the case is their own, have less allowance made for them in the case
of other people, and are less listened to as a ground or a
justification of conduct, than any other natural human feelings;
perhaps because men compliment them in their own case with the names
of so many other qualities, that they are seldom conscious how mighty
an influence these feelings exercise in their own lives. No less
large and powerful is their part, we may assure ourselves, in the
lives and feelings of women. Women are schooled into suppressing them
in their most natural and most healthy direction, but the internal
principle remains, in a different outward form. An active and
energetic mind, if denied liberty, will seek for power: refused the
command of itself, it will assert its personality by attempting to
control others. To allow to any human beings no existence of their
own but what depends on others, is giving far too high a premium on
bending others to their purposes. Where liberty cannot be hoped for,
and power can, power becomes the grand object of human desire; those
to whom others will not leave the undisturbed management of their own
affairs, will compensate themselves, if they can, by meddling for
their own purposes with the affairs of others. Hence also women's
passion for personal beauty, and dress and display; and all the evils
that flow from it, in the way of mischievous luxury and social
immorality. The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal
antagonism. Where there is least liberty, the passion for power is
the most ardent and unscrupulous. The desire of power over others can
only cease to be a depraving agency among mankind, when each of them
individually is able to do without it: which can only be where
respect for liberty in the personal concerns of each is an
established principle.