Read the passage from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman . . . . Rousseau became enamoured of solitude, and, being at the same time an optimist, he labours with uncommon eloquence to prove that man was naturally a solitary animal. Misled by his respect for the goodness of God, who certainly?—for what man of sense and feeling can doubt it!?—gave life only to communicate happiness, he considers evil as positive, and the work of man; not aware that he was exalting one attribute at the expense of another, equally necessary to divine perfection. Reared on a false hypothesis, his arguments in favour of a state of nature are plausible, but unsound. I say unsound; for to assert that a state of nature is preferable to civilization in all its possible perfection, is, in other words, to arraign supreme wisdom; and the paradoxical exclamation, that God has made all things right, and that evil has been introduced by the creature whom he formed, knowing what he formed, is as unphilosophical as impious. What is Wollstonecraft’s purpose in citing Rousseau’s theory?
B
to elaborate on his theoryD
to agree with his theoryWollstonecraft calls Rousseau’s arguments “plausible, but unsound” and challenges the idea that a natural state is better than civilization at its best. She argues that this view wrongly blames human beings for introducing evil, despite God having created them with knowledge of what they would be. By presenting and criticizing his theory, she aims to disprove it, not applaud or expand on it.
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