iterature a more eloquent vehicle of
thought than the style of Madame de Stael, nor, as a specimen of
purely artistic excellence, anything superior to the prose of Madame
Sand, whose style acts upon the nervous system like a symphony of
Haydn or Mozart. High originality of conception is, as I have said,
what is chiefly wanting. And now to examine if there is any manner in
which this deficiency can be accounted for.

Let us remember, then, so far as regards mere thought, that during
all that period in the world's existence, and in the progress of
cultivation, in which great and fruitful new truths could be arrived
at by mere force of genius, with little previous study and
accumulation of knowledge--during all that time women did not concern
themselves with speculation at all. From the days of Hypatia to those
of the Reformation, the illustrious Heloisa is almost the only woman
to whom any such achievement might have been possible; and we know
not how great a capacity of speculation in her may have been lost to
mankind by the misfortunes of her life. Never since any considerable
number of women have begun to cultivate serious thought, has
originality been possible on easy terms. Nearly all the thoughts
which can be reached by mere strength of original faculties, have
long since been arrived at; and originality, in any high sense of the
word, is now scarcely ever attained but by minds which have undergone
elaborate discipline, and are deeply versed in the results of
previous thinking. It is Mr. Maurice, I think, who has remarked on
the present age, that its most original thinkers are those who have
known most thoroughly what had been thought by their predecessors:
and this will always henceforth be the case. Every fresh stone in the
edifice has now to be placed on the top of so many others, that a
long process of climbing, and of carrying up materials, has to be
gone through by whoever aspires to take a share in the present stage
of the work. How many women are there who have gone through any such
process? Mrs. Somerville, alone perhaps of women, knows as much of
mathematics as is now needful for making any considerable
mathematical discovery: is it any proof of inferiority in women, that
she has not happened to be one of the two or three persons who in her
lifetime have associated their names with some striking advancement
of the science? Two women, since political economy has been made a
science, have known enough of it