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Chapter 1
The Rights and Involved Duties of Mankind Considered

Wollstonecraft's introductory chapter on the human condition

" When that wise being who created us and placed us here, saw the fair idea, he willed, by allowing it to be so, that the passions should unfold our reason, because he could see that present evil would produce future good."

Chapter 2 The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed

"To speak disrespectfully of love is, I know, high treason against sentiment and fine feelings; but I wish to speak the simple language of truth, and rather to address the head than the heart. To endeavour to reason love out of the world, would be to out Quixote Cervantes, and equally offend against common sense; but an endeavour to restrain this tumultuous passion, and to prove that it should not be allowed to dethrone superior powers, or to usurp the sceptre which the understanding should ever coolly wield, appears less wild."

Chapter 3 The Same Subject Continued

"Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison. Men have various employments and pursuits which engage their attention, and give a character to the opening mind; but women, confined to one, and having their thoughts constantly directed to the most insignificant part of themselves, seldom extend their views beyond the triumph of the hour."

Chapter 4 Observations on the State of Degradation to which Woman is Reduced

"Reason is ... the simple power of improvement; or, more properly speaking, of discerning truth."

" The power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations, is the only acquirement... that really deserves the name of knowledge... This power has not only been denied to women; but writers have insisted that it is inconsistent... with their sexual character."

Chapter 5 Animadversions on some of the Writers who have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, bordering on Contempt: 5: Section 1: Rousseau

Chapter 6 The Effect which an Early Association of Ideas has upon the Character
"a lover the husband... cannot long remain. Were women more rationally educated... they would be contented to love but once in their lives; and after marriage calmly let passion subside into friendship "

Chapter 7 Modesty - Comprehensively Considered, and not as a Sexual Virtue

Chapter 8 Morality Undermined by Sexual Notions of the Importance of a Good Reputation

Chapter 9 Of the Pernicious Effects which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society

Chapter 10 Parental Affection

Chapter 11 Duty to Parents
"Children cannot be taught too early to submit to reason... to submit to the nature of things... Why should the minds of children be warped as they just begin to expand, only to favour the indolence of parents?... It is easier, I grant, to command than reason... "

Chapter 12 On National Education

Chapter 13 Some Instances of the Folly which the Ignorance of Women generates


Chapter 1:

The Rights and Involved Duties of Mankind Considered

(¶) Paragraph numbers added to assist referencing

(¶1.1)  In the present state of society it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning is built; though, when entangled with various motives of action, they are formally contradicted, either by the words or conduct of men.

(¶1.2)  In what does man's pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that half is less than the whole, in Reason.

(¶1.3)  What acquirement exalts one being above another? Virtue, we spontaneously reply.

(¶1.4)  For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes, whispers Experience.

(¶1.5)  Consequently the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness must be estimated by the degree of reason, virtue and knowledge, that distinguishes the individual, and direct the laws which bind society: and that from the exercise of reason, knowledge and virtue naturally flow, is equally undeniable, if mankind is viewed collectively.

(¶1.6)  The rights and duties of man thus simplified, it seems almost impertinent to attempt to illustrate truths that appear so incontrovertible; yet such deeply rooted prejudices have clouded reason, and such spurious qualities have assumed the name of virtues, that it is necessary to pursue the course of reason as it has been perplexed and involved in error by various adventitious circumstances, comparing the simple axiom with casual deviations.

(¶1.7)  Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they can scarcely trace how, rather than to root them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves. Yet the imperfect conclusions thus drawn, are frequently very plausible, because they are built on partial experience, on just, though narrow, views.

(¶1.8)  Going back to first principles, vice skulks, with all its native deformity, from close investigation; but a set of shallow reasoners are always exclaiming that these arguments prove too much, and that a measure rotten at the core may be expedient. Thus expediency is continually contrasted with simple principles, till truth is lost in a mist of words, virtue, in forms, and knowledge rendered a sounding nothing, by the specious prejudices that assume its name.

(¶1.9)  That the society is formed in the wisest manner, whose constitution is founded on the nature of man, strikes, in the abstract, every being so forcibly, that it looks like presumption to endeavour to bring forward proofs: though proofs must be brought, or the strong hold of prescription will never be forced by reason; yet to urge prescription as an argument to justify depriving men (or women) of their natural rights, is one of the absurd sophisms which daily insult common sense.

(¶1.10)  The civilisation of the bulk of the people of Europe is very partial; nay, it may be made a question, whether they have acquired any virtues in exchange for innocence, equivalent to the misery produced by the vices that have been plastered over unsightly ignorance, and the freedom which has been bartered for splendid slavery. The desire of dazzling by riches, the most certain pre-eminence that man can obtain, the pleasure of commanding flattering sycophants, and many other complicated low calculations of doting self-love, have all contributed to overwhelm the mass of mankind, and make liberty a convenient handle for mock patriotism. For whilst rank and titles are held of the utmost importance, before which Genius "must hide its diminished head", it is, with a few exceptions, very unfortunate for a nation when a man of abilities, without rank or property, pushes himself forward to notice. Alas! what unheard-of-misery have thousands suffered to purchase a cardinal's hat for an intriguing obscure adventurer, who longed to be ranked with princes or lord it over them by seizing the triple crown!

(¶1.11)  Such indeed has been the wretchedness that has flowed from hereditary honours, riches, and monarchy, that men of lively sensibility have almost uttered blasphemy in order to justify the dispensations of Providence. Man has been held out as independent of His power who made him, or as a lawless planet darting from its orbit to steal the celestial fire of reason; and the vengeance of Heaven, lurking in the subtile [subtle?] flame, like Pandora's pent-up mischiefs, sufficiently punished his temerity, by introducing evil into the world.

[My interpretation: dispensations of Providence: the way God has arranged the world. The full paragraph appears to argue that the human distortions of hierarchy mislead people about the divinely desired natural order of the world. Hierarchy overrides reason and so misleads people into imagining that reason is stolen from God. Wollstonecraft argues that reason is natural and desirable. The idea that human distortions of the natural and rational social order are the cause of all problems reflects the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which says ignorance of, neglect of, and contempt for the rights of man are the sole causes of public misfortune.

(¶1.12)  Impressed by this view of the misery and disorder which pervade society, and fatigued with jostling against artificial fools, Rousseau became enamoured of solitude, and, being at the same time an optimist, he labours with uncommon eloquence to prove that man was naturally a solitary animal. Mislead by his respect for the goodness of God, who certainly - for what man of sense and feeling can doubt it! - gave life only to communicate happiness, he considers evil as positive, and the work of man; not aware that he was exalting one attribute at the expense of another, equally necessary to divine perfection.

(¶1.13)  Reared on a false hypothesis, his arguments in favour of a state of nature are plausible, but unsound. I say unsound; for to assert that a state of nature is preferable to civilisation, in all its possible perfection, is, in other words, to arraign supreme wisdom; and the paradoxical exclamation, that God had made all things right, and that error has been introduced by the creature, whom he formed, knowing what he formed, is as unphilosophical as impious.

(¶1.14)  When that wise Being who created us and placed us here, saw the fair idea, he willed, by allowing it to be so, that the passions should unfold our reason, because He could see that present evil would produce future good. Could the helpless creature whom He called from nothing break loose from His providence and boldly learn to know good by practising evil without his permission? No.- How could that energetic advocate for immortality argue so inconsistently? Had mankind remained for ever in the brutal state of nature, which even his magic pen cannot paint as a state in which a single virtue took root, it would have been clear, though not to the sensitive unreflecting wanderer, that man was born to run the circle of life and death, and adorn God's garden for some purpose which could not easily be reconciled with his attributes.

(¶1.15)  But if, to crown the whole, there were to be rational creatures produced, allowed to rise in excellence by the exercise of powers implanted for that purpose; if benignity itself thought fit to call into existence a creature above the brutes, who could think and improve himself, why should that inestimable gift, for a gift it was, if man was so created as to have a capacity to rise above the state in which sensation produced brutal ease, be called, in direct terms, a curse? A curse it might be reckoned, if the whole of our existence were bounded by our continuance in this world; for why should the gracious fountain of life give us passions, and the power of reflecting, only to embitter our days and inspire us with mistaken notions of dignity? Why should he lead us from love of ourselves to the sublime emotions which the discovery of his wisdom and goodness excites, if these feelings were not set in motion to improve our nature, of which they make a part, and render us capable of enjoying a more godlike portion of happiness? Firmly persuaded that no evil exists in the world that God did not design to take place, I build my belief on the perfection of God.

(¶1.16)  Rousseau exerts himself to prove that all was right originally: a crowd of authors that all is now right: and I, that all will be right.

(¶1.17)  But, true to his first position, next to a state of nature, Rousseau celebrates barbarism, and apostrophizing the shade of Fabricius, he forgets that, in conquering the world, the Romans never dreamed of establishing their own liberty on a firm basis, or of extending the reign of virtue. Eager to support his system, he stigmatizes, as vicious, every effort of genius; and, uttering the apotheosis of savage virtues, he exalts those to demi-gods, who were scarcely human- the brutal Spartans, who, in defiance of justice and gratitude, sacrificed, in cold blood, the slaves who had shown themselves heroes to rescue their oppressors.

(¶1.18)  Disgusted with artificial manners and virtues, the citizen of Geneva [Rousseau], instead of properly sifting the subject, threw away the wheat with the chaff, without waiting to inquire whether the evils which his ardent soul turned from indignantly, were the consequences of civilisation or the vestiges of barbarism. He saw vice trampling on virtue, and the semblance of goodness taking the place of the reality; he saw talents bent by power to sinister purposes, and never thought of tracing the gigantic mischief up to arbitrary power, up to the hereditary distinctions that clash with the mental superiority that naturally raises a man above his fellows. He did not perceive that regal power, in a few generations, introduces idiotism into the noble stem, and holds out baits to render thousands idle and vicious.

(¶1.19)  Nothing can set the regal character in a more contemptible point of view, than the various crimes that have elevated men to the supreme dignity.- Vile intrigues, unnatural crimes, and every vice that degrades our nature, have been the steps to this distinguished eminence; yet millions of men have supinely allowed the nerveless limbs of the posterity of such rapacious prowlers to rest quietly on their ensanguined thrones.

(¶1.20)  What but a pestilential vapour can hover over society when its chief director is only instructed in the invention of crimes, or the stupid routine of childish ceremonies? Will men never be wise?- will they never cease to expect corn from tares, and figs from thistles?

(¶1.21)  It is impossible for any man, when the most favourable circumstances concur, to acquire sufficient knowledge and strength of mind to discharge the duties of a king, entrusted with uncontrolled power; how then must they be violated when his very elevation is an insuperable bar to the attainment of either wisdom or virtue, when all the feelings of a man are stifled by flattery, and reflection shut out by pleasure! Sure it is madness to make the fate of thousands depend on the caprice of a weak fellow creature, whose very station sinks him necessarily below the meanest of his subjects! But one power should not be thrown down to exalt another - for all power inebriates weak man; and its abuse proves that the more equality there is established among men, the more happiness and virtue will reign in society. But this and any similar maxim deduced from simple reason, raises an outcry - the Church or the State is in danger, if faith in the wisdom of antiquity is not implicit; and they who, roused by the sight of human calamity, dare to attack human authority, are reviled as despisers of God and enemies of man. These are bitter calumnies, yet they reached on of the best of men, whose ashes still speak peace and whose memory demands a respectful pause, when subjects are discussed that lay so near his heart-[Wollstonecraft explains that she is referring to Richard Price].

(¶1.22)  After attacking the sacred majesty of kings, I shall scarcely excite surprise by adding my firm persuasion that every profession, in which great subordination of rank constitutes its power, is highly injurious to morality.

(¶1.23)  A standing army, for instance, is incompatible with freedom; because subordination and rigour are the very sinews of military discipline; and despotism is necessary to give vigour to enterprises that one will directs. A spirit inspired by romantic notions of honour, a kind of morality founded on the fashion of the age, can only be felt by a few officers, whilst the main body must be moved by command, like the waves of the sea; for the strong wind of authority pushes the crowd of subalterns forward, they scarcely know or care why, with headlong fury.

(¶1.24)  Besides, nothing can be so prejudicial to the morals of the inhabitants of country towns as the occasional residence of a set of idle superficial young men, whose only occupation is gallantry, and whose polished manners render vice more dangerous, by concealing its deformity under gay ornamental drapery. An air of fashion, which is but a badge of slavery, and proves that the soul has not a strong individual character, awes simple country people into an imitation of the vices, when they cannot catch the slippery graces, of politeness. Every corps is a chain of despots, who, submitting and tyrannizing without exercising their reason, become dead weights of vice and folly on the community. A man of rank or fortune, sure of rising by interest, has nothing to do but to pursue some extravagant freak; whilst the needy gentleman, who is to rise, as the phrase turns, by his merit, becomes a servile parasite or vile pander.

(¶1.25)  Sailors, the naval gentlemen, come under the same description, only their vices assume a different and a grosser cast. They are more positively indolent, when not discharging the ceremonials of their station; whilst the insignificant fluttering of soldiers may be termed active idleness. More confined to the society of men, the former acquire a fondness for humour and mischievous tricks; whilst the latter, mixing frequently with well-bred women, catch a sentimental cant.- But mind is equally out of the question, whether they indulge the horse-laugh, or polite simper.

(¶1.26)  May I be allowed to extend the comparison to a profession where more mind is certainly to be found; for the clergy have superior opportunities of improvement, though subordination almost equally cramps their faculties? The blind submission imposed at college to forms of belief serves as a novitiate to the curate, who must obsequiously respect the opinion of his rector or patron, if he mean to rise in his profession. Perhaps there cannot be a more forcible contrast than between the servile dependent gait of a poor curate and the courtly mien of a bishop. And the respect and contempt they inspire render the discharge of their separate functions equally useless.

(¶1.27)  It is of great importance to observe that the character of every man is, in some degree, formed by his profession. A man of sense may only have a cast of countenance that wears off as you trace his individuality, whilst the weak, common man has scarcely ever any character, but what belongs to the body; at least, all his opinions have been so steeped in the vat consecrated by authority, that the faint spirit which the grape of his own vine yields cannot be distinguished.

(¶1.28)  Society, therefore, as it becomes more enlightened, should be very careful not to establish bodies of men who must necessarily be made foolish or vicious by the very constitution of their profession.

(¶1.29)  In the infancy of society, when men were just emerging out of barbarism, chiefs and priests, touching the most powerful springs of savage conduct, hope and fear, must have had unbounded sway. An aristocracy, of course, is naturally the first form of government. But clashing interests soon losing their equipoise, a monarchy and hierarchy break out of the confusion of ambitious struggles, and the foundation of both is secured by feudal tenures. This appears to be the origin of monarchial and priestly powers, and the dawn of civilisation. But such combustible materials cannot long be pent up; and, getting vent in foreign wars and intestine insurrections, the people acquire some power in the tumult, which obliges their rulers to gloss over their oppression with a show of right. Thus, as wars, agriculture, commerce, and literature, expand the mind, despots are compelled to make covert corruption hold fast the power which was formerly snatched by open force. (footnote: Men of abilities scatter seeds that grow up and have a great influence on the forming opinion; and when once the public opinion preponderates, through the exertion of reason, the overthrow of arbitrary power is not very distant.) And this baneful lurking gangrene is most quickly spread by luxury and superstition, the sure dregs of ambition. The indolent puppet of a court first becomes a luxurious monster, or fastidious sensualist, and then makes the contagion which his unnatural state spread, the instrument of tyranny.

(¶1.30)  It is the pestiferous purple which renders the progress of civilisation a curse, and warps the understanding, till men of sensibility doubt whether the expansion of intellect produces a greater portion of happiness or misery. But the nature of the poison points out the antidote; and had Rousseau mounted one step higher in his investigation, or could his eyes have pierced through the foggy atmosphere, which he almost disdained to breathe, his active mind would have darted forward to contemplate the perfection of man in the establishment of true civilisation, instead of taking his ferocious flight back to the night of sensual ignorance.


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Wollstonecraft, M. 1791 Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Paragraph numbers from the web copy at
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Index

Feudalism: par. 1.29

Louis 14: pars 4.12   and 4.18  

Other Authors

Aristotle
Rousseau
Olympe de Gouges
William Thompson and Anna Wheeler
John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor
John Stuart Mill
Engels