GEXERATIOX OF ANIMALS, IV. i. 



•^emen to take shape or to discharge it. And (2) all 

 I Ducoction works by means of heat. Assuming the 

 truth of these two statements, it follows of necessity 

 that (3) male animals are hotter than female ones, 

 since it is on account of coldness and inability that 

 the female is more abundant in blood in certain 

 regions of the body. And this abundance of blood is 

 a piece of evidence which goes to prove the opposite 

 of the vievr held by some people, who suppose that 

 the female must be hotter than the male, on account 

 of the discharge of menstrual fluid : blood, they 

 argue, is hot, so that which has more blood in it Is 

 hotter. They suppose, however, that this condition 

 occurs owing to excess of blood and heat, as though 

 it were possible for anything and everything to be 

 equally blood if only it is fluid and bloodhke in colour, 

 without allowing for the possibiUty of its becoming 

 less in quantity and purer in animals that are well- 

 nourished. They apply the same standard here as 

 they do to the residue in the intestine : if there is 

 more of it they imagine that is a sign of a hotter 

 nature. Yet in fact the opposite is the truth. Take 

 a parallel case, that of fruit. Here the nourishment 

 in its first stage is large in quantity," but the useful 

 product resulting from it through the various stages 

 of its treatment is small, and in the end the final 

 result is nothing in proportion compared -with the 

 original bulk. So too in the body, the various parts 

 receive the nourishment in turn at the different 

 stages of its treatment, and the final product result- 

 ing from all that amount of nourishment is quite 

 small. In some, this is blood ; in others, its counter- 

 part. 



Now as the one sex is able and the other is unable Determina- 

 tion of sex 

 387 



