last book of the Emilius, which treats of the education of girls, education is reduced within the compass of an even narrower ideal than this.  We are confronted with the oriental conception of women.  Every principle that has been followed in the education of Emilius is reversed in the education of women.  Opinion, which is the tomb of virtue among men, is among women its high throne.  The whole education of women ought to be relative to men; to please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honoured by them, to console them, to render their lives agreeable and sweet to them,—­these are the duties which ought to be taught to women from their childhood.  Every girl ought to have the religion of her mother, and every wife that of her husband.  Not being in a condition to judge for themselves, they ought to receive the decision of fathers and husbands as if it were that of the church.  And since authority is the rule of faith for women, it is not so much a matter of explaining to them the reasons for belief, as for expounding clearly to them what to believe.  Although boys are not to hear of the idea of God until they are fifteen, because they are not in a condition to apprehend it, yet girls who are still less in a condition to apprehend it, are therefore to have it imparted to them at an earlier age.  Woman is created to give way to man, and to suffer his injustice.  Her empire is an empire of gentleness, mildness, and complaisance.  Her orders are caresses, and her threats are tears.  Girls must not only be made laborious and vigilant; they must also very early be accustomed to being thwarted and kept in restraint.  This misfortune, if they feel it one, is inseparable from their sex, and if ever they attempt to escape from it, they will only suffer misfortunes still more cruel in consequence.[318]

After a series of oriental and obscurantist propositions of this kind, it is of little purpose to tell us that women have more intelligence and men more genius; that women observe, while men reason; that men will philosophise better upon the human heart, while women will be more skilful in reading it.[319] And it is a mere mockery to end the matter by a fervid assurance, that in spite of prejudices that have their origin in the manners of the time, the enthusiasm for what is worthy and noble is no more foreign to women than it is to men, and that there is nothing which under the guidance of nature may not be obtained from them as well as from ourselves.[320] Finally there is a complete surrender of the obscurantist position in such a sentence as this:  “I only know for either sex two really distinct classes; one the people who think, the other the people who do not think, and this difference comes almost entirely from education.  A man of the first of these classes ought not to marry into the other; for the greatest charm of companionship is wanting, when in spite of having a wife he is reduced to think by himself.  It is only a cultivated spirit