524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



had as many if not more opportunities of perfecting herself than man, 

 she has rarely proved his equal and never his superior. 



The intellectual powers of woman not only differ in degree from 

 those of man but also in character. Her mind participates with her 

 physical constitution in being endowed with great sensibility, and 

 hence her acuteness, perception, and tact. She seizes with rapidity 

 objects which come before her, and observes by instinct an infinity of 

 shades of meaning in details which might escape the most observant 

 of men. She often arrives at conclusions with great celerity and 

 adroitness, but then her results are as frequently wrong as right. 

 Her perception is fine and penetrating rather than extended or pro- 

 found. She readily occupies herself with small impressions and de- 

 tails, but is arrested there, being less capable of grasping general prin- 

 ciples. Although her mind may thus embrace a variety of particu- 

 lars, it is to little practical purpose, from an intellectual point of view, 

 as she can not fix her attention on any idea or ti*ain of ideas for any 

 length of time, and reason out a logical conclusion. Woman dislikes 

 and avoids that hard work which requires long and profound medita- 

 tion, her character being adverse to the study of abstract science. 

 Her thoughts wander, she becomes impatient, and her too mobile im- 

 agination is unable to rivet the attention on the dry details of a prac- 

 tical subject. She enters with enthusiasm and often with unnecessary 

 vigor at first into any new project, philanthropic, educational, or oth- 

 erwise, but rarely carries it steadily out to a successful termination. 

 Her opinions are formed by her feelings rather than by the operations 

 of reason. Her forte is that species of knowledge which requires more 

 tact than science, more vivacity than force, more imagination than 

 judgment. Her chief moral philosophy is directed to the study of 

 individuals and society, and the sagacity of a woman in acquiring 

 traits of character and penetrating true motive is what the logic of a 

 man rarely acquires. Wise women — the so-called blue-stocking — as a 

 rule know nothing profoundly. Their natural acuteness of perception 

 enables them to seize a number of details and isolated particulars, they 

 fancy they understand them thoroughly, they confound theory with 

 fact, the real difliculties they do not surmount, they can not fix the 

 attention long and deeply, or persevere in overcoming obstructions, 

 and they feel no pleasure in habits of profound meditation. They 

 therefore remain with their acquired superficial knowledge, pass rap- 

 idly from one thing to another, and there only rest in their minds 

 certain crude and incomplete notions, with which they are quite satis- 

 fied, and of which they make the most, but which in consequence lead 

 to false and illogical conclusions. 



These observations are not for the purpose of merely lauding one 

 sex at the expense of the other, but for a definite practical object, as 

 will subsequently be seen. They serve to indicate that the average 

 woman has been by nature endowed with a brain and nervous system 



