ilosophy and literature are no longer to act in
concert. Yet, how should a quality so useful escape promulgation, but by
the obscurity of the language in which it was delivered? Why are footmen
and chambermaids paid on every side for keeping secrets, which no
caution nor expense could secure from the all-penetrating magnet? Or,
why are so many witnesses summoned, and so many artifices practised, to
discover what so easy an experiment would infallibly reveal?

Full of this perplexity, I read the lines of Abraham to a friend, who
advised me not to expose my life by a mad indulgence of the love of
fame: he warned me by the fate of Orpheus, that knowledge or genius
could give no protection to the invader of female prerogatives; assured
me that neither the armour of Achilles, nor the antidote of Mithridates,
would be able to preserve me; and counselled me, if I could not live
without renown, to attempt the acquisition of universal empire, in which
the honour would perhaps be equal, and the danger certainly be less.

I, a solitary student, pretend not to much knowledge of the world, but
am unwilling to think it so generally corrupt, as that a scheme for the
detection of incontinence should bring any danger upon its inventor. My
friend has indeed told me that all the women will be my enemies, and
that, however I flatter myself with hopes of defence from the men, I
shall certainly find myself deserted in the hour of danger. Of the young
men, said he, some will be afraid of sharing the disgrace of their
mothers, and some the danger of their mistresses; of those who are
married, part are already convinced of the falsehood of their wives, and
part shut their eyes to avoid conviction; few ever sought for virtue in
marriage, and therefore few will try whether they have found it. Almost
every man is careless or timorous, and to trust is easier and safer than
to examine.

These observations discouraged me, till I began to consider what
reception I was likely to find among the ladies, whom I have reviewed
under the three classes of maids, wives, and widows, and cannot but hope
that I may obtain some countenance among them. The single ladies I
suppose universally ready to patronise my method, by which connubial
wickedness may be detected, since no woman marries with a previous
design to be unfaithful to her husband. And to keep them steady in my
cause, I promise never to sell one of my magnets to a man who steals a
girl from school; m