A final trait of the feminine mind, very like the preceding, is that women are more given to an absorption in detail, are less courageous, are more capable of dealing with particular details than with general ideas and things as a whole, and are more inclined to narrow and literal interpretations than men. If a woman, for example, is intrusted with any administrative office she will execute every rule to the letter with an exaggerated conscientiousness and a naïve anxiety. The conclusion is that women will always lend comfort to literal religions and to superstitious practices. In our opinion this penchant for minutiæ and for scrupulousness which is so frequently observed among women may become, on the contrary, an important factor of incredulity when women are sufficiently instructed to perceive at first hand the innumerable contradictions and ambiguities of the texts they are dealing with. An enlightened scruple is a keener instrument of doubt than of faith. We confess we do not yet see that the differences, native or acquired, between the male and the female brain suffice to constitute women a sort of inferior caste, devoted by their birth to religion and the service of myth, while men are reserved for science and philosophy. [Sidenote: Is sentiment a badge of servitude to error?] Let me now examine the more profound reasons based on the nature of women’s sentimental proclivities. In general, it is said that women are dominated not by reason but by sentiment. They respond quickly to a call made in the name of pity or of charity, and not so quickly to one made in the name of equity. But is sentiment the exclusive possession of religions? And are there not also men of sentiment as well as men of thought? And are the first on that account condemned to a life of error while the second live in the presence of the truth? [Sidenote: Women and mysticism.]