PARTS OF ANIMALS, 11. ii. 



Further, it is asserted that bloodless animals are 

 hotter than those that have blood ; and that females 

 are hotter than males, Parmenides and others, for 

 instance, assert that women are hotter than men on 

 the ground of the menstrual flow, which they say is 

 due to their heat and the abundance of their blood. 

 Empedocles, however, maintains the opposite 

 opinion. Again, some say that blood is hot and bile 

 cold, others that bile is hot and blood cold. And if 

 there is so much dispute about the hot and the cold, 

 which after all are the most distinct of the things 

 which affect our senses, what line are we to take 

 about the rest of them ? 



Now it looks as if the difficulty is due to the term Tho primary 

 " hotter " being used in more senses than one, as there (^) '^'S"^ ' 

 seems to be something in what each of these writers and "cold." 

 says, though their statements are contradictory. 

 Hence we must permit no ambiguity in our application 

 of the descriptions " hot " and " cold," " solid " and 

 ** fluid " to the substances that are found produced by 

 nature. It is surely sufficiently established that these 

 four principles (and not to any appreciable extent 

 roughness, smoothness, heaviness, lightness, or any 

 such things) are practically the causes controlhng life 

 and death, not to mention sleep and waking, prime ' 

 and age, disease and health. And this, after all, is 

 but reasonable, because (as I have said pre\'iously in 

 another work) these four — hot, cold, solid, fluid — are 

 the principles of the physical Elements." 



Let us consider, then, whether the term " hot " 

 has one sense or several. To decide this point, we 

 must find out what is the particular effect which a 

 body has in virtue of being hotter than another, or, 

 if there are several such effects, how many there are. 



E 123 



