Philosophy not an improper Study for the Female Sex; many of them very eminent for their great Progress in the Sciences; particularly Hypatia, who excelled all the Philosophers of her Time.

That this Notion is a vulgar Prejudice, the vast Number of Ladies, who have in every Age distinguish’d themselves by their Professions or Performances in Learning, furnishes an unanswerable Argument. Whole Volumes have been written, containing nothing else but the Lives of such Women, as became eminent in all Kinds of Literature, especially in Philosophy; which, as it is the highest Perfection, so it demands the utmost Effort of human Nature. But leaving those Heroines to the Search of the Curious, I shall confine myself at present to one Object worthy all Admiration; in doing Justice to whom, I may be deemed to write the Panegyric of the whole Sex. We have the unanimous Consent of Synesius, Socrates, and Philostorgius, her Contemporaries; as likewise of Damascius, Nicephorus Gregoras, Nicephorus Callistus, Photius, Suidas, Hesychius Illustris, and others, touching the prodigious Learning and other excellent Accomplishments of Hypatia. What is still a greater Proof of the Fact, no one Person, or through Ignorance or through Envy, has ever as much as insinuated the contrary. Socrates, the Ecclesiastical Historian, an unsuspected Witness, says, That she arrived to such a Pitch of Learning, as very far to exceed all the Philosophers of her time; to which Nicephorus, also an Ecclesiastical Historian, adds, Those of other Times. Philostorgius affirms, That she was much superior to her Father and Master Theon, in what regards Astronomy. And Suidas, who mentions two Books of her Writing, one on the Astronomical Canon of Diophantus, and another on the Conics of Apollonius, avers, That she not only exceeded her Father in Astronomy: But further, that she understood all the other Parts of Philosophy; a Thing that will be easily credited by those, who shall peruse the Sequel of this Story, wherein nothing is advanced without competent Vouchers.