The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-05-14
Have Women IntuitiOns!- They See
Deeper Than Men!

1t is very generally assumed that
women are superior to men in their in
buttons. We are told continually by
novelistS, social essayists, and would-be
philosophers of the drawing-room that,
while man is forced to reach conclusions
by laborious processes of reasoning,
woman leaps to hers by swift and an
erring intuition. This thing has been
asserted so often that many people ac-
cept it as matter of course; we do not
remember, indeed, of ever hearing the
assertion disputed.
Nevertheless we believe the theory to
be entirely without support. There is
not only not the slightest evidence in its
favor, but all the facts distinctly indicate
that there is no such thing To declare
that women have the power of perceiv-
ing facts or acquiring true knowledge by
intuition is to endow them with a sixth
sense; to equip them in a way that must
necessarily give them an advantage over
men in nearly all the affairs of life. In
such a case, women would be safer
guides than men in almost everything,
and especially in those things unsuscep-
tible of proof, in which we are necessa-
rily governed by our impressions.
Women ought to be, admitting this
theory to be true, much better Judges of
character than men. They would be fur
nlshed with means for more prompt de-
cislon in many emergencies. They would
make fewer mistakes in social questions.
They would be better protected against
the designs of scoundrels. They would
inn lnCd ct1coonftt1n 70 e
senses, and less easily led away by false
logic. Intuitional perceptions being the
operation of a natural force, women who
possess them would not only be able to
reach results sooner than men, but their
conclusions would be more sound and
trustworthy.
For to reeson rightly requires training
and experience, and, consequently, while
men with little experience and no train
ing would stumble greatly in their efforts
to sift evidence and arrive at the truth,
women would commonly be right off
hand. To state the proposition fully is
really to prove its absurdity. But let us
see how intuition serves women in affairs
generally. We have never been able to
detect in the other sex a special fitness
for dealing with the problems of life, big
or little.
If women have intuitional percep.
tons, they ought to be very successful
spectators, and, though they can moi
well go into Wall Street themselves
Wall Street men would be sure in such
a case to act solely by the advice anC
direction of their wives and, if married
brokers availed themselves of this pow
er at their hand they would soon drive
bachelor brokers out of the field, or a
least into matrimony. If it were true
no politician would ever make NOV,
without having first consulted the intu
itions of some accomplished woman.
Women have sometimes acted wis,
parts in politics, and some successful
men have acknowledged the happy aiC
rendered by their wives; but in thes,
occasional instances the women hay,
possessed superior intellect and gooC
reasoning powers; they have, we ma,
6be sure, aided the men along the line
the men have worked; they have helped
them to their ends by the highway O
reason and judgment, and not seduceC
them into morasses by promises of mys
FERROUS short cuts.
In ordinary business there is no evi
.denee that intuition is worth anything
much less equal in value to experience
or that it can in any way be substitutes
for it. The trader, man or woman, who
instead of studying the market