branches and propagations of its Veins are blushing with blood nor doth it execute its publick office untill it be throughly drenched with blood And lastly the blood doth so surround and peirce into the whole body and impart heat and life to all its parts that the soul may justly be counted resident in it and for his sake Tota in tota tota in qualibet parte to be all in all and all in every part as the old saying is But it is so far from truth which yet Aristotle and all Physitians affirm that the Liver or Heart is the Author of the Blood that the contrary out of the fabrick of the chicken in the egge is most manifest namely the Blood rather is the Author of the Heart and Liver And this also Physitians before they are aware seem to acknowledge while they conclude that the Parenchyma of the Liver is a certain affusion or conflux of Blood as if it were nothing else but blood congealed Now it must have a being before it can be affused or coagulated and that it is so experience her self openly displayes for blood appears in the egg before there be any track or Rudiment of any such thing as the Body or any of the Viscera And yet no blood can come thither from the Mother to the Fatus as people commonly phansie in Viviparous productions The Liver of Fishes is alwaies whitish though their Veins are purpled and dark And our Hens the better they are crammed so much the more do their Livers impair and grow pallid Green-sickness Virgins that are Cachectical as the habit of their bodies is pale so is their Liver an evident signe of the penury and dearth of Blood Therefore the Liver borrows his heat and complexion from the blood and not the blood from him Hence it is plaine that blood is the prime genital Part whence the soul primarily results and out of which the primary animate part of the Foetus which is the fountain of all the rest both similar and dissimilar is derived which by that means attain their Vital heat and become subservient to it And the Heart is erected for this end and purpose onely that it may by continual pulsation to which the Veins and Arteries are ministerial and subservient entertain this blood and spout it out again up and down through the whole body All which is the clearer discovered by this that the Heart hath not a pulsation in all Animals nor yet at all times when yet the blood or something proportionable to blood is never wanting in any Of the Blood as it is the Principal Part. EXER LII IT is therefore evident even to the Eye that the blood is the Primigenial and so the Genital part that all those attributes recited in the precedent Chapter are consistent with it namely that it is the builder and preserver of the body and principal part wherein the soul hath her Session For as we newly said before any particle of the body appear the blood is born and groweth having a palpitation as Aristotle saith within the Veins moving to and fro with a Pulse and is above all the humours dispersed through the whole body And so long as life doth last the Blood alone is Animate and hot Moreover by his various motions in celerity or slowness vehemence or feebleness c. He plainly discovers his resentment of the affronts which any thing casts upon him and the friendships of such as cherish him We therefore conclude the blood lives and is nourished of it selfe no way depending upon any other part of the body as elder or worthier then it self But whether the whole body depend upon it as being postgenit adjoined and a kind of appendix or retainer to it is not the business of this place I shall only adde what Aristotle confesses Truly the nature of the blood is the cause why very many things befal Animals both in order to their manners and sense So that hence we may perceive the Causes not of life onely in general for you can never discover any other Calidum innatum aut influens innate or influent heat which may be the immediate instrument of the soul besides the Blood but also of longer or shorter life or sleep and wakefulness of Wit and Strength c. For by its tenuity saith Aristotle in the same place and cleanness or purity creatures are wiser and have quicker senses and likewise are either more timorous or couragious angry and furious according as their blood is more dilute and thin or more compact and grosse by fibres Nor is blood the Author of life onely but according to its several discriminations it is the cause of health or diseases And Poysons themselves which assault us from without as poisoned darts or bullets did they not infect the blood would do us no prejudice So that our life and wellfare is derived unto us from the same spring If the blood be over liquid saith Aristotle men grow sick for it degenerates into so serous a gore that some have swet Blood If too much of it stream out they die For by want of blood all the parts do not onely languish presently but the Animal it self soon expires I conceive it inconvenient to set down Experiments to confirm this because they require a peculiar Tract I perceive that the wonderful Circulation of the blood first found out by me is consented to almost by all and that no man hath hitherto made any objection to it greatly worth a confutation Wherefore if I shall subjoine the causes and benefits of that Circulation and lay open some other secrets of the blood as how much it conduceth to the happiness of the creature as also to both soul and body that so men may be cautious to preserve their blood pure and clean by commodious diet I conceive I shall perform an office not more new then useful and acceptable to Philosophers and Physitians nor will this opinion seem so improbable and absurd to any as once to Aristotle namely That the Blood like a Tutelar Deity is the very soul in the body as Critias of old and others thought supposing sense to be the chiefest property of the soul and that sense to be in her by the nature of the Blood Now some concluded it to be the soul because it hath a power of moving by its owne nature As Thales Diogenes Heraclitus Alcmaeon and others But that both sense and motion are in the Blood is conspicuous by many tokens though Aristotle denied it For if he himself compelled by the truth of the thing it self did confess that there was a soul in an egge though the egge were addle and that in the Geniture and Blood was found a divine substance proportionably answering to the Matter of the Stars and that it was the Creators Vice-Roy If some of the Moderns say that the seed of Animals ejected in Coition is animate Why should we not upon as good reason
ascititious Wardrobe or some few daies Pageantry or Masquingstuff but a lasting one and Natures liberal Dowry which delights not onely in the Embroidery of Animals and chiefly of Birds but hath imploied her Pencil upon Flowers and Plants adorning them with wonderful Art and variety of colours Certain Paradoxes and Problemes to be considered of concerning this Subject EXEECIT LVII THus far have we spoken concerning the Order of Generation by which the difference between those creatures which are produced by a Metamorphosis and those which are borne by an Epigenesis hath been discovered as also between those that spring from a Worme and those that arise from an Egge for these are bodied out of one part of the prepared matter and fed with the other But they take up the whole matter in their frame or Constitution these are together augmented and formed they are augmented first and from a Canker-Worme grow into an Aurelia and are afterwards formed and made consummate Animals as Butterflies Silk-wormes and such like Animals And therefore Aristotle as Fabricius observes as he constitutes a kind of twofold nature of the egge and a kind of twofold Egge in these creatures so he laies down a twofold action and a twofold Animal produced by it For saith he out of the first egges which are the first rudiments of the Generation a Worm constantly doth proceed namely out of the Egges of Files Ants Bees Silk-wormes c. in which a certain fluid matter is conteined and out of all that fluid matter is the Worme made But out of the second Egges which are layed by the Worm himselfe the Butterflie is born and proceeds that is a Volatile Animal which is concluded in a kind of Shell Skin little bag or egge and when that bag is broken it departs thence as Aristotle delivereth concerning the Locusts egges Lastly these are perfected by a succession of parts but they namely such as are generated by a Metamorphosis are made intire at once And in the same manner are both Spontaneous productions generated which obtain their first matter and first extraction from putrefaction filth dew excrements or out of the parts of Plants or Animals as also those issues which proceed from the seed of Univocal Animals For it is common to all Animals to desume their Original from seed or an egge whether that seed proceed from other Animals of the same species or happen there casually from some thing else For as it sometimes befalls in Art so also in Nature namely that the same things are sometimes casuall which at other times are effected by Art as Aristotle doth instance in Health so in like manner is the Generation of any Animals as far as they proceed from Seed whether their seed be casuall or else proceed from an Univocal Agent of the same kind For even in casuall seed there is a motive principle of Generation which can generate out of it self and by it self and the same thing is found in it as in Univocal Animals namely a power to form a living creature But of this more at large hereafter Now some Paradoxes do here arise to be examined For since the Macula is dilated the Colliquamentum concocted and prepared and many other things not without great providence ordered towards the formation and growth of the Chicken before any particle of the Chicken appear what should hinder the Innate beat and vegetative soul of the Chicken to be existent before the Chicken it self For what can produce the effects and operations of Life but that which is the cause and efficient of those Effects and Operations namely the heat and faculty of the Vegetal soul And therefore the soul doth not seem to be Actus corporis Organici vitam habentis in potentiâ the Act of an Organical body which hath life in it in potentiâ for we conceive the form of the Chicken to be such an Act. Now in what can we imagine the form or soul of the Chicken to be but in the Chicken it self unless we allow the forms to be separate or grant a Metempsychôsis But this is most manifest where the same Animal lives by a succession of forms as Aristotle speaks as for example Out of a Canker-worm an Aurelia and then a Butterfly For the same Efficient Nutritive and Preserving principle must needs be in each of these unless we will place one soul in the Boy another in the Young man and a third in the Old or affirm that the Canker-worm and that worm which becomes a Silk-worm also the Silk-worm and the Butterfly have the same form of which matter Aristotle hath accurately written and whereof more largely hereafter Again it seems a Paradox that the blood should be made and move and be endowed with Vital spirits before any sanguifying or Motive Organs are constituted at all Nor is it less new and unheard of that there should be Sense and Motion in the Foetus before his brain is made for the Foetus moves contracts and extends himself when there is nothing yet appears for a brain but clear water Besides the body is nourished and encreased before the Organs dedicated to Concoction namely the Stomack and Liver are formed And likewise Sanguification which is the second Concoction is performed before the first which is by the Stomack and called Chylification The Excrements of the first and second Concoction namely in the Guts and the two bladders of Urine one the other of Gall are coetaneous to the concocting Instruments themselves Lastly there is a Minde Providence and Understanding not onely in the Vegetal part of the soul but even before the soul it self procuring disposing and ordering all things and artificially molding the future foetus to a resemblance with his parents even from the very first original and all this to advance the being and well being of the Foetus Concerning which Resemblance we may enquire what should be the cause why the Foetus sometimes resembles the Father sometimes the Mother and sometimes also the Progenitors and those either of the Father or Mothers side And this the rather since upon one single coition and at the same moment of time many Egges are fructified together This also is a wonderful thing that the Virtues and Vices the Diseases the Marks the Moles or Spots should be transferred to Posterity and that into some onely of the Progeny and not unto all In the race of Cocks some are of a generous spirit and born to battle who will dye rather then turn their backs upon their Adversaries and yet their Nephews unless they proceed of like parents do by degrees forfeit their galantry according to that saying Fortes creantur fortibus In many other Animals and especially in Man the Bravery of the Succession or Family is observable and many of the Indowments both of body and soul are derived down to it ex traduce This I have often admired that when the Issue hath obtained a mixt fabrick or composition from both Parents and that in
In as much as it is a Spirit so it is the Fire the Vesta the Houshold deity the Calidum Innatum the Sun of the Microcosme and Platoes Fire not because like ordinary fire it shineth burneth and destroyeth but because it doth conserve nourish and encrease it self by a free perpetuall motion It doth also challenge the name of Spirit in as much as it doth primarily and before the other parts abound with Radical moisture which is the last and neerest aliment thereof and doth dispence and provide the same sustenance for all the rest of the parts wherewith it self is supported namely while it doth nimbly dart it self through the whole body and nourish cherish and keep alive all the parts thereof which it self doth first frame and adjoin to it selfe after the same manner as the superiour Orbes but especially the Sun and Moon do by their continual motions quicken and preserve the inferiour world Seeing therefore that the Blood doth act above the power of the Elements and is inspired with such notable virtues being also the Instrument of the Omnipotent Agent no man can worthily magnifie and extol its wonderful and divine faculties In it the soul doth first and principally reside and that not the Vegetative soul onely but the Sensitive and Motive also it penetrates every part and is every where present and that being taken away the soul is presently gone so that the blood seems to differ nothing from the soul or ought at least to be counted that substance whose act the soul is For such is the soul that it is not altogether a body nor yet wholly without a body it comes partly from without and is partly born at home in some sort it is a part of the body and in some the beginning and cause of all things which are contained in the Animal body namely nutrition sense and motion and so consequently of Life and Death also for whatsoever is nourished doth also live and so on the contrary Likewise whatsoever is plentifully nourished is also inlarged but that which is too sparingly nourished doth diminish that also which is perfectly nourished doth continue in health but that which is not doth incline to diseases The blood therefore as well as the soul is to be reputed the cause and author both of Youth and Old Age of Sleep and Waking and of Breathing also especially since in Natural productions the first Instrument doth contein in it self the internal moving cause And therefore it comes all to the same reckoning whether we say that the soul and the blood or the blood with the soul or the soul with the blood doth performe all the effects in an Animal We use as persons that neglect the things themselves to pay much reverence to the specious names The blood which is still at hand and daily in our view makes no great noise in our ears but at the magnificent name of Spirits and of an Innate Heat we are strangely amused But when once the vizour is plucked from before them as our errour so our wonder ceaseth That miraculous Stone rendered so venerable to Mizaldus by the commendation of Pipinus did not onely fill him with admiration but Thuanus also who was an eminent Historiographer in his time I shall here adjoin the Riddle it self I saw saith he a Stone which was lately brought hither to our King out of the East Indies which Stone did dart forth light and brightness after a wonderful manner sparkling and shining with so much incredible lustre as if it were all burning and in a flame This stone doth by his rayes scattered into every corner illustrate the ambient aire with so clear a shine that the firmest sight is scarce able to behold it It is also most impatient of earth for if you attempt to cover it it doth of its own accord with an impetuous violence fly upward All the Art of man cannot confine and shut it up into a narrow room for it seemeth to be affected with free open places onely The infinite purity and brightness thereof is not tainted by the least spot or blemish It hath no certain shape or figure but varieth and is altered in an instant And though it be most faire and beautiful to the Eye yet will it not endure to be touched and if you attempt too long to handle it and continue too obstinate in your resolution it will mischiefe you as many in my presence have deerly found And if any thing be by violence taken from it it remaines for all that which is very wonderful nothing less then it was before The stranger who brought it addes farther to all this that its virtue and power is exceeding useful to sundry emploiments but will not discover them without a great reward This travailer also might have added to his description that this Stone is neither soft nor hard that it puts on several shapes and complexions that it hath a continual trembling and palpitation and doth like an Animal though it be an Inanimate thing daily devour great store of food converting it to its own nutriment and augmentation and that he hath been told by men of good credit that this Stone did long ago fall down from heaven and is to this day the cause of Thunders and Lightnings being some times begotten by the refraction of the Sun-beams through the Waters Who can but admire so strange a Stone and conceive less of it then to be above the power of the Elements and so to partake of another body and of an etherial spirit especially when he finds that it is answerable in proportion to the Element or substance of the sun himself And yet if Fernelius may be the Oedipus all this is but a Riddle of the Flame In like manner if I should describe the Blood under the veil and covering of a Fable calling it the Philosophers stone and displaying all its endowments operations and faculties in an aenigmatical manner doubtless every body would set a greater price upon it and believing it to act beyond the Activity of the elements would ascribe another and more divine body unto it Of the Primigenial Moisture EXER LXXII WE have now adorned the Blood with the Title of Calidum Innatum and do likewise conceive it proper to dignifie the Colliquamentum Crystallinum as we cal it out of which the foetus and its first parts do immediately arise by the name of Humidum radicale Primigenium the Radical and Primigenial moisture For we meet with nothing in the Generation of Animals to which this title doth upon better right belong We have stiled it the Radical moisture because out of it the first particle of the foetus namely the Blood and all the post-genit parts do arise as out of their Root and do owne the same as the matter out of which they are procreated sed increased and conserved We likewise call it Primigenial because it is first generated in the constitution of every Animal and is as it
chicken ouâ— of the Egge and afterward informs that chicken For Aristotle demonstratively resolves of the Faculties by the Operations and from them also concludes of the cause and fountain of Life namely the Soul and that to be in actually where the Operations actually are And I am confirmed by many proofs and experiments that not motion onely is now the companion of the Punctum saliens but also Sense it self For upon every touch be it never so gentle it is variously provoked and disturbed at the same rate as sensative bodies proclaime their distastes by particular motions and so offended with repeâ—â—â— injuries that they did confound the chime and order of its pulses So in the Plant called the sensative Plant and other Zoophyta we conclude there is sense because upon touch they contract themselves and take it unkindly I have I say often seen and so have many more who have been present this Punctum upon contaction by a needle probe or the finger it self nay upon the admission of a more searching heat or cold or any other thing that could molest and disorder declare many symptoms of its resentment for it would flie into many permutations of pulse beating much stronger and nimble then before So that no question this Punctum doth as an Animal Live Move and Perceive Moreover expose an egge too long to the colder aire and the Punctum saliens beats slower and hath a languishing motion but lay your finger warm upon it or cherish it kindely any other way and it presently gaineth strength and vigour And after this Punctum hath declined by degrees and being full of blood hath ceased from all motion exhibiting no specimen of life at all and was given up for lost and dead upon laying of my finger warm upon it for the space of only twenty pulses the poor heart hath awaked and recovered again and as it were rescued from the grave proceeds to its former harmony afresh And this hath been done again and again by me and others by any other reviving heat were it of the Fire or warm Water as if it were in our dispose to condemne the litle Soule to the Shades or repreive it to life at pleasure What we have here delivered doth for the most part come to pass the fourth day from the first Incubation or at the Third Inspection I say for the most part for it falls not out perpetually so because there is a great diversity in the maturity of Egges and some come to perfection sooner then their fellows As is usually in the fruits of any Tree whereof some are ripe and ready to fall of themselves whilest others are crude and greener and cannot be shaken from the Boughs So that some Egges are lesse forward the fifth day then others the third And that I may instance in what I have found and tryed I have found this true in very many egges whom the Hen hath fostered the same length of time and I have opened them all the same day So that I have had no cause to quarrel against the weaker Sex the distemper of the Aire the neglect of the Henne or any other Accident but onely the innate weaknesse of the Egge and the penury of the ingenit Heat Ova Hypenemia or Addle Egges do at this time as in a critical day begin to alter and discover their genius For as fruitful Egges by the innate plastick vertue do alter and resolve into a Colliquamentum which doth after shift into bloud so Subventaneous Eggs at the same time begin to corrupt and putrifie And yet I have sometimes observed the Macula or Cicatricula to be distended wider even in barren egges but it never rose up to the top nor was ever circumscribed by the circles orderly drawn about it I have also sometimes seen the Yolk grow clear and liquifie and the parts congealed as it were by rash inconsiderate coagulation float up and down like scattered clouds And though these Egges cannot yet be called corrupt putrid and unsavory yet they are very much prepared towards putrefaction and do compleatly arrive thither by the continuation of the warmth of the Sitting-Henne and set out their progresse towards corruption from the very place and stage whence prolifical Eggs advance to Generation The Perfecter sort of Egges therefore do now about the declension of the fourth day acquire a twofold or bipartite Vesicula pulsans or vesicle of pulsation one making answer and replies to the other by a double pulsation in that Order and Method that whilest one is contracted the other shines and swells with blood which presently being contracted dischargeth it self of the blood that was in it and in a moments time intervening the former swells and returns the Pulse so that you may evidently see that the action of these vesicles is Contraction by which the Blood is driven and pumped into the vessels The fourth day saith Aldrovandus the two Puncta were discovered and each of them did move which two points were without doubt the Heart and the Liver which Viscera Aristotle saith are seen in the Egges after three days Incubation But Aristotle never said so nor are those viscera usually to be seen before the tenth day And I wonder Aldrovandus could think one of these Puncta Pulsantia was the Liver as if the Liver ever had any such motion It is safer to believe that one of the Puncta salientia when the Foetus enlargeth doth constitute the Auriculae or deaf Ears and the other the Ventriculi or Ventricles of the Heart For in grown bodies the Ventricles of the Heart are after this manner filled and supplied by the Auriculae which by their Systole are depleated and emptied againe as we have observed in our Tract de Motu cordis sanguinis In better grown egges sometimes about the declining of the fourth day I know not what cloudy substance did obscure these Vesiculae Pulsantes and did like an interposed shade obstruct my Inspection that I could not so clearly discerne the Puncta salientia Yet by the help of a clearer light and with a Perspective and conferring with my observations for the subsequent days it appeared to be the Rudiment of the foetus or a Cloud exhaled from the Colliquamentum or an Effluvium congealing about the beginning of the veines as shall more at large be treated of in the fifth days observation Aldrovandus also seems to have observed it The fifth day saith he that Punctum which we called the Heart did no longer appear to move outwardly but seemed rather to be covered and concealed and the two Meatus Venosi were seen more conspicuous but one larger then the other But the Learned Aldrovandus is deceived for this Tutelar deity taketh possession and locks himself up in most reserved and secret recesses when the habitation is almost compleatly erected a long time after And he likewise mistakes where he saith that by the innate vertue of the veins the remaining portion of the
therefore these two things are sometimes apart And thus it is in all other artificial things for none of them have in themselves an Efficient Principle but some of them have such a Principle in others that are without themselves as a House and all other Manual Productions some indeed have it in themselves but not by themselves namely all those things which may by accident become causes to themselves Nature therefore is that thing which she hath â—â—eady been said to be And all those things have â—ature in them which have such a kind of Principle And all those things are substances For Nature is ever â—â—me subject and in some subject We have related these Passages more at large and in their Authors own words that so it may appear that what we attribute to the egge is â—â—ally in it namely the Matter the Organ the â—â—fficient Cause Place and what ever else is required to the Generation of the Pullus And chiefly for the clearing of some most difficult questions 〈◊〉 namely which is and what kind of Principle it is from whence Motion and Generation do proâ—â—d Also by what Power the Seed doth act according to Aristotle And lastly what it is that â—oth inspire and qualifie the Seed with its faecundity For Aristotle decrees that Nature is the Principle of Motion and Rest Innate in all bodies â—â—d not Accidental Whether that which in the â—gge is the Cause Efficient and Principle of Generation and of the Vegetative and Vital Operations be some Innate thing in it or something Added to it And whether it be in it first and by it selfe as a kinde of Nature or else by Accident as the Physitian is in the Cure Whether it be some Inâ—â—ed or some Acquired power which doth transform the Egge into a Chicken or nourish it when it was but begun in the Ovary augmenting and perfecting also preserving it while it is not Set upon by the Henne Moreover what it is that fructifies the egge whether it be to be called the Soul or a Part of the Soul or some faculty of the Soul or some thing that has a Soul or an Intellect or laâ—â— the Deity because it acts for some end 〈◊〉 disposes all things by providence and 〈◊〉 mitable art and after an incomprehenâ—â—â— manner and always provides what is best bâ—â—â— for the being and well-being as also for defence and ornament And this not onely in perfect egge which it fructifies but even in a subventaneous one too nourishing augmenting and preserving it And doth not onely supply and nourish the yolk in the Vitellary but that very leâ—â— speck whence that proceeds being of no greaâ—â— magnitude then Millet or Mustard-seed which iâ— feeds and enlarges and at last invests it with the White the Chalazae the Membranes and the Shâ—ll For it is probable that even an Improlifical barrâ—â— eggâ— by an innate and inbred principle though it be contained in the Bowels of the Henne and adhear to her doth feed conserve augment alter in like manner as Fishes and Frogs-egges which being exposed do grow and are perfected and transforme it self out of a small Whelke or speâ—k into a yolk and afterward take its journey from the Ovary to the Uterus though it have no Connexion to the Uterus and there inrobe it self in the White and at last compleat it self with the Membranes Chalazae and Shel But be it what it will which doth alike both in a Subventaneous and in a Fruitful equally produce the same effects after the same manner and from the same Causes or Principles whether it be the same Soul or the same Part of the Soul in both it is very well worth our inquiry Now in probability the same things do spring from the same Causes Though the egge while it is making is contained within the Henne and grows to its parent in 〈◊〉 Vitellary by the Pedunculus or stalk and is supplied from the Hens veines yet may it not be â—aid to be a Part of its mother nor to take life and â—â—getation from her soul but from its own proper power and intrinsecal principle As Mushâ—â—s Misletoe and several kindes of Moss are bred 〈◊〉 of Trees which though they adhere to the â—lant and are sustained by the same sap with its â—wn blossomes and leaves yet are they not Parts of those Trees nor are they called so Aristotle to salve these doubts allows a Vegetative soul to â—e even in the very Subventaneous Egge where he saith Both Females and all things that live have a Vegetative soul as hath been often said Wherefore this â—gge treating of a Subventaneous egge considered aâ— the Conception of a Plant is perfect of an Animal it is Imperfect And in another place he teacheth the same thing enquiring After what manner â—â— Subventaneous egges said to live for they cannot be said to live as fruitful egges live For then an Animal might be produced out of them Nor are they in the condition of Wood and Stones because they perish by a kinde of corruption as things that formerly did in some sort partake of life It is certain therefore that they have some Potential soul But what Soul is that doubtlesse that Soul which they last enjoyed which is a vegetable Soul for this is indifferently in all Plants as well as Animals And yet the same soul is not in Subventaneous Egges and in fruitful For if so A Chicken might alike be formed out of both But how their Souls differ and in what Aristotle doth not sufficiently declare in his enquiry Why all the parts of an egge are framed in a Subventaneous Egge and yet an Animal is not procreated thence Because saith he it is necessary it should have a sensative soul As if in fruitful Egges there were a sensative soul besides the vegetative Unlesse you apprehend it thus that the Vegetative soul is Actually in a fruitful egge which containes in it a sensative soul in Potentiâ out of which afterwards an Animal and the sensative parts of an Animal are produced But this doth not sufficiently salve the scruple not release the mind involved in perplexities and doubts For an Egge seems to be the true Sperâ—â— of an Animal according to that of Aristotle In those things that have life and no distinction of Sexes the Seed is a kind of Conception already I call that a Conception which bears proportion to Seed which is the mixture of Male and Female wherefore out of 〈◊〉 Seed proceedeth one Body v. g. out of one egge 〈◊〉 Animal One egge therefore seemes to have one Soul now whether is that Soul the soul of the Henne or of the Cock or a mixt soul of Both For the doubt chiefly concerns those egges which proceed from Animals of a distinct kind as out of a dunghill Henne and a Cock Pheasant I enquire whether such an egge participate of the soul of the Henne or of the Pheasant or is the soul of the Egge compounded of them
there is no Male at all as in the Ruffes and the Roches for they are all taken great with spawn yet whatsoever is produced from a perfect egge doth not proceed but from both Sexes And therefore saith Aristotle The Male and the Female are chiefly to be counted the Principles of Generation The Cock therefore and the Henne are the two first Principles of the egge the fruit or common conception of both which is the egge containing in it the virtue of both Parents So that an egge can no more be made without the assistance of the Cock and Henne then the fruit can be made without the Trees aid And each particular Individuum both Cock and Henne seems to be created for the egges sake that the same Species may be prolonged though by the ruine and obsequies of the Authors And it is also clear that the Parents are no longer youthfull beautifull complete and Jovial then they can generate or fructifie their eggs and produce their own like by the mediation of those eggs Which work of nature so soon as they have accomplished as if then they had attained the highest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Pitch of their perfection and last end for which they were born they presently wither grow old and Emerit and as if God and Nature had forsaken them they decline speedily and hasten to their end like creatures weary of their lives Whereas on the contrary the Males when they arm themselves and are in all respects well appointed for Loves encounter how strangly doth the potent Cupid heighten their enflamed spirits how spruce are they how do they pride it how vigorous how testy are they and prone to conflicts But when this office and performance ceaseth oh how soon doth their force abate and their late fury coole how doe they hale in all their swelling sails and check their darings Nay even while this jocund Sacrifice to Venus is in season no sooner is the act performed but they grow tame and pusillanimous as if it were then deep printed in their thoughts that while they impart a life to others they are in full career to their own urnes Onely our Cock full fraught with seed and spirits approves himselfe the onely cheerfull loser and with the plaudit of his wings and voice crownes his past triumphs and lights his wedding Torch at his own Cinders And yet he also flags after long game and like an Emerit souldier resignes his Commission And so the Hens likewise like Plants worn out grow decayed Matrons and fore-go their Nurseries How a perfect and fruitfull Egge is produced by Male and Female according to Aristotle EXERCIT. XXIX WEe have lately said that an Egge especially a fruitful one is no spontaneous issue nor doth proceed from any thing but a Hen nor yet a fruitfull one from her neither without her intercourse with a Cock According to that of Aristotle We are to conclude that male and female are the chief principles of Generation the Male because he hath the preeminence in the original of the Motus and Generation the Female in the original of the Matter Now according to our decision A fertile egge is truly a sperme and genit all seed Analagous to the seed of Plants and the first conception resulting from both Parents and the promiscuous production of them both For as an Egge cannot have a being without a Hen so it cannot have fecundity without a Cock. It remaines therefore that we enquire how the egge is made by the hen and how it is made fertile by the Cock for we see that subventaneous egges and those animate too are produced by the hen but yet are not prolifical without the Cock And therefore both Cock and Hen lay their stock together to constitute a fertile egge And yet as I conceive not in that manner as Aristotle would have it namely that the Male should be Master only of the original of the Matus and Generation and the Female onely contribute the Matter For the contrary appears in Subventaneous egges And thoâ—â— it be true where he saith The Male and Female are different according to reason because their faculties are diverse and according to sense because someâ— of their parts are divers too The difference between them according to reason consists in this that the Male is that creature which doth generate in another the Female is that which generates in it selfe and out of which that which is generated is made being contained in that which doth generate it But since these 〈◊〉 distinguished by the diversity of the Faculty and of the Office or imployment and every performance of 〈◊〉 office requires an instrument and the parts of the body are commodious instruments to the faculties it iâ— necessary that some parts should be accommodated for procreation and Coition and that those parts should be different too that so the Male and Female may be distinguished Yet it doth not thence follow which he seeâ— desirous to infer saying The Male is the Efficient and by the vertue of its Geniture doth produce that which is designed out of the Matter conteined in 〈◊〉 Female and the Female doth always contribute the Matter So that it is necessary that the Female should contribute the Body and the Quantity or Magnitude but there is no such thing required at the males hand Nor is it necessary that the Instruments or the Efficient it self should be in those things that are produâ—â—â— by them The Body therefore proceeds from the female and the soul from the male For the Substance of 〈◊〉 Body is the soul For an egge and that an animaâ—â— one too is produced by the Hen alone without the Cock Whence it appears that the Female 〈◊〉 Hen is also the Efficient cause and that all power of Production or the Soul doth not proceed 〈◊〉 the Male. And this the example urged by Aristotle seemes to confirm for he saith Those creatures that proceed to Coition and â—re not of the same kind which they do whose season is alike and time of hearing together neer at hand and do not much differ in the dimensions of their bodies do bring forth their first issues like to themselves partaking of the Species of both kindes as those that are begotten by a Wolfe and a Bitch or by a Partridge and the Dunghilâ—rood but in process of time these diverse Parents produce a diverse issue the off-spring at length assuming like form with the Hen as forraigne Seed is at last transformed according to the Nature of the Soile where it growes for the Soile contributes matter and Body to the Seed By which words it is manifest that in the Generation between a Cock-Partridge and a Dunghil-Hen the Male is not the sole efficient but the Female is concerned too because a Common Species and form and not that of the Male onely is produced being alike both in Body and Soul as well to the Female as the Male. Now the Soul â—â— the Forme
matter out of which the males seed might form this first genital part the author of all the rest Nor yet presently upon coition while the seed as yet remaines within and is tangent doth any particle of the chicken exist but many dayes after upon Incubation And it is likewise improbable too that in fishes where the males geniture only toucheth the egge on the outside but doth not enter into it that the geniture should have any more operation and power upon it since it is meerly an external Agent then the Cocks seed hath upon the Hennes egges which are now perfectly formed Again since presently after coition there is no track of the egge extant but that it is afterwards generated by the Henne by her self and that prolifical too when now the Cocks seed is clean gone and vanished it is unlikely that the foetus should be made by that seed in that egge by one single motion or by successive motions Nor do prolifical eggs differ from improlifical and subventaneons in this that the former contain the Cocks seed as Aldrovandus would have it nor is there found any thing done or coagulated in the egge by the seed of the male or any sensible alteration made for there is no sensible difference at all between a prolifical and an addle egge and yet a prolifical which is conceived a long time after coition contains in it the power of both Sexes and the capacity of being made and of making a chicken as if it had deduced its original from the coition of both Sexes and their consent and conspiring together in one as Aristotle would have it who being pressed by that argument as we have declared before concerning the generation of the egge did constitute a soul in the egge which if it be there must without scruple be the principle and efficient of all those things which are naturally met with in the egge For it is most certaine What thing soever at last it prove which doth procreate the chicken out of the egge in whose fabrick so much skill so divine contrivance and providence is required fitting eyes for sight the bill for reception of the meat the feet for walking the wings for flight and all the other Utensils for some emploiment or other that it is either a soul or else something more worthy and excellent then a soul working by wisdom and providence And by the generation of the chicken it is also manifest that whatsoever be the principium vitae the first cause of life and vegetation was first of all in the heart Wherefore if it be the soul of the Chicken it is plain that it also was in the Punctum saliens and in the Blood because we discover motion sense there for it moves and dances like an Animal so that if the soule do exist in the Punctum saliens building nourishing and enlarging the rest of the body as we have shewed in our History Then it flowes from the Heart as from the Spring-head into the whole body Likewise if the Egge be therefore Prolifical because it hath a soul or as Aristotle would have it a part of the Vegetative soul it is plaine that the Punctum saliens and the Genital animate part doe proceed from the Soul of the egge for nothing is the Author of it self and that the soul is derived from the egge into the Punctum saliens by and by into the Heart and at length into the Chicken Adde to these if the egge have a prolifical vertue and Vegetative soul by which it erects a Pullus and do owe them as it is plain it doth and all men confess it to the seed of the Cock it is then certain that this Seed is Animate For so Aristotle Whether the seed have a soul or no there is the same reason to be given for it as for the Parts For no soul can be in any thing but in that whose soul it is nor can there be any part which is not partaker of the soul unless it be an aequivocal part as the eye of a dead man That therefore the seed hath a soul and a being in potentiâ is clear It therefore follows out of what hath been said that the Male is the Primary Efficient in which Ratio forma the Reason and Form is which Efficient begets a prolifical seed or Geniture rather and that Geniture endowed with a Vegetative soul with which also its other parts are endowed he doth transmit into the female This Geniture being transmitted it moveth the Matter in the Hen that so an Animate egge may be produced by which means the first particle of the Chicken is animated and afterwards the whole Chicken So that according to Aristotle either the same soul is conveied by a Metempsychosis from the Cock into his Geniture from his Geniture into the substance of the Hen from thence into the egge and from the egge into the Chicken or else is raised up in the subsequent by the precedent things namely by the Male in his proper seed by the seed in the egg and at last by the egge in the Chicken tanquam lumen de lumine as light derived from light The Efficient therefore which is sought for in the egge from whence the Chicken is born is a soul and the soul of the Egge for according to Aristotle the soul is onely in that thing whose soule it is But it is manifest that the Seed of the Male is not the Efficient of the Chicken neither an Instrument by whose motion the Chicken might be formed as Aristotle would have it nor as an Animate substance as if the soul were its soul For in the egge there is no seed at all either now touching it or that ever did touch it and it is impossible that that should move which doth not touch or that any thing should be affected by that which doth not move it and therefore the seeds soul ought not to be said to be in it And yet though the soul be the Efficient in the Egge yet it doth not appear to be derived rather from the Cock or his seed then from the Hen. Nor is it transferred by a Metempsychosis or certain translation of the soul from the Cock and his seed into the egge and thence into the Chicken For how can it be translated into the Egges that are yet to come and to be conceived after Coition Unless some Animate Seed do lurke in the Hen all the while or else the soul onely without seed be translated that so it may be afterwards infused into the Egge when the Egg shall be made But neither of these is true For the seed is no where found in the Hen nor is it possible that the Hen should after Coition possess two souls namely her own and the soul of the future eggs and Chickens for the soul is never said to be but in that whose soul it is much lesse can one or more souls lye lurking in the Hen
work about the Generation of other parts or else to remove some Obstructions in her proceedings which in case they continue the Generation may be retarded and others are under another capacity therefore it comes to pass that according to the disposition of the matter and other requisites the parts are diversly made some after other and some of them are in hand before but are not finished till afterwards some are begun and finished before others are begun and others are as soon begun as their fellows but finished after them And therefore in the generation of some Animals the same order is not always observed but it is much different and various and in some no order at all but all the parts are begun and finished at a heat namely by a Metamorphosis as we shewed And lastly hence it happens that the Primogenit part is such that in it is concluded both the Beginning and the End as well that for whose sake all are made namely the soul as also that which is its cause in chief and Genital part The Heart therefore or according to my perswasion the Blood is the first throne of the Soul the fountain of life the Vestal fire the Genital warmth and the very Calidum Innatum the first Efficient of all his ministring parts having atcheived the soul for his end which commands them all as her leige-people The Heart I say as Aristotle will have it is he for whose sake the whole Fabrick and Family of the parts are provided and who also is the Fountain and Father of them all Of the Order of Parts in Generation as it appears by our Observations EXER LVI THat we may at last propose our own opinion of the Order of Parts as we have collected it out of several Observations of our own we intend to distinguish the whole work of Generation in all Animals whatsoever into two Fabricks Whereof the first is that of the Egge namely of the Conception and Seed or of that whatsoever it is which in Spontaneous productions answereth in proportion to Seed whether we understand it under the notion of Calidum nativum coeleste in humido primigenio the Innate celestial substance in the Primigenial moist with Fernelius or with Aristotle of Calor Vitalis in humors comprehensus the vital heat concluded in moisture For the Conception in Viviparous Animals as we have said is answerable to the Seed and Fruit of Plants as also the Egge in Oviparous in Spontaneous productions the Worme or some Bulla teeming by the Vital heat of the conteined moisture In all which the same thing is comprehended which may truly call them Seeds namely out of which and by which as the matter and Efficient and pre-existent Organ every Animal is first made and borne The Other Fabrick is of the Foetus born out of the Seed or Conception For the Matter and the Final and Efficient causes and the Instruments necessary to the worke must first be before any part of the Production can begin The Fabrick of the Egge we have already seen but that of the Foetus so far as we could discover out of dissections is perfected especially in the more perfect race of Animals and such as have blood chiefly by four degrees or processions which according to the several times of generation we shall reduce into as many Orders demonstrating withall that the same thing which is discerned in the Egge is alike in every conception and seed The First progress is of the Primogenit and Genital part namely of the blood with its receptacles or if you will have it so of the Heart and his Veins Now this part is first begotten chiefly for two reasons both because it is the principal part which makes use of all the rest as its Instruments and for whose sake the other parts seem to be produced as also because it is the Chiefe Genital part the Fountain and Author of the rest The part in which is concluded both the Beginning and End of Generation the same being Pater Rex Parent and Sovereign In the Generation of these Parts which is determined in the Egge the Fourth day though I could not observe any Order because all its particles Blood Veins and Vesicula pulsans appear at once yet I believe as I said that the blood is in it before the Pulse and that it also in Natures Law is before it receptacles the Veins for the substance and structure of the Heart namely the one with its Ventricles and Auricles as it is generated long after with the other Intrals so ought it to be registered in their Classis which is the Third In this structure the veines are conspicuous before the Arteries at least as farre as we could observe The Second Journal which sets out after the fourth day discovers a certain Concrementum or coagulated substance which I call Vermiculum seu Galbam the litle Worm or Magot for it seems to enjoy the life and obscure motion of a Galba and this as it congeals into a gelly is divided into two parts whereof the upper and the larger is conglobated and distinguished into three Vesicles namely that of the Brain After-brain and one of the Eyes but the lesser carinam referens resembling the Keel of a Ship is superinduced upon the Vena Cava and is extended according to its length In the structure of the Head the Eyes are first discerned and anon a white spot starts up for the Bill and the filme drying about it becomes protected by a membrane At this time also the adumbration or rough draft of the rest of the Body seems to succeed where first upon the Carina the sides or plancks as it were of a Boat seem to arise being at first of a similar consistence but afterwards by most white streaks they are signified to be the lines of the Ribs After this the members of Motion namely the Wings and Legs do appear and at last the Keel and Limbs born by a kinde of Superfoetation are distinguished into Muscles Bones and Joints Those two first mishapen materials of the Head and Body do together appear and are together distinguished but afterwards when they tend towards growth and perfection the body gets the start and is much sooner grown and shaped so that the Head which did at first out-strip the whole body beside in bulk and magnitude is now very much short of it And this is likewise natural to humane productions The like Disparity is between the Body it selfe the Limbs for in an Infant from that time that the Embryo exceeds not the length of the Nail of the litle Finger till he be encreased to the stature of a Frog or a Mouse his Arms are so short that if you stretch out his fingers over his breast to their farthest extent they will not be able to touch one another and his thighs are so short that being reflected upon his Abdomen they will hardly reach to his Navel Nay in Children lately born the
nest where she hath layed her egge crieth out with a shrill voice and enticeth the cock to coition who also replying with a loud and divided tone carefully seeketh her out and having found her instantly ascendeth which surely Nature had never permitted but for procreation sake A Cock-Pheasant penned up in an aviary both with such scorching lust that unless he have sewrall hennes with him six at the lest he will â—â— extremely afflict them with repeated Coitions and rather retard their fertility then promote it â—â—â— once saw a Pheasant-henne so spent and worn oâ—â— by the cocke who was shut up with her whom she could no wayes escape neither by flight nor concealment that her back was grown bald by his frequent ascents untill at last in miserable torture â—â—e expired for grief Yet when I cut her up I sound not the lest rudinient of an egge I have observed likewise a Gander who wanting a mate sojourned with the hennes where his lust was so unbounded that for some hours together he pursued a young pullet whithersoever she fled arresting her with his bill till at length he triumphed upon her weariness and subdued her to a Rape A dunghill-cock having gotten the mastery in the duel doth sate his desires not only upon the concubines of his foe but upon the conquered himself So likewise some females are so prone to Venery that they will chastise their males with their biteings as if they meant to whisper and advise them of conjugal delights sometimes getting uppermost themselves endeavouring by these and other arts to entice them to their recreation and in this rank are pigeons and sparrows And therefore it seems not so likely that a few coitions celebrated in the beginning of the yeare should store up fecundity enough to endow all the egges for a twelve-moneth following And yet once that Fabricius may have some patronage in the Spring time attempting some discovery of the time wherein coition is most successfull and the necessity thereof I did separate two hennes from the cocke for foure dayes space which in that time laid three egges a piece which were as prolifical as the rest And I did after that immure another henne which on the tenth day of her separation laid an egge and another egge on the twentieth and both were fruitfull so that it may seem possible that one or two acts of conjunction may fructifie the whole cluster and consequently all the egges of that year I shall tell you likewise what I farther observed at that time when I restored the two hennes which I had formerly divorced to the cocke again whereof one of them was now big with egg the other had newly layed the cock ran instantly to the latter and enjoyed her greedily three or four times about the former he circuited often and by trailing his wings at her feet seemed to greet her kindely and congratulate her return yet presently retired to the other and repeated his lust again and again committing violence upon her refusal neglecting in the mean time the henn that was with egge using no solicitation nor request Truly I admired by what significations he could be inspired to know that coition could be useful to the one and unseasonable to the other It is not easie to say how males will either by the eye eare or smell distinguish even from farre which females are ripe for their turne and desirous of their company Some though they onely hear their voice or sent their urine or foot-steps only on the ground are presently heightned and pursue them to a compliance But of this elswhere in our tract oâ— the Love Lust and act of Generation of Animals wâ— shall treat at large Wee returne to our purpose Of the Belly of a Henne and other Birds EXERCIT. VII FRom the outward Orifice through the privy parts we arrive at the Uterus or matrix of the Henne wherein the egge is perfected encompassed by the white and covered with the shell but before we speak any thing of its scituation and position something must be premised concerning the peculiar anatomy of the Belly of Birds For I have observed the stomacks guts and other entrals of Feathered creatures to be otherwise seated and constituted in their lower belly then of other creatures that go upon the ground All kindes of Birds almost have a twofold stomack whereof one is the Ingluvies the other the Ventriculus properly so called in the former they treasure up their meat and prepare it in the latter they digest it and concoct it into the chyle the first we call the crop or craw the latter the Gisard Birds reserve in their craw the whole grains which they ingorge and from thence transmit them into the gisard moistened macerated and softned by the water which they imbibe that it may there be grinded and concocted And for that purpose almost all sorts of Fowle swallow down sands stones other harder bodies reserve them in their gisard with their meat when no such thing is to be seen in their craw and this gisard of theirs is compacted of two exceeding thickâ—st strong muscles which in lesser Birds are composed of flesh or ligaments that with these two as it were with two Grind-stones fastned together with two hinges they may grind and mould their food whilest the stones supply the place of teeth of which they are destitute By this means they digest and chylifie their meat and afterward by compression as we strain a juice or a pultis out of herbes or fruits bruised the softer and more liquid part lyeth uppermost and that they conveigh into the beginning of the guts which in them is just at the entrance into the gullet seated above the gisard Now that this is so appears in several sorts of Birds in whose gisard if gravel or any other harder and rugged bodies continue any time they receive so much impaire and smoothness from the continual attrition that at last they grow useless and so are ejected And for this cause Birds exercise their tongues in the choice of their pibbles and if they discover that they are noâ— rough they presently refuse them By this meanâ— I have found Iron Silver and Stones almost worn away and consumed in the gisard of an Ostrich and the Cassoware which gives occasion to the popular perswasion that they digest Iron and are nourished by it In Falcons Eagles and other Birds of Prey if you bring your ear near when their gisard is empty you shall evidently discover the noise of stones collected in it grating one against another For Hawkes doe not swallow pibbles to coole and allâ— their heat as the common sort of Falconers dream but to grinde their meat as also other Birds whose gisard is made fleshy on purpose tâ— mould their meat for the same intent do ingorâ—â— pibbles or sand or such like bodies The gisard of Birds therefore is seated within the capacity of the Abdomen beneath the Heart Lungs and Liver but the
of a certain clammy tenacious humidity which concealeth about the shell occasioned by the evaporation â—f the thin and moist parts with which humidity the whole superficies is bedewed which adhering to the tender shell is dryed and hardned the cold ambient aire â—mducing something thereunto And this saith he you may soon perceive if you keep Hennes in your yard and be dexterous and diligent to receive the eggs from them as they lay This opinion of Aristotle did for a long time prevaile with me till I discovered the contrary by infallible experience For I take it as a measured truth that the Egee-shell is most commonly hard even in the womb itself And I once saw an egge cut out of a live Henne which had no shell at all but yet was througly drenched and begin with a glewey moisture and yet the egge never hardned at all by the congelation or evaporation of the moisture about the Skin as Fabricius would have it nor was it any whit altered by the ambient cold aire but continued the tendernesse which it had in the womb I have also seen a Newlaied egge which had a compleat hard shell over which was a case made of a cuticular soft membrane which membrane did never congeal Moreover I have seen an egge exactly surrounded with a Shell save only on the very top of the acute end of the egg where remained a smal soft rising such a one as Aristotle perhaps conceived to be the Reliques of the Navel And therefore Fabricius seemeth to me to be in an errour for though I was never so good at slight of Hand to surprise an egge in the very laying and so make discovery whether it was soft or hard yet this I confidently pronounce that the Shell is compounded within the womb of a substance there at hand for the purpose and that it is framed in the same manner as the other parts of the egge are by the Plastick faculty and the rather because I have seen an exceeding small egge Fabricius calleth it Ovum Centeninum and our Women call it the Cocks egge which had Shell of its own and yet was contained within another egge greater and fairer then it which egge also had a Shell too And this Egge I shewed King Charles my most gracious Master in presence of many others And that very year cutting up a large Limon I found another small but yet a perfect Limon in it which had also a yellow rind Which thing is now frequent in Italy as I am informed It is the usual errour of the Philosophers of these times to seek the diversity of the causes of Parts out of the diversity of the matter from whence they should be framed So Physitians affirm that the different parts of the body are fashioned and nourished by the different materials of Blood or Seed namely the softer parts as the Flesh out of a thinner matter and the more earthy parts as the Bones c. out of grosse and harder But this errour now too much received we have confuted in another Place Nor are they lesse deceived who make all things out of Atomes as Democritus or out of the Elements as Empedocles As if forsooth Generation were nothing in the world but a meer Separation or Collection or Order of things I do not indeed deny but that to the Production of one thing out of another these fore-mentioned things are requisite But Generation her self is a thing quite distinct from them all I finde Aristotle in this opinion and I my self intend to clear it anon that out of the same White of the Egge which all men confess to be a similar body and without diversity of Parts all and every the parts of a Chicken whether they be Bones Clawes Feathers Flesh or what ever else are procreated and fed Besides they that argue thus assigning onely a Material cause deducing the causes of Natural things from a voluntary or casual concurrence of the Elements or from the several disposition or contriving of Atomes they doe not reach that which is chiefly concerned in the Operations of Nature and in the Generation and Nutrition of Animals namely the Divine Agent and God of Nature whose operations are guided with the highest artifice providence and wisdome and doe all tend to some certain end and are all produced for some certain Good But these men derogate from the honour of the Divine Architect who hath made the Shell of the Egge with as much skill for the egges defence as any other particle disposing the whole out of the same matter and by one and the same formative faculty Now though what I have delivered is very true namely that the egge whilest it is yet in the womb is guarded with a hard Shell yet I have still prized Aristotles judgement so highly that I never would recede from his Oracles without premeditation and therefore I do conceave which thing also my own observations do confirm that some accession to the induration of the egge-shell doth accrew from the ambient air in its very exit and that that stiff and slimy moisture wherein it is drenched at its being laied doth presently after its exclusion harden For the Shell while it is yet in the womb is much thinner more transparent and of a smoother superficies But after laying it is much thicker lesse translucid and of a rough Superficies as if it were rough cast with a white powder which had newly dried to insides And now we are upon this subject give me leave to expatiate a while In the Eastern barren Islands of Scotland there is such a mighty affluence of all-most all sorts of of Sea-fowle that if I should relate all that I have heard though from persons of great integrity I fear I should be suspected more Fabulous then those several Authors who discourse of the Scotish or Soland-Geese which they story to be born from the fruit of certain Trees falling into the Sea which fruit or Geese themselves never saw However I shall venture to relate what my owne Eyes have seen There is a little Island the Scots call it Basse by this Reader guess at the rest of them it is not far from the shore seated in the Main Sea standing upon a rugged and dangerous Clift you may call it rather one great continued Stone or Rock then an Island it is not above a mile about The superficies of this Island in the moneths of May and June is almost covered quite over with Nests Egges and Young-Ones that for their infinit abundance you can scarce set your foot in a spare place and such a mighty flock hovereth over the Island that like thick clouds they darken and obscure the day and such a cry and noise they make that you can hardly hear those that stand next you If you look down into the Sea beneath you as from a steep Tower or Precipice you shall see it all spread over with several sort of fowle swimming to and fro in pursuit
which another is made for otherwise they were both the same The Egge also seemes to be a kinde of Medium not onely as it is the Principium and the Finis but as it is the Common work or production of both Sexes and compounded of both which containing in it self the Matter and the Efficient or Operative Faculty it hath the power of both by which he produceth a Foetus like to One or the Other It is also a Medium or thing between an Animate and â—n Inanimate creature being neither absolutely impowered with life nor absolutely without it It is a Mid-way or Passage between the Parents and the Children between those that were and those that are to come and the very Hinge and Center about which the Generation of all the Race and Family of Cocks and Hennes doth move and depend It is the Terminus à quo the Point or Original from which all the Cocks and Hennes in the world do arise and spring and it is also the Terminus ad quem the Aim and End proposed by nature to which they direct themselves all their life long By which it comes to pass that all Individuals while to supply their Species they beget their Like do continue and perpetuate their duration The Egge is at were the Period of this Eternity for it is hard to say Whether the Egge be made for the Chickens sake or the Chicken for the Eggs. Now which of these two namely the Egge or the Henne have the priority in Nature or Time we shall now copiously handle when we come to discourse of the Generation of all Animals in general The Egge also which is chiefly to be noted answers in proportion to the Seeds of Plants and hath obtained the same qualifications with them so that it may justly be stiled the Sperma and Semen or Seed of the Hennes as also the Seeds of Plants may be rightly called Ova Plantarum the Plants Egges not onely ex quo out of which as out of a subject Matter but also à quo by which as by an Efficient cause the Chicken springs In which also there is no part of the Future Foetus actually 〈◊〉 it but yet all the parts of it are in it potentially Now Semen or Seed properly so called doth differ from Genitura Geniture because according to Aristotles definition That is called Genitura which proceeding from the Male-Parent is the chief and principle cause of Generation namely in fâ—ll as nature hath designed to coition but the semen is that which proceeds from both Parents in the act of coition the Seed of all Plants is like to this and so is the Seed of some Animals which have no distinction of Sex at all being as it were at the first a kind of mixture of both Sexes or promiscuous conception or Animal for these kind of creatures have in their single selves as much as is required of both Sexes An Egge therefore is a Natural Body endowed with an Animal power namely with a Principle of Motion Transmutation Rest and Conservation And lastly it is such a thing as all impediments being removed it will passe into an Animal not do heavy bodies when all obstacles are out of their way tend downward more naturally then Seed and the egge do by an inbred Natural Propensity incline to become a Plant or an Animal And the Seed also and the Egge are the Frâ—â— and End of that very thing whose Beginning and Efficient they are Of One Chicken there is but One Egge So Aristotle Of One Seed is begotten One Body as for example of One Graine of Wheat One Eare of One Egge one Animal for a Twinne-egge is Two Eggs. And so Fabricius saith Truly An egge is not onely an exposed Uterus and place of Generation but the very thing also on which the entire Generation of the Chicken depends which the egge accomplisheth both as Agent as Matter as the Place as the Instrument and all other things whatsoever are necessary requisites to Generation He proves it to be in Organum or Instrument because it consists of several parts and that according to Galen who requires this to the very being of an Instrument that it be composed of divers particles which conspire all to one 〈◊〉 but under several capacities and for several uses for some of these parts are the chiefe Agent in the Action some are necessary Assistants without which the Action could not be performed at all others conduce to the more convenient better performance and lastly some againe to the welfare and preservation of all the rest And he also proves it to be an Agent where he propounds out of Aristotle and Galen the two actions of the Egge namely the Generation and Augmentation and Nutrition of the Chicken And lastly he saith exceeding well when he affirms that in the Operations of Nature the Artificer or Agent the Instrument and the Matter are one and the same thing So the Liver is both the Efficient and the Instrument of sanguification and so the other parts of the body wherefore Aristotle was in the right saying It is hard to distinguish the Agents from the Instruments In artificial Operations indeed the Agent and the Instrument are divided as the Smith and his Hammer the Painter and his Pâ—â—cil And the reason is rendered by Galen becauâ—â— in artificial Operations the Artificer is without Work but in Natural the Efficient cause is include in the Instruments and received with intimacy in the very substance of the Organ To which I adâ— those Perspicuous passages of Aristotle Of thing that are some are caused by nature and some by other causes by Nature do Animals and their Parts also Plants and simple bodies as the Earth Fire 〈◊〉 and Water consist For these and the like we sâ—â— are made by Nature Now all these forenamed creatures seem to be differenced from those which are not made by Nature For all those things that 〈◊〉 made by Nature seem to have in themselves a Principle of Motion and Rest some in relation to place some in relation to increase and diminution and sâ—â— in relation to alteration Now a Horse-Litter and Garment and all such kinde of things according to their several notions as farre forth as they are the products of Art they have no inbred principle of Mutation but so far as it chances that they are framed of Stone or Earth or bodies composed of these so far they have one As if Nature were a certain principle and cause why that thing doth move and rest in which it first is of it self and not by Accident Now I say not by Accident because it may come to passe that a man may be the cause of his own health in case he be a Physitian Yet he is not in health under the same Respect as he is a Physitian but it is a men Accident that the same Man should be in Health and a Physitian too And
both But how can there be a commixture of souls if according to Aristotle the soul as being the form be an Act and a Substance For no man can deny but that that thing whatsoever it be which is the Principle and Cause of those Effects which we see produced in a Fertile Egge is a substance susceptible of divers powers forces and faculties as also of several conditions vertues vices health and sicknesse For some Egges are longer lived then others and some do procreate Chickens endowed with the vertues and soundnesse of constitution of the parents and others produce them inclinable to distempers Nor can we for this inconvenience accuse the Matter out of which they are generated since the diseases of the Male are sometimes transferred to the Chickens who is not concerned any thing at all in the Matter of the egge For from the Male the Plastical and Generative faculty onely doth proceed which renders the egge fertile but doth constitute no part of it For the Geniture which is emitted from the Male in Coition doth not enter into the Matrix where the Egge is formed Nor as we have said before and Fabricius also joynes in the Suffrage can it any way penetrate those recesses and much lesse the Ovary which is seated neer the Precincture or Midriffe of the body that so it might communicate any portion of the Matter or any thing at all besides its single Vertue For constant experience testifies that one and the same act of Coition doth fructifie many egges together and not onely those that are existent in the Uterus and the Ovary but those also that are not yet begun as we shall declare hereafter and have already proved in our History If therefore the Egge be rendered Fertile from its own proper soul or be endowed with an innate fructifying principle of its own by which either a dunghil Chicken or a mongrel-issue between the dunghil-Henne and the Cock-Pheasant doth arise and that either Male or Female like the Male or Female-Parent sound or sickly we must then conclude that the Egge even while it is contained in the Ovary doth not live by the Soul of the â—â—â—ne but is a freeborn Independant Issue from 〈◊〉 very first original As the Acorne taken off from the Tree and the Seed from the Plant are no longer to be counted parts of them but creatures as it were at their own dispose living and subsisting by an inbred vegetative faculty peculiarly their own Now if we affirm that a Fertile Egge hath a soul a question will arise whether that self-same soul be now at present in the Egge and how after in the Chicken or whether their souls be distinct For we must of necessity acknowledge that some Principle there is which doth constitute and nourish the egge and also that there is a Principle which produceth and sustaineth the Chicken The question therefore is whether the Principle or soul of the Egge and Chicken be one and the same or more then one and diverse For if there be more then one soul namely one which belongs to the Egge and another to the Chicken it will be farther enquired whence and at what time the Chickens soul arrives to it And what that is in the Egge which dilates the Cicatricula raises the Yolk to the top and produces that Eye which we call the Colliquamentum alters the Constitution of the liquors and doth predispose all things for the fabrick and structure of the Chicken when as yet there is nothing at all of the chicken existent Whence also can we pretend that proper and convenient Aliment is derived to â—â—â— Chicken to sustain and augment it when there iâ— yet no Chicken at all For these operations sâ—â— to belong to the Vegetative soul of the Chicken â—â— cause they relate to the Chickens use namely â—â— nutrition and Augmentaetion But now when the fabrick of the Chicken is in hand and half-perfected what is it that makes the Foetus One â—â— the same thing with the Liquors conjoining the together by continuity and concrescence What is it that feeds and enlarges the Pullus that doth vindicate those juices which are advantageous to its nourishment from Putrefaction preparing melting down and concocting them Since the soul is the Act of an Organical Body which hath life in Potentiâ it is an incredible thing that that soul should be in the Chicken before its body have received any Organization Nor yet can we believe that the soul of the egge the chicken is one and the same for the soul is the Preserver of that thing only whose soul it is but the Puttus and the Egge are two distinct things and do exercise not only distinct vital operations but Contrary in so much that one of them seems to result from the Corruption of the other May we then say that the Cause and Principle of life to them both is one and the same namely to the Chicken which is yet but an Embryo and to the rest of the Egge as if it were the simple and single act of one and the some body or as if out of the parts constituting â—â—â— natural body one soul did spring which were all in the whole as they say and all in every part As we finde in the Trunk Leaves and Fruits â—â—â— Tree in which wheresoever we make a separation or division be it in what part it will wee say that the first Cause and Principle of that part â—â— the same with that of the Whole as being the Form and End of the One but the Principle only of the Other For so in a Line in what point soever a division be made it will be the End of the â—ore-going part but the Beginning of the subsequent And the same thing may seem to befall in â—â—lity and Motion namely in every Transmutation and Generation And so much at present concerning these matters which we shall more exactly and more copiously handle when we treat in General of the Nature of the Soul of the Foetus of any Animal whatsoever as also what it is From whence and when it comes What part it takes first possession of and how it is all in the Whole and all in every part And also how it is the same and yet diverse All which we shall determine and resolve out of multiplied experiments That the Egge is not the Production of the Womb but of the Soul EXER XXVII AS we conclude saith Fabricius the Action of the Stomack to be Chylification and the action of the Testicles to be the Generation of Seed because the Chyle is found in the Stomack and Seed in the Testicles So we positively resolve that the Generation of Egges is the action of the Uterus of the Fowle because the egge is found resident there So then we evidently know and understand which is the Instrument and Place of the Generation of Egges But 〈◊〉 againe since there are two Wombs in a Fowle thâ— Superior and Inferior and
and Species of an Animal And againe the Female may seem to have most â—ight to the title of Efficient for he saith in Proâ—â—sse of time these diverse Parents produce a diverse 〈◊〉 the off-spring at length assuming like form with the Hen. As if the Seed of the Male were lesse powerful and did in time lose the Species which it imprints as being razed out and expunged by 〈◊〉 more potent Efficient And this that instance concerning the soil doth more strengthen For â—â—reign Seed is at last transformed according to the â—â—ture of the soile where it growes By all which it 〈◊〉 probable that the Female is a stronger 〈◊〉 in Generation then the Male For in the Universe likewise the Earth is held to be as it were the Female and the Mother But the Heavens and the Sun and the other Bodies of that kind Philosopherâ— call by the name of Father and Genitor Now the Earth also produceth many things of its own accord without any Seed And amongst Animals some Females do procreate of themselves without a Male thus the Henne generates a Subventaneous Egge but the Male never begetteth any thing without a Female Nay by those very Arguments which contend to prove the Male to be the Principle of Generation and the primary Efficient the energy or efficiency of the Female seems to be confirmed and ratified For that is to be counted the Primary Efficient in which the reason of the foetus and form of the Production is most eminent and whose apparent similitude is discovered in the foetus and also which hath an existence it self before and then generates Since therefore the Form Reason and Similitude of thè foetus is no lesse not more in the Female then in the Male and she also is in being before as a Primary Mover We may well conclude that the Female is as eminent an Efficient of Generation as the Male. And though Aristotle truly say that the Conception or egge assumes no part of its body from the Male but onely its form species and soul and that the Female contributes onely the body and quantity Yet it doth no way appear to the contrary 〈◊〉 that the Female doth contribute in some sâ—â— both Form Species and Soul and not the Maâ—â— singly As is evident in the Hen which produâ—â— Egges without a Male as the Trees beare the Fruits Herbs and Seed without any distinction of Sexes at all And Aristotle himself confessâ— that even a Subventaneous Egge hath a Soul The Female therefore must be the Efficient Cause of the Egge And yet though there be a Soul in the Subventaneous Egge yet that Soul is not Prolifical and therefore we must acknowledge that the Henne is not properly the Efficient of a Perfect Egge but that she is so made by Authority and Commission procured from the Cock For an Egge except it be Prolifical cannot justly be said to be Perfect Now such an Egge is produced onely by the Male or rather by the Henne having received such instructions from the Cock as if from his Coition the Female did receive the Art Reason Forme lawes Rule and Model of the future Foetus Thus the Female like a fruitful Tree being made fertile by Coition is made Oviparous bearing perfect and Prolifical Egges For though the Henne have at present no rudiment of Egges at all ready in the Ovary yet being fructified upon Coition â—he suddainly after both hath and layes Egges and those also Prolifical ones And here the experiment of poor Women is of use Which having a Hen at home but never a Cock they commit her for a day or two to a neighbours Cock and from that small communication all her egges succeed fruitful for all that seson That is not onely those Egges which now are Yolks and onely want a White or else have some Rudiment of their future growth though never so litle but even those Egges also which are not yet begun at all and are to be conceived a great while hence are all rendered fruitfull by the same vertue The Benefit of this Disquisition con cerning Fecundity EXERCIT. XXX THe Disquisition wherein we examine What it is in the Egge that renders it fruitful is very subtle and difficult and of exceeding great use As also what is in the Conception what in the Seed and what in the Hen that confers Fecundity upon them Likewise what in the Cock distinguisheth him from a barren cock Is it the same cause which we call the Soule in the Foetus or some part of the Vegetative Soul For the knowledge of the First Cause conduceth much to the compleat science of Generation For Science springs from Known Causes especially those that are the first Causes Nor is this indagation lesse useful to the knowledge of the Nature of the Soul But when once the verity of this is throughly discovered not onely Aristotles opinion concerning the Causes of Generation is refuted and chastised but even those things also which Physitians have written against him are easily disproved Our Quere therefore is whether that which affords the Fertility to the Egge Yolk Papula or Whelke Cock Hen and to its Womb be one and the same thing or diverse Likewise whether it be a Substance from whence this vertue flowes For it seems to be susceptible of Powers Faculties and Accidents Or whether it be also a Corporeal thing For that seems to be mixt it self which generates a mixt thing namely a similitude common to both Cock and Hen such as is that ambiguous Species produced by a Cock-Phesant and a Dung bil Hen. It seems also to be a Corporeal thing which suffers from without in so much that it doth not onely produce feeble issues but deformed also and sickly ones and such as are obnoxious to and do inherit the Virtues and Vices of their Parents We may also make a question concerning each particular whether that which confers the Fertility be ingenerated or comes from without Namely whether it be transferred from the Egge to the Chicken from the Hen to the Egge and from the Cock to the Hen. For it seemes to be a thing ex Traduce namely which is transferred from the Cock to the Hen and from Her to the Egge the Womb and the Ovary From the Seed to the Plant and back again from the Plant to the Seed For this is common to all things that are perpetuated by Generation namely that their first rise should result from Seed Now the Seed the Conception and the Egge are all of one and the same kinde and that which renders these Fruitful is in all of them the same thing or something of a like nature and that is some divine thing and hath an analogy to the Heavens to Art Intellect and Providence As is plain by the wonderful operations artifice and counsel of those creatures in whom nothing is constituted in vain rashly or by chance but all for some Good and to some End We shall hereafter be
the egge one that no man hath hither to fondly pronounced that the one was the Cock and the other the Hens Seed But this popular error is soon blown over for the Chalazae are a like manner found both in the Subventaneous and Fertile egge That both the Male and Female are the Efficients of Generation EXERCIT. XXXIII THe Physitians do rightly maintain against the Aristotelians that both Sexes participate â—â— the Efficient power because that which is generated is a thing compounded of them both for it is mixt of them both in the figure and similitude of the Body and in the Species too as suppose it a thing mixt between a Partridge-Cock and a Dunghil-Hen And it is very consonant to reason for a man to conceive that those are the Efficient causes of a Conception whose com-mâ—â—ture that which is produced doth represent and express And this is Aristotles opinion In some creatures saith he it is apparent that that which generates is such like as that which is generated and yet not the â—ame not that very numerical thing but of the same Species as in natural productions For a Man begets â— man unless something befal praeturnatural as when â—â— Horse begets a Mule and the like For that which is common to a Horse and an Ass is not called Propinquissimum genus the Next Kind and yet they two may be commixed in one for such is a Mule And in the same place he saith The Generant is sufficient to generate and be the cause of the existence of the Species in the matter but such a Species being now in such particular flesh and Bones is now several persons is Callias and Socrates are Wherefore since such an entire forme as namely of a Mule is mixt of both namely Horse and Asse the Horse alone is not sufficient to produce this form of a Mule in the Matter but as the whole entire form is mixt so another efficient cause must be conferred and joyned to it from the Asse That therefore that doth produce a Mule mixed of both must be it self adequate and mixed too if it be Univocal As for example This Man and that Woman do beget this Socrates not under the capacity of being both of them Homines Men and so are of one and the same species but by reason that this particular Man and that particular Woman are of humane kind composed of this and that particular flesh and bones of both which since socrates is a kind of Mixture and is mingled of them both that of which Socrates is made must needs be as it were a compounded Univocal mixt â—â—ing that is to say the mixt Efficient of a mixt Effect And therefore the Male and Female are not generative apart but as they are united in Coition and made as it were one entire Animals and thence from them both as from one the true efficient immediate cause of the Conception doth result and is deduced The Physitians also while they minding onely what befalls humane kind give resolutions at large concerning Generation in general and it seeming probable to them that the Geniture flowing in Coition from both Parents is the true Sperme or Seed proportionable to the Seed of Plants doe not without reason constitute that mixture which is the next efficient cause of the future Foetus out of the mixture of the Seed of both Parents and therefore affirme that such a mixt body is conteined in the Womb presently upon Coition and is the first Conception But our precedent History makes it appear that the thing is clean otherwise in an Egge which is a true Conception Concerning the Matter of the Egge contrary to Physitians and Aristotelians EXERCIT. XXXIV THat which Physitians deny in opposition to the Aristotelians namely that the Blood is the First Matter of the Conception doth evidently appear out of the Generation of the Egge For there is no Blood at all conteined in the Womb of the Hen either in Coition or before or after it Nor are the Rudiments of the Egge sanguine but white And many living Creatures conceive in whose Genitals if you open them nimbly not one drop of Blood is to be seen But while they contend that the Mothers Blood is the Nutriment of the Foetus in the Womb especially of the Partes Sanguineae the bloody parts as they call them and that the Foetus at first as if it were a part of the Mother is sustained by her blood and quickened by her spirits in so much that the Heart beats not and the Liver sanguifies not nor any part of the foetus doth execute any publick function but all of them make Holy-day and lie idle in this Experience it selfe confutes them For the Chicken in the egge enjoyes his own Blood which is bred of the liquors contained within the egge and his Heart hath its motion from the very beginning and he borrowth nothing either blood or spirits from the Hen towards the Constitution either of the Sanguineous parts or Plumes as those that strictly observe it may plainly perceive And I make no question fully to demonstrate in my succeeding Observations that the foetus of Viviparous creatures while they are yet imprisoned in the Womb are no way sustained by the Mothers blood nor vegetated by her spirits but do rejoice in their own Soules and indowments as the Chicken uses to do in the egg and sate themselves from their owne stocke of Blood But as for that which concerns the Matter of the foetus arising from Male and Female and that so magnified manner of Generation so much countenanced by the confident Schools namely that the Conception is rendered prolifical from the comâ—â—sture of the Genitures and their mutual Action and Passion as also those other Heresies of their concerning the Seed of Females and concerning the division of Parts into Spermatical and Sanguineous many and those very remarkable and excellent observations which shall be treated â—â— hereafter have compelled me to dissent from them I shall at present say onely this that I extreamly wonder how Physitians especially such as are skilfull Anatomists should prop up their opinion upon two arguments as most invincible â— when those very arguments if rightly understood â— do make against them rather As for Instance From that Concussion Solution and Profusion of Humour which befalls Women many times with delight in Coition they concludeâ— that all Women do emit a Semen in Coition and that that Semen is necessary to Generation Whereas to passe by this reply namely that the Female of all Animals nay all Women have not such a Profusion and that it is no way necessary that thâ—â— Conception must be frustrate without it for â— know many Women that are Mothers without it and some also which upon having it were indeed much affected with enjoyment but came much short of their former fruitfulnesse Besides infinite and innumerable examples of Women whâ—â— though they receive much satisfaction by their Husbands do yet emit
nothing but do conceive how ever But I most admire that those who comâ— this Emission necessary to Propágation did not mind how that humour is ejected clean out and lost for the most part neer the Clitoris and outâ—â—â— of the Secrets but is seldom admitted into them and never into the Uterus that so it may be come mixt with the Sperma of the Male and that it also of an Ichorous and Serous consistence 〈◊〉 is and not so Compact and Unctuous as â—â— Geniture which the very touch denoteth Now wherefore should that be excluded out of 〈◊〉 which is of so great consequence within 〈◊〉 that humour under pretence of departure thrown out to the utmost approaches of the Uâ—â— that so it may be recalled again with the â—â—ter bounty and favour Another Argument they erect upon the Spermatical Organs of Women namely the Testiculi and â—â— Spermatical preparing and leading Vessels which 〈◊〉 supposed to conduce to the Generation of the 〈◊〉 But for my part I wonder much how they fanâ—â— that so elaborate concocted and quickening â—â—men can arise from so imperfect and obscure 〈◊〉 so that that of theirs when the controversie concerning the preeminence and overruling â—â—wer is in debate namely whether the Males or â—eirs commands in chief and which of the two â—â— to be reputed the Efficient or Agent or the Matâ—â— or Patient should exceed the Males in power 〈◊〉 and generative ability and should subject the Males seed under it inforcing it to submit it self to supply the place of the Material Cause notwithstanding it is digested by so quick active â—heat refined in such variety of Vessels and daring it self with so much activity But of these more hereafter In the mean time it is most certain that the hen-egge is generated by no such conjugal Profuâ—â—â— though the Mother after recreation as one â—ished with delight shakes her feathers for Ioy â—nd as if she grew proud from the Boone she received composeth and rectifieth all her extravagant 〈◊〉 like one that adored the deity for the grand benediction of multiplying issues Thaâ— Pigeon especially that kind of Pigeon which 〈◊〉 transported hither out of Africa expresseth wonderful content from the enioyment of her Male leaping and spreading her taile and sweeping the low earth with the bristles of it and them combing and rectifying her Plumes with her Bill as though she deemed nothing comparable to the blessing of fertility We have said before that the first matter of the Egge is not formed of Blood as Aristotle thought nor yet as the Physitians conjecture out of the commixture of the Males and Females Geniture But from whence we do derive it is partly already shewen in our History and shall be more largely explained hereafter when we treat in generall of the matter which doth constitute every foetus How far the Henne is an Efficient Cause in the Generation of the Egge according to Aristotle and why the assistance of the Male is required EXER XXXV WE have already proved the Cock and Henne to be the two Principles of Generation in regard of the Egge though we are otherwise pâ—â—â— swaded of the manner how it comes to passe 〈◊〉 Aristotle and Physitians are For we have made it manifest out of the generation of the Egge that the Hen as well as the Cock is an efficient cause and hath in her a principle from whence the mutation suceeds and also a constituting faculty though â— Coition neither the Cock doth confer matter to â—â—e Egge nor doth any profusion of seed result â—â—om the Hen by which the Egg should arise It â—â— therefore evident that nature amongst some Animals at least did not therefore institute a distinction of Sexes that the one as an Agent should contribute the form and the other as the Patient the matter as Aristotle did conceive nor that a semen should result from both in coition that about of the mixture of them a Conception or Egg should be framed as Physitians imagine Now since these two opinions doe comprehend the whole Legend of Antiquity concerning the causes and principles of Generation it appears that all men were hitherto ignorant of the reason doth why the female doth not generate alone by her selfe as Plants doe but requires the assocition of the male and also how the conception or â—gge is procreated both by male and female thus enjoyned and likewise in what either of them enduce to the work and to what end and purpose coition was instituted Aristotle contrary to his own universal Hypostasis namely That the male is the Agent and the female only for the matters sake perceiving the egg â—â— proceed from the Hen without any help of the â—ack at all was inforced to subscribe that the female also is an efficient cause and that the Egge â—hen it is excluded doth conserve nourish and â—â—ment it selfe and produce a foetus out of it 〈◊〉 as the egges or spawn of fishes doe and therefore he concludes that there is also a soule even in a subventaneous barren egg And how far forth the Female is an Efficient and also a subventaneous egge informed by a soule he attempts to explain where he saith Subventaneous eggs admit Generation as far as they may but that they should be compleated to the very fecundity of an Animal is quite impossible for to that a sensitive soule is required But even females and all things that live at all do obtain the vegetative faculty of the soul as hath bin often repeated And therefore this barren egg considered as the conception of a Plant is compleat but considered as an Animals it is incompleat By which words he seems to consent that the Vegetative soule is also in the very subventaneous egge because that soule is in all living things now an egge doth live He also allowes the Hen a creating Prerogative and a power of inducing a Vegetative soule because all females have that priviledge and therefore a subventaneous egge considered under the capacity of a Plant and living as that doth is stiled a perfect conception but under the rank of Animals an imperfect one Aâ— if the male were no whit requisite to the being of the perfect conception or egge but onely that out of that egg an Animal might proceed Not to the complement of the egge in order to any perquisite relating to its own perfection for the conceptions of plants themselves are in this sense compleat but that it may be endowed with aâ— Animal principle So then the Egg is made by the Hen but is made prolifical by the Cock Aristatle in the same place goes on In all the Genealogy â—â— Birds there is a male and a female so that a Hen may make her conception perfect as a Plant though is be unalterod by coition but as an Animal she cannot perfect it nor can she impower it to produce any other thing out of it Nor is it rendred as the fruit of a Plant simply nor as of an Animal
as ever he sees his own spouse whom he hath missed never so litle a while or any other stranger-Henn being presently arrested at Cupids suite he mounts her And likewise when he is Victor in fight though he return wounded and wearied from the battel yet he still delights to ravish his captives wives And that he may kindle this declining spark of lust which now lyes expiring in his breast into a vigorous flame with several gesticulations incitements and Love-scenes while he often crows assembles his Henns and now approaching circuits about them and trailes his stiffe wings at their feet he enticeth his Females as by a spell or enchantment to sport with him Now these are the Cocks projects and arts but sometimes the coyness and morosity of the Hen doth not a litle conduce to rouse and heighten the males sleepy heat and languishing appetite to quicken and encourage his performance But of these provocations and allurements so farre as they serve to promote conception we shall speak more anon For if you carefully ponder Natures works you shall finde none of them made in vain but all directed to some end and for some good Almost all females are pleased delighted with the act of coition and rejoyce at their great bellies but many groan at their delivery But the thing is quite contrary in Hens which in coition complain and hang back but in laying though the Egge be very great in comparison of their own bulk and the streights of the Uterine Orifice and the Egge brings no furtherance at all to his own release as the Issues of Viviparous animals do yet she brings forth without any pain and still rejoices as soon as she hath layd and raising a loud laughter invites in the Cock to share in her triumphs But though there are many rudiments of eggs of different magnitude and degree in the Hens Ovary insomuch that some are augmented and come to maturity before others yet they all seem to be fructified alike and receive the prolifical stamp together by the Cocks coition And though a good space of time pass away namely thirty dayes or more before the Common hen or Partridge-hen disburden all the Egges in their Ovary yet when ever the Hen sits upon them they bring forth all their chickens almost together at the set time namely in the compass of twenty or two and twenty daies and they are all likewise no less complete then if they had all taken the same rise and original at the same instant of coition as the Bitches whelps do And being upon this contemplation while I consider how small the prolifical ground-works of Eggs are namely litle whelks and exudations less then the seeds of Millet and meditating the stature magnanimity and furniture of the Cock who is born from thence I cannot but admire that Nature should intrust such great abilities to so slender beginnings and observe how the Omnipotent Creator is pleased to manifest his greatness most in the smallest originals For the Hen and the Cock that haughty and magnificent Animal springs from a small and almost invisible whelk A vast Tree rises from a litle Acron Nay from the smallest bud and point of an Acorn how doth the Aged Oak display her spreading armes how lofty a crest doth she exalt to heaven and how deep a root doth she send down to fathom the earth It is indeed saith Pliny an incomprehensible miracle that a substance which defies the axe that presses undaunted at the hugest weights that masts patient of the largest sails and ramms unbattered by the shock of Towers and Bullwarks should proceed from so mean principles But this is Natures power this her ability Now there is such a litle sprout in the seeds of all Plants whose bare top of all no bigger then a point if it be once pared away all hope of generation presently dies as if the entire plastical virtue that is to fashion and compose the whole Tree did take up its abode in so small a point And therefore the provident Ant eating of this small particle before hand doth safely treasure up the grains and seeds of corn in her barns that lye under ground cunningly providing by this meanes against the inconvenience which she might suffer in their growing afresh The Cypress-Tree saith the same Pliny beareth a seed exceedingly affected by the Ant and this enlarges the miracle that so inconsiderable an Animal should devoure and destroy so vast a Tree in its craâ—le But of these also in general we shall speak more when we shall shew that many Animals themselves especially Insects do germinate and spring from seeds and principles not to be discerned even by the eye by reason of their contract invisible dimensions like those atomes that fly in the aire which are scattered and dispersed up and down by the winds all which are esteemed to be Spontaneous issues or born of Putrefaction because their seed is not any where seen And this speculation is useful to that Philosophy which teacheth that all things are made out of nothing for between the Original and the Complement of any Living creature there is almost no commensurable proportion Nor are we so much to admire what it is in a Cock that doth conserve and govern so perfect and noble a creature and is the first cause of his existence which we say is his soul but farre more what it is in the egge nay in the very whelk which hath so grand an authority to produce so gallant an animal and advance its own renown to so high a stretch of glory Nor are we only to admire how great the Artist is that doth assist and cooperate in so great a work but rather the manner of conveighance it being by the contagion of onely a momentany coition namely what the thing is that passeth from the Male to the Female from the Female to the Egge and from the Egge to the Foetus What it is that is hoc Traducis this Derived essence which cannot be perceived to be either remaining or touching nor any sensible contained thing and yet doth operate with a vast discretion and providence beyond all the bounds of Art which doth render the Egg prolifical even when it selfe is fled and vanished not because it now doth or hath touched before not fructifying only the perfect and absolved eggs but even the imperfect and intended only when they are yet but whelks and pushes nay the Henne her self before she have yet produced any whelks at all and that so nimbly as if the Almighty himself should say Let there be a production and strait there is one Let Physitians therefore cease to wonder at what they do not finde but with astonishment namely at Contagious Epidemical and Pestilential Diseases how they do foment and disperse their infection through the air and propagate distempers like to themselves in other bodies and by a secret course as it were by a solemne generation tacitly multiply and grow sometimes
one and the same thing with Alibile and Augmentativum a creature fedde and augmented in potentiâ as we shall shew hereafter and do differ onely ipso esse formally as Aristotle saith but otherwise are the very same For for as much as this particular thing is and is convertible into substance Nutritivum est it is Nutritive and for as much as it is quantum indued with quantity it is Augmentativum Augmentative for as much as it is substituted in the room of a substance that is lost Nutrimentum appellatur it is called Nutriment for as much as it is added to a substance already in being Incrementum dicitur it is called Growth And the same thing is Materia the Matter in the Generation Alimentum the Sustenance in the Nutrition and Incrementum the Increase in the Augmentation of the Chicken But that is formally and simply said to be generated whereof no part was existent before but that to be nourished and grow which was and had an existence or being before That part of the Foetus which is first made is said to be begotten or born that which is substituted or superadded to it is said to be annate aggenerate or born to it There is in al things the same generation and transmutation from the same into the same which is performed in respect of a part by Nutrition and Augmentation but in respect of the Whole by Generation else it is the very same in both For from whence the first existent matter proceeds from thence also doth Nutriment and Growth accrew unto it And it shall also appear by that which shall be delivered hereafter that all Parts of Bodies are nourished by the same Nutritive substance diversly transformed or altered For as all Plants do indifferently spring grow and are susteined from the same Common Nutriment diversly varied and digested whether it be Dew or the juice and moisture of the ground so likewise out of the same Liquors of the Egge namely the White and Yolk the whole Chicken and all its parts are procreated and encreased We will then also explaine what Animals are begotten by a Metamorphosis and what kind of pre-existent matter that of the Insects is which spring from a Worme out of which all the parts are together constituted and concorporated and at last a perfect Animal born by Transmutation onely as also what Animals have any order and degrees in their production and have their Parts produced successively and what kind of creatures they are which are first borne imperfect but afterwards shoot up and attain to perfection as all those that are produced out of an Egge These as they are together made and augmented growing and transformed and are by a proposed method and order distinguished into parts so have they no immediate pre-existent Matter such as is usually designed them namely the commixture of the feminine and masculine seed or the Menstruous Blood or some litle portion of the egge out of which the foetus should assume his body but so soon as ever the Matter is made and provided it grows also and takes some shape so soon as there is a Nutriment there is a creature to be nourished by it And this Generation is rather by Epigenesis as a Man is out of a Boy that is the fabrick and structure of the body is out of the Punctum saliens as out of its foundation as out of the Keel the Ship is built and rather as the Potter forms an Image without any pre-existent Matter then out of any subject matter as the Carpenter forms a Bench out of Boards and the Statuary a Statue of Marble For out of the same matter whence the first particle of the Chicken or its least atome arises thence also doth the whole Chicken proceed whence the first small drop of Blood thence also is the whole stream or current of it generated in the egg whatsoever gives a consistence or being to the members or organical parts of the body doth also afford the same to all the similar parts likewise as to the Skin the Flesh Veins Membranes Nerves Cartilages and Bones For that very part which was soft and fleshy at first is afterward upon its increase made a Nerve Ligament Tendon by the same Aliment that which was onely a Membrane becomes a Coat and that which was a Gristle is afterwards advanced into a Skin or Bone and this by the same similar matter variously altered For a similar mixt body which is commonly conceived to be framed out of the Elements is not made of the Elements first subsisting apart by themselves and then afterwards compounded united and altered but out of this particular mixt body being altered another mixt body is born and produced that is Of the Colliquamentum is the blood made of the blood the bulk of the body which bulk at first doth appear similar and like the Spermatical Gluten or clammy substance but from it the parts are delineated by an obscure indiscernable division at first but afterwards become organical and distinct Those similar parts I say do not arise from the dissimilar and heterogeneous Elements united together but are framed and discriminated by Generations out of a similar substance and so become dissimilar As if by the Omnipotents command or fiat the whole Chicken were created As thus let there be a similar White lump and let that lump or mass be divided into parts and increased and while it is increased let there be a secretion and delineation of the parts and let this part be harder thicker and whiter and that softer and well coloured And it was so For thus doth the structure of the Chicken in the Egge proceed daily out of one and the same matter are all its limbs and utensils made nourished and augmented From the Spine first do the Ribs grow out and the Bones are distinguished from the Flesh by their most white slender Lines three Bullae are discernable in the Head which are all fraught with a Crystalline Water being the Rudiments of the braine After-braine and as by a sprinckled black streak is implyed of one of the Eyes The substance which at first resembleth coagulated milk becomes at last gristly spinous and bony and that which at first was white and gelly-ish passeth at length into a blushing flesh and Parenchyma That which was formerly most transparent and pure Water is transformed anon into the braine After-braine and eyes For there is a far greater and diviner mystery in Generation then a bare assembling altering and compounding of Parts for the Whole is made and discovered before its parts the Mixt body before the Elements But of this more hereafter when also its Causes and Principles come to be assigned Of the Efficient Cause of the Generation of the Chicken and Foetus EXER XLVI THus far of the Matter out of which the Chicken springs in the Egge it remaines now that we enquire a little with Fabricius concerning the Efficient cause of the Chicken But because
the Winds the Sun the Heavens Jupiter the Soul and in general Nature which is the Principle of Motion and Rest And so by the same rule Any of the Stoicks who thought the Soul to be fire may decree fire the efficient cause of Animals because fire doth nourish and augment it self and seems in some sort to live at its own dispose and liberty though not our destructive culinary fire but the Natural Celestial Vegetative Generating and Healthy fire which the Heathen worshipped by the name of Jupiter whom they called the Father of Men and Things not his lame Brother Vulcan whose ayd and benefit we notwithstanding daily use in several employments to our great advantage but the divine Animal Spirit the Author of Living creatures And therefore Aristotle saith That this question concerning the Efficient is very dubious namely Whether it be an extrinsecal thing or something inserted in the Geniture or Seed and Whether it be a part of the soul or the soul or something which hath a soul Wherefore that we may deliver and rid our selves of the maze and labyrinth of the manifold Efficient causes in this disquisition of the Efficient of the Chicken we have need of Ariadnes Clew woven and cunningly wrought of the Observations of almost all Creatures living And therefore it is to be deferred to a more general Inquest In the mean time we shall recount those things which relating to the particular generation of the Chicken out of the egge do manifestly appear or are strangers to the common perswasion or else do require any further search How the Efficient cause of the Chicken doth operate according to Aristotle EXERCIT. XLVII ALl men generally confess the Male to be the primary efficient cause in Generation as in whom the Species or Form resides And they farther affirm that his Geniture being emitted in coition doth cause both the being and fertility of the Egge But how the seed of the Cock doth produce the chicken out of the Egge neither the Antient nor Modern Philosophers and Physitians have sufficiently explained nor yet solved the question proposed by Aristotle Nay Aristotle himself hath not done it He saith The Male doth not conduce to the Quantity but the Quality and is Principium Motûs the Principle of Mutation but the Female contributes the matter And a while after Every Male doth not emit seed nor is it any part of the Foetus in those that do emit it As nothing which passeth from the Carpenter contributes to the matter of the Wood nor is there any part of the Carpenters art in that which is made but the form and species doth exist in the matter per motum ab illo by the motion or mutation which proceeds from him Now the soule in which the form and knowledge is moves the hands or other members by the motion of a certain quality which motion is either diverse in such as make a diverse thing or the same in such as make the same But the hands and instruments move the matter So the Nature of the Male which emitteth seed imployes that seed as an Instrument and having motion actually in it as in the productions of Art the Instruments are moved for in them in some sort the motion of Art is implanted By which words he seems to imply that Generation is made by the motion of a certain Quality As in Art though the first cause namely ratio operis the reason or ground of the work be in the soul of the Artist yet afterward the work is effected by the motion of the hands or other Instruments and though the first cause be removed as in automatis things that seem to move of themselves yet is it in some sort said to move that which at present it doth not touch but hath touched formerly so long as the motion goes on in the Instruments And in the following Book he hath these words The seed of the Male when now it hath access into the womb of the Female it doth coagulate and cause a consistence in the purest part of the excrement meaning the menstruous blood residing in the womb and doth transmute the matter which lies ready in the womb by such a motion or mutation that at last though the seed vanish after the motion is performed some part of the foetus is existent and that an animate part as the heart which now doth augment and dispose it self as a Son who is free from his Father and hath taken a house of his own It is necessary therefore that there be some principle by which afterwards the order of the members may be delineated and all things disposed which pertain to the absolution and complement of the Animal and from which growth and motion may arrive to the rest of the parts and be the author of all the similar and dissimilar parts and of their last aliment For that which is now an Animal doth increase but the last aliment of the Animal is blood or something proportionable to blood whose vessels and receptacles are the Veines Now the principle or original of the veines is the Heart But the Veines like Roots extend even to the womb by which the Foetus draweth his aliment The Heart also being the beginning of the whole nature and also the containing End ought to be made first as being a genital part of its own nature which must needs be the first as the original of the rest and of the whole Animal and of Sense in whose heat because all the parts are in the matter potentially since the principle of motion did abide that which follows afterwards is stirred up by it as in those self-moving miracles and the parts are moved not shifting their places but altering in softness hardness heat and other distinctions of similar parts being now actually made which were potentially before This is Aristotles opinion almost word for word by which he conceives the foetus to be made of seed by motion though it do not at present continue touching it but hath touched it formerly a nice opinion and of a fine thread and according to those things which are discovered in the order of the generation of the parts not improbable For the heart together with the ramifications of the Veins is discerned first as being an animate principle in which both sense and motion reside and being also like a free Son and a Genital part by which the order of the member is delineated and all things conducing to the accomplishment of an Animal are disposed and having all those attributes which Aristotle bestowes upon it But it seems impossible that the heart should be made in the egge by the males seed since that seed is neither in the egge nor doth touch nor ever did touch it because it neither enters the womb where the egge is made as Fabricius confesseth nor is any way attracted by it and besides this the mothers blood is not in the egge neither nor any other prepared
that so they may attend the future eggs and chickens which are to be born in their order We have deduced these passages out of Aristotle that from them it might appear how the Cocks seed doth according to him produce the Chicken out of the Egge that so some light might be afforded to this perplext disquisition But seeing they do not explaine how this business is accomplished nor yet salve his own objections we are still sticking in the same mire and involved in the same doubts concerning the Efficient cause of the Foetus in the Generation of Animals nay so far are we from receiving any clear satisfaction that we are rather more perplext and to seek then we were before And therefore no wonder this excellent Philosopher was in the streights concerning this matter and did therefore range together so many several sorts of efficient causes of Animals and sometims betake himself to examples drawn from Automata things seeming to move of themselves sometimes to coagulatedmatter sometimes to Art Instruments and Motion sometimes to the soul in the egge and in the seed of the Male to illustrate the thing and where he seems to be positive and settle upon some determination concerning what it may be that should render the Seed be it of Plants or Animals fertile he renounces Heat and Fire as improper Agents nor doth he admit any such like faculty nor can he find out any thing in the seed it self which should be fit for the undertaking but is compelled to admit of a certain Incorporeal extrinsecal thing which should like Art or the Minde form the foetus by wisedom and providence and ordain and institute all things relating to it to some end and purpose and to its better subsistence He takes I say sanctuary in an obscure and ignote thing namely in a spirit contained in the seed and frothy substance and a certain nature in that spirit answerable in proportion to the substance of the Stars But what that should be he no where reveals Fabricius his Opinion concerning the Efficient cause of the Chicken is confuted EXERCIT. XLVIII SInce I have proposed Aristotle the chiefest of the old Philosophers and Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente an eminent Anatomist amongst the Modern to be my Leaders that from them I might chiefly be enlightened concerning the generation of Animals and since I cannot better my self by Aristotle I have resolved to set upon Fabricius to see what account he can give of it Now he attempts to give resolution to three doubts arising in the case namely First What is the Efficient of the Chicken and that he concludes to be the Males seed 2. How this appears in the egg to be so and by what means the Cocks seed doth rinder the egge fertile Lastly In what Order are the parts of the Chicken procreated As for the first it appears out of our Observations that the Cock and his seed are indeed the Efficicient cause of Generation but not the adaequate cause but that the Henne also comes in for a share In this place therefore we must chiefly enquire how the Cocks seed doth fructifie the Egge and raise a Chicken out of it which would else be subventaneous and improlifical But let us give ear to Fabricius Those creatures saith he that are produced out of an egge are different from those which are born out of seed in this that Oviparous creatures have a matter out of which the Chicken is corporated distinct and separate from the Agent but Viviparous creatures have both the material and efficient cause adjoyned and concorporated together For the Agent in Oviparous creatures is the seed of the Cock in the feathered kind which neither is nor can be in the Egge but the matter out of which the Chicken is corporated is the Chalaza These two are much distant one from another for the Chalaza is in the Yolk now formed and fallen into the second Uterus and is adjoyned intimately to the egge on the contrary the Cocks seed remains neer the fundament and is removed from the Chalaza by a large chasme and yet by its irradiating faculty it fructifies both the Uterus and all the egge But in a Viviparous animal the seed is both the Matter and the Efficient too both being contracted into one body He seems to have introduced this difference between Oviparous and Viviparous Animals that so he might countenance the opinion of Physitians concerning the Generation of Man or at least not subvert it who conceive that the seeds of both Sexes ejected together in coition are mingled and according as the one prevailes over the other so the one approves it self the Efficient and the other submits it self to become the Matter so that they both conspiring together do constitute the conception in Viviparous Animals But when he had observed that neither Seed nor Blood is attracted by means of coition into the womb of the Hen nor contained there and could not believe that any thing emitted from the cock in coition could possibly arrive so farre nor could finde any thing in the Egge that is adjoined to the males seed he was enforced to doubt how the seed which is no where present with nor mingled amongst the feminine geniture nor is adjoined to it nor doth so much as touch it at all should constitute the Chicken or fructifie the Egge especially when he had before delivered that from some premised coitions all the eggs that were to be layed that year were made prolifical For how could it chuse but seem impossible that from the seed of the cock received in the Spring but now departed lost and consumed the posthume eggs layed possibly in Summer or Autumne should be rendered fruitfull and produce chickens That he might rid his hands of this grand difficultie he coined the fore-said distinction and to ratifie his opinion he adds three farther Assertions First that though the cocks seed were neither in the Egge nor at any time in the Womb nor adjoined to the material cause as it is in Viviparous Animals yet it continues for a whole year in the hen Secondly to reserve this seed in he invents a dark perforation neer the door of the Womb wherein the cock should deposite his seed and in which as in a pouch it should be concluded that thence all the eggs might receive their fertility Lastly though the seed in that pouch neither touch the womb the egge nor the Ovary that by that means it might fructifie the egge or raise a Chicken out of it yet he saith that it gains addresses into the very egge by the insinuation or irradiation of a certain spiritual substance in it and by those arts doth fructifie the Chalazae and so model a Chicken And yet by that assertion lie seems to confirme Aristotles opinion who assures us that the female contributes the matter and the male the efficiency to generation which is contrary to the Physitians position concerning the commixture of seeds for whose sake
another thing and meerly upon this account that the time was when it did touch For Aristotles argumentation seems false or lame at least where he contends That Generation cannot be without an Agent and a Patient and those things cannot act and suffer which do not mutually touch each other but those things do mutually touch which having each their particular magnitude and place apart have their extremities meeting one another But since the case is plain that Contagion where the things touch not nor have their extremities kissing one another can destroy living creatures what should hinder but that it should be as powerful to conduce to the life and generation of animals The Efficient in an Egge by a plastical vertue because the male did but onely touch though he now be far from touching and have no extremity reached out towards it doth frame and set up a foetus in its own species and resemblance And this author of fecundity this peircing power is translated through so many mediums or instruments that one cannot pattern it neither by that mutation procured by instruments as in the productions of Art nor by Aristotles Automata nor our Clocks or Watches nor by the instance of a King in his own dominions where his command is every where a law nor can you ratifie this our doctrine by introducing a soul into the seed or geniture And hereupon many controversies and problemes are started concerning the attractive power of the Load-stone and Jet concerning Sympathy and Antipathy concerning Poyson and the contagion of pestilential diseases concerning Alexipharmacal Medicines and such as cure or kill from an occult or rather ignote quality and propriety all which seem to execute their pleasures without any touching And chiefly this What is there in generation that by a momentany touch nay not touching at all unlesse through the sides of many mediums can orderly constitute the parts of the Chicken by an Epigenesis and produce an Univocal creature and its own like and for no other reason but because it touched heretofore How I say can that which is not present and did onely touch outwardly constitute orderly dispose and limne all the members of the Chicken in an egg which is now exposed to the wide world and oftentimes transported a great way off For nothing can make and generate it selfe into anothers likeness What the Efficient cause of Animals is and what its Conditions EXERCIT. L. THat therefore we may in some proportion dive into the knowledge of the efficient cause so far forth as concerns our present contemplation we must take notice first of the Instruments or Mediums which pertain to the efficient or forming cause and into this rank is the Male and Female for to be reduced likewise the Geniture and the egg and its first rudiment For some males and females too are barren or unfruitful And likewise the males geniture is sometimes more and sometimes less fertile for the Semen Virile as it is barely conteined in the Seminal Vesicles except it be rarified into froth by the spirits and forceably leap out is unfruitful And this too possibly is not always successful Nor are the Papulae or Yolks bred in the Cluster of the Ovary or the Egges conteined in the Womb all presently fruitfull Now I call that fruitful which except some impediment happen from without will attaine its designed end by the efficient power implanted in it and compass that for whose sake it is ordained So that Cock is reputed fertile who causes his Hens to lay oftner and more constantly and also renders their egges generative So likewise that Hen is fruitful which is useful in laying egges and hath a good retention in order to the prolifical vertue imparted to her from the Cock So the Cluster of the Papulae and Ovary it self are counted fertile when they are well fraught with store of rudiments and foundations of egges and those mature Likewise that egge is fertile which is farthest from being subventaneous or addle and doth less faile in producing a Chicken howsoever you dispose of it either to Incubation or any other fostering-heat Therefore such an efficient of the Chicken is required as may impart virtue to all these by which they may be fructified and obtain an efficient power for the same thing or at least something proportionable to it is in them all bestowing fecundity upon them And the Inquiry is the same namely what it is in the Egge that renders it fertile what in the Ovary and what in the Papula likewise what in the female and lastly in the seed and Cock himself c. What in the Blood and Punctum saliens or first genital particle from whence afterwards the rise fabrick and order of all the other parts is derived as also what is it in the Chicken it self from whence it grows sturdy and active attains its youth and maturity lives a healthy life and a long Nor is that inquiry unlike this which demands what both male and female Cock and Hen confer to the fertile egge or what it is which proceeds from both towards the perfection and similitude of the chicken as whether the egge conception matter and nutriment proceed from the female and the Operative virtue from the male whether a certain contagion sent forth by coition or created by it or received from it remaining in the Hen or Egges work upon the matter of the egge or attract a nutriment from the Hen concocting and distributing it to the encrease of the egge and afterwards to the production of the chicken Or lastly whether all that which relates to the form soul and fecundity do proceed from the male but from the female whatever relates to the matter constitution place and sustenance For in animals whose Sexes are distinct it is so contrived that because the female cannot alone generate nourish protect the foetus the male is joined as yoke-fellow in the task as the Superior and more eminent progenitor to supply her failings and so to correct the infirmity of the Subventaneous eggs and inspire them with fertility For as a chicken born of an egge is indebted to that egge for his body soul and principal or genital part So is the egge for all it has to the Henne and the Henne also for her fecundity to the Cock. But whether the male be the first and principal cause of the progeny or whether the male and the female are intermediate and Instrumental causes set awork by nature or the first and Supreme Genitor we have here an occasion offered to enquire and it is a very worthy and necessary one because all perfect science depends upon the knowledge of all causes and therefore to the plenary comprehension of Generation we must ascend from the last and lowest efficient to the very first and most supreme and know them all But as for the first and highest Efficient of the chicken we shall determine what that is afterwards when we treat of the Efficient
of all other Animals but what kind of one it is we will here declare The first condition or qualification of the first and primary Efficient properly so called is that it be the first principal fructifier from whence all intermediate causes assume their derived fecundity For instance the chicken is derived from the Punctum saliens in the egg not only in regard of its bulk but also and that chiefly in regard of its soul the Punctum saliens or Heart is derived from the egg the egg from the Hens and the Hens fertility from the Cock Another requisite or condition of the primary Efficient is desumed ex opere facto from the production it self viz. the Chicken because that is the prime efficient in which the reason of the effect doth chiefly appear But because every Generative efficient doth generate its like and the issue is of a mixt nature the first efficient must needs be mixt too Now I therefore pronounce their issue to be of a mixt nature because the mixture of both parents is refulgent in it both in the figure and lineaments of the body and all its parts as in complexion or colors moles or spots diseases and other accidents of the body Likewise in the soul and actions and functions as in like manners docility gate and voice such a kinde of temperature is discoverable For as we say that a similar mixt body is made of the Elements because their virtues heat cold moisture and sâ—ccity are found compounded in the same similar body so likewise the paternal and maternal handy-work may be tracked and pointed out both in the body soul and other accidents of the Chicken which follow the temperature or happen unto it for instance In a Mule the soul body manners and voice of both parents viz. of the Mare and the Ass are apparent So also in those Chickens which are the Ofspring of the dunghill-hen and Cock-Pheasant and in that mungrel Curre which is produced by the sodomie of a Wolf and a Bitch Since therefore the Chicken resembles both parents and is a mixt Effect the generant primary cause which it resembles must needs be mixt likewise Therefore that which frames the Chicken in the Egge is a mixt nature as being united or compounded of both and the work of both parents And if any contagion do arise or remain in the female upon coition in which they two are mixt and become as it were one Animal that also will be of a mixt nature or power by which the egge shall afterwards become fertile and atchieve a plastical virtue which is an Agent of a mixt nature or a mixt efficient-Instrument producing a Chicken of a mixt nature also The contagion I say because Aristotles perswasion is altogether refractory to experience her self namely where he saith that some part of the Foetus is instantly made upon coition Nor is that true neither which some of the Moderns averre namely that the soul of the future chicken is in the egge for that is no whit the chickens soul which is in no part of the chickens body Nor can the soul be said either to be begotten or left behind presently upon coition for otherwise there should be two souls in a Woman with child Therefore till it be determined what the efficient of the egge is which is of a mixt nature and ought to remaine present upon coition give me leave to call it contagium Contact or contagion But where the contagion lurks in the female after coition and how it is communicated and derived to the egge requires a more exact Disquisition and we will afterwards fall upon it when we treat generally of the conception of females It shall suffice in the mean time to have taken notice that it must needs be the fate of the first efficient in which the reason of the future off-spring doth abide that since its off-spring is mixt to be of a mixt nature it selfe and either to proceed from both Parents or from something which makes use of both as animate Instruments cooperative and mixt and moulded into one by coition The third condition of the Primary Efficient is that either it impart motion successively to all its intermediate instruments or else employ them otherwise but that it selfe be subservient to none whence a doubt arises whether the Cock be the Primary Efficient in the Generation of the chicken or have any before or superior to him For all generation seems to be derived from Heaven and issue from the motion of the Sun and Moon But we wil be positive in this matter when we have first declared what an instrument or the instrumental efficient cause is and how divided Now Instrumental Efficients are of diverse kinds some according to Aristotle are factiva Making and some activa Doing some do not operate but when they are conjoyned with a prior efficient as the hand foot and genital parts others operate disjoined as the Geniture and the Egge some Instruments have not motion or action but what is given them by the first Efficient others have proper internal principles of their own to which nature affords no motion in generation but yet employs their faculties and sets them the rule and law of their performances as the Cook employes fire and the Physitian herbs and the vertues of medicines to cures Sennertus to maintain his conceipt concerning the soul in the Seed and the formative faculty in the Egge affirms that not onely the Egge but the Cocks seed also is indowed with the soul of the future Chicken and is not the Instrumental Agent but the principal absolutely denying that any separate Efficient is Instrumental but pronouncing that onely that is to be reckoned an Instrument in propriety of speech which is conjoined with the primary efficient and that that onely is an Instrumental efficient which hath no other motion or action then that which is immitted or continually and successively received from the primary efficient by whose power it acts And upon that account he rejects the instance concerning things cast or hurled which receiving their force from the thing that doth hurle do yet notwithstanding move even when they are separated from it As if the Sword and Speare were to be counted Instruments of War but not Arrows and Bullets Hee also rejects the instance drawn from a Republick and denies that the Magistrates Counsellors or Officers of a Common-wealth are the Instruments of a Nation And yet Aristotle reckons a Counsellor for an Efficient and calls on Officer an Instrument in plain termes He likewise decries the instance of the Automata and many other things that so he may ratifie the seed or egge to be Animals and not an Instrumental but a Principal Agent And yet as if he were enforced by the truth he laies down such conditions for a Principal Agent as do absolutely prove contrary to his own fore-mentioned opinion Whatsoever produceth a work or effect more noble then it selfe or else an effect lake
to it selfe is not an Efficient but an Instrumental cause Which being granted who will not conclude that Seed and an Egge are Instruments Since a chicken is an effect nobler then the egge and neither like an Egge nor Seed Wherefore when this most Learned Man denies the Seed or Egge to be an Instrument because they are separated from the Primary Agent he stands upon a false bottom For since the first generant produceth its off-spring by several mediums whether any of those mediums be conjoined to it as the Hand to the Artist or whether it be separated from it as the Arrow shot from the Bow yet both are called Instruments From these recited Conditions of the Instrumental cause it may seem to insue that the cock or at least the cock with the hen are the Primary efficients in the Generation of the chicken for the chicken is like them nor can it be thought to be more noble then its Efficients or Parents I shall therefore adde one condition more to the Primary efficient by which perhaps it may appear that the Male is not the Primary but the Instrumentall cause namely that it is required of the Primary efficient in the fabrick of the Chicken that he employ Skill Providence Wisdome Goodness and Understanding far above the capacity of our rational soules as that in which the Reason or Idea of the future work ought to consist and which ought likewise to act for some destinated end disposing and perfecting all parts forming the smallest and most inconsiderable appendixes of the Chicken for some use and employment not providing onely for the structure of the creature but for its wellfare ornament and defence Now the male or his seed either in or after coition is not so qualified that Art Understanding and Providence may be attributed to it Which things being pondered the Male seems to be an Instrumental efficient as well as his seed and the Hen likewise as well as the Egge she laies And therefore we must take our flight to a more Primary Superior and more excellent cause to which we may justly attribute Providence Understanding Art and Goodness and such a one as is as much superiour to its effects and Workmanship as an Architect is better then a Barn he sets up a Prince then his Officers or an Artist then his owne hands And therefore both Male and Female are but Instrumental efficients subservient to the high Creator or Protogenitor And in this sense it is truly said that the Sun and Man beget an Animal because the Spring and Autumn do insue upon the Approaching and Receding Sun at which times commonly the generation and corruption of Animals happen So the chiefest of Philosophers The first Movers motion is not the cause of generation and corruption but the motion of the Oblique circle for that is continual and hath also two Motions for if generation and corruption were to be always continual it were necessary that something should be always moved least those mutations should fail but yet it must have two motions least one onely of the two mutations should succeed The cause therefore of the continuity is the motion of the Universe but the declivity it selfe is the cause of the Approach and the Recesses For it comes to pass that He namely the Sun is sometimes neerer and sometimes farther from the earth And when the Interval is inequal the motion must be inequal too If then he therefore generate because he approaches neerer and cause corruption because he remotes and recedeth farther from the earth Then it follows that if he often do generate it is because he often approacheth and if he often cause corruption it is because he often recedeth For contraries have contrary causes And therefore in the Spring all things flourish and grow namely from the Approach of the Sun who is the Common Father and Parent or at least the immediate and Common Instrument in Generation imployed by the high Creator and that not Vegetables onely but Animals too nor they onely which are Spontaneous issues but those also which are generated by Male and Female As if at the approach of this noble Planet soft Venus did descend from the Skie with Cupid and the Graces entertained for her Retinue inciting and provoking all living things by their Allegeance to Love to propagate their kind Or as it is in the Fable as if Saturne did then become an Eunuch and threw his masculine evidences into the Sea to raise a Foam which might give birth to Venus For in the Generation of Animals Superat tener omnibus humor A gentle dew doth moisten all as the Poet hath it and the genital parts doe foam and strut with Seed And therefore the cock and Hen are chiefly fruitfull in Spring as if the Sun or Heavens Nature the Soul of the Universe or the Omnipotent Deity for these are Synonoma's were a Superiour and Diviner cause of Generation then they So Sol homo generant hominem The Sun and Man beget a Man that is to say the Sun by Man as its Instrument And so the Creator of all things and the cock beget an egge and out of an egge a chicken namely by the constant approach and recesse of the Sun who according to the will and decree of the Almighty is emploied in the generation of all things We conclude therefore that the male though he be a Primary and more excellent efficient then the female is only an Instrumental Efficient and doth himselfe no less then the Female owe his fecundity or generative Virtue to the Sun his Creditour and therefore the artifice and providence which we discover in his workmanship doth not proceed from him but God For the Male uses neither counsel nor understanding in generation nor doe Men generate by any part of their reasonable soule but by a faculty of their vegetative which is not inrouled amongst the primary and more devine powers of the soule but the meanest and basest Since therefore in the structure of a chicken Art and Providence are no less visible then in the Fabrick of Man himselfe and the creation of the Universe we must needs acknowledge that in the generation of Man there is an Efficient cause more excellent then man himselfe or else that the vegetative faculty or that part of the soule which raiseth this pile of man and doth conserve it is much more divine and excellent and doth more personate the Image of God then the Rational part it selfe whose worth and dignity we more cry up then all the faculties of the soule beside though she were Regent and Empress of the rest and held them all as Tributaries to her Or at least wee must confess that there is neither prudence nor skill nor understanding in the workes of Nature but they seem such onely to our apprehensions who iudge of the divine productions of nature by our owne Arts and Faculties or copies drawne by our own fancies as if the active principles of
say that there is a soul in the Blood and seeing it is the first begotten first moved first nourished why should we doubt to affirm that the soul is first raised kindled out of it Blood is that wherein the Vegetal and sensative operations first shine forth in which the primary and immediate officer of the soul is bred which is the common tye of soul and body and in which as in her Chariot the soul visits and scattereth influence upon all the parts of the body Besides since the contemplation of Geniture is as we have seen already so difficult namely how the fabrick of the body should be built by it with providence art and divine understanding why should we not by the same right admire the excellent nature of blood and harbour as worthy thoughts concerning it as seed especially seeing the Geniture it self as appears by the egge is made of the blood and all the whole body as from its Genital part seems not onely to desume its first Foundation but Preservation also from it Thus much by the way concerning this matter being to treat more fully and exactly of it elsewhere Nor do I conceive it worth the trouble to dispute here whether the definition of a part in its proper acceptation agree to blood which some deny upon these grounds chiefly because it hath not sense and because it flowes and insinuates into all the parts of the body to cater convenient dyet for them But I have found many things about the manner of Generation by which being convinced I shall establish the contrary to those things which Philosophers Physitians commonly affirm or deny At present I will onely say that in case we should consent that the blood hath not sense yet it cannot be thence inferred that it is no part of the sensitive body and that the chifest too For neither the Braine nor the Spinal Marrow or the Crystalline or Glassie humour of the Eye have any sense and yet all Philosophers and Physitians do to this day with one consent allow them to be parts of the body But Aristotle did number it amongst the similar parts and Hippocrates also for while he constitutes the Animal body out of conteining and conteined parts and impetum facientibus spirits he did necessarily own the blood amongst the conteined parts But of this more at large when we enquire what a part is and how many several acceptations there are of it In the mean time we will not conceale this Admirable Experiment by which it shall appear that the most principal member of all namely the very Heart it self may seem to be insensible A Noble young Gentleman Son and Heire to the honorable the Vice-Count of Mountgomery in Ireland when he was a childe had a strange mishapp by an unexpected fall causing a Fracture in the Ribs on the left side the Bruise was brought to a Suppuration whereby a great quantity of putrified matter was voided out and this putrefaction gushed out for a long while together out of the wide wound I deliver it from his own mouth and the testimony of other creditable persons who were eye-witnesses This person of Honour about the eighteenth or nineteenth year of his Age having been a Traveller in Italy and France arrived at last at London having all this time a very wide gap open in his Breast so that you might see and touch his Lungs as it was believed Which when it came to the late King Charles his ear being related as a miracle He presently sent me to the Young Gentleman to inform Him how the matter stood Well what happened When I came neer him and saw him a sprightly Youth with a good complexion and habit of body I supposed some body or other had framed an untruth But having saluted him as the manner is and declared unto him the Cause of my Visit by the Kings Command he discovered all to me and opened the void part of his left side taking off that small plate which he wore to defend it against any blow or outward injury Where I presently beheld a vast hole in his breast into which I could easily put my three Fore-fingers and my Thumb and at the first entrance I perceived a certain fleshy part sticking out which was driven in and out by a reciprocal motion whereupon I gently handled it in my hand Being now amazed at the novelty of the thing I search it again and again and having diligently enough enquired into all it was evident that that old and vast Ulcer for want of the help of a skilfull Physitian was miraculously healed and skinned over with a membrane on the Inside and guarded with flesh all about the brimmes or margent of it But that fleshy substance which at the first sight I conceived to be proud flesh and every body else took to be a lobe of the Lungs by its pulse and the differences or rythme thereof or the time which it kept and laying one hand upon his wrest and the other upon his heart and also by comparing and considering his Respirations I concluded it to be no part of the Lungs but the Cone or Substance of the Heart which an excrescent fungous Substance as is usual in soul Ulcers had fenced outwardly like a Sconce The Young Gentlemans Man did by dayly warm injections deliver that fleshy accretion from the filth pollutions which grew about it and so clapt on the Plate which was no sooner done but his Master was well and ready for any journey or exercise living a pleasant and secure life Therefore instead of an Account of the Business I brought the Young Gentleman himself to our late King that he might see and handle this strange and singular Accident with his own Senses namely the Heart and its Ventricles in their own pulsation in a young and sprigtly Gentleman without offense to him Whereupon the King himself consented with me That the Heart is deprived of the Sense of Feeling For the Party perceived not that we touched him at all but meerly by seeing us or by the sensation of the outward skin We likewise took notice of the motion of his Heart namely that in the Diastole it was drawn in and retracted and in the Systole came forth and was thrust out and that the Systole was made in the heart when the Diastole was sensible in the wrest and also that the proper motion of the heart is the Systole and lastly that the heart then beats upon the breast and is a litle prominent when it is lifted upwards and contracted into it self Nor is that other Controversie namely whether the Blood do onely serve to nourish the Body to be much insisted upon in this place Aristotle indeed doth in several places contend that the blood is Alimentum ultimum the last Aliment and with him the whole School of Physitians give suffrage And yet many things hard to be unfolded and of bad coherence will ensue upon that opinion For when
middle region Now is it most certain that not onely that part but all the blood nay the very flesh it self as may be observed in Bodyes hanged in Chains may may be corrupted into ichorous whey As being resolved into that substance of which they were first compounded so Salt is resolved into Lie from whence it first sprung So likewise in every Cachexie the blood that is let abounds with plenty of Serum so that sometimes there scarce appears any grumous part at all but all the blood seems to be one entire washy gore as we finde in that kinde of Dropsie called Anasarca and it is also natural in creatures that are bloodless Likewise if you breath a veine immediately after you have eat and drank before the second concoction be finished and the Serum descended through the Kidnies or upon the first approach of a fit of an Ague you shall finde the blood to be washy inconcocted and mingled with much whey But on the contrary if upon an empty Stomack or discharge of the Urine or a large Sweat you open a Veine you shall finde the blood thick as being quite destitute of Serum and being almost all condensed into a lump And as when the blood growes raw and crude you shall perceive but very litle of this gelly floating a top So if you poure out the Serum separated from the lump or mass and let it simper upon a gentle fire you shall soon see it changed into this gelly which is a manifest signe that that washy or serous substance which is now divided from the rest of the blood is perhaps some matter of the Urine but not the Urine it self though in colour and consistence it look like it For the Urine being boyled is not thickned into a fibrous Gelly but rather into a Lie but this washy or serous part being a while gently heated condenseth into a gelly like that above as on the contrary that â—uâ—ago or gelly degenerating into more crudity by corruption is dissolved into Serum And thus farre have I brought this part of the blood which is my own Observation upon the Stage of which and the other parts of blood which are apparent to sense and allowed by the authority of Aristotle and Physitians I shall more copiously discourse hereafter In this place not to digress farther I conceive the blood to be taken with Aristotle not as it is simply understood and called Cruor but as it is a living part of an Animal body For so Aristotle The blood is hot in such a sense as if we could call hot water by one onely word and not as a subject receiving heat into it For heat is in the essence of the blood as whiteness in a white man But when blood is made hot by any distemper or passion of the Minde it is not then calidus perse hot by its own heat And thus we may say of that which is moist or dry Wherefore partly a hot and partly a moist substance is in the nature of such kinde of things but if you divide them they then grow cold and congeale and such is blood Blood therefore as it is a living part of the Body is of a doubtfull nature and falls under a two fold consideration And therefore materialiter per se it is called nutriment but formaliter as it is endued with heat and spirits which are the immediate instruments of the Soul and with the Soul it self it is to be counted the Bodies Genius and Conserver the Principal Primogenit and Genital part And as a Prolifical egg is the Matter Instrument and Efficient cause of the Chicken and as all Physitians count the geniture of both Sexes mingled in the womb after coition both for the material and efficient of the Foetus so upon a better right may we affirm That the Blood is both the Matter and Preserver of the Body and not the bare Aliment For it is a known thing in Creatures that are starved by hunger and Men also that dye of Consumptions that a great quantity of blood remains in their Veins even after death And also Young men that are in their growth and Old men that are declining have a proportionable quantity of blood namely according to the increase or diminution of their Flesh So that the blood is a part and not the nutriment onely of the Body For if that were the onely use of it no man would be starved so long as any drop of the blood remains in the veins as the flame of a Lamp doth not expire so long as any oyle at all remains to support it But while I affirm the soul to reside first and principally in the blood I would not have any man hastily to conclude from hence that all Blood-letting is dangerous or hurtfull or believe with the Vulgar that as much of blood so much of life is taken away because Holy-writ placeth the life in the blood For dayly experience shewes that Letting blood is a safe cure for several Diseases and the chiefest of Universal Remedies because the default or superfluity of the blood is the seminary of most distempers and a seasonable evacuation of it doth often rescue men from most desperate maladies and Death it self For look how much blood is according to Art taken away so many years are added to the Age. Nature her self was our Tutor here whom Physitians transcribe for She of her own accord doth many times vanquish the most mortal Infirmities by a plentifull and critical evacuation either at the Nose Haemorrhoids or by menstruous Purgations And therefore young people who feed high and live idlely unless about the eighteenth or twentieth yeare of their age at which time the stock of blood encreases together with the bulk of their bodies they be disburdened of the load and oppression of their blood either by a spontaneous release at the Nose or Inferiour parts or by breathing a Vein they are dangerously set upon by Feavers Small-pox Head-aches and other more grievous Distempers and Symptomes Alluding to which the Farriers do begin almost all Cures of Beasts with Letting blood What Observations are to be collected from the Ramifications of the Umbilical veines in the Egge EXERCIT. LIII WE see the Blood is made in the Egge and Conception before any thing else and neere upon that time doe its Receptacles that is the Veines and Vesicula pulsans appear And therefore if we admit the Punctum saliens together with the blood and veines as one and the same Organical part visible in the first dawning of the Foetus to stand for the Heart whose Parenchyma doth afterwards in the formation of the Foetus grow to the Vesicula it is clear then that the Heart under this acceptation namely as an Organ compounded of a Parenchyma Ventricles Deaf-ears Vessels and Blood is truly according to Aristotles owne minde the principal and primary part of the body and yet its first and chief part is blood and that not onely in order
a Son set free by his Father and seated apart And therefore a Principle and that an Intrinsecal one must needs be had by which afterwards the order of the Parts is to be prescribed and all things relating to the complement of the Animal managed and disposed For if it were Extrinsecal at any time and afterwards began to enter in you would not only be in suspense and question when it went in but conclude that since each part is distinguished it was necessary that part should subsist out of which both growth and motion is conferred upon the other parts In another place he saith The first Principle is a part of the whole and not any separate thing which is contained apart from it For saith he when the Animal is now generated is that Principle corrupted or doth it remain Now nothing seems to be in which is not a part of the whole be it Plant or Animal And that it should be corrupted when it hath been at the expence of making all or some of the parts is very absurd for what shall make the remainder Wherefore he proceeds who side with Democritus saying That the exteriour parts of the Animal are first made and then the interiour as if they were to build a wodden or stony Animal do not say well for such a creature as that hath no Principle in it self But all Animals have and contain one within them Whereupon the Heart is first seen in all Animals in which there is blood for that is the Principle of the similar and dissimilar parts Now that thing which requires Aliment ought already to have received that principle of an Animal and constituted Foetus Which words do plainly declare that Aristotle did conclude of an Order in the Generation of Animals and of a Principal part namely the Heart which like a Son at liberty is the first animate and primogenit part of the Animal contained and abiding in it whence not onely the method of the parts is set down but the Animal it self preserved and relyes upon it receiving continual life and sustenance and that thence whatsoever is necessary to the perfection of the Animal is derived For as Seneca saith in the Seed is the whole accompt of the future Man comprehended And the Infant yet unborn hath a Standard and Commission for a Beard and a Gray-head For the dimension of his body and ensuing yeares are already deciphered in a small mysterious character Now whether the Heart be the Primigenial part or no we have determined above To wit if Aristotles speech be understood of that part which in the Anatomy of Living creatures is seen by the eye to be before the rest that is of the Punctum saliens together with the Veines streaming with blood we cheerfully embrace his judgement For we believe that the Blood together with the Vessels and Instruments namely the Umbilical Veines by which as by Roots the Nutriment is attracted and Vesiculae pulsantes to whom it is distributed for the life and growth of the parts is constituted before any other For as Aristotle saith the matter by which any thing is augmented and out of which it is first made is one and the same But they are much abused who conceive that the diverse parts of the Body are sustained with a diverse aliment As though Nutrition were nothing but a bare choice and attraction of aliment and that no concoction assimilation apposition and transmutation were required of the particular parts which are to be nourished which was the opinion of Anaxagoras of old Principium Rerum qui dixit Homoeomeriam Ossa videlicet è pauxillis atque minutis Ossibus sic de pauxillis atque minutis Visceribus Viscus gigni sanguenque creari Sanguinis inter se multis coeuntibu ' guttis Who said that Things from their Likeparts begin That Bones from less and fewer Bones do spring And Intrals rise from Intrals Blood from Blood Where the Confederate drops make up the Flood But Aristotle most truly saith Distinction of parts is not as some suppose upon that ground that Like is of its own nature tending to its Like for besides many other difficulties which beset that opinion it will follow that every similar part must be ordained apart by it self as for instance Bones by themselves Nerves and Flesh by themselves in case that opinion be admitted But indeed the Nutriment of all parts is common and similar as the Yolk in the Egge and not heterogeneous and compounded of diverse parts And therefore what we have said concerning the matter out of which the Parts are made we pronounce the same of the matter out of which they are augmented namely that the parts do assume their Nourishment out of that matter in which all the Parts are in potentiâ but none actu As out of the same Showre all kinds of Plants take growth because that moisture which was before like in potentiâ to them all is now made like them actu being transformed into their substance And is also bitter in Rue sharp in the Mustard and sweet in Licorise and so in the rest He goes on to explain what Parts are generated before others and that with a reason not much unlike Fabricius his Fundamentum secundum his second ground or foundation saying Id cujus causâ quod ejus causâ differunt alterum generatione alterum essentiâ prius est namely the End is first in Nature and Essence in respect of that thing which is made for the Ends sake but That which is made for the Ends sake must needs be first in Generation And by that Argument Fabricius rightly inferrs that those Parts which are subservient to the Vegetative soul are all made before those which are instrumental to the sensative because that is subordinate to this After this he subjoines the differences of such things as are made for any End namely that some things are instituted for some End by nature because the End doth ensue upon them but some because they are Instruments which the End makes use of and those he calls Genitalia but these Instrumentalia For the End saith he in some things is after and in some before those things which are their causes For the Generant himself and that which he imployes in Generation must needs exist before that which is generated by them And therefore the Parts subservient to the Vegetative soul are before those which are retained by Sense and Motion But the Parts dedicated to Motion and the Senses are after the sensitive and motive Faculties as being instrumental and made use of by the sensitive and motive Faculty For by Natures Law no Parts or Instruments are made and constituted before there be imployment for them and a faculty be ready at hand to set them to work So neither the Eye nor the Instruments of Motion are set up till the Brain is built or the faculty be already provided which is to See or Move
to be rendered prolifical by no sensible corporeal Agent as the Iron touched by the Loadstone is presently indowed with the virtue of the Loadstone and doth draw other iron-bodies unto it Namely having once received that virtue which we have spoken of it doth exercise the plastick generative power and procreateth its own like no otherwise then plants doe which we see are impowered with the force of both Sexes But I cannot but wonder where that faculty when the act of coition is finished before the production of the Egge or Conception doth reside and to what that active vertue of the Male is imparted namely whether to the Uterus alone or to the whole Female or rather primarily to the Uterus but secondarily to the Female or lastly whether as we see with our eyes and think with our braines so a female doth conceive with her Vterus For though the female sometimes conceiving after coition doth not produce a Foetus yet we know that those Symptomes did ensue which gave a cleare testimony of a conception set on foot though it came to nothing Your litle Bitches which are kept too plentifully and thereupon admit coition without success are notwithstanding observed to be sluggish about the just time whereat they ought to puppy and bark as if they were in distress and likewise filtch away the young whelps from another Bitch and lick them over and cherish them as tenderly as if they were their own natural productions and fight eagerly to keep them from the true Parent Nay some of them have milk or beestings as they call it in their teats and are obnoxious to the distempers incident to those that have really puppied just as Hennes will cluck in their season though they have no eggs at all to sit upon Some kinde of birds as namely Pigeons if they admit coition at the wonted time though they lay no eggs at all or subventaneous ones onely yet are possessed with their usual sedulity providence of building nests For the vertue proceeding from the Male doth so largely fructifie the whole Female that it produceth a thorough change and alteration as well in the frame of their minds as in the constitution of their bodies And though this doe principally happen to the Vterus fitted for the impression and from thence the power and efficacy thereof be derived to the whole body as from the turgent testicles of the Male there is an accession of strength superadded to the whole body yet the same scruple remaines namely how this power communicated to the Vterus it selfe doth inhere in it as whether in the whole Vterus or in any one part of it onely For there is nothing to be found abiding therein after coition for the geniture of the Male doth either suddenly fall out againe or vanish away and the blood doth circulate againe from the uterus by the vessels Besides what preparation or maturity of the Vterus is it that doth require the genitall seed or from whence doth it proceed for unless the uterus be prepared for coition all other attempts are frustrate nay several animals doe not admit coition it self without they be thus prepared That maturity I confess doth sooner befall them by reason of their converse with the Male and the incitements which he useth to provoke them yet it is procured as that ripeness of fruits in plants by natures owne inclination and tendency But what this Alteration is I shall now deliver according as I have found it by experience First of all the uterus appears thicker and more fleshy and afterwards forasmuch as concerneth the interiour superficies which is the place where the future conception is to be received it groweth more tender answering in lubricity and softness to the internal ventricles of the Braine as we have even now affirmed concerning Hindes and other creatures which cleave the hoofe But in Bitches Cats and other multiparous Animals whose feet are distinguished into toes the hornes of the Wombe doe exactly resemble the litle smooth trumpets of a womans womb or the appendixes of the guts of Birds or the Ureters in Men and in some places have litle knobs which doe swell inward and become exceeding soft through which after coition as we have observed in Hinds and Does as if they did open themselves the first albugineous humours doe transpire into the capacity of the Uterus out of which humours the Conception or Egge is formed And this is the manner how the Uterus is by the Coition of the Male like Fruit by the Summer heat impregnated and heightned into the highest pitch of maturity But because there are no manifest signs of Conception visible before the Uterus doth begin to open and the albugineous liquor or slender threads like the Spiders web and the first rudiments of the future Egge or Conception appear and seeing the substance of the Uterus now ready for Conception doth so neerly resemble the Constitution of the Braine why may we not imagine that both their functions are also alike and that something like if not the selfe same thing that the phantasme or appetite is to the brain is excited in the Uterus from which the generation or procreation of the Egge doth succeed for both their functions are equally called conceptions and both are Immaterial though they be the principles of all the actions of the body namely this of the Natural that of the Animal actions this the first cause and principle of all actions relating to the generation of Animals that of all actions tending to their preservation And as Appetite doth spring from the conception of the braine and that conception from the outward appetible or desirable objects So also from the Male as being the more perfect Animal as from the most natural appetible object the natural conception dotharise in the Uterus as the Animal conception in the Brain And from this Appetite or Conception it cometh to pass that the female doth produce an off-spring like the male Genitor For as we from the Conception of the Form or Idea in the Braine do fashion a form like to it in our works so doth the Idea or Species of the Genitor residing in the Uterus by the help of the formative facultie beget a Foetus like the Genitor himself namely by implanting that Immaterial species which it hath upon its Workmanship In like manner as Art which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Species of the future work doth produce a Like in its operation and generate it in the matter As the Builder erects a House according to his pre-received conception And the same thing happeneth in other productions and artificial generations So that what discipline doth effect in the Braine namely Art that in proportion doth the Coition of the Male effect in the Uterus namely the plastical Art whereby several foetuses are procreated either like or unlike by the same Coition For if the Generations and first artificial conceptions which are
L. de nat puer de hist an l. 6. c. 2. Ibid. pag. 29. One Chicken proceeds but from One Egge An egge is a Conception Both the Beginning and the Fruit. De gen an l. 1. c. 18. It is also a certain Medium It is also the Sperma Ibid. The difference between Sperma Genitura Gen. an l. 1. c. 20. pag. 47. de gen an l. 2. c. 4. 1. de form Foet Phys l. 1. e. 1. The Efficient Cause of Generation is in the Egge Whether the Egge be a Part of the Henne de gen an l. 3. c de gen an l. 2. c. 4. de gen an l. 1. c. 20. What soul is that wherewith the Egge is informed The Egge doth not live by the Soul of the Henne pag. 8. de gen an l. 2. c. 1. 6. Aenead Hist an l. 5. c. 32 De Gen. an l. 3. c. 11. Ibid. l. 4. c. 11. de gen an l. 2. c. 3. Lib. 9. c. 16. de gen an l. 1. c. 2. De gen an l. 1. c. 2. De gen an l. 2. c. 4. De gen an l. 1. c. 2. de gen an l. 2. c. 4. Ibid. Fabric pag. 37. de gen an l. 1. c. 4. Metaphys l. 7. c. 8. de gen an l. 3. c. 7. pag. 10. De gen an l. 3. c. 1. de gen an l. 3. c. 1. pag. 12. Ibid. Arist phys l. 1. c. 1. de gen an l. 3. c. 9. Gen. an l. 2. c. 3. Hist an l. 6. c. 37 pag. 38. 39. Arist de gen an l. 2. c. 3. Ibid. Lib. 9. c. 50. Lib. 17. c. 10. Nat. quest l. 3. c. 27. pag. 28. De gen an l. 1. c. 18. pag. 28. De Nat. pueri Hist an l. 6 c. 3. and De gen an l. 3. c. 1. 3. l. 10. c. 53. pag. 34. pag. 35. pag. 35. Hist an l. 3. c. 8. de gen an l. 2. c. 1. de gen an l. 2. c. 4. Metaphys l. 7. c. 9. Metaph. l. 3. c. 2. Phys l. 2. c. 28. a Metaphys 1. 2. 4. 1. b Meta. 7. 10. c De par an 1. 1. d De gen an 1. 20. e Ibid. l. 2. c. 3. f l. 5. c. 3. g l. 4. c. 2. h l. 4. c. 4. i De par an 2. 2. k De gen an 4. 2. De gen corrup l. 2. c. 30. De gen an l. 2. c. c. De gen an l. 1. c. 20. Lib. 2. c. 4. De gen an l. 1 c. 18. de gen an l. 2. c. 4. Ibid. l. 2. c. 1. Ibid. pag. 38. Hist an l. 6. c. 13. de gen an l. 1. c. 6. Polit. l. 1. c. 4. De Gen. Corr. l. 2. c. 10. de gen an l. 2. c. 1. Ibid. c. 1. Ib. c. 4. pag. 28. Levit. 17. 11. 14. De hist an l. 3. c. 19. De part an l. 2. c. 4. Hist an l. 3. c. 9. De Anima l. 1. c. 2. De hist an l. 1. c. 19. de part an l. 2. c. 3. De gen an l. 2. c. 3. De hist an l. 2. c. 3. De gen an l. 3. c. 1. 3. De gen an l. 3. c. 1. pag. 44. De gen an l. 2. c. 4. Ibid. Nat. quest l. 3. c. 19. Lucret. l. 1. In the place before cited De gen an l. 2. c. 4. De gen an l. 2. c. 4. De form foet p. 19. or 134. l. de carn de nat puer pag. 137. pag. 50. l. 10. de us Part. Hist an l. 6. c. 2. l. 10. c. 52. Plin. ibid. Id. l. 8. c. 25 l. 10. c. 52. pag. 47. Hist an l. 6. c. 2. De gen an l. 3. 5 2. pag. 34. pag. 54. pag. 57. pag. 54. pag. 55. Ibid. Hist an l. 6. c. 3. Hist an l. 1. c. 1. Hist an l. 1. c. 5. Gen. an l. 3. c. 7. Hist an l. 1. c. 5. Hist an l. 5. c. 29. Ibid. c. 30. Gen. an l. 3. c. 9. De form Ovi Pulli c. 1. De gon an l. 1. c. 18. Ibid. Hist an l. 1. c. 5. De gen an l. 3. c. 9. Hist an l. 7. c. 7. Anthrop l. 2. c. 34. L. 8. c. 32. Hist an l. 1. c. 5. de gen an l. 2. c. 1. de gen an l. 3. c. 9. Hist an l. 7. c. 7. Hist an l. 7. c. 7. L. de nat Mul. de morb vulg Sect. 5. aphor 45. De part an l. 2 c. 3. Dictato 7. De gen an l. 2. c. 3. De gen an l. 4. c. ult Aenead 10. L. 36. c. 16. De abd rer caus l. 2. c. 17 De gen an l. 1. c. 18. L. 3. de coelo c. 31. De gen corr l. 2. c. 50. De form Foetus c. 9. pag. 140. The Position of the Foetus in the Womb. Hist an 2. c. 8. The Matrix Gen. an l. 4. c. 8. l. 7. c. 5. pag. 141. De gen an l. 4. c. 4. ult Hist an l. 7. c. 4. Ibid. De usu part l. 15. c. 7. The manner of the Birth Hist an l. 5. c. 34. Two things required in a Natural Birth L. 7. c. 8. De form foet pag. 142. De us part l. 15. c. 7. pag. 143. De part an l. 1. c. 5. De gen an l. 3. c. 1. I. de foetu Com. in hist an Arist l. 7. c. 3. Lib. de for foetus c. 1. cap. 7. cap. 5. Of the Humours De gen an l. 3. c. 9. Ibid. Hist an l. 7. c. 7. Ibid. Of the Membranes cap. 3. 5. apho 45. cap. 3. De form foet pag. 122. cap. 4. De Acetabulis Hist an l. 7. c. 8. Of the Navel cap. 2. Analyt l. 2. c. 35. Metaph. l. 1. c. 2. Ibid. Metaph l. an â— Arist hist an l. 7. c. 6. de gen an l. 1. c. 17 l. 7. c. 11. de part an l. 1. c. 1. Phys l 2. tract 3. de gen an l. 2. c. 1. de gen an l. 2. c. 4. Arist de part an l. 1. c. 6.