D.
The following extract from Spinoza is worthy of attention, as expressing the view which a man of the largest intellectual scope may take of Woman, if that part of his life to which her influence appeals has been left unawakened. He was a man of the largest intellect, of unsurpassed reasoning powers; yet he makes a statement false to history, for we well know how often men and women have ruled together without difficulty, and one in which very few men even at the present day—I mean men who are thinkers, like him—would acquiesce.
I have put in contrast with it three expressions of the latest literature.
First, from the poems of W. E. Channing, a poem called "Reverence," equally remarkable for the deep wisdom of its thought and the beauty of its utterance, and containing as fine a description of one class of women as exists in literature.
In contrast with this picture of Woman, the happy Goddess of Beauty, the wife, the friend, "the summer queen," I add one by the author of "Festus," of a woman of the muse, the sybil kind, which seems painted from living experience.
And, thirdly, I subjoin Eugene Sue's description of a wicked but able woman of the practical sort, and appeal to all readers whether a species that admits of three such varieties is so easily to be classed away, or kept within prescribed limits, as Spinoza, and those who think like him, believe.
SPINOZA. TRACTATUS POLITICI DE DEMOCRATIA.
CAPUT XI.
Perhaps some one will here ask, whether the supremacy of Man over Woman is attributable to nature or custom? Since, if It be human institutions alone to which this fact is owing, there is no reason why we should exclude women from a share in government. Experience most plainly teaches that it is Woman's weakness which places her under the authority of Man. It has nowhere happened that men and women ruled together; but wherever men and women are found, the world over, there we see the men ruling and the women ruled, and in this order of things men and women live together in peace and harmony. The Amazons, it is true, are reputed formerly to have held the reins of government, but they drove men from their dominions; the male of their offspring they invariably destroyed, permitting their daughters alone to live. Now, if women were by nature upon an equality with men, if they equalled men in fortitude, in genius (qualities which give to men might, and consequently right), it surely would be the case, that, among the numerous and diverse nations of the earth, some would be found where both sexes ruled conjointly, and others where the men were ruled by the women, and so educated as to be mentally inferior; and since this state of things nowhere exists, it is perfectly fair to infer that the rights of women are not equal to those of men; but that women must be subordinate, and therefore cannot have an equal, far less a superior place in the government. If, too, we consider the passions of men—how the love men feel towards women is seldom anything but lust and impulse, and much less a reverence for qualities of soul than an admiration of physical beauty; observing, too, the jealousy of lovers, and other things of the same character—we shall see at a glance that it would be, in the highest degree, detrimental to peace and harmony, for men and women to possess on equal share in government.