UltraHerring264
After reading through this excerpted text, please make an audio or…
After reading through this excerpted text, please make an audio or video recording of you doing a think aloud with this except of “Vindication of the Rights of Women. Please read through paragraphs this time, stopping ever few lines to make a comment. Please write here Think aloud , I will make an audio. Thank you.
In the present state of society, it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most
simple truths. Thus, in what does man’s pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as
clear as that a half is less than the whole; in Reason. What acquirement exalts one being above another?
Virtue. For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain
knowledge denied to the brutes: whispers Experience.
Consequently, that the society is wisest whose constitution is founded on the nature of man, seems self-
evident. Yet the desire of dazzling by riches, of commanding flattering sycophants, and doting self-love,
have all contributed to overwhelm the mass of mankind, and make liberty a convenient handle for mock
patriotism. Will men never be wise?
No man can acquire the strength of mind to discharge the duties of a king, where all feeling is stifled by
flattery and power intoxicates weak men; but this simple piece of reason raises an outcry that its
promoters are enemies of God and of man. After attacking the sacred majesty of kings, I shall scarcely
excite surprise in declaring that every profession where rank and subordination constitutes power, is
highly injurious to morality. A standing army, for instance, is incompatible with freedom, because
subordination and despotism are the very sinews of military discipline. Besides, nothing is so prejudicial
to the morality of garrison towns as those young idlers who conceal their deformity under gay ornamental
drapery. Sailors come under the same description, only their vices assume a different and grosser cast.
The clergy may have superior opportunities of improvement, but their colleges impose a blind submission,
while obsequious respect is their only means to rise in their profession.
