difference between first-rate and second-rate orders

of genius.

For the reasons explained, the inferiority of the female understanding would scarcely appear sensibly, in ordinary life, except for the defects in education. If the same pains were taken with women as with men, the difference between them would be very much reduced, till they came to be tried on subjects that require the highest exertions of mental ability.

SECTION IV.

On the Difference of Character between the Sexes, and the Duties that result from it to Women.

The division of duties which the difference of faculty leads to, produces in both sexes certain moral characteristics, peculiar to each, and which correspond with their natural dispositions. It cannot I think be denied, that there are by nature, moral differences of character between the sexes; nor that those differences are very much increased and modified by education, sometimes even over-ruled. Education in this sense signifies not mere tuition, but the bent we receive from the habits and pursuits of our station in the world.

But whatever the social influences under which women exist, it is everywhere observed of them that they are naturally more tender, compassionate, and gentle than men, and more disinterested; that they are more conscientious, more pious, more contented, and that their temperament is more gay and cheerful; that they have less ambition, are less courageous,

active, and enterprising than the other sex, and have less perseverance. But their comparative timidity is very much increased by education; and so far as it is owing to nature, it is balanced by the enthusiasm with which they take up any cause which comes to them with the aspect of virtue, or of service to the objects of their love. Accordingly they have gone as martyrs to the scaffold and the stake, for the cause of their religion or their country, with as much boldness as men. Indeed, there is no cause which has ever involved the interests of humanity, and in which it was possible for them to take a part, in which they have not been found to brave dangers and death, to endure sufferings and privations, or to sacrifice their own interests and fortunes, with a generosity the more remarkable, because it is unattended with the prospect of reward or celebrity.

With regard to the defects, which it is the fashion with satirists to reckon peculiarly feminine, let them who have been accustomed to education, declare whether it is not exactly as easy to inspire girls as boys with a scorn for trick and falsehood, and whether their minds do not kindle as easily with the love of the great and the generous. But the boy is instructed, from a very early period, to be bold and fearless, to assert and maintain his own opinions: the girl is taught to shrink from censure, and if she should attempt to think or feel for herself, it is probable, surprise and disapprobation will be immediately testified*. An importance is attached to

The censure should not be directed against their having opinions, or daring to defend what they believe to be truth, but against the want of a gentle and deferential manner.

minutiæ of dress, deportment, and manner, which unavoidably engrosses all her attention, and is feebly counteracted on Sunday, by being assured that one thing only is needful, and everything else a trifle. The candid inquirer will not fail to discern that men, whenever they are diverted from useful and generous pursuits, become exactly as fond of dress and as great triflers as women; and that, wherever they dare not express an opinion or a thought different from the standard set by authority, cunning infallibly becomes one of their characteristics too.

Great mental capacity alone, will never raise either individuals or nations to greatness or happiness. It is not mere mental power, but the right application of it, that brings our species to perfection. We know how possible it is for men to possess powerful abilities and extensive knowledge, and yet live a curse to their own country and to themselves. But what then, it may be said, is become of the boasted alliance between knowledge and virtue? The alliance is indeed strong, but it is not because there is a necessary connexion between the bare knowledge of facts and moral emotions. It is because, moral sensibility being a part of our nature, we cannot dwell long upon any subject, nor investigate all its relations, without discerning in it some circumstances that touch our moral nature, and awaken a sentiment. No one is destitute of all moral feeling, but some people have very little by nature, or it may have been destroyed by the strength and indulgence of their pas-. sions; and in such case the most thorough knowledge of the facts that move others to admiration and love,

will have no effect upon them. It is not the philosopher's laborious analysis, nor the fulness of his demonstration of the times and motions of the heavenly bodies, that have a moral effect. It is the perception of order and contrivance, of beauty, and of infinity teeming with existence, which kindles within him feelings of admiration inherent in his nature. In like manner, when we study the sciences that relate to human life, it is not the logical proof, that certain means will produce certain results, that causes our emotions, but that sympathy with the good of mankind is implanted within us; and pictures of their good, laid strongly before us, move that affection. The cold and the sordid will not feel it, however perfectly they learn the science. The tendency of knowledge and study, therefore, certainly is to promote right feeling and conduct in general, by occupying the mind always about the true and the useful: but a tendency is not a certainty, for it may be overruled by opposing circumstances; and the mass of mankind are made selfish and stolid by their gross habits of life. The education of home, of school, or of the world, may have accustomed men to attend to nothing but what ministers to sensuality, to ambition, or gain. The motives, which are allowed to predominate daily in action, become habits of mind, and it is truly surprising how insensible we become to other impressions, though constantly presented to us. They whose moral sensibilities are low, and whose selfish propensities are not checked, may attend to nothing whatever in their studies, but the application they admit of to

some purpose of their own.

That purpose, though a lawful one, may nevertheless leave them sordid and selfish; but if it be criminal, their acquired knowledge may make them only the greater foes to mankind.

Children, in whom sensibility to the good, and the great, and the beautiful, has been too little called forth, are sent to school, where they are compelled to learn, with great labour, things that are made dry and repulsive to them. The fear of punishment and the hope of reward are their only motives. It is therefore no wonder, that many people never look into books with a mind alive to anything, but the fame or the money their knowledge may bring them. I shall have occasion in another place, to treat at some length of the contrary extreme, of indulging emotion at the expense of those habits of industry and self-command, which are acquired only through labour, mental or bodily; but the object of the present observations is to show how possible it is, when the cultivation of the heart is neglected, for knowledge, ability, and industry, to be conjoined with great and disastrous vices. I would point out the pre-eminence of that moral capacity in man, without which nothing is good, nothing is great, nothing is really and strictly human. It is high moral sentiment only which ennobles and blesses society. This, if anything, constitutes the distinction of man: it is his soul, his essence, his perfection. His intellectual faculties are but his instruments: the very best owe their value to the direction given to them by this, their heaven-born master. His understanding in