reation of a zealous partisan, and not of a calm advocate. It reads
more like an extempore declamation than a deliberately written essay.
Godwin says, as if in praise, that it was begun and finished within six
weeks. It would have been better had the same number of months or years
been devoted to it. Because of the lack of all method it is so full of
repetition that the argument is weakened rather than strengthened. She is
so certain of the truth of abstract principles from which she reasons,
that she does not trouble herself to convince the sceptical by concrete
proofs. Owing to this want of system, the "Vindication" has little value
as a philosophical work. Women to-day, with none of her genius, have
written on the same subject books which exert greater influence than
hers, because they have appreciated the importance of a definite plan.

Great as are these faults, they are more than counterbalanced by the
merits of the book. All the flowers of rhetoric cannot conceal its
genuineness. As is always the case with the work of honest writers, it
commands respect even from those who disapprove of its doctrine and
criticise its style. Despite its moralizing it is strong with the
strength born of an earnest purpose. It was written neither for money nor
for amusement, too often the inspiration to book-making. The one she had
not time to seek; the other she could have obtained with more certainty
by translating for Mr. Johnson, or by contributing to the "Analytical
Review." She wrote it because she thought it her duty to do so, and hence
its vigor and eloquence. All her pompous platitudes cannot conceal the
earnestness of her denunciation of shams. The "Rights of Women" is an
outcry against them. The age was an artificial one. Ladies played at
being shepherdesses, and men wept over dead donkeys. Sensibility was a
cultivated virtue, and philanthropy a pastime. Women were the
arch-sufferers from this evil; but, pleased at being likened unto angels,
they failed to see that the ideal set up for them was false. It is to
Mary's glory that she could penetrate the mists of prevailing prejudices
and see the clear unadulterated truth. The excess of sentimentalism had
given rise to the other extreme of naturalism. In France the reaction
against arbitrary laws, empty forms, and the unjust privileges of rank,
led to the French Revolution. In England its outcome was a Wesley in
religious speculation, a Wilkes in political action, and a Godwin