504 //. T. Btickle, Esq., on the Influence of [March 19, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 19. 



The DuiiE of Northumberland, K.G. F.R.S. President, 

 in the Chair. 



Henry Thomas Buckle, Esq. 

 On the Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge. 



The two leading propositions which Mr. Buckle attempted to 

 establish, are, 1st, — That women are naturally deductive, men 

 inductive: 2nd, — That women, by encouraging and keeping alive 

 habits of deductive thought, have unconsciously accelerated the 

 progress of knowledge by preventing men from being as exclusively 

 inductive, or, in other words, as one-sided as they would otherwise 

 be. 



The influence thus exercised by women escapes general atten- 

 tion, because it displays itself not in making discoveries, but in 

 affecting the method according to which discoveries are made. 

 Knowledge is commonly divided only into two parts, art and 

 science ; but it does in reality contain a third department which is 

 superior to the other two, and which it is the business of philosophy 

 properly so called, to investigate. This third, or highest depart- 

 ment, is method ; and in studying any subject, the first question 

 should always be, " What is the proper method of proceeding ?" 

 There are only two methods, the inductive and the deductive. 

 Induction proceeds from the external world to the internal, i.e., 

 from facts which are presented to the senses, to ideas which are 

 presented to the mind. Deduction proceeds from the internal 

 world to the external, i.e., from ideas to facts. Women are less 

 practical than men ; they are more enthusiastic, more emotional, 

 and live in a more ideal world. They, therefore, naturally prefer 

 a method which proceeds from ideas to facts, leaving to men the 

 other method of proceeding from facts to ideas. These two methods, 

 though often united, are essentially distinct ; and even supposing 

 that all ideas are suggested by the external world (an assertion 

 which is constantly made, but has never been proved), this would 

 merely affect the question as to the origin of the elements of our 

 knowledge, and would leave untouched the method by which those 

 elements are subsequently arranged. If, for example, as many 

 affirm, the axioms of geometry are the result of induction, it is 

 nevertheless certain that the induction takes place at so early a 



