ad, and to make use
thereof in their Conversation, or in composing of Works_. But surely
he had little Reason to suppose, as he herein does, that Women could
not otherwise than _by Laws and Edicts_ be restrain'd from Learning.
It is sufficient for this that no body assists them in it; and that
they are made to see betimes that it would be disadvantageous to them
to have it. For how few Men are there, that arrive to any Eminence
therein? tho' Learning is not only not prohibited to them _by Laws and
Edicts;_ but that ordinarily much Care, and Pains, is taken to give it
them; and that great Profits, oftentimes, and, always, Honour attends
their having it.

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 curiosit