TJie Evidence from Intellectual Differences. 265 



Nobody ever perceived a scientific law of nature by 

 intuition, or arrived at a general rule of duty or 

 prudence by it. These are results of slow and careful 

 collection and comparison of experience; and neither the 

 men nor the women of intuition usually shine in this de- 

 partment, unless, indeed, the experience is such as they 

 can acquire by themselves. ... To discover general 

 principles belongs to the speculative faculty; to discern 

 and discriminate the particular cases in which they are 

 or are not applicable constitute practical talent; and for 

 this women, as they now are, have a peculiar aptitude." 

 It is only necessary to change two or three words in this 

 last sentence in order to show its complete agreement 

 with the demands of our theory. Its meaning will not 

 be altered by the following reading, which serves to 

 bring out more clearly its implications: To discover gen- 

 eral principles belongs to the progressive aspect of the 

 mind, which is most strongly developed in men; to pre- 

 serve and apply the general principles which are already 

 established belong to the conservative side of the mind, 

 and for this women, as they have been made by the evo- 

 lution of the race, have and should have a peculiar apti- 

 tude. Mill continues as follows: " I admit that there 

 can be no good practice without principles, and that the 

 predominant place which quickness of observation holds 

 among a woman's faculties makes her particularly apt to 

 build over-hasty generalizations upon her own observa- 

 tion, though at the same time no less ready in rectify- 

 ing these generalizations as her observation takes a wider 

 range. But the corrective to this defect is access to the 

 experience of the human race; general knowledge ex- 

 actly the thing which education can best supply/' 7 



This sentence, when viewed in connection with our 

 present theory of the relations of the sexes, gives the key 



