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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
^ TrTH lO ^ itilfail totfpll >|; hrtrrrtm men aod women rs termed upon iM ptQt *^ f * fr f * kem , and out of it has grown so nruch necessity fbf thfr jWMWllire service . It was the policy of Frederick the Qttm&k&i ** all far the people , nothing by the people—^ apparently AifN ^ nal , but really a despotic principle . It is onl y by generating a self-acting power that a people or an individual can be
free , —effective to their own happiness , and useful in aiding the happiness of others . The existing mode of social intercourse between the sexes , in its best form , is that of an adult and a child ; in peculiar cases this fa a happy and beautiful relation , but it is not the true one , and in its general effects produces the mischief incident to everything that is false . It may be said of such a relation as it may be said of a monarchy , that to secure the permanency of the happiness
which it may in particular instances bestow , some scheme to preclude the human contingencies of mortality and mutation must be devised . As the sexes walk hand in hand during childhood , so should they walk arm in arm at maturity ; even now there is no such great difference in their intellectual stature as to prevent this , and when equal education and equal freedom is the order of the day , still less may that be apprehended . The characters which are formed upon the system which endows one party with p ower , and dooms the other to dependence , do not stand the wear and tear of the world ' s trials . It renders man irresponsible , and so tempts him to be unjust ; it renders woman resourceless , and tempts her to be insincere : there are who resist both temptations , but are they the many ?
And now a word about this same ' conscious superiority , ' which , when it cleaves to woman , must , it appears , imbitter the cup of life . I suspect the sentiment meant by conscious superiority' is self-esteem , not that elevation which lifts a being above self , as above everything else merely selfish . The higher a mind rises , the more it sees of the infinitude amid which it is hung , —the more it feels its distance from greatness and its alliance to littleness : it becomes incapable of inflating itafelf , or of insulting a littleness less than its own ; it carries everywfcgre a Divine aspiration which lifts it above the petty pride of the world , but it also carries everywhere a sympathy which draws it towards its kindred clay . These feelings keep real superiority benignly floating in the genial atmosphere of social and domestic
life , as the centripetal and centrifugal forces keep the planets to their course * But self-esteem ( for real or fancied merits ) is of ' tbm 4 arth , earthy / and may well , when overweening , he said to Gtogr poisotr to the cup <* f life . * mSU superiority , I such as bare attempted to define it , may be astried « ifct > er ? fcjr « m * i or hf woman into a home * , audit wi&asabt to make that home a heaven . Self-esteem , allowing itrcatrt * 46
Untitled Article
VPP nfynpnve vm ^ mm > aj morms * .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1835, page 686, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2650/page/58/
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