SOURCE: Perry, Ruth. “Mary Astell's Response to the Enlightenment.” In Women and the Enlightenment by Margaret Hunt, Margaret Jacob, Phyllis Mack, and Ruth Perry, pp. 13-39. New York: The Haworth Press, Inc., 1984.

In the following essay, Perry discusses how Astell's writings and attitudes were both reflective of and totally against the principles of the Enlightenment.

All of the contradictions of the period we call “The Enlightenment” were embodied in the life and writings of Mary Astell, a feminist intellectual who lived from 1666 to 1731. She argued for the rights of women yet she upheld absolute monarchy in the state. She believed in Reason but distrusted the materialism of the new way of ideas. An extremely devout Anglican, she rigorously observed all the vigils, fasts, and feasts of the established church. Yet her notion of heaven was a rationalist's notion: a place where all knowledge was complete, all mysteries made...