshall : The Life and Letters of Marj- Woll-
stonecraft Shelley. Volume I, p. 150.

AND LATER SOCIALISTS. 189

doctrine aims at introducing greater equality in
social conditions, and, in the second place, at real-
izing those reforms by the law or the state." To a
remarkable degree Mary Wollstonecrafc looked to
the state, and to an active public and social spirit,
as the means of checking the excessive develop-
ment of private and individual interests. She
realized that when the unnatural claims of a small
minority yielded to a more equitable distribution of
duty, and of opportunities of enjoyment, women
would, to a large degree, share in the consequent
possibilities of development. " Greater equality
in social conditions," expresses the demand, which,
if granted, would abolish the causes which rendered
women weak and oppressed.

Not only in their general tendency the views
of Mary Wollstonecraft may be linked to the so-
cialism of later times, but also in some of the
particular measures, which have characterized its
development. She looks to government to perform
functions, which thus far had not been assumed by
any state. Some of her demands seem to point to
the central government of the socialistic system,
which controls not only large industrial factors,
but also extends to a systematic employment of
individuals. The state is to ensure woman's posi-
tion, to educate her, to extend the franchise to her,
to give her not only a political existence but also
an economic existence, by opening out to her
opportunities for work.

Socialism has ever made war upon that funda-
mentally erroneous assumption, that labour is a

HER RELATION TO GODWIN.

weariness and a degradation ; upon that false ideal
of position and honour, that makes directly against
the enjoyment that should result from useful service.
In this respect also Mary Wollstonecraft is in touch
with socialistic ideas. L,ooking for a time when
duties would no longer be performed by deputies,
but each man would stand or fall, according to his
faithfulness to duty, she ranges woman in the
common ranks of human beings, where she also
will receive honor in accordance to the duties
which she performs. She would not see the
influences of home life crushed to give place to the
rank and file of an industrial army. Woman's duty
would largely be to the family.

There is a vast difference between this ideal of a
life of service and the conditions with which Mary
Wollstonecraft was at war. No longer the toy of
man, no longer his slave, but raised to the dignity
of conscious, voluntary service, woman with her
foot firmly planted in the home as the center,
would render service to mankind in ever widening
circles, with that enlightened love of humanity, of
which Mary Wollstonecraft saw so little trace in the
women of her times. This was the picture on
which her imagination dwelt.

CHAPTER XL
THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK IN GERMANY.

THE reception given to the Vindication of the
Rights of Woman in Germany differs, to a consider-
able degree, from that which was tendered it on its
own native soil. In England there was a very
lively appreciation of the fact that the book
proclaimed a new system. The revolutionary spirit
had taken hold of a pronounced party among the
English people ; measures of reform were the topic
of the day. The mind was therefore on the alert
and ready to grasp the situation, when there were
proposals of reform sufficiently far-reaching and
complete to herald the advent of some new system.
In Germany the conditions were different. Long
years of warfare had left behind a degree of devasta-
tion, from which the country recovered but slowly.
The fire of patriotic love was nourished in the
hearts of all; and the ability of literary men and
statesmen alike began to be directed to the one
absorbing topic of the following decades : The con-
solidation of the nation. The thoughts that

192 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

fermented in the niinds of the French in their
Revolution, and which had their effect upon the
more quiet and practical Englishman, did not pass
the German by without calling forth an effect, which
bore its distinct national imprint. The Sturm und
Drang Periode in Germany wrestled with the
questions that occupied the thought of the end
of the Eighteenth Century and the beginning of the
present century. Kant, but barely understood in
England, had begun to wield far-reaching influence
upon German thought ; the ethical rigor of his
categorical imperative giving a healthier tone to the
conception of duty and obligation of even the man
of lesser education.

Meantime German women, with the exception of
those of royal rank, seldom ventured beyond the
seclusion of private life. England was not without
its female authors of some importance. In France
the Salons, presided over by gifted women, each
of whom having, as Voltaire remarked, one or two
authors at her side as ministers, were centers of
intellectual activity, later of degeneracy. This
product of French civilization, though French
manners and customs were much imitated in Ger-
many, refused to thrive on German soil. Woman
in Germany found her sphere in the home, and
showed little craving for more extended activities.
She fostered a high sense of family relations, and
thereby contributed a valuable source of strength
to the depleted resources of the nation.

The German critic of the Vindication of the
Rights of Woman scarcely realized, that he had a

IN GERMANY. 193

fyook before him, which enunciated a new system.
The propositions against which the English critic
warned the public, seemed to the German critic
mere exaggerations, which might well be over-
looked, since the book contained so much that was
sensible and wise. The attitude of the English
press furnished distinct evidence, that the public
realized, that the book marked an epoch. There
is 'no evidence of this kind in the notices given in
German periodicals. Germany was not in touch
with this latest current of progressive thought.
Moreover there was no indication of symptoms of
unrest and dissatisfaction on the part of the German
woman, that might have given cause for anxiety,
lest the book incite to insubordination those, who
had not yet learned to question the injustice of
their inferior position.

Only one critic seems to have grasped the signi-
ficance of the book as the herald of a new era, and
he is not sparing in his denunciation. The con-
servative attitude of the German woman allays
any fears, however, that might have alarmed him.
He says : " It is not worth while losing any more
words about this phantastic system. Its mere
presentation is its best refutation. Those who will
protest most urgently against the realization of this
plan will be the women themselves." i He cannot
understand how a woman could demand for her
sex the same rights, which men enjoy, unless she
should prove to be a haughty, heartless fanatic,
incapable of a full conception of the advantages

i Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung. October, 1794.

194 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

of her sex, and therefore willing to sacrifice them
in order to be as men are. He regards the
distinction of sex an inexhaustible source of enjoy-
ment, culture, study and true humanity ; and thus
enunciates an argument which has, perhaps, been
used to a greater degree by the Germans than by
other nationalities; and certainly has great weight,
when urged by those, who have granted equal
rights to the fullest extent.

It must be regarded as a circumstance of a
gratifying nature, that Mary Wollstonecraft was
introduced to the German public by Salzmann, one
of the most noted men in the pedagogy of the
times. A cordial feeling of interest evidently exist-
ed between them. She had rendered his Mora-
lisches Elementarbuch into English in a way
that secured it large circulation, and he, in turn,
was prepared to use his influence to secure for her
Vindication of the Rights of Woman a favorable
reception in Germany. Salzmann commanded
respect, not only as an educator, but also as a
philanthropist. Some of his books, written for the
young, enjoyed great popularity. In his institution
at Schnepfenthal, near Gotha, he educated children
of both sexes in accordance with the same pedagog-
ical views, which were emphasized in his writings.
He made conformity to nature the basis of his
educational system, and his methods were charac-
terized by a spirit of philanthropy.

There were many points of contact between the
views of Salzmann and those of Mary Wollstone-
craft. Yet this very agreement makes it the more

IN GERMANY.

apparent, how far Mary Wollstonecraft was in
advance of the opinions, which, in that day, even an
educator and philanthropist like Salzmann held
concerning woman. He had supplied the transla-
tion, which was made by one of the teachers in the
institution at Schnepfenthal, with occasional notes,
and a preface, in which he intimates that he had
"taken the liberty of contradicting the honored
authoress in several of her assertions." He agrees
with her to a large extent and thereby taxes the
patience of the above-mentioned critic, who wished
that Salzmann had exposed the fallacies of the
system, instead of indulging in words of empty
praise. Yet it is true, that in every leading point
where Mary Wollstonecraft expresses opinions, that
belong to our own times rather than to Salzmann's
days, he seeks to tone down, and to weaken what
she expresses. Thus he agrees with her that
female education should receive more attention,
but thinks that " the study of such sciences, which
demand continuous application of thought, would
make a girl too abstract and sober-minded', and
therefore unfit to fill her destined place in life." *
He guards the supremacy of man and insists that
women must obey their husbands.

It is not therefore surprising that several of the
German critics were well pleased with his work as

1 Rettung der Rechte des Weibes, mit Bemerkungen ueber
politisclie und moralische Gegenstande von Maria Wollstone-
craft. Aus dem Englischen uebersetzt. Mit einigen Anmer-
kungen und einer Vorrede von Christian Gotthilf Salzmann.
Schnepfenthal, im Verlag der Erziehungsanstalt 1793. Vol. I,
p. 69.

196 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

commentator. One of them expresses himself as
follows : "The undertaking of the translator should
not by any means be censured, for he has given us
in translation the work of a keen-witted British
woman, in which her noble heart also shines forth.
Her assertions, indeed, are not always of the same
value, but generally where she required reproof,
Mr. Salzmann administered it in notes, which dis-
play the far-sighted pedagogue." L Another of the
periodicals of the times considers the book of
sufficient value to have been brought before the
German public in a translation, but does not fail to
mention the exaggerated assertions, which the
author, carried away by a very ardent enthusiasm
for the rights of her sex, was led to make. Since
the comments of Salzmann were thought to have
neutralized these exaggerations, the book was
commended to the attention of the reader. 2 An-
other critic thinks this book, characterized by
vigorous thought concerning an important sub-
ject, though not without exaggeration, was worthy
of a translation ; but considers the author at fault
when, in her earnest endeavour to show that
women are human beings, she seems to forget
that they are not men, but women. 3

A very appreciative notice of the book speaks of
ideas exaggerated and one-sided, and propositions
unattainable and chimerical ; and then proceeds to

1 Seller : Gemeinnutzige Betrachtungen der neuesten Schrif-
ten. 1793.

2 Erlanger Gelehrte Zeitung. October 1793.

3 Gottingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen, September,
1793-

IN GERMANY. 197

set forth the intrinsic value of the production in
high terms. This critic expresses himself as not
satisfied with the work of the translator nor with
the notes of Salzmann. He seems to have
read the book in English and claims that this
work, beyond most other products of modern
English literature, deserved a translation into the
German language. 1

Most of the German critics recognized the defects
of the book as a literary production, especially the
lack of order in its arrangement. They appreciated
its value both as a work on female education and
a criticism of existing conditions. That which
seemed strange and new they characterized as
exaggerations, far from realizing that the book
contained the announcement of a new system.
This tends to show that it was essentially a product
of English thought, with distinctive marks of
English national life impressed upon it.

Two Germans, who were at the time of the publi-
cation of the Vindication of the Rights of Woman
residing in England, furnish evidence of the impres-
sion, which the work made upon minds of different
stamp. .One was the philosopher, Franz von Baader,
who regarded the argument of the book after the
manner of a philosopher. He writes concerning it
in his Diary, December 26, 1792 : " I feel very
much stirred in mind. Scales are still falling from
my eyes ! All misuse of power, all usurpation
must absolutely vanish from society if virtue is to

1 Neue Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek. Volume IX, p.
127-132.

198 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

be in it and remain in it."1 To him one of the
great questions of life had been as to the way in
which virtue could rule human society ; he had
found in Mary Wollstonecraft's book an answer
from a direction, whence he had perhaps least
looked for it.

Inspired by different motives, the traveller,
Kiittner, in his volume on the state of civilization in
England, gives a sketch of the author of the Vindi-
cation of the Rights of Woman. The search for
truth was not the mission that had led him to visit
England. He gathered notable facts and conditions,
as he found them in his travels, into narratives
that might prove attractive to the ordinary reader.
He told the German public about Mary Wollstone-
craft, because she and her work were the talk of
the day. He would not call attention to the book,
he says, if it contained nothing but strange, original
ideas and wild projects ; but since it was really in
many respects noteworthy and betrayed a degree of
genius, which few women possessed, he found it
demanded attention. He repeats some of the gossip
current about Mary Wollstonecraft, mentions " her
state of dissatisfaction with men and things, her
disappointed hopes and her sour temper." 2 His
expression, that she had "none of the characteristics
of woman but her sex," was quoted in the news and
notes of a German fashion journal, where an
account is given of the founding of a school in

1 Franz von Baader's Nachgelassene Werke. Vol. i, p. 202.

2 K. G. Kiittner : Beitrage zur Kenntniss des Innern von
England, Vol. IV, p. 121.

IN GERMANY. 199

Paris, where girls could learn the art of printing.
She is mentioned in this connection as having
made the demand, that women should be allowed,
just as men are, to learn various industries and to
study arts and professions.1

A search in the books and periodicals of the
period discloses no trace of the disparagement, with
which Mary Wollstonecraft met in England.
Salzmann translated her memoirs and published
them with a preface by himself.'2 The misfortunes
of her life were mentioned by German contempora-
ries as cause for regret, not for derision. And even
during the period, when in England she was mis-
represented or forgotten, German writers were more
just. Klemm, in his work descriptive of the place
of woman in the history of civilization,3 makes
full mention of her. He regards her work how-
ever as of pedagogical value only, and has no
appreciation for her work as vindicator of the
rights of her sex.

There is one personal relation on record, which
Mary Wollstonecraft had with one of German birth,
that is of peculiar interest. Godwin mentions it
in connection with the friendships, which his wife
formed during her sojourn in Paris, conspicuous

1 Journal des Luxusund der Moden. August, 1795.

2 Denkschrift auf Maria Wollstonecraft Godwin, die Verthei-
digerin der Rechte des Weibes, von William Godwin. Ans dem
Englischen iibersetzt und mit einigen Anmerkungen begleitet.
Nebst dem Bildnisse der Verstorbenen. Schnepfenthal, im
Verlage der Buchhandlung der Erziehungsanstalt, 1799.

3 G. Klemm : DieFrauen, CulturgeschichtlicheSchilderungen
1859. Vol. VI, p. 188—191.

200 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

among which was, " the sincere friendship between
her and Helen Maria Williams, author of a collec-
tion of poems of uncommon merit, who at that time
resided in Paris." He continues : " Another per-
son, of whom Mary always spoke in terms of ardent
commendation, both for the excellence of his dis-
position, and the force of his genius, was a Count
Slabrendorf, by birth, I believe, a Swede." l Gustav,
Graf von Schlabrendorf, was a native of Stettin in
Prussia, who during the time of the French Revolu-
tion resided in Paris. He was a philanthropist and
was somewhat eccentric. In touch with the Girond-
ists, he shared the fate of those, who, though ardent
republicans in principle, were humane and benevo-
lent in sentiment, and therefore became victims of the
fury of the Jacobins. Schlabrendorf was imprisoned
for eighteen months and barely escaped execution.
His tribute to Mary Wollstonecraft was published
nearly forty years after the short season of their
acquaintance. Count Schlabrendorf had an intimate
friend, Carl Gustav Jochmann, with whom he
conversed about many notable events and persons,
and who thought these conversations of sufficient
value to take notes of them. As a mark of special
confidence, evidently, Schlabrendorf told him of
his acquaintance with Mary Wollstonecraft. Joch-
mann says : " My honored friend gave to me
William Godwins Memoirs of the Author of a
Vindication of the Rights of Woman, (2nd edition,
Ivondon 1798) in which he had marked many

1 W. Godwin : Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the
Rights of Woman, p. 102.

IN GERMANY. 2OI

passages and had added marginal notes, some
of which I have included in the above sketch. He
therefore showed the book to but few of his best
friends. Humboldt had it for a time. ' Perhaps
you will occasionally smile,' said the Count, as he
handed it to me. But how mistaken he was? I
was deeply touched by it." x

Jochmann had evidently retained a copy of those
marginal notes, when he returned the book to
Schlabrendorf. These, with a sketch of the life of
Mary Wollstonecraft, as he had heard it related by
Schlabrendorf, and had found it in her Memoirs,
came into the hands of Heinrich Zschokke, when,
in 1836, he made selections for publication from
the papers of his late friend, Jochmann. They
found a place in the volume under preparation.

Those marginal notes, made by Schlabrendorf,
are of biographical value. They are a testimony
from one, who knew her well, both as to the
womanliness of Mary Wollstonecraft and the high
regard, which she inspired at a time, when Imlay,
whom she had trusted, proved faithless. After
speaking of the suffering, which she incurred by
the position taken in her Vindication of the Rights
of Woman, scorned even by the members of
her own sex, because she had dared to make
war upon the gray monster of public opinion,
Count Schlabrendorf continues: "And yet, Mary
was the noblest, purest and most thoughtful woman

1 Carl Gustav Joclimann's Reliquien. Aus seinen Nachgelas-
senen Papieren. Gesammelt von Heinrich Zschokke. 1836.
Vol. I., p. 194.

26

202 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

whom I have ever met. I knew her well, even
before the time of my imprisonment, during the
reign of terror. Mary was not a dazzling beauty,
but she was of charming grace. Her face, so
full of expression, presented a style of beauty
beyond that of merely regular features. There was
fascination in her look, her voice and her move-
ment. While in prison, she often visited me ; she
attracted me more and more. Not until after she
had left Paris, did I become conscious of the fact
that I loved her. Her unhappy relations with Inilay
interfered with any closer connections with her." J

There is pathos in this brief record of a friend-
ship, formed mid the bloodshed and terror of the
revolution, strengthened by visits in prison, where
each hour might have brought the call to the
Guillotine. Mary went her way to mourn the
faithlessness of Imlay, to form new connections and
then to die. Schlabrendorf remained behind to
ponder the radiance that had been shed abroad in
the gloom of his imprisonment by the choice spirit,
which had fled. He treasured her Memoirs. In the
margin he penned the words of tribute, which during
his lifetime he showed only to his dearest friends.
After his death they were given to the world.

Nearly a year after the first appearance of the
Vindication of the Rights of Woman a series of
publications began to issue from the pen of a
German author, which distinctly characterizes him
as one, who then gave expression to modern
theories of the emancipation of woman. A diligent

llbid, p. 195.

IN GERMANY. 203

search has not brought to light any direct evidence
that this author was influenced by the views of Mary
Wollstonecraft ; but the accumulation of indirect
evidence is so great, that it does not seem difficult
to construe an hypothesis to that effect. The author
in question is Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel, born
in Gerdauen in Prussia, 1741, known specially by
his work, Ueber die Ehe, of which four editions
appeared during his lifetime, and which con-
tinues to be read to-day, as is manifest in its
publication in cheap form in Reclames Universal
Bibliothek.

An hypothesis that Theodor Gottlieb von Hip-
pel was indebted for a radical change in his views
to the views of Mary Wollstonecraft, expressed in
her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, may
be supported by a threefold argument. First :
There is a coincidence as to time between the appear-
ance of her book and the change in his views.
Second : It would not have been foreign to the
literary character of Hippel to have drawn heavily
upon the resources of another author, without
making due acknowledgment of his indebtedness.
Third : The divergency between his views given
to the public previous to 1792 and those expressed
after that date, is so wide, that every critic has look-
ed upon this as a problem toward the solution of
which some theory should be offered. It remains
to be seen whether the theory that Hippel borrow-
ed from Mary Wollstonecraft does not meet with a
larger degree of probability than any other that has
yet been framed.

204 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

The coincidence as to time is an important factor
in the argument. Both the first edition of Mary
Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of
Woman, and of Hippel's third edition of Ueber
die Ehe, which contains the first sign of a
change in his views, bear as the date of publication
the year 1792. It is of first importance, therefore,
to show that early in the year 1792 Mary Woll-
stonecraft's work had been accessible to Hippel.
The first notice of her work in English periodicals
is probably that in the Analytical Review for March
1792, for Mr. Joseph Johnson, the publisher of this
Review, was the friend of Mary Wollstonecraft and
the publisher of all her works. But there are dates in
personal letters and in her Memoirs, which place
beyond a doubt the supposition, that her book was
published, if not toward the latter part of 1791, at
least very early in the year 1792. Burke's Reflec-
tions on the Revolution in France appeared in
November 1790. Mary Wollstonecraft's reply, as
the first of the many replies, must have been pub-
lished early in 1791. Godwin says: "Mary accord-
ingly proceeded, in a short time after, to the
composition of her most celebrated production, The
Vindication of the Rights of Woman.* Even
though it may be difficult to accept without
limitation Godwin's statement, that this latter book
was written in the incredibly short space of six
weeks' time, it may be regarded as having been
ready for the publisher about the middle of the year

1 W. Godwin : Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of
the Rights of Woman, p. 79.

IN GERMANY. 205

•[791. Other data would corroborate this. In
September 1791, she removed from the house which
she occupied in George Street to a more commo-
dious apartment in Store Street,1 where she remained
until she went to France toward the end of 1792.
During the more than twelve months of residence
in Store Street, Godwin says,2 she produced nothing
but a few articles in the Analytical Review. Her
literary meditations were directed toward the sequel
to the Rights of Woman, of which only a few hints
however were found among her papers after her
death. It is therefore certain that in September
1791, if not earlier, the manuscript of her Vin-
dication of the Rights of Woman was in the hands
of her publisher, and more than this, according to
Godwin's statement, the book was at that time
before the public. In November 1791, he and
Mary Wollstonecraft met as guests at the house of
a friend. Godwin remarks concerning this inter-
view : " I had not read her Rights of Woman,
and had hardly looked into her Answer to Burke."3
The 'French translation of The Vindication of the
Rights of Woman had been published previous to
June 1792. This is apparent from a letter from the
author to her sister Everina, dated London, June
2oth, 1792, in which she speaks of her intended
trip to France and continues : " I shall be intro-
duced to many people, my book has been translated
and praised in some popular prints."* Both the

1 Ibid., p. 93. 2 Ibid., p. 99. 3 Ibid., p. 94.

4 C. Kegan Paul : William Godwin, his Friends and Contem-
poraries, 1876. Vol. I., p. 206.

206 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

French editions of her book, the one in Paris and*
the other in Lyons, were published in 1792. A
second edition in London and an American edition
also appeared in 1792.

It therefore appears that Hippel would have had
time to take cognizance of this new work and then
to prepare a third edition of his Ueber die Ehe
and publish it even in the year 1792. The first
edition of this work appeared in 1774, containing
229 pages, the second in 1775 containing 319 pages.
Seventeen years elapsed, before the third edition
was published, in 1792, much enlarged, containing
426 pages, and altered especially in the fifth chapter,
"On Supremacy in the Marriage Relation." The
fourth edition increased to 501 pages, appeared in

1793, and completes the change that had been com-
menced in the third edition. In the following year,

1794, his work, Ueber die biirgerhche Verbesserung
der Weiber, made its appearance, demanding for
women the rights of men in the state, in their edu-
cation and in the choice of employments. Hippel
died in April 1796, but fragments on the same
subject, found among his papers, were published as
Nachlass iibcr iveibliche Bildung, Berlin 1801.

Beginning with the year 1792 then, and continu-
ing for three years, until his death, Hippel unfold-
ed remarkable literary activity in advocating the
emancipation of woman. Evidently in order to
make room for this, he discontinued the writing of
his autobiography. A diary, which he had begun one
and one half years previously, was laid aside about
the middle of the year 1792. The German period-

IN GERMANY. 207

icals bring no notice of the third edition of Ueber
die Ehe during 1792. One of the earliest reviews
of the book occurs in the Allgemeine Literatur
Zeitung, Mai 1793, where the attention of the
reader is called to the remarkable change in the
opinions of the author since the publication of
previous editions. It would seem then, that this
book which marked the change, appeared in print
later than the French translation of The Vindi-
cation of the Rights of Woman. The coincidences
as to time, therefore, admit of the hypothesis that
Hippel's views were influenced by those of Mary
Wollstonecraft.

It is not a light charge, however, to make against
the literary character of an author, to say that he
borrowed from one, who had but just won her first
laurels in authorship, without making acknowledg-
ment. This charge would have to be put aside
unhesitatingly, if HippePs literary career did not
offer a spectacle, unique in the history of litera-
ture. The publication of his works was strictly
anonymous. Not even his publisher, F. C. Voss in
Berlin, was aware of the real name of the author.
Public curiosity tried at different times to force the
author to disclose his secret, but in vain. He fought
for his right to anonymity, circumvented those
who came dangerously near the truth in their conjec-
tures, and somewhat unscrupulously represented
others as the authors of his books. Not even
his most intimate friends knew all he had written ;
some knew of his authorship of one book, others
of another. After his death strife arose. His friends

208 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

found they had been deceived. Schlichtegroll, his
biographer, sought to restore peace and a year after
HippeFs death addresses the injured friends : " For-
give, ye noble ones, this trait of his character. He
was not a man after the ordinary type ; yet he never
sought to injure anyone." L

Borowski tried to speak the final word concern-
ing Hippel's authorship, in a pamphlet, in which
he gives " a complete and wholly reliable list of the
writings of Hippel." His assurance, however,
that these books " were undoubtedly his produc-
tions and he their sole author," 3 received slight
recognition. " Hippel," as a later writer, has said,
"gave occasion for a contest by means of pamph-
lets, such as probably never was waged concerning
the literary character of a German author." * Two
pamphlets especially give evidence of the heat
of the conflict, one by his former friend attacking
him,5 the other,6 probably by his friend Scheffner,
trying to break the force of the accusations.

The biographical volume which accompanies the
complete edition of Hippel's works, characterizes

1 Schlichtegroll : Nekrolog, 1796; Volume II, pp. 171-346.
1797 ; Vol. I., pp. 123-414.

2 Ludwig Ernst Borowski : Ueber das Autorschicksal des
Verfassers des Buches iiber die Ehe. Konigsberg 1797. p. 2.

3 Ibid., p. 39.

* Theodor Mundt : Zeitgenossen, Vol. IV. p. 146. Leipzig

1833-

5 W. G. Keber : Nachrichten und Bemerkungen den Gehei-
men Kriegsrath von Hippel betreffend. Konigsberg, 1802.

6 Epistolische Lektion fur den Herru Ertz-Pri ester Keber,
dessen Nachtrag zur Biographic des geheimen Kriegsrath von
Hippel betreffend. Danzig, 1804.

IN GERMANY.

in a short preface, the position of Hippel's biogra-
pher, Schlichtegroll, as difficult, and points to the
" critique on a grand scale " l exercised by Theodor
Mundt, 40 years after Hippel's death. Mundt
pursues the psychological method and shows how
the ideal side of Hippel's life was in a state of
unremittent friction with the material side, "so
that his character in fact represents a tragedy of
contradictions." These contradictions in his life
are to explain the peculiar aspects of his authorship.
Undoubtedly they do to some extent ; yet the facts
remain unaltered. Mundt admits, that not only
the ideas of Kant, but also the thoughts of other
friends were utilized in Hippel's writings.

Kant was called upon, after Hippel's death, to
explain how the ideas of his system, before it had
been published, had found their way into Hippel's
works. He made a statement in the Allgemein-
er Literarisher Anzeiger, 1797, in which he
speaks of Hippel as an intimate friend, and does
not deny, that fragments of his philosophy,
which had found their way into his lectures
and the note-books of his students, had been
used, in a popularized form, in one of Hippel's
best works.3 An hypothesis was discussed in
literary journals, as to whether the great philoso-
pher was the author of the Book on Marriage.
Kant's emphatic denial however, ended this
discussion.

1 Hippel's Werke, Berlin bei G. Reimer, 1828-1838. Vorwort
/u Band XII.

2 Theodor Mundt: Zeitgenossen. Vol. IV, pp. 150.
;< Lebenslaiife nach aufsteigender L,inie, 4 Vols. 1778 — 1781.

27

210 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

The reason given by Hippel for his insist-
ance upon anonymity, was that a literary career
was inconsistent with the interests of his political
career. It is difficult to determine whether it was
plagiarism of which Hippel was guilty toward Kant
and others of his friends ; or whether judgment
should be tempered, and all that might seem to verge
upon literary theft be looked upon as his own pecu-
liar way of literary production. In any case, it is not
difficult in view of the circumstances, to suppose
that the fresh thought of a gifted Englishwoman,
on a subject which had previously been regarded
by him in a very different light, was welcomed by
him and to some extent appropriated.

Several theories have been put forth to account for
the change in Hippel's views. At the time
of the first appearance of his Civil Amelioration
of Women, conjectures were made, not only as to
the authorship, but as to the intentions of the author.
Was it all meant as irony? One of the literary
journals of the times considers at length the pros
and cons of the supposition that the book was written
in a playful humour, but decides that it cannot be
thus interpreted and must be regarded as sober
truth.1 Not even Borowski could with certainty
give information on this point, and admits his
ignorance.

Schlichtegroll seeks an explanation in Hippel's
veneration for the Empress Katharine II. of Russia,
of whom he speaks with great praise in his later
works. But according to Hippel's autobiography,

1 Allgemeine lyiteratur Zeitung, December 1794.

IN GERMANY. 211

he was filled with enthusiastic regard for her even
while a young man, during his stay in St. Peters-
burg, in 1760. This then could hardly explain his
altered opinions.

Kmil Brenning l advances a theory to the effect
that the change might be interpreted as having
had a cause of a personal nature. Hippel, in his
earlier years, loved a woman, at the time above him
in station, to whom for reasons not explained by his
biographers, he was never married. His love for her
led him to abandon the study of theology and engage
in the study of law. This attachment thus had a
most decisive influence upon his career. Eleven
years had passed since the days of his disappoint-
ment, when he published the ^ first edition of his
Book on Marriage. It might be supposed therefore,
that neither his acrid remarks about women in his
earlier work, nor his championship in their cause
in later years, had any relation to this episode of his
youth. Brenning also points to the influence of
the writings of Rousseau, which is very apparent
in the later works of Hippel. But Rousseau's ideas
concerning the place given by nature to woman are
irreconcilable with her political emancipation.

It would be a difficult undertaking to account
for the change in Hippel's views by pointing to a
spirit of investigation on this subject in his own
country. There was a book, Ueber die Weiber,
which appeared anonymously in 1787, and gave a
scathing criticism of the manners, disposition and

1 Einleitung zu Hippel's "Ueber die Ehe " Leipzig 1812,
p. XXX.

I

212 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

character of women. At the close of his work the
author makes an appeal : u To you now, O men,
will I speak. You are responsible for nearly all
the defects which I find in women. Woman is not
made to govern herself. It is your vocation to
rule." L Four years later another book a appeared
anonymously, which seems to have had the object
of opposing and contradicting the author of Ueber
die Weiber. Judging by the review given in one
of the German periodicals3 of that time, this work,
though not radical, was yet liberal in its views
regarding women. Still another work,* written
by an acquaintance of Hippel, discussed the posi-
tion of woman in the age of Homer.

Granting the widest scope to the possible in-
fluence of the writer who opposed the author of
Ueber die Weiber, the enthusiasm of the social re-
former, which pervades Hippel's later writings,
cannot have been a product of German thought
and development. Moreover, why should Hippel
have been, in this direction, the most progressive
of all his countrymen ? It does not seem probable
that the Burgomaster of a Prussian City, who had
never been married, and in his earlier days had
written many a harsh sentence about the inferiority
of women, should have become the advocate of

1 Ueber die Weiber. (von B. Brandes) Weidtnann, Leipzig,
1787, p. 295.

2 Mann und Weib nach ihren gegenseitigen Verhaltnissen
geschildert. Leipzig, 1791.

3 Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek. Vol. 101, p. 133.

* Geschichte der Weiber im heroischen Zeitalter, von Karl
Gotthold Lenz, Hannover. 1790.

IN GERMANY. 213

their emancipation after having arrived at the
maturity, which fifty years of life is apt to bring,
unless some striking external influence had been
brought to bear upon him. There was something
in the change, wrought in Hippel, which seemed
foreign to his nature and passed the comprehen-
sion of his friends. Though each one of the
theories, heretofore advanced, may have something
in its favor, there still remains a strong element
unaccounted for, which supports the hypothesis
that the change in Hippel's views was due to the
work of Mary Wollstonecraft.

It remains now to compare the earlier and later
editions of Hippel's Bitch 'fiber die Ehe, and to
show from his last work, that in his demands and
expectations he was as radical as Mary Wollstone-
craft.

A comparison between the second and fourth
edition of Hippel's Buck iiber die Ehe gives
evidence or modifications* throughout the whole
work, and in the chapter on u Supremacy in the
Marriage Relation," he directly contradicts in
his last edition what he maintained in his second
edition. Such sentences as the following represent
the key-note of Hippel's previous ideas: "Even
though your husband may have less understanding
than you have, madam, it makes no difference.
He is lord in the house." l In the later editions
this sentence is much modified. A new passage is
inserted just preceding it, in which the author
points out, that it is not in accordance with the
Ehe. Zweite Auflage, Berlin, 1776, p. 142.

214 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

destiny of man, that Eve should be subordinate to
Adam, but that the supremacy of man merely
proves, that reason has not yet been given full
sway, so that woman is still in Egyptian bondage,
though her Canaan will yet appear to her. He
then adds : " Until that time comes, madam, if you
please, have patience, even though your husband
may have less understanding than you."1 In the old
edition he claimed that obedience to the will of the
husband was not to be regarded as an arbitrary
demand at the hands of women, but one dictated
by nature. In the new edition he comforts them by
telling them, that men in their capacity as citizens,
sacrifice some of their legitimate rights, not without
advantage to themselves, and that therefore women
should be prepared to meet evils on a smaller scale
in their household.2 This is very different from the
almost rude tone in which he, in the earlier editions,
says : " It is unnatural for women to rule, and if
they do rule, it is indecent to show it ; for the
partners of the marriage compact are not equals."

Hippel's last work, his Civil Amelioration of
Women, is a more dignified production than his
Book on Marriage. The author rises from the
level of amusing his readers by witty sallies
at the expense of women, to a height that puts
him in touch with thoughts and deeds more
than a century in advance of his own times. The
references in this book to history, anthropology,

1 Ueber die Ehe. Nachdruck der Vierten Auflage (1793)
Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1872, p. 101.

2 Ibid., p. loi. 3 Ibid., p. 143.

IN GERMANY.

and the detail of judicial and political administra-
tion show that the author was at home in various
branches of knowledge, and had a wide acquaint-
ance with the current literature of his own nation,
as well as of England and France.

Amid the discussion of a large variety of subjects
in the Civil Amelioration of Women, the author
does not lose sight of his object. After seeming
digressions, he comes back to the plea that not only
women but men also have lost by the degradation
of women. " How great a pity," he exclaims, "that
so much of progress should have been checked by the
cruelty of men ! What an abundance offeree women
must possess, to have faced even until now such
numerous obstacles with so much of fortitude !" *
Hippel unhesitatingly demonstrated that woman's
position before the law was anomalous. " We deny
them the right to be persons," 2 he says, and again :
" Women have only one court of appeal : God." 3 He
adds, that while the law places women under the
restraint of perpetual guardianship, and is slow to
grant to them as persons, or as holders of property,
the rights of citizens, in respect to punishment no
distinction of sex is made. Female weakness ceases
to be weakness when crime and retribution is under
consideration.

His demands, urged with less vehemence and
earnestness than those of Mary Wollstonecraft, were
equally radical. With regard to the education of

1 Ueber die biirgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber, Frankfurt
und Leipzig, 1794, p. 79.

2 Ibid., p. 404. 3 Ibid., p. 74.

2l6 THE RECEPTION OF HER WORK

women, he says : " Until a new order of things has
been introduced on a broad scale in society, admit,
ye men, the sooner the better, the girls and young
women of the present day to our institutions of
learning, and permit them to take part in the
instruction here offered without the fear that evil
consequences might follow." A He would see women
free in the choice of a profession and asks : " When
will the right to personal choice of activities cease
to be the royal privilege of men?"''

His confidence in the skill and wisdom, which
women would develop, if admitted to the offices of the
State, is almost unlimited. The ready tact which
they display in society, the faithful ness to duty which,
as even men, he says,3 must certify, marks the ad-
ministration of their households, seem to Hippel a
guarantee that in the administration of the State,
their co-operation would prove to be a valuable
adjunct. The tyranny and greed of gain in official
circles, which he describes in unsparing terms,
would then, he believes, yield to a more equitable
administration. Women were to be trained for the
State. In this demand he coincides with Mary
Wollstonecraft, and both thereby give expression to
an idea born of the French Revolution. Hippel
says: " Away with the wall of partition! Train citi-
zens for the State without regard to the distinctions
of sex. Leave that which women should know as
house-wives and mothers to special training and
then all will return to the order of nature." *

1 Ueber die biirgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber, p. 252.

2 Ibid., p. 108. 3 Ibid., p. 335. 4 Ibid., p. 230.

IN GERMANY.

Mary Wollstonecraft, young, enthusiastic, ardent
with the zeal of the reformer, and a member of the
school of Revolutionists in England, saw the con-
nection between the claim of the French Repub-
licans for the rights of man and its complement,
the rights of woman. Her work was the product
of her personality and her times, with not a con-
tradictory note in it. Was it a reproduction of her
sentiments when Hippel, in almost the very words
used by her in the dedication of her book, attacks
the new constitution of the Republicans, " because
they saw fit to exclude a full one-half of the
nation?" l In an almost prophetic tone he exclaims :
" L,et us rejoice in the prospect of the time when
the day of redemption will dawn for the fair sex,
when human beings, who are called to equal rights,
will not be hindered in the enjoyment of them, and
when those who, to all appearances, are equal will
not be separated by arbitrary distinctions."2

Was this an echo of the strong, full note, struck
by Mary Wollstonecraft in her Vindication of the
Rights of Woman ? Perhaps it was. An hypothesis
to that effect is supported by much indirect evi-
dence, and leads to the assumption, that Mary
Wollstonecraft, through Theodor Gottlieb von
Hippel, announced in Germany the principles which
must ultimately lead to the emancipation of
woman.

1 Ibid., p. 209. 2 Ibid., p. 16.

28

CONCLUSION.

A CENTURY has passed since Mary Wollstone-
craft made her demands in behalf of women. The
principles which served as foundation of her
argument, have become the watchword of progress
in the onward course of civilization. The contest
concerning the abolition of slavery, waged during
the first part of the present century, was an
application of some of the ideas which were so
strongly enunciated during the French Revolution.
In our own day the discussion of the social problem
centers largely in the persistent effort to secure
to the laborer the rights of man. The influ-
ence of these movements could not but leave upon
women the impression, that the day of their
emancipation had also drawn nigh. If any one of
them demanded for herself that which she
considered the rights of a human being, the general
ideas of the present century furnished her an ally,
sufficiently strong to render the prospect of success
at least to some extent hopeful.

CONCLUSION. 219

A comparison between the propositions and
demands of Mary Wollstonecraft and that which
has been achieved in their realization gives evidence
of a marked change in the whole situation. Few of
the women of her times were conscious of a desire for
equality, and men did not seek occasion to arouse
aspirations of this kind. This apathy has given
way to unrest. Of the nations which can to-day lay
even the slightest claim to civilization, there are
few that do not count within their borders women,
who are conscious of the degrading nature of their
subordinate position. To win for herself the rights
to which she has claim as a human being, is the
aim of the typical woman of the present century ;
and she works toward its attainment with a patient
determination. Man is not by any means always
her enemy, who enjoys for himself the high
heritage of the rights of freedom and equality, the
trophies of the struggle of past centuries, and
refuses to allow woman to partake of them. There
are men, who lend a hand to remove obstacles that
obstruct the path which Mary Wollstonecraft was
one of the first to tread ; men like John Stuart Mill,
who in his widely read book, The Subjection of
Women, proved himself one of the numerous
advisers and helpers of woman, who during the
present century have ranged themselves on her side.

Others, however, stand afar off and watch this
new current in the history of civilization with
doubtful mien ; strange it seems to them and
uncertain as to its ultimate destiny. But when this
question in modern progress embodies itself in the

220 CONCLUSION.

form of a member of her sex, who asks of life but
the right of freedom in the choice of her calling,
in the preparation for it and in its pursuit, then
the question takes a turn, it becomes direct and
practical, and any possible opposition falls to the
ground by reason of its innate contradiction. The
days have passed, when one human being could
dictate to another : Thy rank in society, or in
this case thy sex, robs thee of the opportunity of
striving after the attainment of the highest possible
degree of development of all thy faculties. Such
disposition of one by another belongs to the time
when serfdom was still in vogue, not to our
own day.

The course of history remains a closed book to
many, who yet in their own circle of observation
meet with the unmistakable fact, that a revolution
is gaining ground, to some degree unobserved, but
none the less surely and steadily. It is not noticed
until daughter, sister or friend comes to a realiza-
tion of the fact, that she is first a human
being and then a woman, that she may partake
of the rights of human beings and yet remain
a woman.

In contrast to the apathy, which paralyzed pro-
gress in this direction in Mary Wollstonecraft's time,
we have to-day the lively opposition of conservative
minds among women as well as men. This is a
favorable sign, indicating that public opinion is now
at work on a question, which in that day seemed
peculiar and out of place. The man of meager
education, as well as the man of learning, forms

CONCLUSION. 221

an opinion concerning the position, which nature
has given to woman. A corresponding profusion
of literary productions marks the degree to which
the public mind has taken hold of the question.
Frivolous witticism, sentimental declamation and
the sameness of oft repeated assertions form a
wearisome phase of this literature. The case is
different, when the scientist forms hypotheses to
prove that woman, according to the physical neces-
sity of her nature, must be excluded from the
higher range of mental activity. These assump-
tions have been proven unsound and have thus
supported by indirect proof the positive side of the
argument in favor of equality. The psychologist
too has instituted researches, investigating the
powers and functions of the female mind. His
results are of doubtful value, for as John Stuart Mill
says, this chapter of psychology will not stand on
correct basis until the time comes, when women
shall be of age and able to give information
concerning themselves. In this respect also, Mary
Wollstonecraft did the service of a pioneer, in
saying : "I have, probably, had an opportunity of
observing more girls in their infancy than J. J.
Rousseau and I recollect my own feelings."1 The
student of political economy too finds that he is
lacking in a fixed foundation, when he attempts to
assign to woman her place in the vast organism
that constitutes the state. It may easily happen,
that that which he seeks to support theoretically
to-day, is practically proven untenable to-morrow
1 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 81.

222 CONCLUSION.

by woman, as she, undaunted, moves onward in
the path which her feet are treading.

The limited number of professions and occupa-
tions, which Mary Wollstonecraft hesitatingly men-
tioned as adapted to women, have multiplied. She
bravely pointed to the study and practice of medicine
as a calling which woman could follow, much to the
advantage of 'the suffering, especially among her
own sex. Seventy-five years after her time, the
Universities of Switzerland admitted women to
academic rights and honors. Some of Mary Woll-
stonecraft's countrywomen, in those early days of
scant educational advantages, sojourned in Switzer-
land, because the doors of English Colleges were
yet closed against them. The day came, when on
British soil their rights were to some extent
respected. There has been a steady increase from
year to year in the branches of employment in
which women gain a foothold, until to-day there
are few in which they have not at least reached an
average degree of ability and efficiency. The
question is no longer as to whether woman is able,
the question is, what effect will the addition of so
much fresh capacity of labor have upon social con-
ditions ? Will the strain grow more oppressive and
the struggle for existence keener ? But to set aside
the capabilities of the woman, who stands above
the average, in favor of the man of slight natural
endowment, would be to give the victory to the
physically stronger. It would be equivalent to
following motives, which belong to the maxims of
barbarism, where the physically strong takes in all

CONCLUSION. 223

things the precedent, and contrary to the principles
of equality, which the race has evolved at tremen-
dous cost.

Those causes and effects of woman's subordinate
position, which Mary Wollstonecraft laid bare with
so much penetration, are still in operation to some
degree. In their full extent as defect, as blemish,
they appear when they produce discords where
otherwise there would be naught but full-toned
harmony of development. The dormant condition
of important faculties, barely noticed in the seclu-
sion of private life, makes itself felt, when the
activities are transferred to positions of wider
responsibilities in public life.

Mary Wollstonecraft complained that the women
of her times possessed so little genuine love for
humanity, that they seldom felt any tenderness to-
ward children, who were not their own. In this di-
rection a change has been wrought. Philanthropic
interests have opened out to women channels
of activity, which have led them to new conceptions
concerning the claims which the individual has
upon the race, and reciprocally the race on the in-
dividual ; and these new conceptions have re-acted
upon them, and lent them a new dignity. The
motives toward this activity have undoubtedly
been furnished by the religion of Jesus Christ. If
in facing the stronghold of conservatism, there was
danger that woman might lay too great a stress
upon her rights, the balance was restored by the
precepts of Christianity, which give to duty the
first place, and accord to right the place of a

224 CONCLUSION.

legitimate second. When the weak face the strong,
they speak of their rights. The time must come
when woman may cease to declare her independ-
ence and remember only that human beings are
inter-dependent, and may limit their liberty even
unto the sacrifice of their lives, if they would
aspire to the highest ideals of the Christian world.

It is wholly in accordance with a sound, normal
growth, that woman should but slowly gather into
her hand some of the threads of public life, and
that her influence should but by degrees become a
part of the conflicting currents of contemporaneous
thought. By means of cunning and intrigue the
women of Mary Wollstonecraft's day wrought much
both of good and of evil in the destinies of nations.
Stealthy interference may even to-day have its far
reaching effects. At the same time, in a frank and
open spirit, woman, to a degree that varies in
different nations, is beginning to take part in the
duties of public life, not asserting herself obtrusive-
ly, but with a view to conquering rather by means
of the fairness and justice of her cause. For who
shall chide her, when she ranges herself on the
side of those of her own sex who, poor, destitute,
outcast or imprisoned are dependent upon the
mercy or justice of the state? Who would inter-
fere, when she seeks to weaken the stability of laws,
that were made to support man's sovereignty in
the family, that rank woman in a line with his
goods and possessions ?

Woman is comparatively powerless so long as
she is denied the franchise. John^ Stuart Mill

CONCLUSION. 225

directs his argument largely towards this aspect of
the matter ; for in the problem of enfranchisement
the whole question of the social position of woman
comes to a point. The laughter, with which, as
Mary Wollstonecraft rightly expected, her proposi-
tion that women should have their own representa-
tives was received, has long since been turned into
soberness. Political conflicts and earnest debates
have, in several countries, shown that that which
in her day was termed an Utopian dream, cannot
now be hushed to silence by jokes and innuendoes.
Those who maintain the political equality of
woman scarcely find themselves under necessity to
fortify their position by means of argument. All
that could be said for or against was exhausted in
other directions. Especially since the time when in
America political equality was thrust upon the
slave, but recently liberated, as a gift, there is no
argument left} that could make it appear in the
light of justice and fairness, that woman should be
denied that which was given to the slave unasked.
All that now remains to be conquered is a certain
sentiment. An inveterate antipathy furnishes the
last arrow remaining in a once well-filled quiver.

If this antipathy is defined, it is generally found
to have its source in the desire to shield the family
and the home. In an undefinable fear of that which
is new and unknown to experience, fancy creates
terrifying pictures of how the state, which must not
be deprived of the family as its foundation, how the
whole commonwealth would be plunged into dire
confusion, if ever the narrow boundaries which now

226 CONCLUSION.

confine women to the family, and the family only,
should yield to pressure. But experience, the
faithful adviser of fancy, has already demonstrated,
that the states which have extended the franchise
to women and have made her free economically,
have suffered no manner of catastrophe, nor have
they found themselves involved in a confusion of
social conditions. In its early days the movement
was not without its fanatics, the necessary accom-
paniment of any great movement. They undoubt-
edly had a work to do ; they did it heroically, though
perhaps not always gracefully, and have passed away.
To-day the " New Woman " illustrates another
phase in the evolution of the movement. She is
the woman who has an undisputed right to all
things, who would be guarded in that which she
appropriates, but is often crude and self-assertive in
her choice. She carries her new-found freedom
with a proud air of inelegancy. As for the true
"New Woman " of the future, who shall define her ?
There are to-day women, who in their personality
herald the corning of a new woman who will be
the fulfilment of the ideals, thought unattainable by
her who passed through the shadows of the
transition state from the old to the new.

The fear that woman could be estranged from
the family need have no power to harass. She will
never cease instinctively to expect happiness of a
high order in the companionship of her husband,
in the clinging helplessness of her little children.
Her expectation that her husband will regard her
as an equal can only tend to lift family relations to

CONCLUSION. 227

a higher, nobler plane. If, as John Stuart Mill
says, the family is to-day the only social institution
in which despotism may lift its head nnrebuked
and unpunished, it would be a consequential com-
pletion of the revolutions inaugurated by the
eighteenth centurv, if woman should banish from

o J '

society this remnant of barbarism.

Mary Wollstonecraft's hints concerning a recon-
ciliation between the conflicting claims of profes-
sional life and the home, between independence and
the family, are few. How both could be blended
in harmonious development, neither detracting
from the other, but rather each supplementing
the other, she did not and could not explain.
Down to the present day theories on this subject
are of merely potential value. Experience must
demonstrate that a reconciliation between these
conflicting factors'" in the modern woman's life, is
not only within the range of possibility, but that it
is an actually accomplished fact. Every woman
who engages in this conflict and in a conciliatory
spirit goes forth from it as conqueror, supports from
the practical side a movement, which to her indi-
vidually is a source of power. This represents the
individual, practical aspect of the movement. Its
general aspect, in its conformity to a general law,
is to be found in the course of history.

It is the significance of the work of Mary Woll-
stonecraft, as vindicator of the rights of woman, that
with the eye of genius she recognized the advent
of the time, when in the course of historical devel-
opment, the principles had been evolved, which

228 CONCLUSION.

would offer to each individual woman a sure foot-
hold for her endeavors in the direction of emanci-
pation. To this conception she gave perhaps the
first conscious expression and thereby became the
forerunner of a movement, which seems destined to
revolutionize social conditions in many countries.
Her Vindication of the Rights of Woman may there-
fore be considered to have marked an epoch in the
history of civilization.

INDEX.

America,

— new government in, 84.

— woman in, Wo.

— political equality in, 225.

— relation to France, 11.
Anarchy,

— in education, 151.

— in marriage, 184.
Angels, 100, 119.
Anthropology, 110.
Aristocracy, 154:.
Atheism, 57, 62. '
Authority, 138, 144.

Baader, Franz von, 197.
Bachofen, 111.
Barbarism, 82, 179, 222.
Bazard, 187.
Bebel, August, 116.
Benevolence, 128-29.
Bible, The, 48, 63.
Biology, 110.
Blind, Mathilde, 22.
Bluntschli, J. C., 170.
Borowski, L. E., 208, 210.
Brandes, E., 212.
Brenning, E., 211.
Buckle, 74.
Burke, Edmund,

— and the French Revolution,

9, 49.
— controversy with, 71 — 82,

87.

Burr, Aaron, 15.
Byron, 188.

Cambridge School of Moralists.

126.

Carter, Mrs. E., 62.
Cenci, Beatrice, 21.
Chapone, Mrs., 96.
Character,

—human, 89, 98.

—female, 116.

—formation of, 131, 188.
Chesterfield, Lord, 97.
Christianity,

—hostility to, 62.

— relation to woman, 99, 100.

— Saint Simonians and, 187.
\ Church, The,

— doctrines of, 46.

— forms of, 49.

— criticism of, 64.

— sentiment of, 99.
Citizen,

— training of, 146, 155.

—rights of, 215.
Civilization,

—progress of, 30, 186.

— curse of, 80.

—ideal of, 90.
Clergy, The, 65.
Co-education, ~L5'i — 160.
Coercion, 105, 112.
Communism, 188.

230

INDEX.

Colls, John Henry, 120.
Condorcet, 148, 171.
Conquest, 100-101.
Constitution,

—English, 79.

— French Republican, 148,

165.

Conservatism, 45.
Cudworth, 126.

Deism, 50, 55, 62.
Dependence, 92, 132-33.
Descartes, 50, 111.
Development,

— room for, 54.

— of resources, 85.

— of women, 124.

—of children, 136.

— of girls, 155.

— of humanity, 163.
Differentiation, 124, 158, 163.
Disintegration, 181.
Distinction.

—rank, 89, 169.

— class, 160.
Diversity, 124.
Dowden, Edward, 19.
Dress, 91, 117.
Duty,

— in relation to God, 52.

—neglect of, 130.

— of motherhood, 136.

— and rights, 138.

— of woman, 190.

— conception of, 192.

— and Christianity, 223.

Education,

— intuition in, 25.

—private, 144, 152.

—national, 149—152, 159-
160.

— co-education, 157 — 162.
Ely, R. T., 187.
Emancipation,

—of woman, 182, 202, 218,
227.

— of working man, 187, 218.
Empiricism, 54.

Enfantin, 187.
England,

— reform in, 70.

— property in, 80.

• — morality in, 130.

— education in, 146.
Environment,

— and woman, 125, 139.

— and morality, 131.
Equality,

—theses of, 39.

— independence and, 113.

—intellectual, 148.

— of 'opportunity, 160.

— in social conditions, 189.
Ethics,

— apprehension and, 53.

— marriage and, 94.

—schools of, 126, 135.
Etiquette, 108, 113.
Evil,

— social, 26.

—doctrine of, 56-57, 126.

Family, The,

— constitution of, 163.

—attack upon, 180, 182.

— socialism and, 186.
Fanatic, 193.
Fawcett, Mrs. Henry, 29.
Fordyce, Dr. George, 71.
Fordyce, Rev. James, 97—101.
Fourier, 175, 186.
France,

— religion in, 78.

— and woman, 105.

— political position of, 148.

— and suffrage, 170.
Franchise, 224.
Freedom,

— of individual, 99.

— of intellectual enquiry, 150.

—efficacy of, 166.
Freethinkers, 62.
Fuseli, Henry, 10, 71, 171.

Geddes, Dr., 71.
Genlis, Madame, 96.
Gentleness, 128.

INDEX.

George III., 71, 168.
Goethe, 35.
Godwin, William,

— marriage, 13.

— >'/. Leon, 15.

—as biographer, 14, 39, 48,
63.

— on national education, 149
—152.

— social philosophy of, 176 —

185.
Government,

— liberty and, 81.

— participation in, 148.

— and education, 150.

—forms of, 168.
Greek, The, 99.
Gregory, Dr. John, 101—104.
Growth, 77, 83.

Happiness,

— conditions for, 70.

— abode of, 85.

— attainment of, 135.

— virtue and, 142.
Hartmann, E. von. 122.
Hayes, Miss, 60, Iff 8.
Heredity, 137.
Hettner, H., 35.
Hippel, T. G. von, 203—217.
Homer, 212.
Humanity,

—wrongs of, 26, 33.

— service to, 70.

—love for, 146.

— development of, 163.
Humboldt, 201.

Idea, The, 121, 143.
Idealism. 36, 54.
Imlay, Gilbert,

— marriage to, 10.

—letters to, 34, 59.
Imlay, Fanny,

—birth of, 11.

—death of, 19.

— lessons for, 33.

— education of, 104.

—letter by, 188.

Immortality, 61-62.
Impression, 142.
Independence, 100.
Individual,

— judgment of, 76.

—liberty of, 81.

—value of, 99.

— assertiveness of, 163.
Inferiority,

—moral, 93, 125.

—intellectual, 107.
Intrigue, 129, 165.
Intuition, 25, 121.

Jochmann, C. G., 200—202.
Johnson, Joseph, 7, 12, 70, 73,

177, 204.

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 95, 116.
Justice,

— sense of, 23.

—as virtue, 129, 147.

— principle of, 181.

Kant, Iimnanuel,

— theoretical knowledge, 53.

— influence in Germany, 192.

—and Hippel, 209—210.
Katharine II., 210.
Keber, W. G., 208.
Kindergarten, 158.
Kingsborough, Lord, 7, 47, 68.
Kirkup, Thomas, 149, 185.
Klemm, G., 199.
Knowles, John, 171.
Kiittner, K. G., 198.

Labor, 174—176.
Lavater, 71.
Laveleye, 188.
Law,

— principles of, 60.

— respecting woman, 172, 215.

— of oppression, 184.
Lechler, G. V., 55.
Lenz, K. G., 212.
Liberalism, 179.
Liberty,

— security of, 80.

— nature of, 81.

232

INDEX.

Liberty,

— conception of, 99.

— natural and civil, 146.

—efficacy of, 166.

— and license, 185.
Lippert, Julius, 179.
Locke, John,

— philosophy, 50, 52—55

— revolutionary principle,
82—84.

— pedagogical views, 141 —

144.
Louis xvi., 32, 82.

Macon, Council at, 127.
Macauley, Catherine, 96.
Magna Charta, 76—77.
Manifesto, 179, 187.
Marie Antoinette, 43, 78.
Marriage,
—as an aim, 103.
— attack upon 180.
— socialism and, 185.
Marshall, Mrs. J., 120, 188.
Matriarchate, 111.
Materialism, 61.
Medical College, 162.
Meekness, 98-99.
Menger. Anton, 151, 175.
Mill, John Stuart, 219, 221, 224,
Mohl, E. von, 75. [226.

Monarchy, 168.
Montesquieu, 169.
Morality,

— foundation of, 52.

— reason and, 118.

— basis of, 125.

—state of, 130.

— science of, 161.
Moral Sense, 52.
More, Hannah, 43-44, 49.
Motherhood,

— sensibility and, 136.

— duties of, 157.

— importance of, 183.
Mundt, Th., 208.

Nation, 83, 86. 167.

Nature,

— return to, 89.

—law of, 108.
Necker, Jacques, 28.

Opie, 21,
Opinion, public,

— conservative nature of, 104.

—law of, 112.

—power of, 167.
Opportunity,

— equality of, 151, 160.

— of development, 220.
Optimism, 86, 162.
Orthodoxy, 63,
Owen, Kobert, 175, 188.

Paine, Thomas, 44, 71, 177.
Paul, C. Kegan, 10, 21, 34, 46, 60
' Passions, The,
— and reason, 54.
— of women, 131.
— restraint upon, 142.
Pedagogy, 141, 143.
Pennell, E. E,, 22, 29.
Personality, 157.
Pessimism, 57, 123.
Philosophy,

— moral, 50, 53.

—social, 184.
Piozzi, Mrs., 95.
Plato, 54.
Pleasure, 133.
Politics, 75, 169.
Pope, 97.
Preger, W., 99.
Prejudice, 90, 149.
Price, Dr. Eichard,

— as friend, 7.

— as preacher, 49, 53,

— as philosopher, 53, 126.
Priestly, 71.
Prior, James, 72.
Prior, Master at Eton, 7, 69.
Privilege, 114-115, 160.
Property,

— theories on, 151.

—marriage and, 179.

— encroachment of, 81.

INDEX.

233

Psychology, 123, 221.
Punishment, 55, 147.

Radicalism, 179.
Rank, 78.
Rationalism,

— in religion, 58.

— in politics, 75.

— conclusion of, 112.

— and sensibility, 117.

— formula of, 139.
Reason,

— nature of, 53, 159.

— in politics, 77.

— and nature, 94.

—and woman, 111, 166.

— and virtue, 128.

— and the passions, 131.

— and education, 141.

— as arbiter, 184.
Reform, 182.
Reformation, 78, 84, 112.
Reformer,

—traits of, 25, 138.

—zeal of, 70, 106.

— indignation o£, 113.

— confidence of, 166.
Religion, 51, 93.
Republicans, French,

— Horace Walpole and, 45.

— and national education,
145.

— constitution of, 148.

— and woman's suffrage, 165.

—and Talleyrand, 171.
Research, 111.
Revelation, 53.
Revolution,

— and Christianity, 78.

— when justifiable, 84.

— in female manners, 112.
Revolution, French,

— a crisis, 30.

—Burke and, 49, 74.

— discussion of, 70.

—history of, 83.

— and women, 165, 171.

—idea born of, 226.

Revolutionists,

—society of English, 72, 168.

—school of, 75, 77, 182, 217.

—attacks of, 101.
Rights,

—civil, 39.

—natural, 81, 165.

—of man, 30, 76.

— of woman, 87.
Rousseau,

—influence of, 35, 69, 211.

— reasoning concerning God,
52.

— conception of evil, 56.

— position of woman, 88-95.

— pedagogical views, 143-145.

Saint Simon, 175, 186.
Salzmann, C. G.,

—method of, 27.

— pedagogical views of, 194.

— translation by, 194-199.
Scepticism, 62.
Sheffher, 208.
Schlabrendorf, Count,

— imprisonment of, 186.

—tribute by, 200-202.
Science,

— natural, 110.

— economic, 151.
j Sensibility,

—of women, 42, 108.

— and female character 115-
117.

— and benevolence, 29.

— and motherhood, 136.
Shelley, Harriet, 17.
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft,

—birth, 14.

— marriage, 18.

—death, 21.

— dedication to, 19.

— opinion of, 120.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe,

— marriage, 18.

—Revolt of Islam, 19.

—death, 20.

—at Lake Geneva, 188.

234

INDEX.

Shelley, Sir Percy, 21.
Simmel, G., 123.
Smith, Adam, 115, 174.
Socialism,

— woman and, 116.

—education and 151-153, 160.

— marriage and, 185.

— leaders of, 186.

—ideals of, 188.
Sociology, 163.
Soul, The,

—affected by sex, 120.

— of woman, 127.

— impressions upon, 142.
Spinoza, 121, 128.
Stael, The Baroness de, 95.
State, The,

— founding of, 81.

— duty toward, 157.

— participation in, 165.

— and individual, 167.

— and woman, 189, 216.

— and franchise, 225.
Stephen, Leslie, 62, 180.
Strength, physical, 108-110.
Subtilty, 92-93.
Suffrage,

— universal, 170.

— of woman, 170, 224.
System,

— announcement of »ew, 40,
44, 191, 197.

— of woman's education, 89,
94, 106.

— in England, 71.

— on national education, 148.

Talleyrand,

— on political rights, 164.
— possible championship, 171.

I Theism, 51, 62.
Truth,

— nature of, 50.

• — in perversions, 100.

— ultimate ethical, 125.

— unpatronized, 150.
Tyranny,

—toward children, 136, 144.

— in school, 146.

— in society, 165.

— instrument of, 168.

Understanding,

— cultivation of, 117.

—neglect of, 136, 159.
Uniformity, 124.
Ushers, 146.
Utilitarian Sphool of Ethics,

125-26, 135.
Utility,

—in ethics, 125, 127.

— in education, 141.

Vice, 55, 86.
Virtue,

— and reason, 52, 142.

—of woman, 91, 127-139.

— in society, 198.
Voltaire, 178, 192.
Voss, F. C., 207.

Walpole, Horace, 43-44.
Warschauer, Otto, 187.
Weakness, 113, 133.
Wealth, 174.
Williams, H. M. 200.
Wundt, W., 101.

Zimmern, H. 22.
Zschokke, H., 201.

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