have died, "mute
and inglorious"? However splendid the natural endowments, the
discipline of life, after all, completes the miracle. The ability
of Napoleon--what was it? It grew out of the hope to be Caesar, or
Marlborough; out of Austerlitz and Jena--out of his
battle-fields, his throne, and all the great scenes of that
eventful life.

Open to woman the same scenes, immerse her in the same great
interests and pursuits, and if twenty centuries shall not produce
a woman Charlemagne, or a Napoleon, fair reason will then allow
us to conclude that there is some distinctive peculiarity in the
intellects of the sexes.

Centuries alone can lay a fair basis for the argument. I believe
on this point there is a shrinking consciousness of not being
ready for the battle, on the part of some of the stronger sex, as
they call themselves; a tacit confession of risk to this imagined
superiority, if they consent to meet their sisters in the lecture
halls, or the laboratory of science.

My proof of it is this, that the mightiest intellects of the
race, from Plato down to the present time, some of the rarest
minds of Germany, France, and England, have successively yielded
their assent to the fact, that woman is not, perhaps,
identically, but equally endowed with man in all intellectual
capabilities. It is generally the second-rate men who doubt;
doubt because, perhaps, they fear a fair field.

Suppose that woman is essentially inferior to man, she still has
rights. Grant that Mrs. Norton[48] never could be Byron; that
Elizabeth Barrett never could have written Paradise Lost; that
Mrs. Somerville never could be La Place, nor Sirani have painted
the Transfiguration. What then? Does that prove they should be
deprived of all civil rights?

John Smith will never be, never can be, Daniel Webster. Shall he
therefore be put under guardianship, and forbidden to vote?
Suppose woman, though equal, does differ essentially in her
intellect from man, is that any ground for disfranchising her?
Shall the Fultons say to the Raphaels, because you can not make
steam engines, therefore you shall not vote? Shall the Napoleons
or the Washingtons say to the Wordsworths or the Herschels,
because you can not lead armies, and govern States, therefore you
shall hav