While Burke argued that civil society and government should rely on traditions which had accrued over centuries, Wollstonecraft contends that all civil agreements are subject to rational reassessment. Precedence, she maintains, is no reason to accept a law or a constitution. As one scholar puts it, "Burke's belief in the antiquity of the British constitution and the impossibility of improvement upon a system that has been tried and tested through time is dismissed as nonsense. The past, for Wollstonecraft, is a scene of superstition, oppression, and ignorance." Wollstonecraft believed powerfully in the Enlightenment notion of progress, and rejected the contention that ancient ideas could not be improved upon. Using Burke's own architectural language, she asks, "why was it a duty to repair an ancient castle, built in barbarous ages, of Gothic materials?" She also notes, pointedly, that Burke's philosophy condones slavery: Sensibility In the Rights of Men, Wollstonecraft not only endorses republicanism, but also a social contract based on sympathy and fellow-feeling. She describes the ideal society in these terms: individuals, supported by cohesive families, connect with others through rational sympathy. Strongly influenced by Price, whom she had met at Newington Green just a few years earlier, Wollstonecraft asserts that people should strive to imitate God by practicing universal benevolence. Embracing a reasoned sensibility, Wollstonecraft contrasts her theory of civil society with Burke's, which she describes as full of pomp and circumstance and riddled with prejudice. She attacks what she perceives as Burke's false feeling, countering with her own genuine emotion. She argues that to be sympathetic to the French revolution (i.e., the people) is humane while to sympathize with the French clergy, as Burke does, is a mark of inhumanity. She accuses Burke not only of insincerity, but also of manipulation, claiming that his Reflections is propaganda. In one of the most dramatic moments of the Rights of Men, Wollstonecraft claims to be moved beyond Burke's tears for Marie Antoinette and the monarchy of France to silence for the injustice suffered by slaves, a silence she represents with dashes meant to express feelings more authentic than Burke's: Gender and aesthetics In the Rights of Men, Wollstonecraft challenges Burke's rhetoric as much as, or more, than his political theory. She begins by redefining the sublime and the beautiful, terms he had established in his Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful. While Burke associates the beautiful with weakness and femininity, and