SOURCE: Bryson, Cynthia B. “Mary Astell: Defender of the ‘Disembodied Mind’.” Hypatia 13, No. 4 (Fall 1998): 40-62.

[In following essay, Bryson argues that Astell's version of Cartesian dualism, her criticism of John Locke's theories, and her importance as a political theorist and metaphysician demonstrate the reasons why she has been declared the first English feminist.]

“Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.”

James Joyce, Ulysses

There has been a recent growing interest in the political and philosophical theorizing of late-Medieval and Renaissance women writers.¹ The late seventeenth century's Mary Astell has been deemed by many present-day philosophers and historians to be the first female English feminist.² While she may or may not have in fact been the first English feminist (as Bridget Hill has identified her), Astell was undeniably (1) the first woman to enthusiastically ascribe to Descartes's methodology in publication and, perhaps even more importantly, (2) the first woman to note and to publicly address the inconsistencies she saw in Locke's epistemological writings, as well as (3) the first woman to publicly denounce Locke's political philosophies relating to the position (or nonposition) of women in his social doctrines. Astell, as a Cartesian feminist, was a woman of definite “firsts,” both philosophically and politically. While I agree with Hill's claim that she was the first English feminist, I also believe that Astell was much more than that. She was a prominent metaphysician and political theorist, and the feminism revealed in these roles was grounded on her understanding of Cartesian dualism.

At a time when male writers, such as Locke and Hobbes, were relegating adult women to the position of chattel, and thus women were owned by their husbands as “property” (the male/master “proof” of individuality),³ Astell remained resolutely unmarried and free. Partially because she was living out her understanding of the epistemological and political equality that she believed was suggested by Cartesian dualism, Astell allowed herself to be under subjection only to her monarch, still giving her freedom in the truest independent sense. Although Descartes never directly addressed the interest of gender, stating only in passing that his “method” was easy enough for even women to follow,⁴ Cartesian women (and men) of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw the division between mind and body as a foundational way of eliminating sex-linked theories, which suggested an inferiority in the minds and souls of women, even going so far as to suggest that these gender distinctions belonged to the category of “error.” “Error,” in Cartesian thought, can easily be redefined as “willful ignorance,” and it was this sort of “ignorance” that Astell wanted to eliminate, at least from women's understanding of themselves, if not from the opinions of “Tyrant Custom” at large.⁵ With Descartes's affirmation that bon sens belongs to everyone, Astell could construct a positive ground for the assertion of sexual equality.⁶ As wishful as she might have been in believing that Cartesian dualism supports mental symmetry between the sexes, Astell may have, however, purposely ignored Descartes's Passions of the Soul, in which he clearly asserts that there is a hierarchy of souls.⁷ But Astell thought it was important, at least for her own political and philosophical theorizing, that souls are equal even if bodies (childlike, mature, or elderly) are not.

In this paper, I will point out how Astell's version of Cartesian dualism supports (I) her disavowal of female subordination and traditional gender roles, (II) her position as an anti-Lockean philosopher, (III) her satiric rejection of Locke's material philosophy of “thinking matter” as a major premise for rejecting his political philosophy of “social contracts” between men and women, and, finally, (IV) her claim that there is no intrinsic difference between genders in terms of ratiocination, the primary assertion that grants her the title of the first female English feminist. While Astell is interesting as an early proponent of feminism, her role as one of Locke's earliest critics (and her position as his first female critic) has been largely neglected. Because a significant portion of this paper will be focused on Astell's criticism of Lockean theory, most particularly his “thinking matter” notion and his positioning of women in his concept of social contracts, I need to firmly establish that Astell was, indeed, a Cartesian in her “Method” of feminism and why she so violently, though reasonably, disagreed with John Locke.

I. ASTELL AS A CARTESIAN AGAINST “TYRANT CUSTOM” (AN ENEMY OF WOMANHOOD)

It was crucial to the early feminists that the mind and body be separated, the result being that Lockean theory came under fire by most women and men who wanted to demolish gender-bias. This explains why both female and male feminists alike quickly and wholeheartedly accepted the distinction between mind and body in Cartesian dualism. In each of her books, Astell takes nearly every opportunity to practically browbeat women for allowing themselves to be denigrated to the position of a beautiful “object” in their husbands' homes, for painting themselves with cosmetics, and for adorning themselves outwardly with little or no self-respect for their own minds. She wants them to learn that who they are is not a material body but an immaterial “essence,” a “disembodied mind.” To say that “thinking” is only a “mode” of matter would, for Astell, perpetuate the notion of female inferiority, because the tradition of a woman's body being inferior to a man's had existed for several millennia.

The subtitle for Astell's A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Part II is Wherein a Method is offer'd for the Improvement of their Minds ([1697] 1970). After condemning the frivolities of fashion and most women's contentment to remain ignorant and to seek men's appreciation and flattery (usually with an ulterior motive) regarding their bodies, Astell launches into the need for women to “Disengage our selves from all our former Prejudices, from our Opinion of Names, Authorities, Custom and the like, not give credit to anything any longer because we once believed it, but because it carries clear and uncontested Evidence along with it” ([1697] 1970, II 68).⁸ For those women (and men) who “apply themselves to the Contemplation of Truth” (Astell [1697] 1970, II, 90), “Knowledge in a proper and strict sense … signifies that clear Perception which is follow'd by a firm assent to Conclusions rightly drawn from the Premises of which we have clear and distinct ideas. Which Premises or Principles must be so clear and Evident, that supposing us reasonable Creatures, and free from Prejudices and Passions, (which for the time they predominate as good as deprive us of our Reason) we cannot withhold our assent from them without manifest violence to our reason (Astell [1607] 1970, II, 81). From just these limited passages, it is obvious that Astell has read Descartes, but she slightly redefines his method while making the tenets in her own “ordered” method more obvious:

Rule I: Acquaint ourselves thoroughly with the State of the Question, have a Distinct Notion of our Subject whatever it be, and of the Terms we make use of, knowing precisely what it is we drive at. …

Rule II: Cut-off all needless Ideas and whatever has not a connection to the matter under consideration. … Some have added another Rule (vis) That we reason only on those things of which we have Clear Ideas; but I take it to be a consequent of the first. …

Rule III. To conduct our Thoughts by Order, beginning with the most Simple and Easie Objects, and ascending as by Degrees to the Knowledge of the more Compos'd.

Rule IV. Not to leave any part of our subject unexamined. … To this Rule belongs that of Dividing the Subject of our Meditations into as many Parts, as we can, and shall be requisite to Understand it Perfectly.

Rule V. Always keep our Subject Directly in our Eye, and closely pursue it thro all our Progress. …

Rule VI. To judge no further than we Perceive, and not to take any thing for Truth which we do not evidently Know to be so. Indeed in some Cases we are forc'd to content our selves with Probability … [which] oblige[s] us to Act presently, on a cursory view of the Arguments propos'd to us, when we want time to trace them to the bottom, and to make use of such means as wou'd discover Truth. … In which Case Reason will that we suspend our Judgement till we can be better Inform'd.

(Astell [1697] 1970, II, 105-108; italics in original)⁹

And immediately after setting out her “method,” as does Descartes, Astell initiates an ontological argument for the existence of God, which (while it is not the subject of this paper and will not be expounded upon here) is actually a bit more convincing than the one her French mentor presented in his Discourse on the Method (1637). Nonetheless, it should be apparent that Astell intended to use the Cartesian method in her position on the equality of women and in her later attacks on John Locke (though the commentary following her Rule VI noticeably contains some overtly Lockean overtones), whom she came to view as both a philosophical heretic and a misogynist.¹⁰

What Astell sees in Descartes's method is the opportunity for self-determination, a goal which any individual who feels her or his social group has been denied it would wholeheartedly embrace. In the Synopsis of his Meditations, Descartes seems to conclude that freedom, in the form of opportunity, is necessary for one to be adequately able to determine one's own future (Descartes 1641). Peter Schouls best summarizes the relationship between Descartes's (and Astell's) method and the freedom of self-determinacy. His points are: freedom is necessary for obtaining the foundations of knowledge, freedom is different from free-will in judgment, freedom is necessary for philosophizing itself and for reaching the cogito, and freedom is necessary for confirming the validity of reason (Schouls 1989, 47). A near-paradox is present: to be able to methodically and freely distinguish clear and distinct items of knowledge, the self-determination of the “will” (the mind, the self) must be free to determine clear and distinct knowledge. Astell would say that we need to be able to move beyond “Tyrant Custom” if we will ever be able to find the Archimedean point “within” ourselves upon which we can form an idea of liberty in the realm of opportunity. Through all of her writings, she is clear that what separates people is their inclination to find knowledge and their opportunity to begin the search for it. For her, Descartes's method provided a groundwork for freedom from traditional, masculinized thought and an opportunity to make a distinction “between things which pertain to mind, that is to say the intellectual nature, and those which pertain to [gendered] body” (Descartes [1641] 1994, 9). In Astell's mind, the body was unimportant to philosophy; for her and other Cartesians, all that really mattered was the “freedom” of the disembodied mind for “self”-determination.

II. ASTELL AS AN ANTI-LOCKEAN PHILOSOPHER

I would be negligent if I did not proceed in an orderly fashion through the literary history that led to Astell's writing of Christian Religion (1705), which was designed primarily to be her Cartesian attack on Lockean materialistic philosophy. It is again useful to note that she was the first woman, out of many critics, to publicly take offense at many of Locke's assertions. But before her religio-philosophical/political writings after the turn of the century, Astell's first book A Serious Proposal to the Ladies ([1694, 1697] 1970)¹¹ (a blend of primarily Cartesian and admittedly some Lockean thought) was a call for women's colleges and equal education.¹² During 1694, the year of the book's (Part I) first edition, Astell was engaged in a written dialogue with her mentor John Norris.¹³ Norris, who is sometimes regarded as the last Cambridge Platonist, was a Cartesian scholar and feminist. He was interested in promoting in England the idealism of Malebranche and was himself the author of several books, one of which is An Account of Reason and Faith (1697), his rebuttal of Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity (1695). While Norris continued to write favorably of Malebranche and critically of Locke, Norris's and Astell's written exchanges were primarily on “the metaphysical properties of the mind and soul,” on the necessity for loving God (Perry 1986, 77), on his views concerning efficient causality, and on her disagreements with Norris for his extreme Calvinism (Squadrito 1987, 434, 439). With the success of Astell's A Serious Proposal (which went through five editions),¹⁴ Norris wanted to print privately their penned discourses, and reluctantly Astell allowed Letters Concerning the Love of God to be published in 1695.

A few years earlier, Ralph Cudworth's daughter Damaris Masham had also been a correspondent of Norris, but she switched camps and was the first to attack Norris and Astell's Letters with her critical pamphlet Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696). While Masham claimed authorship for the short piece, Astell (and Norris) was convinced that Masham's companion and confidante, John Locke, had a significant influence on the content of the criticism (Springborg 1996, 640).¹⁵

When it became abundantly clear that Astell's women's college was not going to become a reality, she published the Second Part of her Serious Proposal in 1697. Part II goes into more detail about the way a woman should study and even recommends that women should start by reading Descartes, Malebranche, Arnauld's Port-Royal Logic (1662), and Locke's Essays Concerning Human Understanding.¹⁶ Needless to say, when she suspected that Locke was probably involved in Lady Masham's attack on the Letters, she quit recommending him as one who could assist women in their intellectual training.¹⁷

It took nine years before Astell was ready to publish her four-hundred page¹⁸ “thoughts” about the Masham/Locke criticism, a book that also was primarily a summary of her religious, political (with subtlety), and educational theories. At the same time that Norris was preparing his own response to the Masham/Locke critique and reproach, Astell published The Christian Religion as Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church (1705), in which she makes a full-fledged attack on the anonymous The Ladies Religion (1692), Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), and Masham's Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696), all of which she believed had either been written directly by Locke or had been penned under his guidance (Perry 1986, 91).¹⁹ Astell seems to have realized that Masham probably wrote the Discourse, but she doesn't address this directly in her work, preferring instead to focus her attack on Locke.²⁰ However, Astell was actually disappointed in being denied the opportunity to hear Locke's response, for while the book was in press, “the great Mr. L” unfortunately died. Not unexpectedly, Lady Masham defended Locke and criticized Astell in her Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life (1705), a pragmatic book, quickly ignored because Masham lacked the skill that Astell had demonstrated as a metaphysician in Christian Religion.²¹

Largely written as a refutation against Locke's materialist philosophy and utilitarian ethics, Christian Religion was, as Perry calls it, “Astell's philosophical manifesto” (Perry 1986, 91). One of the concerns of the Platonic rationalists, such as Astell, was that materialism would lead to Deism and ultimately to atheism. Astell (and other Christian philosophers) had been fearful that the materialists/empiricists were only paying lip service to God and would eventually entice the masses astray. In her reasoning, the first symptom of the disease of atheism is utilitarian ethics and the second is in accepting the idea that matter alone has the ability to “think.” Initially in her text, Astell presents her own metaphysics with ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments for the existence of God in the first half of the book, establishing grounds for a natural religion²² and leading to the book's second half in which she recommends that these beliefs should provide a prescription of action for one's relationships with God, others, and oneself. But as Astell progresses within the book, she moves into her criticisms of Locke. While she does not actually accuse him of being a Socinian, she notes that he seems to deny the divinity of Christ in his own Reasonableness of Christianity, which she refutes at great measure in her defense of the Trinity (Astell 1705, 75).²³ Still a large portion of the book is devoted to demonstrating the inconsistencies in Locke's view of the material (or at least not-immaterial) soul and thinking matter. In her objections to Locke, Astell is clearly a Cartesian dualist and rationalist.

One of the main reasons why women, such as Astell, had so widely accepted and embraced Descartes's philosophy²⁴ was “that his rules and method for discerning truth could be used by anyone, of either sex. His dualistic separation of mind and body strengthened the Augustinian concept of mind as a place ‘where there is no sex’” (Harth 1992, 3). By dividing the body from the essence of an individual (the rational, “thinking thing”), the corporeal extension could be construed as nothing more than a meaningless dwelling place, with gender distinctions of less importance than the difference between a wood-framed and a brick house. But for mental equality (which Astell defends in every one of her books) to become evident, a “disembodied mind” must be present to negate any regard of gender-difference in thinking. Beginning with common tradition (the “Tyrant Custom”), Astell wants to destroy the notion that men think “analytically” while women's thoughts are based solely on emotions.

III. ASTELL AS A CRITIC OF LOCKEAN “THINKING MATTER”

In maintaining the “disembodied mind” of Cartesian dualism, Astell, as the first woman who attacks Locke's “thinking matter,” makes it abundantly clear that she is intellectually equal with men. Most critics regard her particular criticism of Lockean theory to be comparable to Norris's and others' attacks on Locke.²⁵ Nonetheless, Astell holds her own, presenting herself as a rational being capable of serious thought, as she attacks Locke's empiricism: “Most Men are so Sensualiz'd, that they take nothing to be Real but what they can Hear and See. Others who wou'd seem to be the most refined, make Sensation the fund of their Ideas, carrying their Contemplations no further than these, and the Reflections they make upon the operations of their Minds when thus employ'd” (Astell 1705, 295). Her solution, as she clearly identifies it in Serious Proposal, Part II, is to reject sensate knowledge in favor of the contemplation of pure abstract ideas, accepting for truth only what one can clearly and distinctly perceive.

Locke, of course, rejects this sort of meditation and mocks the necessity for abstract thinking: “You may as soon have Day-Labourers and Tradesmen, the Spinsters and Dairy Maids perfect Mathematicians, as to have them perfect in Ethicks this way. Hearing plain Commands, is the sure and only course to bring them to Obedience and Practice” (1695b, 279). He accuses the rationalists of clouding the essentials necessary for understanding Christianity when they make it sound “As if there were no way into the Church but through the Academy and Lyceum. … The greatest part of mankind have not leisure for learning and logic … [and] mysterious reasoning. ‘Tis well if men of rank (to say nothing of the other Sex) can comprehend plain propositions, and a short reasoning about the things familiar to their Minds, and nearly allied to their daily experience. Go beyond this, and you amaze the greatest part of mankind” (Locke 1695b, 92).

Astell responds directly to Locke's assault (1705, 399-400), but she also does not miss the misogynistic slurs suggesting that women are placed in the group of common laborers, incapable of having more than a cursory comprehension of God's reasoning beyond their daily existence. While she may be misinterpreting Locke (purposefully or not), her comment to his statement is merely to remind her readers that she is no different from any other woman and that if there appears to be a difference between women and men, or even between women and other women, then the dissimilitude arises only from the manner in which a woman (or man) applies herself to the pursuit of truth, “which is in every Womans Power” (Astell 1705, 94). Her hero, Descartes, had said that all that was necessary was “sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them” (Descartes [1469] 1994, 348); any soul (male or female) is weaker than one that has been instructed.

As to Locke's “thinking matter,” which he sets forth in his third letter to Stillingfleet as a materialist ontogeny of thought, Locke concludes that God can superadd the property of thought, a spiritual “substance,” to parcels of matter (human beings), and then can either (1) arrange a “suitably organized system of matter” with some sort of neurophysiological connections, making it possible for matter to think (Locke [1695a] 1975, 4.3.6), or (2) add some immaterial power of thought (a something-or-another, which has regulating principles like the laws of nature, such as gravity) to mere matter. As Locke states, “we have the Ideas of Matter and Thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know, whether any mere material Being thinks, or no; it being impossible for us, but the contemplation of our own Ideas, without revelation, to discover, whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of Matter fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed Matter so disposed, a thinking Substance” (Locke [1695a] 1975, 4.3.6; italics in original). But whichever position [(1) or (2) as stated previously] is genuinely Locke's, what Astell sees is an inconsistency in this “thinking matter” notion. Being a good Cartesian, she is adamant in her position that matter (extension) can not “think,” because thought and body are exclusionary. Even the idea of a superaddition of thought to matter seems to confuse the issue,²⁶ and Astell argues, “I know that a Triangle is not a Square, and that the Body is Not Mind,” and Locke's entire “maybe-God-did-this or maybe-that or maybe-something-different” positioning in his attempt to defend “thinking matter” really results in Locke's concession that the superaddition of thought to matter indicates a distinct separation between the two (Astell 1705, 256-60). ‘'Tis evident that a Thinking Being can't be Extended, and that an Extended Being does not, cannot Think any more than a Circle can have the Properties of a Triangle, or a Triangle those of a Circle” (Astell 1705, 250). Perhaps, she speculates, God can create a substance with the essence of thought and unite “this” thinking substance to the matter of the body, but even in creating this second “thinking” substance, the fact remains that “two” different things are being considered. While Astell is making this point for her own readers, Locke has already argued that this notion cannot be demonstrated (Squadrito 1987, 436). Locke says in his second letter to Stillingfleet, “that Omnipotency cannot make a substance to be solid and not solid at the same time, I think, with due reverence, may say; but that a solid substance may not have qualities, perfections, and powers, which have no natural or visibly necessary condition with solidity and extension, is too much for us … to be positive in” (Locke [1695a] 1975, 4.3.16). Satirically using Locke's own words against him, Astell responds:

Having so good authority as the Essay of Human Understanding on my side, I will presume to affirm that it is impossible for a Solid Substance to have Qualities, Perfections, and Powers, which have no Natural or Visible Connection with Solidity and Extension; and since there is no Visible Connection between Matter and Thought, it is impossible for Matter, or any Parcels of Matter to Think, at least for us to suppose it contains a Contradiction. … Thought and Extension being as incompatible to the same Substance, as the Properties of a Square and a Triangle are at the same time.

(Astell 1705, 259; italics in original)

Matter can not be “thinking,” she points out using Locke's statement, because “Thought and Extension” are not the same thing, sharing no similar properties or “visible connection.” Astell seems to ignore the numerous times when Locke contradicts himself and says that “Matter, incogitative Matter, and Motion … could never produce Thought” or “Unthinking Particles of Matter, however put together, can have nothing thereby added to them, but a new relation of position, which ‘tis impossible should give thought and knowledge to them” (Locke [1695a] 1975, 4.10.10, 16; italics in original). Locke says, though Astell chooses to ignore it, that matter can not produce thoughts without God's intervention. While Locke never fully concedes that God may have somehow managed to create a thinking substance that is solid and has some sort of nonsolid (immaterial power of thought), undetectable quality “added” or “superadded” to it, Astell ignores his admission of uncertainty and his inability to make a hard claim against the possibility of some nonsolid quality. Instead, she returns to her position that there is no visible connection between matter and thought, and, thus, she concludes, matter cannot think.

It should be noted that in her attempt to be satirical, Astell leaves herself open to a countering criticism. An accusation could be levied against her efforts to use Locke's own words effectively against him; by demanding a “Visible Connection between Matter and Thought,” Astell is precariously close to the notion of materialistic/empirical verification. However, what is more important to Astell is that Locke has already played the “thinking matter” card in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (2.1.4, 2.8.9-10, and 4.3.6), and she is, therefore, correct in pointing out his inconsistencies, even if her own argument falters. Consequently, Astell must return to her position that “thought” can only exist in a “disembodied mind” and has no direct relationship with matter. From a purely Cartesian perspective, there is no real need for a body in which the soul exists; Descartes calls a human being a “thinking thing,” and for him all that is necessary for the existence of thought is the existence of God. Implicit in Descartes's cogito is that even if I could possibly doubt my own existence, I know I exist because I'm thinking about it (ergo even if God is an Evil Genius, my thoughts tell me that I exist, with or without a body). Thus, extension is secondary to pure thought.

Astell calls Locke to the carpet again on another inconsistency: the likeness principles. She argues with his position that “thought” must be an essence or mode of the body if the body can in fact think. Using God as her example of a nonextended thing with thought, she sets out a rather lengthy argument that ends with the “Body is incapable of Thought” (Astell 1705, 251-52). She is responding directly to Locke's conclusion that with regard to God, “It necessarily follows, that the first eternal Being cannot be matter” (Locke [1695a] 1975, 4.10.10, 4.10.16). Despite Locke's concession of God's, a thinking Being's, immateriality, the devout Anglican Astell appears fearful of Locke's possible rejection of God's existence (as he has already nearly renounced Jesus Christ in his Reasonableness of Christianity), because pure thought cannot, in the materialist's view, exist without matter.

It is noteworthy, I believe, that all Locke has really conceded to is the causality of God, which relegates God to a simple law of nature. Astell may have been thinking about Locke's comments in Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) or one of his letters to Stillingfleet where his treatment of gravity is quite similar to his ideas on God and thought, but I think she is misreading Locke if she anticipates eventual atheism for this particular materialist. All of his talk about “superaddition,” “annexation,” and “inherent incomprehensibility” should be enough to convince a reader either that he believed strongly in God or that his own philosophy was not sufficiently developed to explain the things that our senses could not easily understand. Not surprisingly, most critics of Locke actually lean toward the latter explanation, without even discussing his concept of God. But it is also Locke's inconsistency on the likeness principles that makes his critics, such as Astell and Norris, find it difficult to effectively dismantle his notion of thinking matter.²⁷ If Astell is successful at anything in her criticisms of Locke in Christian Religion, it is in being one of the first of Locke's critics to demonstrate his inconsistencies. What a shame that in the great realm of post-Lockean male philosophers and political theorists, Astell's very major accomplishment is too often ignored. During the first two decades of the eighteenth century, her voice had been heard, but by the time of her death, Astell's role as Locke's first female critic was forgotten.

Though Astell never explicitly states it (at least not in what I have read thus far), I believe she most certainly considers and alludes to the notion that reducing thought to a mode of matter perpetuates the notion that women's thoughts are inferior to men's insomuch that tradition holds that women's bodies are inferior to men's (in endurance, strength, etc.). While Locke denies race, color, or sex as excluding descriptive indicators of the nominal essence of human beings, Astell's feministic political agenda prevents her from acknowledging this directly. Rather, she holds that it is the same sort of “Lockean” thinking (calling attention to physical differences between people) that, even today, makes it difficult for many women to accept pure materialism. Feministic theorizing includes the notion that until physiological (and even racial) distinctions are considered irrelevant to people's abilities, there remains a need (for people who are not white and/or heterosexual and/or men) to believe something exists independently of the body that has the potential for total equality (an equal playing field, of sorts). This kind of dualism between the finite body and the infinite mind/soul is especially necessary for women and other groups who have been made to feel inferior in the past. An equality of intellect (or even an individualization of the “will”) provides a positive avenue for a common entry into the field of uniformity. I think Astell would argue that Descartes's universal “good sense” was merely a glossing-over of the issues, but the notion provides an equitable opportunity by which women (and minorities) can hope to pursue, at least on a rational level, total equality with those who have in the past regarded them with low esteem and have considered non-white-European-males to be a kind of academic and social “lower-class.”

IV. ASTELL AS AN ADVOCATE OF POLITICAL EQUALITY

Astell's reasons for disliking Locke are probably grounded as much on his politics and his democratic theories as on her role as an English feminist; she was the first woman who criticized him in the press and who was writing on the subject of intellectual gender equality and abstracted rationalism (Perry 1990, 445). By basing political power on social contract, Locke neither denies nor affirms a woman's inferiority but consciously and consistently plays the issue down,²⁸ though it remains clear that he is excluding women from his new ideas for government, which models “government as a contractual business rather than a family relationship” (Perry 1990, 450). Locke's social contract constitutes the political realm of men, while the marriage contract governs the private world of women. Yet Astell “strongly disagrees with this contractual account of the natural authority” (Browne 1987, 93).²⁹ A social contract establishes the independence and individuality of a person according to his property-owning ability; thus, political rights are completely dependent upon the capacity to own property. In the marriage contract, during Astell's lifetime and centuries to come, women turned over their rights to own anything to their husbands and then, according to property laws at the time, and even in Locke's general theory, became property (or at least “wards”) of their husbands.

In Locke's system, women are equal to men only insomuch as a woman has the right to choose to whom (to which adult male) she will willfully relinquish control of her prenuptial property and subject herself to voluntary servitude. This “voluntary servitude,” which is predicted by Locke's “natural authority” prescriptiveness, presents a serious problem for not only women, but also for the middle and lower classes, for the ability to acquire property is the primary “symbol” and evidence, for Locke, of rationality. Property ownership, which coincides with a life of leisure during which time a man (or woman) may advance himself (or herself),³⁰ is beyond the reach of a laborer or any person who has willfully given up control of his (or her) life and is paid by another person for services rendered.

Astell discerns that Locke places women on the same level as day-laborers and tradesmen (see earlier quote; Locke 1695b, 279). This presents a certain paradox for wives who have given control of their pre-marriage property rights to their husbands, whom Locke considers “abler and stronger” in matters of controlling property ([1689] 1988, II. 82). No matter how much the wife studies and strives to become her husband's intellectual equal, she will have no “symbol” to prove her rational capabilities (i.e., no property). It is interesting that Astell had chosen neither to marry nor to acquire property during her lifetime, defying the traditional role for women and practically denying her own gender status to remain fiercely independent.

In politics, where she is a Tory activist and pamphleteer, she notes that Locke's doctrines of self-preservation and property acquisition are in direct conflict with one's Christian duty (Astell 1705, 133, 304-07)³¹ and that he never even considers single adult women's rights or political status. As a Tory and Anglican, Astell challenges Locke to extend his claim for liberty against the Crown and to offer to women a form of liberty against domestic tyrants. Astell explicitly refers to Locke in her Christian Religion (1705, sections 139, 312; 133, 305-06) and An Impartial Enquiry (1704a, 10) as she argues against Locke's tenet of self-preservation, which she regards as central to his religious apostasy in Reasonableness of Christianity (Locke 1695b). In Enquiry she warns,

Beware of every one who wou'd draw you into a necessity of believing, that your Liberties and Estates are in some danger, who wou'd give you such a Prospect, and work you into such a Persuasion, and so draw you in by the old Cant of Self-Preservation, tho' they seem to demonstrate ever so great a necessity: much more ought you to abhor being drawn in by the bare meaning of it, at least if you have any regard to real Self-Preservation, and think your Souls of greater moment than your Lives or Estates.

(Astell 1704a, 10; italics in original)

She asks in Christian Religion, “What then is Self-Preservation, that Fundamental Law of Nature, as some call it, to which all other laws, Divine as well as Human, are made to do Homage? Very well; for it does not consist in the Preservation of the Person or Composite, but in preserving the Mind from Sin, the Mind which is truly the Self” (Astell 1704a, 305; italics in original). This quote and particularly last line, “the Mind which is truly the Self,” pulls together her main criticisms of Locke: (1) the “Mind” is the individual self, not the body, as Locke's self-preservation theory maintains; (2) “might makes right” (the law of nature) is only valid and applicable if one is talking about the might of the mind over the body in an effort to avoid sinning against God, and (3) the law of self-preservation does not justify opposing the divine right of kings. Metaphysically, theologically, and politically, Astell maintains that the law of nature (Locke's self-preservation) is subordinate to “true” self-preservation, because the self is not a body but a mind.

Continuing the previous quote, Astell states that genuine “self” preservation (i.e., salvation) comes from “preserving the Mind from Sin, the Mind which is truly the Self, and which ought to be secur'd at all hazards. It is this Self-Preservation and no other, that is a Fundamental Sacred and unalterable Law, as might easily be prov'd were this the proper place; which Law he obeys, and he only, who will do or suffer any thing rather than Sin” (Astell 1704a, 306; italics in original). For Astell, it is a mind/body distinction. While Locke is interested in preserving the body, Astell adheres to Cartesian dualism by elevating the Mind, “which is truly the self.” A person, as a “self,” is not Lockean “thinking matter” but is a Cartesian “thinking thing.” The disembodied mind is “who” a person is, and the gendered body is meaningless to individuality and identity.

Contemporary as well as earlier political theorists have noted that primary to Locke's contract system is the motive of self-preservation for an end, and likewise, tacit consent is a motive of self-preservation as the means. Astell notes in her Reflections Upon Marriage, “If mere Power gives Right to Rule, there can be no such thing as Usurpation; but a Highway-Man, so long as he has strength to force, has also a Right to require our Obedience” (Astell 1706, preface, x). She uses the test case of the Highway-Man over and over again in her writings to argue against Locke's position of natural law, but it is noteworthy that it was Locke who introduced the metaphor of the highway-man with the claim that “amongst men, till there were constituted great Commonwealths, it was thought no dishonour to be a Pyrate or High-way Theefe” (Locke [1689] 1988, 390); but he goes on to define the limits of self-preservation and the right to protect personal property: “For though I may kill a thief that sets upon me in the Highway, yet I may not (which seems less) take away his Money and let him go; this would be Robbery on my side. His force and the state of War he put himself in, made him forfeit his Life, but gave me no Title to his Goods” (Locke [1689]1988, 390). Thinking about this passage, Astell follows her comments in the above quoted passage from the preface to Reflections with an analogy between the citizen's tacit consent to a rogue government in the state and to a rogue government in a familial household, in which “tacit” consent is thinly veiled. Candidly challenging Locke's own analogy in The Two Treatises ([1689] 1988, 404-05) between state and family, she asks,

Again, if Absolute Sovereignty be not necessary in a State, how comes it to be so in Family? or if in a Family, why not in a State; since no Reason can be alledg'd for the one which will not hold more strongly for the other? If the Authority of the Husband so far as it extends, is sacred and inalienable, why not of the Prince? The Domestic Sovereign is without Dispute Elected, and the Stipulations and Contract are mutual, is it not then partial in Men to the last degree, to contend for, and practice that Arbitrary Dominion in their Families, which they abhor and exclaim against the State?

(Astell 1706, preface, x)

A little later in the same passage, Astell makes the infamous declaration, “By how much 100,000 Tyrants are worse than one” (Astell 1706, preface, x; italics in original). The analogy then becomes a calculated argument, no longer one which only holds to the Tory position of Absolute Monarchy, but one which centers and grounds her case against a wife's subordination to her husband: “What tho' a Husband can't deprive a Wife of Life without being responsible to the Law, he may however do what is much more grievous to a generous Mind, render Life miserable, for which she has no Redress, scarce Pity which is afforded to every other Complainant. It being a Wife's Duty to suffer everything without Complaint” (Astell 1706, 11). Astell uses Locke's own words ([1689] 1988, 142) to rephrase a question: “If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves? … as they must be if the being subjected to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary Will of Men, be the perfect Condition of Slavery? and if the Essence of Freedom consists, as our Masters say it does, in having a standing Rule to live by? And why is Slavery so much condemn'd and strove against in one Case, and so highly applauded and held so necessary and so sacred in another?” (Astell, 1706, 11; italics in original).³² If reason could not sanction tyrannical rule, whether Domestic or governmental, then neither could it disenfranchise either of them. If women were permitted to be their domestic masters' slaves, then should not men willingly agree to the rule of a monarch? This argument of Astell's is often regarded as one of the best against Locke's contractual system (Shanley 1979; Hinton 1967-68; Pateman 1988, 1989). She rejects contractualism in general, insomuch as there is rarely, if ever, a situation into which two free and equal individuals willingly engage; always some sort of domination and subordination exists. Supposedly in the marriage contract, there is the conjugally equal trade in bodies, but even if in bed a man and woman are equal, the wife still has a “Duty” to her husband, and he is the one who legally owns all of her prenuptial property. To Astell, Lockean contractual theory makes a mockery of the sacrament of marriage.

In repeating her question, “How is it that all Women are born slaves,” I can say that Astell only offers the opportunity of education and inclination (as well as her own personal refusal to marry) as solutions for what she regards as blatant inequality between the genders. But though she alludes to women's rights outside of education, she has left no hard record concerning her opinion on civil, property, or reproductive rights. Still, it must be recalled that while she was legally prohibited from engaging in the political social contract of men, she also voluntarily refused to participate in the marital contract, which Locke regarded as the women's world. Perhaps Astell's refusal to submit to the enslaving contract of marriage is the reason that some scholars describe her as a radical feminist.

V. ASTELL AS A FEMINIST

Mary Astell, the champion of women's intellectual opportunities based on rational ability, adheres to Descartes's philosophy for at least two reasons: (1) Descartes provides a methodical way to knowing truth, and, perhaps even more importantly to Astell, (2) he clearly separates the gendered body from the nongendered “disembodied mind,” which Astell identifies as the true “self.” Without the sexual bias of “feminine” thought, Astell can present her ideas in an androgynous scholarly field. Some recent Cartesian scholars have suggested that the objectivity and purity in cognitive thinking for Descartes is conclusively “masculine,” while it also includes the emotions, the senses, and the imagination, those modes of thought that have traditionally been regarded as “feminine,”³³ as part of a “mature” and controlled soul. According to this kind of hypothesizing, a woman's “womanhood” stands in diametrical opposition to the impersonal, dispassionate, rational thought process, for the very concept of “maternal” carries with it the connotation of uncontrolled “emotional” empathy. The Cartesian thinker, if she is a woman, supposedly must deny her womanhood if she chooses to enter into the traditionally masculine realm of pure reasoning and impersonal detachment. In other words, she must become androgynous, at least in thought. Or more realistically, she (or any man, for that matter) must learn to temper the passions and to allow only reason to dominate.

Astell doesn't view the mind as either masculine or feminine, nor does she believe that Descartes intended for this sort of distinction. While he argues that passions and emotions need to be controlled, Descartes points to age-differences rather than gender-differences in matters of educating the soul (see note 7 of this essay). For Mary Astell (and John Norris and other early English Cartesian feminists), the mind is distinct from the gendered body; the “mind,” as the true “self,” exists as neither masculine nor feminine. Analogously, Astell's opposition to Locke's “thinking matter” should most likely be regarded as a reaction against the traditional Aristotelian view that women are “impotent males” and never capable of being equal because of bodily difference. If the mind remains separated from “matter” (the body), then the physiological dissimilitude between men and women (the “sexual defect”) is of no consequence for in matters of rationalization they are equal. If any “deficiency” remains in women's intellectual capacity, it “could only be a result of their lack of educational and social opportunities for improving their minds,” nothing else (Mitchell 1984, 64).

Had the term been coined by the early 1700s, Astell probably would not have called herself a “feminist”; purely and simply (or “clearly and distinctly” as Descartes would say), she regards herself as a metaphysician interested in providing equal educational opportunities for women and in dispelling the notion that women are somehow intellectually inferior to men. She is a proponent of self-determination, and, for her, Descartes's method provides a possible instantiation for finding one's true freedom (and, thus, one's true self) through the process of liberating the mind to opportunities of “self”-discovery. Still, in today's terminology, that Astell denies gender distinctions classifies her as a “radical” feminist; the body's limitations are in no way indicative of the potential accomplishments of the mind (consider Stephen Hawking). Astell demonstrates through her writings that “willful ignorance” (on the part of the women) and “Tyrant Custom” (in general society) are the only things preventing women from reaching intellectual equality and ultimately, and, more importantly for Astell, from understanding innate abstract truths acquired through contemplation. Although she voluntarily accepts the dictates necessary for what has been/is traditionally considered “masculine” ratiocination to prove her own arguments, she never asks any woman to deny her own gender. Astell simply wants each woman to move beyond her designation as “female” to nongendered reasoning and pure rationality in a disembodied “self.”

While I have demonstrated that there are fundamental differences between Astell's Cartesian dualistic thinking and Locke's empirically-minded theories, I also suggest that perhaps Astell's animosity toward Locke's “thinking matter” simply provides a soap box from which she can demonstrate that she is Locke's intellectual equal, rather than that she is retaliating for his (and Masham's) public critiques of her work. Although she would never phrase it as such, perhaps Astell's “cogito” should have been, “I think, therefore I am any person's equal”;³⁴ and her admonition to her sisters seems to have been, “You think, therefore you are also equal.” Identity and identification of a “self” as a mind without a body carries with it no gender distinction. Although no one could say for certain what her favorite verse in the Bible is, she does quote and paraphrase Galatians 3: 28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free man, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ.” On numerous occasions and through all of her works, Astell notes that the only differences between men and women, and people in general, are “opportunity” and “inclination”; and that the limitations, which she wants to eliminate, on women's advancement are based on errant opinion and “willful ignorance.”

Not only was Mary Astell the first female English feminist, but she was also the first female philosopher to point to Locke's inconsistencies and the first woman to denounce Locke's politico-sociological positioning of women and wives. Astell never regarded herself in her writings as a revolutionary author, because equality between the genders seemed to be a given (once women realized that men saw them as something “Other” than masculinized humanity) if rationalization was the normative for defining “human” being. Women are “property” only if men make them feel that they are, and if they accept the erroneous notion they have no freedom of their own. Astell had seen what many women and men today do not see: Descartes's method is a tool that promotes freedom and self-determination. Self-determination means the freedom to create a gender-neutral “self.” And while the gendered body becomes unimportant, no one can really deny the external difference between a penis and testicles, and a vagina and breasts. But, according to Descartes and Astell, the body's “housing” doesn't matter. What is important is the disembodied (gender-less) mind, the “true” self. And on that point, Astell would say that women and men are identical, and this is why early feminists, such as Astell and Norris, welcomed and embraced Cartesian Dualism. As the first English feminist and female political and philosophical critic of Locke, Astell concludes and signs her original Proposal ([1694, 1697] 1970) with a title that she can comfortably call herself until she dies, that of her desire to remain “A lover of her Sex.”

Notes

1. I am indebted to Robert J. Mulvaney, Jeremiah M. Hackett, and Samuel J. Strickland, and various other readers for their comments and support during the writing of this paper.

2. Squadrito states that Astell “was a well-known Platonist during her time” (1987, 433), and “known by scholars of the day as the ‘philosophical lady’” (1987, 434). Astell herself considered the last to be a title of ridicule (Hill 1986, 129). Her reputation should not be surprising, insomuch as she was a close friend of Lady Catherine Jones, the great-niece of Robert Boyle; see Browne (1987, 95) and Astell ([1694, 1697] 1970, 28).

3. Astell rejected most of Hobbes's and Locke's ethics, epistemologies, and especially their construct of a “state of nature.” Perry (1990) focuses on Locke's politics and Astell's negative reactions.

4. Letter to Vatier, 22 February 1638; cited in Lloyd (1984, 44).

5. Astell writes in Serious Proposal, “Ignorance is the cause of most Feminine Vices, … and like error of the first Concoction, spread its ill Influences through all our lives. … Thus ignorance and a narrow education lay the Foundation of Vice, and Imitation and Custom rear it up. … 'Tis Custom, therefore, that Tyrant Custom, which is the grand motive to all irrational choices. … Since GOD has given Women as well as Men intelligent Souls, why should they be forbidden to improve them?” ([1684, 1697] 1970, 6-7, 10-11, 18).

6. See Descartes's opening paragraph in his Discourse on the Method (1637).

7. Some of my readers have called attention to a passage in Descartes's Passions in which he writes, “For since we are able, with a little effort, to change the movements of the brains in animals devoid of reason [such as the dogs he was discussing earlier], with it [it] is evident that we can do still more effectively in the case of men. Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them” (Descartes [1649] 1994, I. 348). My argument throughout this essay is that Astell is agreeing with this statement and that she is reading “mankind” into Descartes's word for “men.” Still relying on the Passions, I think there is adequate grounds for her agreeing with this position; in section 133 (Descartes [1649] 1994, I. 374), Descartes notes that there are definite differences between souls with regard to ages (“children and old people”) that cause them (the children and the old people) to be overcome by passions. However, no gender distinction is mentioned, although there is an explicit age discrimination.

8. For the brevity of this essay, Astell's long passage, which contains a direct quote from Descartes's Principles (1644) and which Astell notes marginally in her text as being from “part I, para.45” of his work, has been included in these “Notes,” mostly to demonstrate how closely she tries to imitate Descartes, that “Celebrated Author.” Astell writes, “The First and Principle thing therefore to be observed in all Operations of the Mind is, That we determine nothing about those things of which we have not a Clear Idea, and as Distinct as the Nature of the Subject will permit, for we cannot properly be said to Know any thing which does not Clearly and Evidently appear to us. Whatever we see Distinctly we likewise see clearly, Distinction always includes Clearness, though this does not necessarily include that, there being many Objects Clear to the view of the Mind, which can't yet be seen to be distinct. That (to use the words of a Celebrated Author) may be said to be ‘Clear which is Present and Manifest to an attentive Mind, so as we say we see Objects Clearly, when being present to our Eyes they sufficiently act on ‘em, and our Eyes are disposed to regard 'em. And that Distinct, which is so Clear, Particular, and Different from all other things, that it contains not anything in itself which appears not manifestly to him who considers it as he ought’” (Astell [1697] 1970, II, 102).

9. Because of Perry's succinctness in summarizing Astell's “method,” I will quote her: “These steps were: (1) define the questions and terms, (2) weed out all issues not directly connected to the matter under consideration, (3) proceed in an orderly fashion, (4) examine every aspect of the subject and subdivide the question into as many parts as necessary for perfect understanding, (5) judge no further than you perceive, taking nothing for the truth that has not been proven” (Perry 1986, 481, note 67).

10. Besides Hobbes and Locke, Astell makes a few jabs at John Milton (Astell 1706, 27).

11. Interestingly, it was initially believed that Damaris Masham had written Part I of Serious Proposal (Smith 1916, 113; Perry 1986, 87). Only after Masham criticized the Astell-Norris letters was the authorship of Part I known with certainty (Springborg 1995, 622).

12. Squadrito comments that Astell frequently uses the terms “simple idea” and “perceive” in the Lockean sense, demonstrating both the influence of Descartes and Locke in her earliest work, Serious Proposal, Part I (Squadrito 1987, 435, note 8).

13. Perry notes that Astell “admired [Norris] as a thinker who criticized Locke for relegating God to an unimportant role in the way that human senses build up ideas” and thus, decided to begin a correspondence with him (Perry 1986, 73). “Norris criticized Locke for not exploring the nature of ideas and of thought (as opposed to the origin of ideas) and for not distinguishing what he called ‘objective’ or absolute truth from contingent phenomena. Furthermore, he pointed out that Locke's theory of the origin of ideas in the senses only holds for ideas of bodies and does not account for moral or metaphysical ideas such as Order, Truth, Justice, Good, Being, and so on” (Perry 1986, 75).

14. There has been a pointless discussion as to whether Serious Proposal, Part I had four or five printed editions. Ruth Perry, the current authority on Astell, lists four editions of Part I by itself and a joint edition with Part II in 1697, the same year that Part II was released singularly (Perry 1986, 459-60).

15. See also Browne (1987, 98-99) and Perry (1986, 88-91).

16. Astell ([1694, 1697] 1970, 20, 84, 119, 144, 148).

17. Astell traces Locke's political career in her Moderation Truly Stated (1704b), beginning with his original support of the Anglican church, his seduction by Shaftesbury and consequent antagonism against the monarchy, his role as a propagandist for William III, and his continual typical Whiggish partisanship. In various places within her works, Astell refers to Locke as “a Socinian, an Epicurean, a party man, a defender of liberty, property, choice, and Dissent” (Springborg 1995, 630). Although Astell initially respects “the great Mr. L,” after he and his cronies begin to ridicule her philosophical opinions, she makes the claim in her Christian Religion that “Reason and Religion do not weigh with them” (Astell 1705, 154). Both personally and philosophically, Locke and Masham (and those like-minded) quickly fall from her graces.

18. See Atherton (1994, 98).

19. See also O'Donnell (1978, 1984).

20. In section 87 of Christian Religion, Astell expresses her doubt that it was in fact Locke who wrote the anonymous Discourse, instead condemning “the Author” who has “not seen fit to discover himself” (Astell 1705, 82). Earlier, in the opening paragraphs of the book, she writes that it was “a Physician, a Layman, a Gentleman, and a Lady” who seemed to be undermining Christianity with their brand of religion, and she even doubts “if they are Christians” (Astell 1705, 2; italics in original). Her comments about “a Lady” imply that she is aware that Lady Damaris Masham wrote Discourse, and yet Astell makes it clear that she had believed Masham was writing under Locke's influence, thereby justifying her criticism of Masham's tract along with Locke's known and identified writings.

21. Lady Masham is interesting in her own right. As a materialistic philosopher and one of “Locke's ladies,” her two major works, Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696) and Occasional Thoughts and reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life (1705), were written in direct response to Astell's books. Masham's second piece, which was published only four months after Astell's Christian Religion (1705), had actually been written a few years earlier, while Locke was still living, and is probably more his words than her own, although it is clear that Masham was a down-to-earth pragmatist who was more interested in today's “reality” than in Astell's abstract and idealistic preparations for the here-after.

22. Astell seems to have felt that the Anglican faith is the “natural” religion and is polar to Locke's questionable Christianity. For her, law and religion are kindred realms bound up in Tory politics, summed up in God's ordination of the right of Kings. In a direct attack against Locke, she writes in Moderation Truly Stated that “the Government is almost shatter'd to pieces, and we're within a hair's breadth of being once more in the State of Nature” (Astell 1704b, 12). In this passage, she also manages to link Locke's politics with his epistemology, calling him a “Low Churchman” who “annex[es] to the word a determinate idea” (Astell 1704b, 10-11). In An Impartial Inquiry, Astell once again links Locke's religious ideas, politics, and epistemology, this time criticizing his “association of ideas” while claiming that holding to the “Precepts of our Holy Religion,” people should reject Locke's Whig partisan spirit and turn a deaf ear on such a “Cunning and Factious Man” (Astell 1704a, 40).

    Locke's version of natural religion is more akin to Thrasymachus's concept of “justice,” that physical “might” is stronger than spiritual “right.” For Astell, natural religion is recognizing God's “might” in nature and adhering to the tenets of the Anglican church; anything else is unnatural and unreasonable (see Astell 1704b, 10-12).

23. In a later passage, Astell accuses the author of Discourse (which she implies was Locke's although she probably realized was Masham's work) of a blend of humanism with theology and politics: “[E]verything is not True which we find in the Discourses of our Modern Authors, who not only refine upon Philosophy, by which they do services to the World; and upon Politcks, by which they mean to serve their Party; but even upon Christianity it self, pretending to give us a more Reasonable Account of it, which they mean somewhat more agreeable to their Genius and own Conveniency, for their Systems, so far as I can find, do no manner of Service to decaying Piety, and mistaken slander'd Christianity” (Astell 1705, 135; italics in original).

24. Harth's excellent book on women who employed Descartes's “method” never mentions Astell by name (1992).

25. See Perry (1986, 96).

26. Of course the “superaddition” theory may simply be perceived, as Astell did (and still is presently by some Lockean scholars), as a hypothetical alternative to the notion of a priori innate ideas.

27. Wilson has written an interesting article on the inconsistencies in Locke's mind/matter theory. She states that the subject of “Locke's treatment of thought or mind in relation to the body” is a neglected one (Wilson 1979, 144), but, then, it is possible that Wilson never read Astell's Christian Religion.

28. Whatever else can be said about Locke, he does suggest to a female friend that a woman's education should be similar to a man's: “Acknowledge no difference in your mind relating … to truth, virtue, and obedience” (“Letter to Mrs. Clark”; Rand 1927, 102-03).

29. In John Vanbrugh's The Provok'd Wife (1697), Lady Brute wonders if the intolerable behavior on the part of a king, which automatically grants a legal separation to his wife, should be extended to all unjust husbands who become like tyrants. Because Astell cannot agree with the notion of a contractual relationship between husband and wife, she takes the almost anticipated religious position of recommending martyrdom for the mistreated woman and adherence to the Christian doctrine to love one's enemies (Astell 1705, 133, 304-07; Browne 1987, 93).

30. Most women in the seventeenth century did not have the leisure time necessary to pursue the contemplative life, for there were babies to nurse and households to run. The routineness of everyday living was a hindrance to even Descartes himself, and he wrote, “Sometimes the interests of my household … so thoroughly deject this weak mind … that it remains for a long time afterwards, useless for anything else” (in Lloyd 1984, 49). The intrusions of mundane existence prohibit periods of contemplation and force the mind into accepting its interaction with the body, which appear to exhaust Descartes.

31. See Acts 4: 32-37.

32. Astell is referring to passages from the Two Treatises ([1689] 1988, 283-84, 367), which she finds to be contradictory.

33. Bordo (1987) has a compelling argument for Descartes having “reasonably” murdered Mother Nature and Plato's World Soul through this masculinized thought, homicides that resulted in the further denotation of women as the “Other,” something mysterious and easily denigrated; see particularly Chapter 6.

34. What Astell actually says in Christian Religion, following a Cartesian train of thought to establish her own existence, is “I am only because He is,” leading her to conclude her existence required the existence of some prior being who must be “Absolute and Infinite Perfection” and therefore God, “since God is by supposition the most Perfect Being” (Astell 1705, 6-8).

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