WOMAN THE PSYCHIC CENTRE 221 



Knowledge of the influence which it is capable 

 of exercising has been the basis of many potent 

 systems of education. But it has been knowledge 

 which has fallen far short of the reality. To 

 measure the influence of woman in shaping and 

 determining the mind of civilization through the 

 young in the past is possible only to the most 

 experienced minds. It has extended even to the 

 regions of the highest abstract thought. Leslie 

 Stephen, in reviewing the history of philosophical 

 systems, gave it as his own experience that however 

 honestly and eagerly the philosopher may desire to 

 try his conclusions by the severest test, always in the 

 end his real problem came to be : " How con- 

 clusions which are agreeable to his emotions can be 

 connected with the postulates which are con- 

 genial to his intellect." l That is to say, in short, 

 that it is always the emotion of the ideal which 

 predetermines the conclusions. 



And in nearly all such cases when the inquiry is 

 carried far enough, the significant controlling fact 

 in the background is found to be that the emotion 

 of the ideal has had its strength and direction given 

 to it by the influence of woman's mind at an early 

 stage in the development of the individual. 



All the foregoing results, and they are of the 



1 The English Utilitarians, vol. i. 



