* 'Researches into abstract and speculative truths, the principles and
axioms of sciences, in short, every thing which tends to generalize our
ideas, is not the proper province of women; their studies should be
relative to points of practice; it belongs to them to apply those
principles which men have discovered; and it is their part to make
observations, which direct men to the establishment of general principles.
All the ideas of women, which have not the immediate tendency to points of
duty, should be directed to the study of men, and to the attainment of
those agreeable accomplishments which have taste for their object; for as
to works of genius, they are beyond their capacity; neither have they
sufficient precision or power of attention to succeed in sciences which
require accuracy: and as to physical knowledge, it belongs to those only
who are most active, most inquisitive; who comprehend the greatest variety
of objects: in short, it belongs to those who have the strongest powers,
and who exercise them most, to judge of the relations between sensible
beings and the laws of nature. A woman who is naturally weak, and does not
carry her ideas to any great extent, knows how to judge and make a proper
estimate of those movements which she sets to work, in order to aid her
weakness; and these movements are the passions of men. The mechanism she
employs is much more powerful than ours; for all her levers move the human
heart. She must have the skill to incline us to do every thing which her
sex will not enable her to do herself, and which is necessary or agreeable
to her; therefore she ought to study the mind of man thoroughly, not the
mind of man in general, abstractedly, but the dispositions of those men to
whom she is subject, either by the laws of her country or by the force of
opinion. She should learn to penetrate into their real sentiments from
their conversation, their actions, their looks, and gestures. She should
also have the art, by her own conversation, actions, looks, and gestures,
to communicate those sentiments which are agreeable to them, without
seeming to intend it. Men will argue more philosophically about the human
heart; but women will read the heart of man better than they. It belongs to
women, if I may be allowed the expression, to form an experimental
morality, and to reduce the study of man to a system. Women have most wit,
men have most genius; women observe, men reason: from the concurrence of
both we derive the clearest light and the most perfect knowledge, which the
human mind is, of itself, capable of attaining. In one word, from hence we
acquire the most intimate acquaintance, both with ourselves and others, of
which our nature is capable; and it is thus that art has a constant
tendency to perfect those endowments which nature has bestowed,- The world
is the book of women.'- Rousseau's Emilius.
I hope my readers still remember the comparison, which I have
brought forward, between women and officers.