The Law of Fashion, establish’d by Repute and Disrepute, is to most People the powerfullest of all Laws, as Monsieur Bruyere very well knew; whose too Satyrical Genius makes him assign as Causes of Womens not having Knowledge, the universally necessary consequences of being bred in the want thereof.  But what on different occasions he says of the Sex, will either on the one part vindicate them, or else serve for an Instance that this Ingenious Writers Reflections, however witty, are not always instructive, or just Corrections.  For either Women have generally some other more powerful Principle of their Actions than what terminates in rendering themselves pleasing to Men (as he insinuates they have not) or else they neglect the improvement of their Minds and Understandings, as not finding them of any use to that purpose; whence it is not equal in him to charge it peculiarly (as he does) upon that Sex (if it be indeed so much chargeable on them as on Men) that they are diverted from Science by une curiosité toute differente de celle qui contente l’Espirt:  ou un tout autre gout que celuy d’exercer leur Memoire.

Yet since I think it is but Natural, and alike so in both Sexes, to desire to please the other, I may, I suppose, without any Injurious Reflexion upon Ladies, presume, that if Men did usually find Women the more amiable for being knowing, they would much more commonly, than now they are, be so.

But the Knowledge hitherto spoken of has a nobler Aim than the pleasing of Men, and begs only Toleration from them; in granting whereof they would at least equally consult their own advantage:  as they could not but find, did They not by a common Folly, incident to Humane Nature, hope that contradictions should subsist together in their Favour; from whence only it is that very many who would not that Women should have Knowledge, do yet complain of, and very impatiently bear the Natural, and unavoidable consequences of their Ignorance.

But what sure Remedy can be found for Effects whose Cause remains? and on what ground can it be expected that Ignorance and uninstructed Persons should have the Venues which proceed from a rightly inform’d Understanding, and well cultivated Mind? or not be liable to those Vices which their Natures incline them to?  And how should it otherwise be than that they, who have never consider’d the Nature and Constitution of Things, or weigh’d the Authority of the Divine Law, and what it exacts of them, should be perswaded that nothing can be so truly profitable to them as the Indulgence of their present Passions, and Appetites?  Which whoso places their Happiness in the satisfaction of, cannot fail of being themselves miserable, or of making those so who are concern’d in them.