Chapter XXXV: Introduction (10)

But in order that we should concede a soul or vital principle (anima) to the egg, and that combined from the souls of the parents, these being occasionally of different species, the horse and the ass, the common fowl and the pheasant, for example, this vital principle not being a mixture but only an union; and allow the pullet to be produced in the manner of the seeds of plants, by the same efficient principle by which the perfect animal is afterwards preserved through the rest of its life, so that it would be absurd to say that the fœtus grew by one vital principle without the uterus or ovum, and by another within the uterus or ovum--did we grant all this, I say (although it is invalid and undeserving faith), our history of generation from the egg, nevertheless, upsets the foundations of the doctrine, and shows it to be entirely false; namely, that the egg is produced from the semen of the cock and hen, or that any seminal fluid from either one or other is carried to the uterus, or that the embryo or any particle of it is fashioned from any seminal fluid transported to the uterus, or that the semen galli, as efficient cause and plastic agent, is anywhere stored up or reserved within the body of the hen to serve when attracted into the uterus, as the matter and nourishment whence the fœtus which it has produced should continue to grow. The conditions are wanting which he himself admits, after Aristotle, to be necessary, viz., that the embryo be constituted by that which is actual and preexists, and the chick by that which is present and exists in the place where the chick is first formed and increases; further, that it be produced by that which is accomplished immediately and conjunctly, and is the same by which the chick is preserved and grows through the whole of its life. For the semen galli (and whether it is viewed as animate or inanimate is of no moment) is nowise present and conjunct either in the egg or in the uterus; neither in the matter from which the chick is fashioned, nor yet in the chick itself already begun, and as contributing either to its formation or perfection.

He dreams, too, when he seeks illustrations of his opinions on an animated semen from such instances as the seeds of plants and acorns; because he does not perceive the difference alleged by Aristotle[266] between the “geniture” admitted in intercourse and the first conception engendered by both parents; neither does he observe on the egg produced originally in the cluster of the vitellarium, and without any geniture, whether proceeding from the male or the female, translated to the uterus. Neither does he understand that the uterus is, even after intercourse, completely empty of matter of every kind, whether transmitted by the parents, or produced by the intercourse, or transmuted in any way whatever. Neither had he read, or at all events he does not refer to the experiment of Fabricius, namely, that a hen is rendered so prolific by a few treads of the cock, that she will continue to lay fruitful eggs for the rest of the year, although in the interval she receives no new accessions of semen for the fecundation of each egg as it is laid, neither does she retain any of the seminal fluid which she received so long ago.

So much is certain, and disputed by no one, that animals, all those at least that proceed from the intercourse of male and female, are the offspring of this intercourse, and that they are procreated as it seems by a kind of contagion, much in the same way as medical men observe contagious diseases, such as leprosy, lues venera, plague, phthisis, to creep through the ranks of mortal men, and by mere extrinsic contact to excite diseases similar to themselves in other bodies; nay, contact is not necessary; a mere halitus or miasm suffices, and that at a distance and by an inanimate medium, and with nothing sensibly altered: that is to say, where the contagion first touches, there it generates an “univocal” like itself, neither touching nor existing in fact, neither being present nor conjunct, but solely because it formerly touched. Such virtue and efficacy is found in contagions. And the same thing perchance occurs in the generation of animals. For the eggs of fishes, which come spontaneously to their full size extrinsically, and without any addition of male seminal fluid, and are therefore indubitably possessed of vitality without it, merely sprinkled and touched with the milt of the male, produce young fishes. The semen of the male, I say, is not intromitted in such wise as to perform the part of “agent” in each particular egg, or to fashion the body, or to introduce vitality (anima); the ova are only fecundated by a kind of contagion. Whence Aristotle calls the milt of the male fish, or the genital fluid diffused in water, at one time “the genital and fœtific fluid,” at another, “the vital virus.” For he says[267]: “The male fish sprinkles the ova with his genital semen, and from the ova that are touched by this vital virus young fishes are engendered.”

Let it then be admitted as matter of certainty that the embryo is produced by contagion. But a great difficulty immediately arises, when we ask: how, in what way is this contagion the author of so great a work? By what condition do parents through it engender offspring like themselves, or how does the semen masculinum produce an “univocal” like the male whence it flowed? When it disappears after the contact, and is naught in act ulteriorly, either by virtue of contact or presence, but is corrupt and has become a nonentity, how, I ask, does a nonentity act? How does a thing which is not in contact fashion another thing like itself? How does a thing which is dead itself impart life to something else, and that only because at a former period it was in contact?

For the reasoning of Aristotle[268] appears to be false, or at all events defective, where he contends “That generation cannot take place without an active and a passive principle; and that those things can neither act nor prove passive which do not touch; but that those things come into mutual contact which, whilst they are of different sizes, and are in different places, have their extremes together.”

But when it clearly appears that contagion from noncontingents, and things not having their extremities together, produce ill effects on animals, wherefore should not the same law avail in respect of their life and generation? There is an “efficient” in the egg which, by its plastic virtue (for the male has only touched though he no longer touches, nor are there any extremes together), produces and fashions the fœtus in its kind and likeness. And through so many media or instruments is this power, the agent of fecundity, transmitted or required that neither by any movement of instruments as in works of art, nor by the instance of the automaton quoted by Aristotle, nor of our clocks, nor of the kingdom in which the mandate of the sovereign is everywhere of avail, nor yet by the introduction of a vital principle or soul into the semen or “geniture,” can the aforementioned doctrine be defended.

And hence have arisen all the controversies and problems concerning the attraction of the magnet and of amber; on sympathy and antipathy; on poisons and the contagion of pestilential diseases; on alexipharmics and medicines which prove curative or injurious through some hidden or rather unknown property, all of which seem to come into play independently of contact. And above all on what it is in generation which, in virtue of a momentary contact--nay, not even of contact, save through several media--forms the parts of the chick from the egg by epigenesis in a certain order, and produces an “univocal” and like itself, and that entirely because it was in contact at a former period. How, I ask again, does that which is not present, and which only enjoyed extrinsic contact, come to constitute and order all the members of the chick in the egg exposed without the body of the parent, and often at a long interval after it is laid? how does it confer life or soul, and a species compounded of those of the concurring generants? Inasmuch as nothing, it seems, can reproduce itself in another’s likeness.

EXERCISE THE FIFTIETH.

_Of the efficient cause of animals, and its conditions._

That we may proceed in our subject, therefore, and penetrate so far into the knowledge of the efficient cause of animal generation as seems needful in this place, we must begin by observing what instruments or media are devoted to it. And here we come at once to the distinction into male and female; seminal fluid and ovum, and its primordium. For some males, as well as some females, are barren, or but little prolific; and the seed of the male is at one time more, at another time less prolific; because the semen masculinum stored up in the vesiculæ seminales is esteemed unfruitful, unless it is raised into froth by the spirits and ejected with force. And even then perchance it is not endowed with equal fecundating force at all times. Neither are all the germs of yelks in the ovary, nor all the eggs in the uterus made fertile at the same instant.

Now I call that fruitful which, unless impeded by some extrinsic cause, attains by its inherent force to its destined end, and brings about the consequence for the sake of which it is ordained. Thus the cock is called fruitful which has his hens more frequently and surely pregnant, the eggs they lay being at the same time perfect and proper for incubation.

The hen in like manner is esteemed fruitful which has the faculty of producing eggs, or of receiving and long retaining the virtue of prolific conception from the cock. The cluster of germs and the ovary itself are regarded as prolific when the germs are numerous and of good size.

The egg in the same way is fruitful which differs from a subventaneous or hypenemic egg, and which, cherished by incubation, or in any other way, does not fail to produce a chick.

Such an efficient cause consequently is required for the chick, as shall impart the virtue of fecundity to it, and secure it the power of acting as an efficient cause in its turn. Because that, or its analogue at least, by means of which they become prolific, is present in all animals. And the inquiry is the same in each case, when we ask what it is in the egg which renders it prolific, and distinguishes it from a wind egg; what in the vitellary germ and ovary; what in the female; what, finally, in the semen and the cock himself? What, moreover, it is in the blood and punctum saliens, or first formed particle of the chick, whence all the other parts arise with their appropriate structures and arrangements; what in the embryo or chick itself whereby it becomes more or less robust and agile, attains to maturity with greater or less rapidity, and lives with various degrees of health, for a longer or shorter period?

Nor is the inquiry very different which goes to ascertain what sex the male and the female, or the cock and the hen, confer upon the prolific egg; and what proceeds from each that contributes to the perfection or resemblance of the chick, viz., whether the egg, the conception, the matter, and the nutriment proceed from the mother, and the plastic virtue from the father; or rather a certain contagion immitted during intercourse, or produced and received from him, which in the body of the hen, or in the eggs, either permanently excites the matter of the eggs, or attracts nourishment from the female, and concocts and distributes it first for the growth of the eggs, and then for the production of the chicks; finally, whether from the male proceeds all that has reference to form and life and fecundity, from the female, again, all that is of matter, constitution, place, and nourishment? For among animals where the sexes are distinct, matters are so arranged, that since the female alone is inadequate to engender an embryo and to nourish and protect the young, a male is associated with her by nature, as the superior and more worthy progenitor, as the consort of her labour, and the means of supplying her deficiencies; in the case of the hen, of correcting by his contagion the inferiority of the hypenemic eggs which she produces, and so rendering them prolific. For as the pullet, engendered of an egg, is indebted to that egg for his body, vitality, and principal or generative part, so and in like manner does the egg receive all that is in it from the female, the female in her turn being dependent on the male for her fecundity which is conferred in coition.

And here we have an opportunity of inquiring, whether the male be the first and principal cause of the generation of the offspring; or whether the male along with the female are the mediate and instrumental causes of nature itself, or of the first and supreme generator? And such an inquiry is both becoming and necessary, for perfect science of every kind depends on a knowledge of causes. To the full understanding of generation, therefore, it is incumbent on us to mount from the final to the first and supreme efficient cause, and to hold each and every cause in especial regard.

We shall have occasion to define that which is the first and supreme efficient cause of the chick in ovo by and by, when we treat of that which constitutes the efficient cause [of generation] among animals in general. Here, meantime, we shall see what its nature may be.

The first condition, then, of the primary efficient cause of generation, properly so called, is, as we have said, that it be the prime and principal fertilizer, whence all mediate causes receive the fecundity imparted. For example, the chick is derived from the punctum saliens in the egg, not only as regards the body, but also, and this especially, as respects the life (anima): the punctum saliens, or heart, is derived from the egg, the egg from the hen, and the hen has her fecundity from the cock.

Another condition of the prime efficient is discovered from the work achieved, viz., the chick, because that is the prime efficient in which the reason of the effect is principally displayed. But since every generative efficient engenders another like itself, and the offspring is of a mixed nature, the prime efficient must also be a certain mixed something.

Now, I maintain that the offspring is of a mixed nature, inasmuch as a mixture of both parents appears plainly in it, in the form and lineaments, and each particular part of its body, in its colour, mother-marks, disposition to diseases, and other accidents. In mental constitution, also, and its manifestations, such as manners, docility, voice, and gait, a similar temperament is discoverable. For as we say of a certain mixture, that it is composed of elements, because their qualities or virtues, such as heat, cold, dryness, and moisture, are there discovered associated in a certain similar compound body, so, in like manner, the work of the father and mother is to be discerned both in the body and mental character of the offspring, and in all else that follows or accompanies temperament. In the mule, for instance, the body and disposition, the temper and voice, of both parents (of the horse and the ass, _e. g._) are mingled; and so, also, in the hybrid between the pheasant and the fowl, in that between the wolf and the dog, &c., corresponding traits are conspicuous.

When, therefore, the chick shows his resemblance to both parents, and is a mixed effect, the primary genital cause (which it resembles) must needs be mixed. Wherefore that which fashions the chick in the egg is of a mixed nature, a certain something mixed or compounded, and the work of both parents. And if any kind of contagion, engendered under the influence of sexual intercourse, in which the male and female mingle and form but one body, either originates or remains in the body of the female, that, too, must be of a mixed nature or power, whence, subsequently, a fertile egg will be produced, endowed with plastic powers, the consequence of a mixed nature, or of a mixed efficient instrument, from which a chick, also of a mixed nature, will be produced.

I have used the word _contagion_ above, because Aristotle’s view is contradicted by all experience, viz., that a certain part of the embryo is immediately made by intercourse. Neither is it true, as some of the moderns assert, that the vital principle (anima) of the future chick is present in the egg; for that cannot be the vital principle of the chick which inheres in no part of its body. Neither can the living principle be said either to be left or to be originated by intercourse; otherwise in every pregnant woman there would be two vital principles (animæ) present. Wherefore, until it shall have been determined what the efficient cause of the egg is, what it is of mixed nature that must remain immediately upon intercourse, we may be permitted to speak of it under the title of a Contagion.

But where this contagion lies hid in the female after intercourse, and how it is communicated and given to the egg, demands quite a special inquiry, and we shall have occasion to treat of the matter when we come to discuss the conception of females in general. It will suffice, meantime, if we say that the same law applies to the prime efficient--in which inheres the reason of the future offspring--as to the offspring; as this is of a mixed nature, the nature of its cause must also be mixed; and it must either proceed equally from both parents, or from something else which is employed by both concurrently as instruments, animated, co-operating, mixed, and in the sexual act coalescing unto one. And this is the third condition of the prime efficient, that it either imparts motion to all the intermediate instruments in succession, or uses them in some other way, but comes not itself into play. Whence the origin of the doubt that has arisen, whether, in the generation of the chick, the cock were the true prime efficient, or whether there were not another prior, superior to him? For, indeed, all things seem to derive their origin from a celestial influence, and to follow the movements of the sun and moon. But we shall be able to speak more positively of this matter after we have shown what we understand by the “instrument,” or “instrumental efficient cause,” and how it is subdivided.

Instrumental efficients, then, are of different kinds: some, according to Aristotle, are factive, others active; some have no capacity any way unless conjoined with another prior efficient, as the hand, foot, genital organs, &c. with the rest of the body; others have an influence even when separate and distinct, as the seminal fluid and the ovum. Some instruments, again, have neither motion nor action beyond those that are imparted to them by the prime efficient; and others have peculiar inherent principles of action, to which nature indeed allows no motion in the business of generation, though she still uses their faculties, and prescribes them laws or limits in their operations, not otherwise than the cook makes use of fire in cooking, and the physician of herbs and drugs in curing diseases.

Sennert, that he may uphold the opinion he had espoused of the vital principle (anima) being present in the semen, and the formative faculty of the chick being extant in the egg, asserts that not only is the egg, but the semen of the cock, endowed with the living principle of the future chick. Moreover, he distinctly denies that there is any separate instrumental efficient; and says, that that only ought to be entitled “instrument” which is conjoined with the prime efficient; and that only “instrumental efficient,” which has no motion or action save that which is imparted to it by the prime efficient, or which is continuously and successively received, and in virtue of which it acts. And on this ground he rejects the example of projectiles, which have received force from the projecting agent, and, separated from it, act nevertheless; as if swords and spears were properly to be called warlike weapons, but arrows and bullets to be refused this title. He also rejects the argument derived from the republic, denying thereby that magistrates, counsellors, or ministers, are instruments of government; although Aristotle regards a counsel as an efficient, and in express terms calls a minister an instrument.[269] Sennert likewise denies the example of automata; and says and gainsays much besides, with a view to confirming himself in his position, that the semen and the egg are possessed of a living principle (anima), and are not mediate or instrumental, but principal agents. Sennert, nevertheless, as it were compelled by the force of truth, lays down such conditions for a principal agent, as fully and effectually contradict all that he had said before. He tells us, for instance, that “whatever produces a work or an effect more noble than itself, or an effect unlike itself, is not a principal efficient, but an instrumental cause;” granting which, who would not infer that the semen and the egg were instruments? seeing that the pullet is an effect more noble than the egg, and every way unlike either this or the spermatic fluid. Wherefore, when the learned Sennert denies the semen and the egg to be instruments or organs, because they are distinct from the prime agents, he takes his position upon a false basis; because, as the prime generator procreates offspring by various means or media, the medium being here conjunct, as the hand of the workman is with his body, there separate and distinct, as is the arrow let loose from the bow, it is still to be regarded as an instrument.

From the conditions now enumerated of an instrumental cause, it seems to follow that the prime efficient in the generation of the chick is the cock, or, at all events, the cock and hen, because the resulting pullet resembles these; nor can it be held more noble than they, which are its prime efficients or parents. I shall, therefore, add another condition of the prime efficient, whence it may, perhaps, appear that the male is not the prime, but only the instrumental, cause of the chick; viz., that the prime efficient in the formation of the chick makes use of artifice, and foresight, and wisdom, and goodness, and intelligence, which far surpass the powers of our rational soul to comprehend, inasmuch as all things are disposed and perfected in harmony with the purpose of the future work, and that there be action to a determinate end; so that every, even the smallest, part of the chick is fashioned for the sake of a special use and end, and with respect not merely to the rearing of the fabric, but also to its well-being, and elegance and preservation. But the male or his semen is not such either in the act of kind or after it, that art, intelligence, and foresight can be ascribed to him or it.

The proper inference from these premises appears to be that the male, as well as his seminal fluid, is the efficient instrument; and the female not less than the egg she lays the same. Wherefore, we have to seek refuge in a prior, superior, and more excellent cause, to which, with all propriety, are ascribed foresight, intelligence, goodness, and skill, and which is by so much more excellent than its effect or work, as the architect is more worthy than the pile he rears, as the king is more exalted than his minister, as the workman is better than his hands or tools.

The male and female, therefore, will come to be regarded as merely the efficient instruments, subservient in all respects to the Supreme Creator, or father of all things. In this sense, consequently, it is well said that the sun and moon engender man; because, with the advent and secession of the sun, come spring and autumn, seasons which mostly correspond with the generation and decay of animated beings. So that the great leader in philosophy says:[270] “The first motion [of the sphere?] is not the cause of generation and destruction; it is the motion of the ecliptic that is so, this being both continuous and having two movements; for, if future generation and corruption are to be eternal, it is necessary that something likewise move eternally, that interchanges do not fail, that of the two actions one only do not occur. The cause of the perpetuity [of animal species?] is, therefore, the law of the universe; and the obliquity [of the ecliptic?] is the cause of the approach and accession, [of the sun?] and of his being now nearer, now more remote: when he quits us, and removes to a distance, it is then that decay and corruption intervene; and, in like manner, when he approaches, it is then that he engenders; and if, as he frequently approaches, he engenders; so, because he frequently recedes, does he cause corruption; for the causes of contraries are contrary.”

All things, therefore, grow and flourish in spring, (on the approach of the sun, that is to say, he being the common parent and producer, or at all events the immediate and universal instrument of the Creator in the work of reproduction); and this is true not of plants only but of animals also; nor less of those that come spontaneously, than of those that are propagated by the consentient act of male and female. It is as if, with the advent of this glorious luminary, Venus the bountiful descended from heaven, waited on by Cupid and a cohort of graces, and prompted all living things by the bland incitement of love to secure the perpetuity of their kinds. Or (and it is thus that we have it in the mythology) it is as if the genital organs of Saturn, cast into the sea at this season, raised a foam, whence sprung Aphrodite. For, in the generation of animals, as the poet says, “superat tener omnibus humor,”--a gentle moisture all pervades,--and the genitals froth and are replete with semen.

The cock and the hen are especially fertile in the spring; as if the sun, or heaven, or nature, or the soul of the world, or the omnipotent God--for all these names signify the same thing--were a cause in generation superior and more divine than they; and thus it is that the sun and man, i.e. the sun through man as the instrument, engender man. In the same way the preserver of all things, and the male among birds, give birth to the egg, from whence the chick, the perfect bird, is made eternal in its kind by the approach and recession of the god of day, who, by the divine will and pleasure, or by fate, serves for the generation of all that lives.

Let us conclude, therefore, that the male, although a prior and more excellent efficient than the female, is still no more than an instrumental efficient, and that he, not less than the female, must refer his fecundity or faculty of engendering as received from the approaching sun; and, consequently, that the skill and foresight, which are apparent in his work, are not to be held as proceeding from him but from God; inasmuch as the male in the act of kind neither uses counsel nor understanding; neither does man engender the rational part of his soul, but only the vegetative faculty; which is not regarded as any principal or more divine faculty of the soul, but one only of a lower order.

Since, then, there is not less of skill and prescience manifested in the structure of the chick than in the creation of man and the universe at large, it is imperative even in the generation of man to admit an efficient cause, superior to, and more excellent than man himself: otherwise the vegetative faculty, or that part of the soul or living principle which fashions and preserves a man, would have to be accounted far more excellent and divine, and held to bear a closer resemblance to God than the rational portion of the soul, whose excellence, nevertheless, we extol over all the faculties of all animals, and esteem as that which has right and empire in them, and to which all created things are made subservient. Or we should else have to own that in the works of nature there was neither prudence, nor art, nor understanding; but that these appeared to us, who are wont to judge of the divine things of nature after our own poor arts and faculties, or to contrast them with examples due to ourselves; as if the active principles of nature produced their effects in the same way as we are used to produce our artificial works, by counsel, to wit, or discipline acquired through the mind or understanding.

But nature, the principle of motion and rest in all things in which it inheres, and the vegetative soul, the prime efficient cause of all generation, move by no acquired faculty which might be designated by the title of skill or foresight, as in our undertakings; but operate in conformity with determinate laws like fate or special commandments--in the same way and manner as light things rise and heavy things descend. The vegetative faculty of parents, to wit, engenders in the same way, and the semen finally arrives at the form of the fœtus, as the spider weaves her web, as birds build nests, incubate their eggs, and cherish their young, or as bees and ants construct dwellings, and lay up stores for their future wants; all of which is done naturally and from a connate genius or disposition; by no means from forecast, instruction, or reason. That which in us is the principle or cause of artificial operations, and is called art, intellect, or foresight, in the natural operations of the lower animals is nature, which is ἀυτοδίδακτος, self-taught, instilled by no one; what in them is innate or connate, is with us acquired. On this account it is, that they who refer all to art and artifice are to be held indifferent judges of nature or natural things; and, indeed, it is wiser to act in the opposite way, and selecting standards in nature to judge of things made by art according to them. For all the arts are but imitations of nature in one way or another; as our reason or understanding is a derivative from the Divine intelligence, manifested in his works; and when perfected by habit, like another adventitious and acquired soul, gaining some semblance of the Supreme and Divine agent, it produces somewhat similar effects.

Wherefore, according to my opinion, he takes the right and pious view of the matter, who derives all generation from the same eternal and omnipotent Deity, on whose nod the universe itself depends. Nor do I think that we are greatly to dispute about the name by which this first agent is to be called or worshipped; whether it be God, Nature, or the Soul of the universe,--whatever the name employed,--all still intend by it that which is the beginning and the end of all things; which exists from eternity and is almighty; which is author or creator, and, by means of changing generations, the preserver and perpetuator of the fleeting things of mortal life; which is omnipresent, not less in the single and several operations of natural things, than in the infinite universe; which, by his deity or providence, his art and mind divine, engenders all things, whether they arise spontaneously without any adequate efficient, or are the work of male and female associated together, or of a single sex, or of other intermediate instruments, here more numerous, there fewer, whether they be univocal, or are equivocally or accidentally produced: all natural bodies are both the work and the instruments of that Supreme Good, some of them being mere natural bodies, such as heat, spirit, air, the temperature of the air, matters in putrefaction, &c., or they are at once natural and animated bodies; for he also makes use of the motions, or forces, or vital principles of animals in some certain way, to the perfection of the universe and the procreation of the several kinds of animated beings.

From what has now been said, we are apprized to a certain extent of the share which the male has in the business of generation. The cock confers that upon the egg, which, from unprolific, makes it prolific, this being identical with that which the fruit of vegetables receives from the fervour of the summer sun, which secures to them maturity, and to their seeds fertility; and not different from that which fertilizes things spontaneously engendered, and brings caterpillars from worms, aurelias from caterpillars, from aurelias moths, butterflies, bees, &c.

In this way is the sun, by his approach, both the beginning of motion and transmutation in the coming fruit, and the end, also, inasmuch as he is the author of the fertility of its included seed: and, as early spring is the prime efficient of leaves and flowers and fruits, so is summer, in its strength, the cause of final perfection in the ripeness and fecundity of the seed. With a view to strengthen this position, I shall add this one from among a large number of observations. Some persons in these countries cultivate orange trees with singular care and economy, and the fruit of these trees, which, in the course of the first year, will grow to the size of the point of the thumb, comes to maturity the following summer. This fruit is perfect in all respects, save and except that it is without pips or seeds.

Pondering upon this with myself, I thought that I had here an example of the barren egg, which is produced by the hen without the concurrence of the cock, and which comprises everything that is visible in a fruitful egg, but is still destitute of germinant seed; as if it were the same thing that was imparted by the cock, in virtue of which a wind-egg becomes a fruitful egg, which in warmer countries is dispensed by the sun, and causes the fruit of the orange tree to be produced replete with prolific seed. It is as if the summer in England sufficed for the production of the fruit only, as the hen for the production of the egg, but like the female fowl was impotent as a pro-genetrix; whilst in other countries enjoying the sun’s light in larger proportion, the summer acquired the characters of the male, and perfected the work of generation.

Thus far have we treated this subject by the way, that, from the instance of the egg, we might learn what conditions were required in the prime efficient in the generation of animals;--for it is certain, that in the egg there is an agent,--as there is also in every conception and germ,--which is not merely infused by the mother, but is first communicated in coitu by the father, by means of his spermatic fluid; and which is itself primarily endowed with such virtue by heaven and the sun, or the Supreme Creator. It is equally manifest, that this agent, existing in every egg and seed, is so imbued with the qualities of the parents, that it builds up the offspring in their likeness, not in its own; and this mingled also as proceeding from both united in copulation. Now, as all this proceeds with the most consummate foresight and intelligence, the presence of the Deity therein is clearly proclaimed.

But we shall have to speak at greater length upon this subject, when we strive to show what it is that remains with the female immediately after intercourse, and where it is stored; at the same time that we explain--since there is nothing visible in the cavity of the uterus after intercourse--what that prolific contagion or prime conception is; whether it is corporeal and laid up within the female, or is incorporeal; whether the conception of the uterus be of the same nature or not with the conceptions of the brain, and fecundity be acquired in the same way as knowledge--a conclusion, in favour of which there is no lack of arguments; or, as motion and the animal operations, which we call appetites, derive their origin from the conceptions of the brain, may not the natural motions and the operations of the vegetative principle, and particularly generation, depend on the conception of the uterus? And then we have to inquire how this prolific contagion is of a mixed nature, and is imparted by the male to the female, and by her is transferred to the ovum? Finally, how the contagious principle of all diseases and preternatural affections spreads insensibly, and is propagated?

EXERCISE THE FIFTY-FIRST.

_Of the order of generation; and, first, of the primary genital particle._

It will be our business, by and by, when we come to treat of the matter in especial, to show what happens to the female from a fruitful embrace; what it is that remains with her after this, and which we have still spoken of under the name of contagion, by which, as by a kind of infection, she conceives, and an embryo subsequently begins to grow of its own accord. Meantime, we shall discourse of those things that manifestly appear in connexion with the organs of generation which seem most worthy of particular comment.

And first, since it appears certain that the chick is produced by epigenesis, or addition of the parts that successively arise, we shall inquire what part is formed first, before any of the rest appear, and what may be observed of this and its particular mode of generation.

What Aristotle[271] says of the generation of the more perfect animals, is confirmed and made manifest by all that passes in the egg, viz.: that all the parts are not formed at once and together, but in succession, one after another; and that there first exists a particular genital particle, in virtue of which, as from a beginning, all the other parts proceed. As in the seeds of plants, in beans and acorns, to quote particular instances, we see the gemmula or apex, protruding, the commencement of the entire prospective herb or tree. “And this particle is like a child emancipated, placed independently, a principle existing of itself, from whence the series of members is subsequently thrown out, and to which belongs all that is to conduce to the perfection of the future animal.”[272] Since, therefore, “No part engenders itself, but, after it is engendered, concurs in its own growth, it is indispensable that the part first arise which contains within itself the principle of increase; for whether it be a plant or an animal, still has it within itself the power of vegetation or nutrition;”[273] and at the same time distinguishes and fashions each particular part in its several order; and hence, in this same primogenate particle, there is a primary vital principle inherent, which is the author and original of sense and motion, and every manifestation of life.

That, therefore, is the principal particle whence vital spirit and native heat accrue to all other parts, in which the calidum innatum sive implantatum of physicians first shows itself, and the household deity or perennial fire is maintained; whence life proceeds to the body in general, and to each of its parts in particular; whence nourishment, growth, aid, and solace flow; lastly, where life first begins in the being that is born, and last fails in that which dies.

All this is certainly true as regards the first engendered part, and appears manifestly in the formation of the chick from the egg. I am therefore of opinion that we are to reject the views of certain physicians, indifferent philosophers, who will have it that three principal and primogenate parts arise together, viz.: the brain, the heart, and the liver; neither can I agree with Aristotle himself, who maintains that the heart is the first engendered and animated part; for I think that the privilege of priority belongs to the blood alone; the blood being that which is first seen of the newly engendered being, not only in the chick in ovo, but in the embryo of every animal whatsoever, as shall plainly be made to appear at a later stage of our inquiry.

There appears at first, I say, a red-coloured pulsating point or vesicle, with lines or canals extending from it, containing blood in their interior, and, in so far as we are enabled to perceive from the most careful examination, the blood is produced before the punctum saliens is formed, and is farther endowed with vital heat before it is put in motion by a pulse; so that as pulsation commences in it and from it, so, in the last struggle of mortal agony, does motion also end there. I have indeed ascertained by numerous experiments instituted upon the egg, as well as upon other subjects, that the blood is the element of the body in which, so long as the vital heat has not entirely departed, the power of returning to life is continued.

And since the pulsating vesicle and the sanguineous tubes extending thence are visible before anything else, I hold it as consonant with reason to believe that the blood is prior to its receptacles, the thing contained, to wit, to its container, inasmuch as this is made subservient to that. The vascular ramifications and the veins, therefore, after these the pulsating vesicle, and, finally, the heart, as being every one of them organs destined to receive and contain the blood, are, in all likelihood, constructed for the express purpose of impelling and distributing it, and the blood is, consequently, the principal portion of the body.

This conclusion is favoured by numerous observations; particularly by the fact that some animals, and these red-blooded, too, live for long periods without any pulse; some even lie concealed through the whole winter, and yet escape alive, though their heart had ceased from motion of every kind, and their lungs no longer played; they had lain in fact like those who lie half dead in a state of asphyxia from syncope, leipothymia, or the hysterical passion.

Emboldened by what I have observed both in studying the egg, and whilst engaged in the dissection of living animals, I maintain, against Aristotle, that the blood is the prime part that is engendered, and the heart the mere organ destined for its circulation. The function of the heart is the propulsion of the blood, as clearly appears in all animals furnished with red blood; and the office of the pulsating vesicle in the generation of the chick ab ovo, as well as in the embryos of mammiferous animals, is not different, a fact which I have repeatedly demonstrated to others, showing the vesicula pulsans as a feeble glancing spark, contracting in its action, now forcing out the blood which was contained in it, and again relaxing and receiving a fresh supply.

The supremacy of the blood farther appears from this, that the pulse is derived from it; for, as there are two parts in a pulsation, viz.: distension or relaxation, and contraction, or diastole and systole, and, as distension is the prior of these two motions, it is manifest that this motion proceeds from the blood; the contraction, again, from the vesicula pulsans of the embryo in ovo, from the heart in the pullet, in virtue of its own fibres, as an instrument destined for this particular end. Certain it is, that the vesicle in question, as also the auricle of the heart at a later period, whence the pulsation begins, is excited to the motion of contraction by the distending blood. The diastole, I say, takes place from the blood swelling, as it were, in consequence of containing an inherent spirit, so that the opinion of Aristotle in regard to the pulsation of the heart,--namely, that it takes place by a kind of ebullition,--is not without some mixture of truth; for what we witness every day in milk heated over the fire, and in beer that is brisk with fermentation, comes into play in the pulse of the heart; in which the blood, swelling with a sort of fermentation, is alternately distended and repressed; the same thing that takes place in the liquids mentioned through an external agent, namely adventitious heat, is effected in the blood by an intimate heat, or an innate spirit; and this, too, is regulated in conformity with nature by the vital principle (anima), and is continued to the benefit of animated beings.

The pulse, then, is produced by a double agent: first, the blood undergoes distension or dilatation, and secondly, the vesicular membrane of the embryo in the egg, the auricles and ventricles in the extruded chick, effect the constriction. By these alternating motions associated, is the blood impelled through the whole body, and the life of animals is thereby continued.

Nor is the blood to be styled the primigenial and principal portion of the body, because the pulse has its commencement in and through it; but also because animal heat originates in it, and the vital spirit is associated with it, and it constitutes the vital principle itself, (ipsa anima); for wheresoever the immediate and principal instrument of the vegetative faculty is first discovered, there also does it seem likely will the living principle be found to reside, and thence take its rise; seeing that the life is inseparable from spirit and innate heat.

For “however distinct are the artist and the instrument in things made by art,” as Fabricius[274] well reminds us, “in the works of nature they are still conjoined and one. Thus the stomach is the author and the organ of chylopoesis.” In like manner are the vital principle and its instrument immediately conjoined; and so, in whatever part of the body heat and motion have their origin, in this also must life take its rise, in this be last extinguished; and no one, I presume, will doubt that there are the lares and penates of life enshrined, that there the vital principle (anima) itself has its seat.

The life, therefore, resides in the blood, (as we are also informed in our sacred writings,)[275] because in it life and the soul first show themselves, and last become extinct. For I have frequently found, from the dissection of living animals, as I have said, that the heart of an animal that was dying, that was dead, and had ceased to breathe, still continued to pulsate for a time, and retained its vitality. The ventricles failing and coming to a stand, the motion still goes on in the auricles, and finally in the right auricle alone; and even when all motion has ceased, there the blood may still be seen affected with a kind of undulation and obscure palpitation or tremor, the last evidence of life. Every one, indeed, may perceive that the blood--this author of pulsation and life,--longest retains its heat; for when this is gone, and it is no longer blood, but gore, so is there, then, no hope of a return to life. But, truly, as has been stated, both in the chick in ovo and in the moribund animal, if you but apply some gentle stimulus either to the punctum saliens or to the right auricle of the heart after the failure of all pulsation, forthwith you will see motion, pulsation, and life restored to the blood--provided always, be it understood, that the innate heat and vital spirit have not been wholly lost.

From this it clearly appears that the blood is the generative part, the fountain of life, the first to live, the last to die, and the primary seat of the soul; the element in which, as in a fountain head, the heat first and most abounds and flourishes; from whose influxive heat all the other parts of the body are cherished, and obtain their life; for the heat, the companion of the blood, flows through and cherishes and preserves the whole body, as I formerly demonstrated in my work on the motion of the blood.

And since blood is found in every particle of the body, so that you can nowhere prick with a needle, nor make the slightest scratch, but blood will instantly appear, it seems as if, without this fluid, the parts could neither have heat nor life. So that the blood, being in ever so trifling a degree concentrated and fixed,--Hippocrates called the state ἀπύληψις τῶν φλεβῶν--stasis of the veins,--as in lipothymia, alarm, exposure to severe cold, and on the accession of a febrile paroxysm, the whole body is observed to become cold and torpid, and, overspread with pallor and livor, to languish. But the blood, recalled by stimulants, by exercise, by certain emotions of the mind, such as joy or anger, suddenly all is hot, and flushed, and vigorous, and beautiful again.

Therefore it is that the red and sanguine parts, such as the flesh, are alone spoken of as hot, and the white and bloodless parts, on the contrary, such as the tendons and ligaments, are designated as cold. And as red-blooded animals excel exsanguine creatures, so also, in our estimate of the parts, are those which are more liberally furnished with native heat and blood, held more excellent than all the others. The liver, spleen, kidneys, lungs, and heart itself,--parts which are especially entitled viscera,--if you will but squeeze out all the blood they contain, become pale and fall within the category of cold parts. The heart itself, I say, receives influxive heat and life along with the blood that reaches it, through the coronary arteries; and only so long as the blood has access to it. Neither can the liver perform its office without the influence of the blood and heat it receives through the cœliac artery; for there is no influx of heat without an afflux of blood by the arteries, and this is the reason wherefore, when parts are first produced, and before they have taken upon them the performance of their respective duties, they all look bloodless and pale, in consequence of which they were formerly regarded as spermatic by physicians and anatomists, and in generation it was usual to say that several days were passed in the milk. The liver, lungs, and substance of the heart itself, when they first appear, are extremely white; and, indeed, the cone of the heart and the walls of the ventricles are still seen to be white, when the auricles, replete with crimson blood, are red, and the coronary vein is purple with its stream. In like manner, the parenchyma of the liver is white, when its veins and their branches are red with blood; nor does it perform any duty until it is penetrated with blood.

The blood, in a word, so flows around and penetrates the whole body, and imparts heat and life conjoined to all its parts, that the vital principle, having its first and chief seat there, may truly be held as resident in the blood; in this way, in common parlance, it comes to be all in all, and all in each particular part.

But so little is it true, as Aristotle and the medical writers assert, that the liver and the heart are the authors and compounders of the blood, that the contrary even appears most obviously from the formation of the chick in ovo, viz.: that the blood is much rather the fashioner of the heart and liver; a fact, which physicians themselves appear unintentionally to confirm, when they speak of the parenchyma of the liver as a kind of effusion of blood, as if it were nothing more than so much blood coagulated there. But the blood must exist before it can either be shed or coagulated; and experience palpably demonstrates that the thing is so, seeing that the blood is already present before there is a vestige either of the body or of any viscus; and that in circumstances where none of the mother’s blood can by possibility reach the embryo, an event which is vulgarly held to occur among viviparous animals.

The liver of fishes is always perceived of a white colour, though their veins are of a deep purple or black; and our fowls, the fatter they become, the smaller and paler grows the liver. Cachectic maidens, and those who labour under chlorosis, are not only pale and blanched in their bodies generally, but in their livers as well, a manifest indication of a want of blood in their system. The liver, therefore, receives both its heat and colour from the blood; the blood is in no wise derived from the liver.