to his school-fellow Xenocrates as a gratuity; but it is doubtful, whether his resentment carried him so far, as to conspire with Antipater against Alexander’s life, and to consult with him about the best method of carrying their purpose into execution by poison. But let us return to our subject. LXXXVI. The same Aristotle teaches, and in this, all the naturalists and medical people agree with him, that the dissimilarity of temperament in the two sexes, consists, in the men being hot and dry, and in the women being cold and moist: _Est autem vir calidus, & siccus, mulier frigida, humidaque._ Sect. 5. Quest. 26. The cold temperament, in the opinion of Aristotle, being then the best adapted for reasoning, and the hot the opposite, the women being cold, and the men hot, it follows, that the feminine temperament is better suited to comprehend and reason well, than the masculine. LXXXVII. This proof is conclusive, to those who believe every thing Aristotle has said; but I protest for myself, that it has not the least weight with me; for I neither believe that the geniuses are better in hot countries than in cold ones, nor that men of cold temperaments are more ingenious than those of hot ones; and much less do I believe, that those of fiery dispositions are in a manner insensible; and as to the pretended power of the antiperastis, let it for the present remain in the state of doubt, which is annexed to, and inseparable from it. LXXXVIII. Moisture and dryness, are the other two distinct qualities of the two compositions or temperaments; and by attending to them, it may also be inferred from the doctrine of Aristotle, that the women are more perspicuous than the men. Those who maintain, that the larger the quantity of the brain, the better the faculty of the understanding, found their opinion, upon having been taught, that a man has a larger brain in proportion than any other animal: and they argue thus, Aristotle says, that man is of a more humid temperament than any other animal. _Homo omnium animantium maxime humidus natura est._ Sect. 5, Quæst. 7. From hence, if it may be inferred, that from a man’s having a larger brain than brutes, is to be imputed his having more understanding; in the same manner it may be inferred, from his being more moist than them, as humidity is productive of knowledge, that he knows more. A woman then is of a more humid composition than a man, and consequently must be more intelligent than him.