LXXXII. I agree however, that the greater or less degree of clearness, or facility of understanding, depends in a great measure upon the difference of organization; though not upon a sensible different organization of the larger parts, but upon the insensible different one of the most minute parts, such as the different texture or firmness of the most subtile fibres, or the freeness from obstruction, or clearness of the delicate passages through which the animal spirits circulate, and also upon the tension and elasticity of the membranes which form those passages; although, we can know nothing about whether these are different in men and women, nor can even the anatomical spectacles, pry into the secret, or assist us with such a discernment or discovery; neither can the Cartesians, with all the microscopes they are capable of inventing, explore, whether the pineal gland, which they assign as the seat of the soul, is of a different texture in women, from what it is in men. LXXXIII. That a different sensible organization, does not produce a variety in the rational operations, is manifest, at least, if this difference is not very enormous; there being men differently organized, who are of equal abilities; and men organized as nearly alike as possible, who, with respect to the faculties of the soul, are very dissimilar. The frigid Æsop, was in every part of his body, so deformed and ill-shaped, that he scarce appeared a human creature; on which account, his name in succeeding ages, was used to express an extreme degree of deformity; with all this, it is well known, that he was of a delicate and penetrating mind. Socrates, did not differ much from Æsop in the irregularity of his make; notwithstanding which, antiquity knew no man of a clearer or better understanding. But supposing we were to admit, that a distinct sensible organization produced a distinct intellectual ability, what could you in this case infer from it? Why nothing, because women are not formed differently from men in the organs which administer to, or assist the faculty of reasoning, but are distinctly formed in those only, which Nature has appropriated for the propagation of the species. SECT. XIII.