SECT. XIV.
XC. But waiving these proofs, which proceed upon Aristotelic doctrines, which are either false or uncertain, and which on this account, can only be serviceable to the cause of the women, by way of retorting upon those rigid partizans of Aristotle, who approve of all their master has said: I say, waiving these proofs, let us proceed to enquire, if, from the cause of the humidity in which a woman exceeds a man, there can be deduced any objection to her intellectual aptitude. On this ground, those commonly take their stand, who are desirous of proving by physical arguments, the inferiority of feminine understanding; and their reasoning seems to have an air of probability, because an excess of humour, either of itself, or by means of the vapour it attracts, is apt to retard the course of the animal spirits, by occupying in part, the narrow passages through which these exceeding fine substances flow.
XCI. But with all this, the argument is evidently fallacious; for if it was not, it would prove, not that the minds of women were less discerning than those of men, but that they were more slow and dull of comprehension than them, which is false; for most men allow, that in point of quickness they have the advantage.
XCII. Further; many men, who are keen, ready, and profound, abound with habitual defluxions and catarrhs, which are caused by a quantity of excrementitious moisture collected in the most remote recesses of the head, and within the very substance of the brain, as may be seen in Riberius, where he treats of catarrhs. The excessive humidity of the brain then, does not obstruct the ready or right use of the understanding; and if an excrementitious moisture does not obstruct it, much less can a natural one have that effect.
XCIII. And as a reason why a natural one does not hinder it, we may add, that, according to the doctrine of Pliny, the brain of a man is more humid than that of every other living creature: Sed homo portione maximum & humidissimum. Lib. 11, Cap. 37. Nor is it credible, that Nature should place in an organ destined for our most perfect knowledge, a temperament, capable of obstructing, or making the operations of our reason slow and defective. If I should be told, that, notwithstanding this native humidity, in which the brain of man exceeds that of a brute, it remains tempered in the exact proportion which is best suited to the operations of reason, and that the humidity of the brain of a woman exceeds that proportion; I answer, even supposing that humidity, by means of its natural quality, does not obstruct, nobody knows in what proportion, or to what degree, the brain, for the best exercising its functions should be moist; and therefore it is vague to say, there is a greater proportion of it in women than in men, or in men than in women.
XCIV. There may be opposed however, to this doctrine of humidity, the opinion of many, who affirm, that the humid and cloudy countries produce heavy dull spirits; and, on the contrary, that in the bright and clear countries, are born ingenious and sprightly ones. But be those few or many who say this, they say it without more foundation, than having imagined, the clouds of the horizon are translated to the sphere of the brain; as if in rainy countries, the opacity of the atmosphere was a dark shade, which obscured the soul, and that in countries which are blessed with a serene sky, the greater splendor of the day, would communicate greater clearness to the understanding. They might, with more aptness and propriety, say, that in the regions which are most bright and clear, the objects being more visible, they, through the windows of the eyes, enter in such numbers, that they distract the soul, and render it less fit for reflection and reasoning; and hence it is, that, in the obscurity of the night, we find the thread of our reason the least interrupted, and that we deduce our conclusions with more firmness than in clear day-light.
XCV. Let those, who maintain humid regions to be ill-suited to the production of subtile men, cast their eyes on the Venetians and the Hollanders, who are some of the most able men in Europe: the first of these, stole part of their territories from the fish; and the last may be said to live in lakes and bogs. Even here in Spain, we have an example of this sort in the Asturians, who, notwithstanding they inhabit a province, the most beset with clouds, and the most subject to rain, of any in the whole peninsula, are generally reputed for subtile, ready, and expert people. But our wonder at this will lessen, if we consider the beavers, who live almost continually in the water, notwithstanding which, Nature has produced no brutes of so noble an instinct, nor who approach so near to men, both in their love for them, and in the imitation of their customs: for you may read in Conradus Gesnero, that they take particular care of their aged parents, and they have been seen to direct men in their navigation, and to assist them in fishing; and there has such an attention been observed in them to the dead, that they withdraw and conceal the carcasses of their defunct species, at the hazard of their being devoured by other aquatic beasts.
XCVI. On the contrary, those birds, who the greatest part of their time, breathe the most subtile pure air, and the most divested of vapours, one while fleeting on the winds, and at other times placing themselves on the tops of mountains, ought to be more sagacious than terrestrial brutes; which is not the case.
XCVII. By the same mode of reasoning, the Egyptians should be the keenest people in the world, because they dwell under the brightest and most serene sky that is to be found in all the globe. There is scarce a cloud passes over Egypt in the course of a year, and the land would be totally barren, if it was not refreshed and fertilized by the waters of the Nile; and although for some ages, antiquity venerated that region as the seat of the sciences, which is manifest from Pythagoras, Homer, Plato, and other Greek philosophers, having traveled thither to improve themselves in philosophy and the mathematics; this does not prove, that they were more subtile and ingenious than other mortals, but rather, that the sciences had gone wandering about the earth, and that sometimes they took their stations in one country, and at others in another. The same thing may be said of the valley of Lima, the inhabitants of which country do not know what rain is, the land being fertilized by a light dew, assisted by a happy temperament of air, which is neither hot nor cold; notwithstanding which, the natives are not people of a delicate ingenuity, but rather the contrary, for the Pizarras found them more easy to be subdued by a few stratagems, than Cortez found the Mexicans, with all the arts he could employ, assisted by the whole power of his arms.
XCVIII. I am not ignorant, that the inhabitants of Bœotia were antiently looked upon, as a most rude, dull people, and that Bœoticum Ingenium and Bœtica Sus, were proverbial terms of contempt, and used to express or denote, a heavy stupid person; and also, that this stupidity was attributed to the gross atmosphere, loaded with vapour, which prevails in that country; hence the expression of Horace in one of his epistles: Bœoticum in crasso jurares aëre natum. But I believe, and with some foundation, that the antients quoted did not do that country justice; imputing the ignorance which proceeded from want of application, to the want of capacity; and Bœotia’s lying on the confines of Attica, where learning flourished, seems to strengthen this opinion; for it is hardly probable, that within sight of a province, which is the theatre of wisdom, you should view another, which is a colony of ignorance and stupidity. On the other hand, it is certain, that Bœotia has produced some geniuses of the first rate; such as Pindar, the prince of Lyric Poets, and the great Plutarch, who, in the opinion of lord Bacon, was full equal to the first men of antiquity; and I suspect, that by looking back to the more early times of antiquity, we shall find a period, in which the Bœotians, in their culture of the arts and sciences, excelled, not only their neighbours, but all the other nations of Europe; because Cadmus, when he came from Phœnicia, was the first who introduced the letters of the alphabet into Greece, and was the first person in Europe, who invented the art of writing; and we learn from history, that he settled in Bœotia, where he founded the city of Thebes. To this may be added, that in Bœotia is found Mount Helicon, dedicated to the Muses, and from which they derive their name of Heliconides; and that from this mountain, descends the famous Aganippe fountain, consecrated to the same fictitious deities, the water of which, they feign to have been the wine of the poets, which enraptured and inspired them, and lighted up the fire of enthusiasm in their brains. It seems as if all these fictions could have no other origin, than poetry having in some former time flourished in that region.
XCIX. But admitting the Bœotians by nature to be rude and stupid, how can it be proved, that this is derived from the humidity of the country, and not from some other hidden cause; especially, when we see moist or damp countries, on which this stigma is not fixed? Let humidity then, be acquitted of the false accusation which has been raised against it, to wit, of being at war with, and an enemy to ingenuity; and let it be settled, that from this principle, no proof can be deduced to ascertain, that the women in point of understanding, are inferior to the men.