The Evidence from Intellectual Differences. 261 



members of the same species, fundamental similarity 

 must underlie this individual diversity, and this funda- 

 mental similarity must subsist between female and male 

 characters 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 education 

 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 conduct of the other under given circum- 

 stances, and of course the advantage of a woman over a 

 man in understanding the conduct of a woman will be 

 still greater. 



Since, on the whole, the differences between male 

 characters are slight when compared with their resem- 

 blances, and since the points of resemblance are also 

 points of resemblance to women, we should expect that, 

 although the power of women to foresee male conduct is 

 greater than the power of men to foresee female conduct, 

 the superiority 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 de- 

 gree than men, of the power to influence or persuade as 

 distinguished from the power to convince or move by ar- 

 guments; for to convince is to innovate and place mat- 

 ters in a new light, but the secret of influence is a vivid 

 appreciation of the established motives and incentives 

 to conduct. 



The relative power of persuasion of the two sexes, 

 then, may be tabulated as follows: 



