system becomes in any degree possible as a basis for personal religion.

If there is a Deity it seems to be in some indefinite degree more
probable that He should impart a Revelation than that He should not.


Women, as a class, are in all countries much more disposed to
Christianity than men. I think the scientific explanation of this is to
be found in the causes assigned in my essay on _Mental differences
between Men and Women_[70]. But, if Christianity be supposed true, there
would, of course, be a more ultimate explanation of a religious
kind--as in all other cases where causation is concerned. And, in that
case I have no doubt that the largest part of the explanation would
consist in the passions of women being less ardent than those of men,
and also much more kept under restraint by social conditions of life.
This applies not only to purity, but likewise to most of the other
psychological _differentiae_ between the sexes, such as ambition,
selfishness, pride of power, and so forth. In short, the whole ideal of
Christian ethics is of a feminine as distinguished from a masculine
type[71]. Now nothing is so inimical to Christian belief as un-Christian
conduct. This is especially the case as regards impurity; for whether
the fact be explained on religious or non-religious grounds, it has more
to do with unbelief than has the speculative reason. Consequently, woman
is, for all these reasons, the 'fitter' type for receiving and retaining
Christian belief.


Modern agnosticism is performing this great service to Christian faith;
it is silencing all rational scepticism of the _a priori_ kind. And this
it is bound to do more and more the purer it becomes. In every