In the last analysis, the position of woman in any given period depends upon the currently accepted philosophy underlying that period. The philosophy of the seventeenth century that of Descartes and Leibnitz maybe condensed in one word mechanism. Woman, with her emotional nature, her wayward, irregular fancies, her insistence upon personal love instead of rigid law, her lack of logic, and her perplexing, often keenly puncturing intuitions, had no place in the well-arranged system of Descartes and Leibnitz. It was even questioned, satirically in France, but seriously in Germany, whether or not woman was a human being. If not, said the learned divines who argued the question in their pulpits, she could not be eligible to salvation. The conclusion, not unanimous, however, finally reached was that women ought to be looked upon as human beings, lower, of course, than man, but a grade or two higher than the beasts of the field. Of seventeenth century philosophers, Spinoza, "the God-intoxicated man," alone met any of the conscious higher needs of woman. Hence, women, by thousands, accepted the philosophy of Spinoza under the name of Quietism. Seventeenth century philosophy made woman nothing. Eighteenth century philosophy, springing from the English utilitarians, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, made woman a mere adjunct, a tool of man. Above all things else, an Englishman loves his home. A good wife makes a man more comfortable in his home than a bad one. "Therefore," said eighteenth century philosophy, "'tis the part of worldly prudence to train women toward virtue." This thought is the substance of Locke's Treatise on Education, so far as it concerns women. "A husband of high social standing may be the reward of persistent virtue," added Samuel Richardson, the man through whom Locke's philosophy became potent over women of all ranks in all civilized countries. For more than half a century Locke's philosophy, filtered through Richardson's novels, colored feminine ideals almost as deeply on the continent as in the author's own country. Rousseau was a third link in the chain a very strong, a mighty link.