The roots of Adams' chaos theory and use of third person

Like others have mentioned, I think that in this last section Henry Adams did a great of summing up his point about education. He describes the pains which men go to in order to understand the world around them in a disdainful manner and continuously asserts that the true nature of the world is chaos. It is futile to try to understand chaos. This idea connects back to the beginning of the narrative where Adams explains why he likes Quincy more than Boston. Boston represents formal education; it is structured and its focus is on memorization and rules. Quincy, however, is freedom and summertime. It represents a more natural education, where one learns through action in the world instead of trying to separate oneself from the world and define every part of it. Adams sums this up nicely as a need to enter into the chaos instead of turning away from it.
I think that Adams’ first began to concretely develop this view when his sister died. This is one of the few, maybe the only, times in the book where his narrative is openly emotional. Throughout his narrative, Adams writes about women in very high esteem. He says early on that women have always steered him right, but no man ever has. Later in the book he writes about the noble acts of women, who are wise and are greatly responsible for the creation of society. He also says, however, that women could not protect against the forces of nature, they did not anticipate the chaos of the universe. Indeed, I think that Henry Adams views the downfall of women, such as the death of his sister and his wife’s suicide, as the ultimate examples of the chaos of the universe. Despite the inherently strong nature of women like his sister, they can be easily done in by a random accident of nature.
On a different note, I found the frequency with which Adams mentioned women interesting considering that none of the other authors we have read thus far have breached that topic. I’m curious to know whether or not Adams’ opinion of women was common for his time.
Finally, in regards to Adams’ use of third person narration, I think he does this because he is making a point that not only is the universe chaotic, but people are constantly changing, too. He refrains from constantly referring to himself as I throughout the narrative to show that he is no longer that same person. Henry Adams the boy failed to learn any civil law in Germany, not Henry Adams the narrator. This is in keeping with Adams’ disposition to the psychological idea that everyone has multiple personalities in some way. He thinks it would be incorrect and unproductive to pretend that a person can be easily defined in one way, let only that he can be defined as that same being for his whole existence, and objects to doing so of himself in his autobiography.