purposes, there
was little reason for writers to be timid. It was impossible for Mary to
avoid certain subjects not usually spoken of in polite conversation. Had
she done so, she would but have half stated her case. She was not to be
deterred because she was a woman. Such mock-modesty would at once have
undermined her arguments. According to her own theories, there was no
reason why she should not think and speak as unhesitatingly as men, when
her sex was as vitally interested as theirs. And therefore, with her
characteristic consistency, she did so. But while her language may seem
coarse to our over-fastidious ears, it never becomes prurient or
indecent. In her Dedication she expresses very distinctly her disgust for
the absence of modesty among contemporary Frenchwomen. Hers is the
plain-speaking of the Jewish law-giver, who has for end the good of man;
and not that of an Aretino, who rejoices in it for its own sake.

Even more remarkable than this boldness of expression is the strong vein
of piety running through her arguments. Religion was to her as important
as it was to a Wesley or a Bishop Watts. The equality of man, in her
eyes, would have been of small importance had it not been instituted by
man's Creator. It is because there is a God, and because the soul is
immortal, that men and women must exercise their reason. Otherwise, they
might, like animals, yield to the rule of their instincts and emotions.
If women were without souls, they would, notwithstanding their
intellects, have no rights to vindicate. If the Christian heaven were
like the Mahometan paradise, then they might indeed be looked upon as
slaves and playthings of beings who are worthy of a future life, and
hence are infinitely their superiors. But, though sincerely pious, she
despised the meaningless forms of religion as much as she did social
conventionalities, and was as free in denouncing them. The clergy, who
from custom cling to old rites and ceremonies, were, in her opinion,
"indolent slugs, who guard, by liming it over, the snug place which they
consider in the light of an hereditary estate," and "idle vermin who two
or three times a day perform, in the most slovenly manner, a service
which they think useless, but call their duty." She believed in the
spirit, but not in the letter of the law. The scriptural account of the
creation is for her "Moses' poetical story," and she supposes that very
few who have thought seriously upon the subject be