WOMEN AS INSPIRERS 



381 



ciently probable to justify action, she was prepared to 

 make any sacrifices to have his plans executed. The re- 

 sult of her decision is but another illustration of the value 

 of woman's quick intuition, as against the slow reasoning 

 processes of philosophers and men of science. 



Again, while considering what women have accomplished 

 for the advancement of science by inspiration and collabo- 

 ration, we must not lose sight of what they have done by 

 suggestion. For, as John Stuart Mill well observes: "It 

 no doubt often happens that a person who has not widely 

 and accurately studied the thoughts of others on a subject 

 has by natural sagacity a happy intuition which he can 

 suggest but cannot prove, which yet, when matured, may 

 be an important addition to knowledge : but, even then, no 

 justice can be done to it until some other person, who does 

 possess the previous acquirements, takes it in hand, tests it, 

 gives it a scientific or practical form, and fits it into its 

 place among the existing truths of philosophy or science. 

 Is it supposed that such felicitous thoughts do not occur to 

 women? They occur by hundreds to every woman of 

 intellect; but they are mostly lost for want of a husband 

 or friend who has the other knowledge which can enable 

 him to estimate them properly and bring them before the 

 world; and, even when they are brought before it, they 

 usually appear as his ideas, not their real author's. Who 

 can tell how many of the original thoughts put forth by 

 male writers belong to a woman by suggestion, to them- 

 selves only by verifying and working out ? If I may judge 

 by my own case, a very large proportion indeed. ' n 



i The Subjection of Women, pp. 98, 99, London, 1909. 



The idea herein expressed is beautifully accentuated in the touch- 

 ing dedication to the author's work On Liberty, which reads as 

 follows: 



1 ' To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the in- 

 spirer, and in part the author, of all that is best in my writings 

 the friend and wife whose exalted sense of truth and right was my 

 strongest incitement, and whose approbation was my chief reward 



