nce, as to the
inevitable, which a woman will express in a manner which says: "You know
I am so; you know that I cannot make myself better informed." They are
like perfect billiard-balls on a perfect table, which stop when no
longer impelled, wherever they may happen to be.

It is this absence of intellectual initiative which causes the great
ignorance of women. What they have been well taught, that they know, but
they do not increase their stores of knowledge. Even in what most
interests them, theology, they repeat, but do not extend, their
information. All the effort of their minds appears (so far as an outside
observer may presume to judge) to act like water on a picture, which
brings out the colors that already exist upon the canvas but does not
add anything to the design. There is a great and perpetual freshness and
vividness in their conceptions, which is often lacking in our own. Our
conceptions fade, and are replaced; theirs are not replaced, but
refreshed.

What many women do for their theological conceptions or opinions, others
do with reference to the innumerable series of questions of all kinds
which present themselves in the course of life. They attempt to solve
them by the help of knowledge acquired in girlhood; and if that cannot
be done, they either give them up as beyond the domain of women, or else
trust to hearsay for a solution. What they will _not_ do is to hunt the
matter out unaided, and get an accurate answer by dint of independent
investigation.

There is another characteristic of women, not peculiar to them, for many
men have it in an astonishing degree, and yet more general in the female
sex than in the male: I allude to the absence of scientific curiosity.
Ladies see things of the greatest wonder and interest working in their
presence and for their service without feeling impelled to make any
inquiries into the manner of their working. I could mention many very
curious instances of this, but I select one which seems typical. Many
years ago I happened to be in a room filled with English ladies, most of
whom were highly intelligent, and the conversation happened to turn upon
a sailing-boat which belonged to me. One of the ladies observed that
sails were not of much use, since they could only be available to push
the boat in the direction of the wind; a statement which all the other
ladies received with approbation. Now, all these ladies had seen ships
working under canvas against head-winds,