6o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ated to make him less of a tyrant at home, and this influence, ex- 

 tending through scores of generations, has assisted powerfully in 

 securing for women all that they now enjoy. Even the Ivaiihoes 

 of the thirteenth century made fearfully tough husbands, and 

 led their " queens of love and beauty " wretched lives ; but still 

 they had to make some show of living up to the gush and swag- 

 ger of the tournament, and the women were better off than they 

 otherwise would have been. 



Millions have drifted into intimate relations with the bath-tub 

 and clean linen who, at the outset, had no intention of going fur- 

 ther than such superficial cleansing as would make a good im- 

 pression on those around them whose favorable opinion it was 

 desirable to have. 



The traditional young lady who, notified that she was to go 

 to a party that evening, called down the stairs to her mother to 

 know if she were to wash for a high-necked or a low-necked dress, 

 undoubtedly came in time to value cleanliness for its own sake, 

 and make her ablutions without careful reference to the amount 

 of surface her costume would reveal. 



We shall go far, however, to find so good an illustration of the 

 rapid development of pretense into actuality as is afforded by the 

 history of religions. All religions began with shows, forms, and 

 external observances, which, per opere operato, as the Catholics 

 used to hold of baptism, speedily became faith. The conquerors, 

 rulers, and soldiers who, for political and selfish reasons, imposed 

 the Christian and Mohammedan religions on more than half the 

 world, only attempted to compel extrinsic acceptance of their 

 forms and ceremonies. What one generation did under the shadow 

 of a sword which was quick to smite, succeeding ones did from 

 what was considered the deepest religious instincts. Outward 

 forms, which were terms of capitulation exacted by conquer- 

 ors, quickly grew into symbols of true inward faith. Belief 

 sprang from the reflex action of acts. Men did certain things to 

 save their lives or property, and then fully accepted the spiritual 

 meaning of those things. So long as Christianity relied merely 

 on the teaching of its doctrines, it made slow progress indeed. 

 Three centuries after Christ Constantino the Great, for political 

 reasons, gave to it the powerful aid of the sword of state, and 

 thereafter its spread was much more rapid. Still, it required more 

 than one thousand years of bloody propaganda, by blade and fire, 

 before its ascendency became acknowledged throughout the whole 

 of Europe. By the end of the fourth century the energetic mili- 

 tarism of Theodosius the Great frequently exerted by armies of 

 barbarians had nominally overthrown paganism throughout the 

 Roman Empire, and nominally established not only Christianity, 

 but the Nicene form of that faith. His successors devoted such 



