ation. Their hysterical
(_hystera_) natures are sufficiently indicative of the origin of
such hallucinations. Their magical or pharmaceutical attributes
might be derived from savage life, where the men are almost
exclusively occupied either in war or in the chase: everything
unconnected with these active or necessary pursuits is despised
as unbecoming the superior nature of the male sex. To the female
portion of the community are abandoned domestic employments,
preparation of food, the selection and mixture of medicinal
herbs, and all the mysteries of the medical art. How important
occupations like these, by ignorance and interest, might be
raised into something more than natural skill, is easy to be
conjectured. That so extraordinary an attribute would often be
abused is agreeable to experience.[41]

[41] Quintilian declared, '_Latrocinium_ facilius in viro,
_veneficium_ in femina credam.' To the same effect is an
observation of Pliny: 'Scientiam feminarum in _veneficiis_
praevalere.'

According to the earlier Christian writers, the frailer sex is
addicted to infernal practices by reason of their innate
wickedness: and in the opinion of the 'old Fathers' they are
fitted by a corrupt disposition to be the recipients and agents
of the devil's will upon earth. The authors of the _Witch-Hammer_
have supported their assertions of the proneness of women to evil
in general, and to sorcery in particular, by the respectable
names and authority of St. Chrysostom, Augustin, Dionysius
Areopagiticus, Hilary, &c. &c.[42] The Golden-mouthed is adduced
as especially hostile in his judgment of the sex; and his 'Homily
on Herodias' takes its proper place with the satires of
Aristophanes and Juvenal, of Boccaccio and Boileau.[43]

[42] 'They style a wife
The dear-bought curse and lawful plague of life,
A bosom-serpent and a domestic evil.'

[43] The royal author of the _Demonologie_ finds no
difficulty in accounting for the vastly larger proportion of
the female sex devoted to the devil's service. 'The reason
is easy,' he declares; 'for as that sex is frailer than man
is, so is it easier to be entrapped in the gross snares of
the devil, as was over-well proved to be true by the
serpent's deceiving of Eva at the beginning, which makes him
the homelier with that sex sensine:' and it is profoundly
observed that witches cannot even shed tears, though women
in