Note 444 — Chapter IV · MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS ON WOMEN IN SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

Swift: Works, ed. Scott, vol. IX, p. 209. De Quincey has an interesting comment on this passage: "Often, indeed, I had occasion to remember the cynical remark of Swift that, after all, as respects mere learning, the most accomplished woman is hardly on a level with a schoolboy. In quoting this saying, I have restricted it so as to offer no offence to the female sex intellectually considered. Swift probably meant to undervalue women generally. Now, I am well aware that they have their peculiar province. But that province does not extend to learning, technically so called. No woman ever was or will be a polyhistor, like Salmasius, for example; nor a philosopher; nor, in fact anything whatsoever, called by what name you like, which demands either of these two combinations which follow:—1, great powers of combination, that is, of massing or grouping under large comprehensive principles; or, 2, severe logic." (Works, ed. Masson, vol. XIV, p. 125.)