he would be made happy by his insincerely
pretending to be of the same religion. And least of all is it true, if
both these propositions were credible, that even then for the sake of
her happiness he is bound not merely to live a life of imposture, but in
so doing to augment the general forces of imposture in the world, and to
make the chances of truth, light, and human improvement more and more
unfavourable. Women are at present far less likely than men to possess a
sound intelligence and a habit of correct judgment. They will remain so,
while they have less ready access than men to the best kinds of literary
and scientific training, and--what is far more important--while social
arrangements exclude them from all those kinds of public activity, which
are such powerful agents both in fitting men to judge soundly, and in
forming in them the sense of responsibility for their judgments being
sound.

It may be contended that this alleged stronger religiosity of women,
however coarse and poor in its formulae, is yet of constant value as a
protest in favour of the maintenance of the religious element in human
character and life, and that this is a far more important thing for us
all than the greater or less truth of the dogmas with which such
religiosity happens to be associated. In reply to this, without
tediously labouring the argument, I venture to make the following
observations. In the first place, it is an untenable idea that
religiosity or devoutness of spirit is valuable in itself, without
reference to the goodness or badness of the dogmatic forms and the
practices in which it clothes itself. A fakir would hardly be an
estimable figure in our society, merely because his way of living
happens to be a manifestation of the religious spirit. If the religious
spirit leads to a worthy and beautiful life, if it shows itself in
cheerfulness, in pity, in charity and tolerance, in forgiveness, in a
sense of the largeness and the mystery of things, in a lifting up of the
soul in gratitude and awe to some supreme power and sovereign force,
then whatever drawback there may be in the way of superstitious dogma,
still such a spirit is on the whole a good thing. If not, not. It would
be better without the superstition: even with the superstition it is
good. But if the religious spirit is only a fine name for narrowness of
understanding, for stubborn intolerance, for mere social formality, for
a dread of losing that poor respectabilit