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    THE OPINIONS OF JOHN STUABT MILL. 3

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    , , Whe There Ther Is It No Be Name At O...

    Yet slie wishes directly and distinctly to see what the logician himself has to say on this most important question to her and her sisters .

    When reading the beautiful examples of the four great methods of experimental inquiry , she is suddenly struck with the applicability of

    the " method of residues" to the case of the present position of her sex . The following passage , quoted from Sir John Herschel , strikes

    home , and she marks it with her pencil . " It is by this process , in factthat sciencein its present advanced stateis chiefly promoted .

    Most , of the phenomena , which nature presents are , very complicated ; and when the effects of all known causes are estimated with exactness ,

    and subducted , the residual facts are constantly appearing in the form of phenomena altogether new , and leading to the most important

    conclusions . " Two pages farther on , she reads this remarkable passage— " To

    add one more example : those who assert , what no one has ever succeeded in provingthat there is in one human individualone sex , or

    one race of mankind , over another , an inherent and inexp , licable superiority in mental faculties , could only substantiate their proposition

    by subtracting from the differences of intellect , which we in fact see , all that can be traced by known laws either to the ascertained

    differences of physical organization , or to the differences which have existed in the outward circumstances in which the subjects of the

    comparison have hitherto been placed . What these causes might fail to account forwould constitute a residual phenomenonwhich , and

    which alonewould , be the evidence of an ulterior oriinal , distinction and the measure , of its amount . But the strongest g assertors of such ,

    supposed differences have hitherto been very negligent of providing themselves with these necessary logical conditions of the establishment

    of their doctrines . " This shows distinctly enough—if we rightly understand itand think it out in all its bearings—what are the

    inions of John , Stuart Mill the education of womenand our female op student ought to feel a upon bound of joy , and will go on , with her

    studies with renewed _courage and spirits . The second volume of the " Logic " treats of induction , of

    operations subsidiary to induction , of fallacies , and of the logic of the moral sciences . All these subjects are illustrated with copious

    examples , which very much increase the interest of the book , but there is nowhere any passage which bears so directly on our subject as

    the one we have just quoted , though certainly , in reading the chapter on fallacies , the champion of the cause of women finds readily

    instances of much appositeness . Can there be a better example of the fallacy of Petitio principiipopularly known as " begging the

    question , " or reasoning in a circle , , than the constant assertion which puts down so much young effort by asserting it to be unfeminine , and

    insisting that a woman must npt be unfeminine , and all the common verbiage to that effect . Best to be answered by doing the right

    thing bravely , and proving it , therefore , feminine . The whole weight of the book leans to the advantage of the female student ; and none ,

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    The Opinions Of John Stuabt Mill. 3

    THE OPINIONS OF JOHN STUABT MILL . 3

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1860, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091860/page/3/