CI. But taking all this for granted, I would be glad to know, how a greater degree of softness in the brain, produces or occasions, an imperfection in the understanding? I should rather think, that on account of its being more pliable to the impression of the spirits, it would be an instrument or organ, better suited or adapted to mental operations. This argument, is strengthened by the doctrine of the author, because he says in another place, the vestiges or traces, which the impression of the animal spirits leaves on the brain, are the lines, with which the faculty of the imagination, forms on it the effigies of objects; and the larger or more distinct these vestiges or impressions are, the greater will be the force and clearness, with which the understanding must perceive the objects. _Cur igitur imaginatio consistat in sola virtute, qua mens sibi imagines objectorum efformare potest, eas imprimendo, ut ita loquar, fibris cerebri, certe quo vestigia, spirituum animalium, quæ sunt veluti imaginum illarum lineamenta erunt distinctiora, & grandiora, eo fortius, & distinctius mens objecta illa imaginabitur._ (Lib. 2. de Inquirenda Veritate, part 1, cap. 1.) CII. Now then, it being admitted, the softer the brain is, with greater ease will the animal spirits make impressions on it, and that, for the same reason, the vestiges or traces will be larger and more distinct; they will make them with greater ease, and bigger, because the matter resists less; more distinct because the fibres being somewhat rigid, they would, by means of their elasticity, make efforts to restore themselves to their former shape and position; and thus, the path on traces made by the course of the animal spirits, would be very faint, if not quite effaced. The fibres of the brain of a woman, being then more flexible than those of the brain of a man, they are capable of having larger and more distinct images impressed on them, and they must consequently, according to this doctrine, perceive objects better than men.