t, as also in our public and professional
life.

But leaving this point for the present, there is another question
arising from this first that also brings me doubt. Few will deny that
women are more instinctive than logical; more intuitive than cerebral.
Men find their conclusions by searching for and observing facts, while
women, to a great extent, arrive at the same end by instinct. _They
know, rather than know how, or why, they know._ Now, too often we hear
these qualities of woman treated with contempt. Is this wise? What I
doubt is this: when women by education and evolution have been able to
learn and to practise the inductive process of reasoning--if, indeed,
they do come to do this--will they lose their present faculty of
gaining conclusions by instinct? I believe that they must do so to a
large extent, and I am not convinced that the gain would at all fully
make up for the loss. Looking at human conduct, it is regulated quite
as much by instinct as by reason. I think it will be impossible to
prevent this being so, and if this is true, woman's instinct may
remain of greater service to her than the gaining of a higher
reasoning faculty. The true distinction between the psychology of
woman and man is as the difference between feeling and thought. Woman
thinks through her emotions, man feels through his brain. This is
obviously an exaggeration, but it will show what I mean by the
different process of thought that, broadly speaking, is usual to the
two sexes. Mistakes are, of course, made by both processes, but more
often, as I believe, by reasoning than by instinct--this is probably
because I am a woman. But it is certain that each sex contributes to
the thought-power of the other, each is indispensable to the other, on
the mental plane no less than on the physical.

The importance of the above will become obvious when we consider, as
we will now do, the artistic impulse in woman. Strange difficulties
have been raised on all sides concerning the occurrence of genius
among women. It seems to be accepted that in respect of artistic
endowment the male sex is unquestionably superior to the female.
Havelock Ellis, for instance, in dealing with this question says, "The
assertion of Moebius[320] that the art impulse is of the nature of a
male secondary sexual character, in the same sense as the beard,
cannot be accepted without some qualification, but it may well
represent an approximation of the truth." By some it is