Page:Sexology.djvu/145

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interfere with sensibility. When she loses the freshness of youth, when the firmness of the skin and delicacy of color diminish, the increase in her general proportions preserves the charm of her form, and although her organs lose their flexibility, she is still graceful in her movements, and carries a certain winning attractiveness even into old age.

Atmospheric influence, temperature, and electricity exert a far more powerful influence upon woman than upon man. She is in more intimate relation with Nature. Her in- stincts are stronger, while her personal intelligence is less. She readily achieves many things by instinct at which man arrives less surely by reflection. Man is guided by calculation and personal interest, woman by passion and feeling. Man sees the truth, woman feels it. Ask advice from a woman, you get a prompt "yes" or "no," but if you force her to analyze the principles of her opinion, she may either ignore them, or give but very poor ones, but the conclusion will be correct notwithstanding. Little accus- tomed to the severe exercise of logic, debarred by Nature from rigorous deductions of ideas, she is moved, like the poet, by inspiration. Ask a man, on the contrary, and he proceeds slowly; he must ask questions; must know the pros and cons; ere he can enlighten you he must enlighten himself; he must "think about it."

The faculty of knowing others and of knowing one's self depends upon reason. Female penetration is without a parallel in judging individuals; it is worth but little in judging the race. A woman comprehends admirably the men of her acquaintance, she does not comprehend man. "The greatest study of mankind is man," yet of this science woman is profoundly ignorant. Women possess an in- credible consciousness of their own feelings, and even of