VI. Let them, who suppose the female sex to be more vicious than ours, tell me, how they can reconcile this, with the church having in an especial manner, bestowed on them the epithet of devout? How with the words of many of the most grave and eminent doctors, who have declared it as their opinion, that there are more women saved than men, even having regard to the proportion, in which it is generally thought the number of females exceeds that of the males? Which opinion, they do not, nor cannot found on any other thing, than their having observed in them a greater inclination to piety. VII. Methinks I already hear, in opposition to our undertaking, that proposition of much noise, and little or no truth, that the women are the cause of all evil; and, by way of proving it, the vulgar, down to the meanest and most contemptible of them, endeavour to inculcate at every turn, that La Caba occasioned the ruin of all Spain, and Eve that of all mankind. VIII. But the first instance is absolutely a false one. The count Don Julian was the person who brought the Moors into Spain, but was not persuaded to it by his daughter, who did no more than make known to her father the affront and injury she had received. How unhappy is the lot of women, if, in the case of being trampled on by an insolent ravisher, they are to be deprived of the relief of unbosoming themselves to their fathers, or their husbands! The aggressors, in these cases, would gladly deprive them of this relief and benefit; though if at any time an unjust vengeance should be the consequence of the complaint, the fault would not lie at the door of the innocent offended person, but would rest with him who did the execution with the sword, and the man who committed the insult; and thus the whole blame and crime would be imputable to the men only. IX. If the second example proves, that the women in general are worse than the men; by the same mode of reasoning it may be proved, that the angels in general are worse than the women; because, as Adam was induced to sin by a woman, the woman was seduced by an angel. It is not yet decided whose sin was the greatest, that of Adam, or that of Eve, because the fathers are divided in their opinions; and, in truth, the excuse which Cayetane makes in favour of Eve, that she was deceived by a creature of much superior intelligence and capacity to herself, is a circumstance that cannot be urged on behalf of Adam, and greatly abates her crime in comparison with his. SECT. II.