The Amount Of Eccentricity In A Society

Since Reasoning , Or Inference, The Principal Subject Of Logic, Is An Operation Which Usually Takes Place By Means Of Words , And In Complicated Cases Can Take Place In No Other Way: Those Who Have Not A Thorough Insight Into Both The Signification And Purpose Of Words, Will Be Under Chances, Amounting Almost To Certainty, Of Reasoning Or Inferring Incorrectly.

All Women Are Brought Up From The Very Earliest Years In The Belief That Their Ideal Of Character Is The Very Opposite To That Of Men; Not Self-will, And Government By Self-control, But Submission And Yielding To The Control Of Others. All The Moralities Tell Them That It Is Their Nature To Live For Others; To Make Complete Abnegation Of Themselves, And To Have No Life But In Their Affections.

The Strongest Of All Arguments Against The Interference Of The Public With Purely Personal Conduct, Is That When It Does Interfere, The Odds Are That It Interferes Wrongly, And In The Wrong Place.

What Little Recognition The Idea Of Obligation To The Public Obtains In Modern Morality, Is Derived From Greek And Roman Sources, Not From Christian; As, Even In The Morality Of Private Life, Whatever Exists Of Magnanimity, High-mindeness, Personal Dignity, Even The Sense Of Honour, Is Derived From The Purely Human, Not The Religious Part Of Our Education, And Never Could Have Grown Out Of A Standard Of Ethics In Which The Only Worth, Professedly Recognized, Is That Of Obedience.

It Often Happens That The Universal Belief Of One Age Of Mankind — A Belief From Which No One Was, Nor Without An Extraordinary Effort Of Genius And Courage, Could At That Time Be Free — Becomes To A Subsequent Age So Palpable An Absurdity, That The Only Difficulty Then Is To Imagine How Such A Thing Can Ever Have Appeared Credible.