348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fare, are fixed and definite, and have been substantially unchanged for 

 almost, if not quite, the whole period of human development, we see 

 at once that, if the female mind is especially rich in the past experi- 

 ences of the race, so far as these have resulted in laws of conduct, it 

 follows that, since these experiences have been the same for all mem- 

 bers of the race, there must be a greater uniformity in female charac- 

 ter than in male chai-acter. As this statement is very abstract, I will 

 try to put it in a less general form : 



Experience of the order of events has shown that under certain 

 circumstances, of frequent occurrence, certain conduct is proper and 

 conducive to welfare, while its opposite is hurtful. 



This experience being constantly repeated, the tendency to do the 

 proper thing when the circumstances occur gradually takes the shape 

 of an instinct, intuition, habit, or law of duty. Henceforward, all per- 

 sons who have the impulse which has thus been formed will act in 

 the same way when the circumstances arise, but two persons who have 

 not the impulse will follow their individual judgments, and may or 

 may not act alike. 



As the female mind is characterized by the possession of these im- 

 pulses, it is plain that it must be much more easy for one average 

 woman to predict what another average woman will do, or feel, or 

 think, or say in any given case, than for one average man to predict 

 in the same way of another average man. 



We may carry this line of thought a little further. Since male 

 minds have the element of originality, male characters differ among 

 themselves ; but, since all are members of the same species, funda- 

 mental similarity must underlie this individual diversity, and this 

 fundamental similarity must subsist between female and male char- 

 acters also. The average female character will therefore have more 

 resemblance to two or more male characters than these latter will have 

 to each other, and accordingly, in all cases where relationship or edu- 

 cation has not led two men into the same way of looking at things, 

 a woman will be better able than either of them to foresee the con- 

 duct of the other under given circumstances, and of course the advan- 

 tage of a woman over a man in understanding the conduct of a wo- 

 man will be still greater. 



Since on the whole the differences between male characters are 

 slight when compared with their resemblances, and since the points of 

 resemblance are also points of resemblance to women, we should ex- 

 pect that, although the power of women to foresee male conduct is 

 greater than the power of men to foresee female conduct, the supe- 

 riority is not so marked as in the other three cases. This superiority 

 of women in predicting conduct will be shown by their possession, to 

 a much greater degree than men, of the power to influence or persuade 

 as distinguished from the power to convince or move by arguments ; 

 for to convince is to innovate and place matters in a new light, but the 



