The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1893-12-01
HER SIXTH SENSE.
WoMAN's lNTUITIoN COMPARED WITH
MANS REASONING.

She Seems to ''Strike Each Point With Ma
tive Force of Mind, While Puzzled Logic
Blundcrs Far Behind"-She Does Not
Run the Risk of Reasoning.
The rapidity with which woman Is push
ing to the front in the various lines of Sc
rious endeavor is, to the average mascu-
line mind, marvellous and incomprehensi-
BILE. That she should attain anything
more than moderate success in business
pursuits is altogether incompatible with
our conception of the female capacity. We
of the opposite sex have Asen wont to look
upon woman as Il physicaIand intellectual
weakling, as being incapable of more
than semi-interest in the sterner ques-
tions of life and as one who, even in the
milder and seemingly more appropriate
spheres of art, is usually satisfied with
the merest dilettanteism. We have been
told time and again, and told by those
who ought to know, that the sex is prac-
tically devoid of the reasoning faculty and
consequently is adapted only to those gen
tier offices which make demand not so
much upon the intellect as upon the natJl-
raj instincts.
How comes it then that woman, lacking
this great essential, threatens to push man
to the wall in almost all the occupations,
to deprive him of what he has always con-
sidered his prerogatives and to laugh in
derision at his boosted superiority. Can
it be that ratiocination is not such very
necessary factor in business success after
all, or is it that woman possesses some
subtle and superior 81 Nititute? Undoubt-
+I,a1 LOT 81
she has her quick going intuition, n facul-
ty almost exclusively her own, and in
comparison with which mans poor proc
ess is but as the creeping messenger boyto
the lightning telegraph.
Being frequently brought into contact
with women in various business callings
requiring quick and decisive action, am
often absolutely astounded at the Won
derful operations of this feminine endow-
ment. Where her masculine coworkers
with united and perspiring brows proceed
laboriously to weigh and measure pros
and cons l have seen her decide instantly
and calmly the proper course to pursue,
and rarely, so far as my observations have
gone, have her intuitions been at fault
She seems to
Strike each point with native force Of mind,
While puzzled logic blundcrs far behind.
The most obvious characteristics of the
feminine intellect, says Roscoe, are deli
cacy of perceptive power and rapidity OF
movement. He asserts that woman sees
a thousand things which escape a man,
and that she is quicker sighted even phys
ically; moreover, that women differ from
men in having far more varied, subtle
and numerous inlets to knowledge, upon
which they rely, without trying to remem-
Der and reason from previous experience,
as a man does. The female intellect "walks
directly and unconsciously by more deli
cate insight and more refined and more
trusted intuition to an end to which mems
minds grope carefully and ploddingly
along" And HaZlitt affirms that women
have more of what is called good sense
than men-being less implicated in theo-
ries and Judging of objects more from
their immediate and involuntary impress
sion ON the mind, and therefore, he con-
tends, judging more truly and naturally.
''They cannot reason wrong, for they do
not reason at all"
A French proverb bids us take the first
advice of woman and not the second.
This proverb Archbishop Trench deemed
one of great wisdom. Said he, the second
counsels, against which we are warned,
this she is much inferior to man, but in
intuitions, Gin moral intuitions, above all,
women surpass us far, +" having what Mon
taigne ascribes to her "l'esprit prime-sau-
tier" the leopard's spring, which takes
its prey, if it be to take it at all, at the
first bound.
1t may be said in II general way that in
vacations demanding quickness and de-
cisiveness of thought and action woman,
with her improved opportunities, must
soon overcome the prejudice against her
and stand on an equality with if not out
rival her male competitor, while in large
enterprises, demanding deep and earnest
thought and pure ratiocination, she must
inevitably fall short of the required capac-
ity.
Woman is adapted to business life only
in so far as her intuitive faculty may be
nodded to business requirements. Nor
does this fact set mean limit to her aspi-
rations. One of the most valuable quail
f1cations one can possess in the worka-
day world is the ability to read instantly
the character of those with whom we are
brought into contact, and this is one OF
the finest operations of the feminine en-
dowment.
Hazlitt insists on the pre-eminence of
women in tact and insight into character
on their being quicker than men to find
out a pedant, pretender, blockhead.
The explanation he offers is that they
trust more to first impressions and natural
indications of things without troubling
themselves with learned theory of them;
whereas men, affecting greater gravity
and thinking that they are bound to justi-
fly their opinions, are afraid to form any
Judgment at all without the formality of
proofs and definitions. lie calls women
natural physiognomists and men phrenol-
ogists-the former judging by sensations,
the latter by rules. Rousseau again de-
clares presence of mind, penetration, sub
tlety of insight, to be distinctively la sci
ence des femmes.
One of the greatest difficulties woman
has had to struggle against in business
life is what Hartley Coleridge terms mans
"presumptuous reliance on ratiocinative
understanding, his stupid unbelief in the
value of her intuitions.
81 shall take your advice" said Cole
ridge to lady upon whose judgment,
from constant experience Of its rectitude,
he could rely almost as on an oracle. 81
shall act upon your opinion, for am sure
you are in the right. But as to your fors
and becauses kindly leave them to me to
find out. Cor. Boston Transcript.