You accuse women of taking chimeras for realities. I have proved to you that you deserve this reproach, since your theory is in contradiction to science and facts.
You accuse women of erecting unreal analogies into principles.... I have proved that you have done so as well, in deducing from the pretended absence of physical germs in woman, the absence of intellectual and moral germs.
You accuse woman of reasoning wrongly.... I have brought you face to face with your own principles, that you might draw from them contradictory conclusions.
You accuse woman of creating nothing but medleys, monsters.... The anatomy of your theory proves that you know how to do so quite as well.
You accuse woman of lacking intellect, of want of justice, virtue, chastity.... I appeal from you to yourself, and you say positively the contrary.
Where you are fantastic, contradictory, I, a woman, appeal to logic.
Where you are wanting in method, I, a woman, employ scientific and rational method.
Where you contradict your own principles, I appeal to these same principles to judge and condemn you.
Which of us two is the more reasonable and more rational?
My modesty suffers, I acknowledge, at the thought that I have played the part of Minerva shaming Ulysses of his paradoxes and his profligacies. At last, this tiresome part is ended!