384 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



"What has been so far said, important as it is, does not 

 tell the whole story of woman's influence on men of sci- 

 ence, and consequently on the progress of science. We 

 should not have an adequate conception of women as in- 

 spirers and collaborators if we did not advert to certain 

 faculties which they usually possess in a more eminent de- 

 gree than the most of men. It is a well-known fact that 

 in many of the affairs of life women are more practical, 

 have more tact, and possess keener and quicker perceptions 

 than men. They are, too, more ideal, more romantic and 

 more enthusiastic. 



Men of science in their investigations usually proceed by 

 the slow and laborious process of collecting facts and col- 

 lating phenomena, either by observation or experiment, or 

 both, and, from the observed facts and phenomena, they 

 formulate a law which explains and correlates them. This 

 is known as induction, a method which proceeds from facts 

 to ideas. 



Women, on the contrary, are rather disposed to proceed 

 from ideas to facts ; to explain phenomena from ideas which 

 already exist in the mind, without having recourse to the 

 slow process of induction. This is the deductive method, 

 and is the very reverse of that employed by the average 

 man of science. It would, however, be a mistake to main- 

 tain that the inductive method is always employed, for 

 such is not the case. More than a half a century ago the 

 historian, Buckle, in a notable lecture delivered in the 

 Koyal Institution of Great Britain, directed attention to 

 the fact that some of the greatest scientific discoveries had 

 been made by the deductive method. 



One of these was Newton's epoch-making discovery of 

 universal gravitation. While sitting in a garden he saw 



Hamilton was associated with her husband in his recondite work 

 throughout his long and brilliant career, we must confess that her 

 conduct was not only heroic to a degree, but also that the fame of 

 the one she loved was to her a matter of the deepest concern. 



