XV. This shews, that we should not lay any great stress upon the opinion of a few doctors, who, though they were in other respects discreet men, have asserted, that the female sex is defective, for no other reason, than because Aristotle whose followers they were had declared so; but they did not however proceed so far, as to precipitate themselves into the error of Almaricus. It is certain, that Aristotle’s treatment of the women proceeded from spite; for he not only proclaimed with vehemence their physical defects, but was more vehement still in blazoning their moral ones; some instances of which, I shall point out in another place. Who would not suppose from all this, that his disposition inclined him to shun the sex? But nothing was so opposite to him, for he not only tenderly loved two wives which he married, but his affection for the first, named Pythais, who, as some say, was daughter, others niece of Hermias, tyrant of Atarneus, carried him so far beside himself, that he franticly offered incense to her as a deity. They also give us a relation of his loose amours with a little servant girl, though Plutarch does not incline to credit the tale; but in this business, the testimony of Theocritus Chio, who was contemporary with Aristotle, ought to have more weight than the opinion of Plutarch, who was much posterior to him; and Theocritus, in a lively epigram, lashed Aristotle for his obscenity. From this instance we may perceive, that men’s seeming malignity to, and inveterate abuse of women, is, as we have observed before, frequently accompanied with an inordinate inclination for them. XVI. From the same physical error which condemned woman for an imperfect animal, there sprung another theological one, which is combated by St. Austin, in Lib. 22, de Civit. Dei cap. 17. The authors of this system say, that, at the universal resurrection, this imperfection is to be remedied, by converting all the women into men; and that then, grace is to compleat and finish the work which nature had only begun.