A Woman's Philosophy of Woman; or, Woman affranchised. / An answer to Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, Legouvé, Comte, and other modern innovators

by Madame d' Héricourt

Now to you, my friends, known and unknown, a few lines of thanks.

You all comprehend that woman, as a human being, has the right to develop herself, and to manifest, like man, her spontaneity;

That she has the right, like man, to employ her activity; that she has the right, like man, to be respected in her dignity and in the use which she sees fit to make of her free will.

That as half in the social order, a producer, a tax-payer, amenable to the laws, she has the right to count as half in society.

You all comprehend that it is in the enjoyment of these various rights that her emancipation consists; not in the faculty of making use of love outside a moral law based on justice and self respect.

Thanks first to you, Ausonio Franchi, the representative of Critical Philosophy in Italy, a man as eminent for the profundity of your ideas as for the impartiality and elevation of your character; and who so generously and so long lent the columns of your Ragione to my first labors.

Thanks to you, my beloved co-laborers of the Revue Philosophique of Paris, Charles Lemonnier, Massol, Guepin, Brothier, etc., who have not hesitated to bring to light the question of the emancipation of my sex; who have welcomed the works of a woman to your columns with so much impartiality, and have on all occasions expressed for me interest and sympathy.

Thanks to you, in particular, my oldest friend, Charles Fauvety, the indefatigable searcher after truth, whose elegant, refined and limpid style is solely and constantly at the service of progressive ideas and generous aspirations, as your rich library and your counsels are at the service of those who are seeking to enlighten humanity. Why, alas! do you join to so many talents and noble qualities the fault of always remaining in the background to give place to others!

Thanks to you, Charles Renouvier, the most learned representative of Critical Philosophy in France, who join to such profound doctrine, such acute perception and such sureness of judgment; I would add, such modesty and unpretending virtue, did I not know that it displeases you to bring you before the public.

It is from your encouragement and approbation, my friends and former co-laborers, that I have drawn the strength necessary to the work I am undertaking; it is just, therefore, that I should thank you in the presence of all.