A serious proposal to the Ladies, for the advancement of their true and greatest interest (In Two Parts)Astell, Mary
Religion
A serious proposal to the Ladies, for the advancement of their true and greatest interest (In Two Parts)
Astell, Mary
Feminism -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century -- Sources; Women's rights -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century -- Sources
To sum up all: We may know enough for all the purposes of Life, enough
to busie this active Faculty of Thinking, to employ and entertain the
spare Intervals of Time and to keep us from Rust and Idleness, but we
must not pretend to fathom all Depths with our short Line, we shou’d
be Wise unto Sobriety, and reckon that we know very little if we go
about to make our _Own_ Reason the Standard of all Truth. It is very
certain that nothing is True but what is conformable to Reason, that
is to the Divine Reason of which ours is but a short faint Ray, and
it is as certain that there are many Truths which Human Reason cannot
Comprehend. Therefore to be throughly sensible of the Capacity of the
Mind, to discern precisely its Bounds and Limits and to direct our
Studies and Inquiries accordingly, to Know what is to be Known, and
to Believe what is to be Believ’d is the property of a Wise Person.
To be content with too little Knowlege, or to aspire to over-much is
equally a fault, to make that use of our Understandings which GOD has
Fitted and Design’d them for is the Medium which we ought to take. For
the difference between a Plow-man and a Doctor does not seem to me
to consist in this, That the Business of the one is to search after
Knowlege, and that the other has nothing to do with it. No, whoever has
a Rational Soul ought surely to employ it about some Truth or other,
to procure for it right Ideas, that its Judgments may be true tho
its Knowlege be not very extensive. But herein lies the difference,
that tho Truth is the Object of every Individual Understanding, yet
all are not equally enlarg’d nor able to comprehend so much; and they
whose Capacities and Circumstances of Living do not fit ’em for it,
lie not under that obligation of extending their view which Persons of
a larger reach and greater leisure do. There is indeed often times a
mistake in this matter, People who are not fit will be puzling their
heads to little purpose, and those who are prove Slothful and decline
the trouble; and thus it will be if we do not throughly understand our
selves, but suffer Pride or Ease to make the estimate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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