After all, it may not be amiss to take notice that Ornaments are common to Falshood and Truth, but Clearness and strength of Reasoning are not. They who wou’d propagate Error usually disguise it in Equivocal Terms and Obscure Phrases; they strive to engage our Passions, rather than to Convince our Reason, and carry us away in the torrent of a warm Imagination. They endeavour to refute, or if they can’t do that, to Ridicule the contrary opinion, and think this Sufficient to establish their own. Being much better skill’d in pulling down former Systems than in building new ones, for it requires no great skill to Object, and there are many Truths which we’re very Certain of, and yet not able to answer every Impertinent Enquiry concerning ’em. Their greatest Art is in confounding things, in giving a probable Air to what they write, in pretending to Demonstration where the nature of the Truth does not require’t, and in evading it where it does. An Immoral or Heretical Discourse therefore may be _Cunningly_ but not _well_ writ, for we can never plead for Error and Vice with true Eloquence. We may trick’em up in a handsom Garb, adorn’em with quaint Expressions, and give them such a plausible turn as may enable them to do very much Mischief; but this is only a fulsom Carcass, the substance and Life are not there if Vertue and Truth are wanting. §. VI. For it is to little purpose to Think well and speak well, unless we _Live well_, this is our Great Affair and truest Excellency, the other are no further to be regarded than as they may assist us in this. She who does not draw this Inference from her Studies has Thought in vain, her notions are Erroneous and Mistaken. And all her Eloquence is but an empty noise, who employs it in any other design than in gaining Proselytes to Heaven. I am therefore far from designing to put Women on a vain pursuit after unnecessary and useless Learning, nor wou’d by any means persuade them to endeavour after Knowledge cou’d I be convinc’d that it is improper for ’em. Because I know very well that tho a thing be never so excellent in it self, it has but an ill grace if it be not suitable to the Person and Condition it is apply’d to. Fine Cloaths and Equipage do not become a Beggar, and a Mechanic who must work for daily bread for his Family, wou’d be wickedly Employ’d shou’d he suffer ’em to starve whilest he’s solving Mathematical Problems. If therefore Women have another Duty incumbent on ’em, and such as is inconsistent with what we here advise, we do ill to take them from it: But to affirm this is to beg the Question, and is what I will never grant till it be better prov’d than as yet it appears to be. For if the Grand Business that Women as well as Men have to do in this World be to prepare for the next, ought not all their Care and Industry to Centre here? and since the matter is of Infinite Consequence is it equitable to deny ’em the use of any help? If therefore Knowledge were but any