Concerning feminine sense-perception we have already spoken. There is no
significant difference between the two sexes, although in conceptual
power we find differences very distinct.
It may be generally said, as the daily life shows, that women conceive
differently from men. Whatever a dozen men may agree on conceptually,
will be differently thought of by any one woman. Now what is significant
in this fact is, that generally the woman is correct, that she has a
better conception,--and still under the same circumstances we continue
to conceive in the same way, even for the tenth time. This fact
demonstrates that a different form of organization, i.e., an essential
difference in nature, determines the character of conception in the two
sexes. If we compare values, the result will be different according to
sex, even with regard to the very material compared, or to the manner in
which it has been discovered. In the apprehension of situations, the
perception of attitudes, the judgment of people in certain relations, in
all that is called tact, i.e., in all that involves some abstraction or
clarification of confused and twisted material, and finally, in all that
involves human volitions, women are superior, and more reliable
individually, then ten men together. But the manner in which the woman
obtains her conception is less valuable, being the manner of pure
instinct. Or suppose that we call it more delicate feeling--the name
does not matter--the process is mainly unconscious, and is hence of less
value only, if I may say so, as requiring less thought. In consequence,
there is not only not a decrease in the utility of feminine testimony;
also its reliability is very great. There may be hundreds of errors in
the dialectical procedure of a man, while there is much more certainty
in the instinctive conception and the direct reproduction of a woman.
Hence, her statements are more reliable.
We need not call the source of this instinct God’s restitution for
feminine deficiency in other matters; we can show that it is due to
natural selection, and that the position and task of woman requires her
to observe her environment very closely. This need sharpened the inner
sense until it became unconscious conception. Feminine interest in the
environment is what gives female intuition a swiftness and certainty
unattainable in the meditations of the profoundest philosophers. The
swiftness of the intuition, which excludes all reflection, and which
merely solves problems, is the important thing. Woman perceives clearly,
as Spencer says somewhere, the mental status of her personal
environment; while Schopenhauer has incorrectly suggested that women
differ from men intellectually because they are lazy and want short-cuts
to attain their purpose. In point of fact, they do not want
short-cuts--they simply avoid complicated inference and depend upon
intuition, as they very safely may. Vision is possible only where
perception is possible, i.e., when things are near. The distant and the
veiled can not be seen, but must be inferred; hence, women let inference
alone and do what they can do better. This suggests the value of these
different interpretations of the feminine mode of conception. As lawyers
we may believe women where intuition is involved; where inference is a
factor we must be very careful. Sensory conception is to be understood
in the same way as intellectual conception. According to
Mantegazza,[268] woman has a particularly good eye for the delicate
aspects of things but has no capacity for seeing things on the horizon.
A remote, big object does not much excite her interest. This is
explained by the supposed fact that women as a rule can not see so far
as men, and are unable to distinguish the distant object so well. This
is no explanation because it would be as valid of all short-sighted
people. The truth is, that the definition of distant objects requires
more or less reason and inference. Woman does not reason and infer, and
if things miss her intuition, they do not exist for her.
Objectivity is another property that women lack. They tend always to
think in personalities, and they conceive objects in terms of personal
sympathies. Tell a woman about a case so that her interest will be
excited without your naming the individuals save as A and B, and it will
be impossible to get her to take a stand or to make a judgment. Who are
the people, what are they, how old are they, etc.? These questions must
be answered first. Hence the divergent feminine conceptions of a case
before and after the names are discovered. The personalizing tendency
results in some extraordinary things. Suppose a woman is describing a
brawl between two persons, or two groups. If the sides were equally
matched in strength and weapons, and if the witness in question did not
know any of the fighters before, she will nevertheless redistribute sun
and wind in her description if one of the brawlers happens accidentally
to have interested her, or has behaved in a “knightly” fashion, though
under other circumstances he might have earned only her dislike. In such
cases the fairy tale about telling mere facts recurs, and I have to
repeat that nobody tells mere facts--that judgment and inference always
enter into statements and that women use them more than men. Of course
real facts and inferred ones can be distinguished,--infrequently
however, and never with certainty. It is best, therefore, to determine
whether the witness bears any relation to one of the parties, and what
it is. And this relation will be an element in most cases inasmuch as
one rarely is present at a quarrel without some share in it. But even if
the latter case should occur, it is necessary, first of all, to hear
every detail so as to get the woman’s attitude clearly in mind. The
evidence of the woman’s mode of conception is of more importance than
the evidence concerning the fact itself. And finding the former is easy
enough if the woman is for a short time allowed to speak generally. When
her attitude is known, the standard for adjusting her excuses of one and
accusations of another, is easily discovered.
The same is true in purely individual cases. In the eyes of woman the
same crime committed by one man is black as hell; committed by another,
it is in all respects excusable. All that is necessary for this attitude
is the play of sympathies and antipathies generated from whatever
source. Just as the woman reader of romances favors one hero and hates
another, so the woman witness behaves toward her figures. And it may
happen that she finds one of them to have murdered with such “exciting
excellence,” and the victim to have been “such a boresome Philistine,”
that she excuses the crime. Caution is here the most necessary thing. Of
course women are not alone in taking such attitudes, but they are never
so clear, so typical, nor so determined as when taken by women.