s only seen it
sophisticated and distorted. For the artificial state superinduced by
society disguises the natural tendencies of the thing which is the
subject of observation, in two different ways: by extinguishing the
nature, or by transforming it. In the one case there is but a starved
residuum of nature remaining to be studied; in the other case there
is much, but it may have expanded in any direction rather than that
in which it would spontaneously grow.

I have said that it cannot now be known how much of the existing
mental differences between men and women is natural, and how much
artificial; whether there are any natural differences at all; or,
supposing all artificial causes of difference to be withdrawn, what
natural character would be revealed. I am not about to attempt what I
have pronounced impossible: but doubt does not forbid conjecture, and
where certainty is unattainable, there may yet be the means of
arriving at some degree of probability. The first point, the origin
of the differences actually observed, is the one most accessible to
speculation; and I shall attempt to approach it, by the only path by
which it can be reached; by tracing the mental consequences of
external influences. We cannot isolate a human being from the
circumstances of his condition, so as to ascertain experimentally
what he would have been by nature; but we can consider what he is,
and what his circumstances have been, and whether the one would have
been capable of producing the other.

Let us take, then, the only marked case which observation affords, of
apparent inferiority of women to men, if we except the merely
physical one of bodily strength. No production in philosophy,
science, or art, entitled to the first rank, has been the work of a
woman. Is there any mode of accounting for this, without supposing
that women are naturally incapable of producing them?

In the first place, we may fairly question whether experience has
afforded sufficient grounds for an induction. It is scarcely three
generations since women, saving very rare exceptions, have begun to
try their capacity in philosophy, science, or art. It is only in the
present generation that their attempts have been at all numerous; and
they are even now extremely few, everywhere but in England and
France. It is a relevant question, whether a mind possessing the
requisites of first-rate eminence in speculation or creative art
could have been expected, on the mere c