410 



WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



towards its outer boundaries. While men are always push- 

 ing analysis to its utmost limits, women are seeking a 

 synthesis. While men are becoming more technical, 

 women are becoming more intellectual. They are better 

 placed to observe the correlations of the different sciences, 

 and to subordinate them to the common and unique source 

 of truth from which they all descend. We seem, indeed, 

 to be approaching a time when women will become the con- 

 servers of general ideas. ' ' 1 



In the preceding chapter reference was made to the fact 

 that women are naturally inclined to adopt the deductive 

 method in their search for truth when men would employ 

 only the inductive method. This disposition of theirs to 

 arrive at conclusions by a kind of intuition, coupled with 

 their more pronounced idealism, is sure to react favor- 

 ably on men, and prevent them from becoming so involved 

 in mere facts and phenomena as to cause them to forget 

 that it is as important to reason well as to observe well 

 that the fundamental principles of a true philosophy are 

 quite as necessary for the eminent man of science as they 

 are to the trustworthy historian or commanding states- 

 man. 



From what has been said, it is clear that man's ideal 

 of the woman of the future will be quite different from 

 what it was but a little more than a century ago, when 

 Dr. Johnson could say that "any acquaintance with 

 books/' among women, "was distinguished only to be cen- 

 sured." It will be quite different from the ideal woman, 

 as portrayed by poets and novelists, for centuries past. 

 For among the thousands of women painted by our lead- 

 ing writers of fiction, poets and dramatists there are few, 

 if any, outside of those sketched by Tennyson in The 

 Princess, who are distinguished for their learning or for 

 their love of intellectual pursuits. Even Portia, Shake- 



Femme de Demain, pp. 45, 46, Paris, 1912. 



