Little Question Five of Question One
Why revelations occur more often to women than to men
It is asked why revelations occur more often to women than to men.
To this it is answered that philosophers are accustomed to assign a threefold natural cause for this.
The first is taken from the quality of the complexion, because women naturally possess much of the humid. But when the humid has begun to be moved, it does not cease until it attains that toward which it was tending. From this it happens that women remain longer in their thoughts and imaginations than men.
Hence a man more quickly digests his conceptions or imaginations, on account of which fewer marvelous things appear to them. And because the humid—which, as has been said, abounds in women—is also highly receptive of figures and receives diverse figures, from this it follows that more and diverse marvelous things appear to women while they dream.
The second cause is taken from a defect of reason. For women, as is said in the Politics, possess an infirm rational power, whence they flourish less in reason and discretion in comparison with men. On this account, if any phantastic apparitions and marvelous visions occur to women, there is less reason contradicting them than in men.
The third cause is taken from an abundance of passion. For as the Philosopher says in the book On Sleep and Waking, those who are in the passions are moved by a slight likeness and believe that what appears is true. Hence, because passions abound in women, they immediately, upon a slight likeness or species, believe that which appears to them.
These things are from John of San Gimignano.