3 83 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pagan Rome, likewise threw the vesture of sanctity over all the other 

 virtues which belong by nature to the female mind. Until the rise 

 of Christianity the gentler and domestic virtues were nowhere recog- 

 nized as at all comparable, in point of ethical merit, with the heroic 

 and the civic. But when the ideal was changed by Christ when the 

 highest place in the hierarchy of the virtues was assigned to faith, 

 hope, and charity ; to piety, patience, and long-suffering ; to forgive- 

 ness, self-denial, and even self-abasement we can not w r onder that, in 

 so extraordinary a collision between the ideals of virtue, it should 

 have been the women who first flocked in numbers around the standard 

 of the Cross. 



So much, then, for the intellect and emotions. Coming lastly to 

 the will, I have already observed that this exercises less control over 

 the emotions in women than in men. We rarely find in women that 

 firm tenacity of purpose and determination to overcome obstacles which 

 is characteristic of what we call a manly mind. When a woman is 

 urged to any prolonged or powerful exercise of volition, the prompting 

 cause is usually to be found in the emotional side of her nature, 

 whereas, in man, we may generally observe that the intellectual is 

 alone sufficient to supply the needed motive. Moreover, even in those 

 lesser displays of volitional activity, which are required in close read- 

 ing or in studious thought, we may note a similar deficiency. In other 

 words, women are usually less able to concentrate their attention ; 

 their minds are more prone to what is called " wandering," and we 

 seldom find that they have specialized their studies or pursuits to the 

 same extent as is usual among men. This comparative weakness of 

 will is further manifested by the frequency among women of what is 

 popularly termed indecision of character. The proverbial fickleness of 

 la donna mobile is due quite as much to vacillation of will as to 

 other unstable qualities of mental constitution. The ready firmness 

 of decision which belongs by nature to the truly masculine mind is 

 very rarely to be met with in the feminine ; while it is not an unusual 

 thing to find among women indecision of character so habitual and 

 pronounced as to become highly painful to themselves leading to 

 timidity and diffidence in adopting almost any line of conduct where 

 issues of importance are concerned, and therefore leaving them in the 

 condition, as they graphically express it, of not knowing their own 

 minds. 



If, now, we take a general survey of all these mental differences, 

 it becomes apparent that in the feminine type the characteristic virtues, 

 like the characteristic failings, are those which are born of weakness ; 

 while in the masculine type the characteristic failings, like the charac- 

 teristic virtues, are those which are born of strength. Which we 

 are to consider the higher type will therefore depend on the value 

 which we assign to mere force. Under one point of view, the mag- 



