and she vigorously condemns Lord Chesterfield's vicious
system, which tends to the early acquirement of knowledge of the world
and leaves but little opportunity for the free development of man's
natural powers. These writers, no matter how much they differ in detail,
agree in believing external behavior to be of primary importance; and
Mary's criticisms of their separate beliefs may therefore be reduced to
one leading proposition by which she contradicts their main assertions.
Right and wrong, virtue and vice, must be studied in the abstract and not
by the measure of weak human laws and customs. This is the refrain to all
her arguments.

These remarks are followed by four chapters which, while they really
relate to the subject, add little to the force of the book. Introduced as
they are, they seem like disconnected essays. There is a dissertation
upon the effect of early associations of ideas to prove what has already
been asserted in an earlier chapter, that "females, who are made women of
when they are mere children, and brought back to childhood when they
ought to leave the go-cart forever," will inevitably have a sexual
character given to their minds. Modesty is next considered, not as a
sexual virtue but comprehensively, to show that it is a quality which,
regardless of sex, should always be based on humanity and knowledge, and
never on the false principle that it is a means by which women make
themselves pleasing to men. To teach girls that reserve is only necessary
when they are with persons of the other sex is at once to destroy in
their minds the intrinsic value of modesty. Yet this is usually the
lesson taught them. As a natural consequence, women are free and
confidential with each other to a fault, and foolishly prudent and
squeamish with men. They are never for a moment unconscious of the
difference of sex, and, in affecting the semblance of modesty, the true
virtue escapes them altogether. In their neglect of what _is_ for what
_seems_, they lose the substance and grasp a shadow. This consideration
of behavior, arbitrarily regulated, rather than of conduct ruled by
truth, leads women to care much more for their reputation than for their
actual chastity or virtue. They gradually learn to believe that the sin
is in being found out. "Women mind not what only Heaven sees." If their
reputation be safe, their consciences are satisfied. A woman who, despite
innumerable gallantries, preserves her fair name, looks d