endeer'd thy Secrets we allow By Truths at first and by Opposers now So Gold disputed and Approved such Comes Mettle but parts Treasure from the Touch. A Calmer welcome this choice Peice befall Which from fresh Extract hath deduced all And for belief bids it no longer begg That Castor once and Pollux were an Egge That both the Hen and Houswife are so matcht That her Son Born is only her Son Hatcht That when her Teeming hopes have prosp'rous bin Yet to Conceive is but to Lay within Experiment and Truth both take thy part If thou canst scape the Women there 's the Art Live Modern Wonder and be read alone Thy Brain hath Issue though thy 〈◊〉 have none Let fraile Succession be the Vulgar care Great Generation's selfe is now thy Heire M. LL. M. D. THE PREFACE SInce many have requested and some have importuned mee it will not I hope be unwelcome candid Reader if what I have observed concerning the Generation of Animals out of Anatomical dissections for I have found the whole matter to be much different from that which is delivered either by Philosophers or Physitians I expose in these Exercitations in favour and for the use of the Lovers of Truth All Physitians following Galen teach that out of the Seed of Male and Female mingled in Coition according to the predominant power of this or that the Child resembles either this or that Parent and is also either Male or Female And sometimes they pronounce the Males Seed to be the Efficient cause and the Females the Materiall and sometimes again the clean contrary But Aristotle Natures most diligent searcher affirms that the Male and Female are the principles of Generation and that she contributes the matter and he the form and that forthwith after Coition there is formed in the Womb out of the Menstruous bloud the Vital principle and first particle of the future Foetus namely the Heart in Creatures that have bloud But that these are false and rash assertions will soon appear and will like clouds instantly vanish when the light of Anatomical dissection breaks forth nor will they require any elaborate confutation when the Reader instructed by his own eyes shall discover the contrary by ocular inspection and shall also understand how unsafe and degenerate a thing it is to be tutored by other mens commentaries without making tryal of the things themselves especially since Natures Book is so open and legible I have therefore exhibited to publick view what in these my Exercitations I intend to deliver concerning the Generation of Animals not onely that posterity may thence discern the certain and apparent truth but also and that cheifly too that by revealing the Method I use in searching into things I might propose to studious men a new and if I mistake not a surer path to the attainment of knowledge For although it be a more new and difficult way to find out the nature of things by the things themselves then by reading of Books to take our knowledge upon trust from the opinions of Philosophers yet must it needs be confessed that the former is much more open and lesse frandulent especially in the Secrets relating to Natural Philosophy Nor is there any reason why any man should be deterred by the trouble of it if he will but so much as consider with himselfe that even life it selfe is continued to him by the never Wearied Agitation of the Heart Nor truly would this journy present so much of solitude and desart to us did not most men by the custome or fault rather of the age wee live in yeilding themselves up to sluggishnesse desire rather to erre with the many then with the expense of their paines and coine endeavour to be wise with the few when notwithstanding the Ancient Philosophers whose industry also even we extol went a quite contrary way to work and by indefatigable toile searching after several experiments have set up a clear light to direct our studies So that whatever notable and approved thing we have in Philosophy it all is derived unto us by the paines and industry of ancient Greece Yet when we content our selves with their discoveries and calmly believe which is meer sleepiness that there is now no more place for new inventions the spritely edge of our owne wit languisheth and we extinguish the lamp which they lighted to our hands And certainly he alone wil grant that the whole truth was ingrossed by the Ancients who is ignorant of the many noble discoveries to pass by other Arts lately found out in the business of Anatomy And this was cheifly done either by such who wholly intent upon some one thing did casually descry some other or which is more commendable by those who following Natures conduct with their own eyes have at length through a perplexed but yet a most faithful tract attained to the highest pitch of Truth And in such an undertaking it is pleasant not to be tyred onely but even to faint away where the Irkesomness of Discovering is abundantly recompensed by the discovery it selfe We use being covetous of Novelty to wander far into unknown lands that our own eies may witness what our ears have received at second hand where yet for the most part minuit praesentia famam Our sight decries report Let us then blush in this so ample and so wonderful field of nature where performance still exceeds what is promised to credit other mens traditions only and thence coine uncertain problemes to spin out thorney and captious questions Nature her selfe must be our adviser the path she chalks must be our walk for so while we confer with our own eies and take our rise from meaner things to higher we shall be at length received into her Closet-secrets Of the Manner and Order of attaining knowledge THough there be one onely roade to Science namely that by which we proceed from things more known to things known less and from that which is more manifest to that which is more obscure and though Universals are chiefly known to us for Science is begot by reasoning from Universals to Particulars yet that very comprehension of Universals in the Understanding springs from the perception of Singulars in our sense So that both Aristotles assertions are true as well that in his Physicks There is a way naturally layed from those things which are more known and cleare to us to those things which are more intelligible and cleare by nature For the same things are not both known to us and simply so too wherefore we of necessity must thus proceed to wit from those things which are by nature indeed more obscure but yet are more clearer to us to those things which are more cleare and intelligible by nature But those things are first perspieuous and manifest to us which are most confused Therefore wee must goe from Vniversals to Singulars for the Whole is more known by sense now an Vniversal is a certain Whole As that in his
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
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
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
former After the former way doth the generation of Insects proceed as when by a Metamorphosis a Worm is made of an Egge or as when out of a putrifying matter the moisture drying or the dry part growing moist the primordia or rudiments are generated out of which as out of a Canker-worm now grown to its just magnitude or out of the worm called Aurelia by a Metamorphosis ariseth a Butter-flie or common Flie in its just magnitude or stature being nothing augmented since its first birth But the more perfect Animals which have blood are made by an Epigenesis or superaddition of parts and do grow and attain their just stature or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after they are born In those other Casus seu Fortuna Chance or Fortune seemeth chiefly to promote the generation in which the form ariseth ex potentiâ materiae prae-existentis out of the power or potentiality of the pre-existent matter and the matter is rather the first cause of the Generation then any external Efficient And hence it is that these kinde of Animals are more imperfect and do less continue their kinde or are less durable then Terrestrial or Aquatile creatures that have Blood which attain a Perpetuity from an Univocal principle that is from the same Species the chief cause whereof we ascribe to Nature and the Vegetative Virtue Some Animals therefore suâ sponte nascuntur are born of their own accord out of a Matter digested of it self or else casually as Aristotle seems to assert Whose Matter is capable of mutation of it self undergoing that mutation by Chance which seed doth in the generation of other Animals And the same thing falls out in the generation of Animals as in Art for some things are accomplished by Art and those very things by chance too as Health and other things againe are never produced without Art as a House Bees Waspes Butterflies and all those creatures that are generated out of a Worm by a Metamorphosis are said to be Casu orta creatures bred by chance and therefore things not preserving their kind but a Lyon or a Cock are never made by chance or of their own accord but have their existence from Nature or a more divine operative faculty at whose hands they rather require that it produce a Species like to themselves then supply a fit Matter In Generation by Metamorphosis creatures seem to be fashioned like things wrought off with a Mould or the Print of a Seale where the whole Matter is transformed But an Animal produced by Epigenesis attracts prepares concocts and applies the Matter at the same time and is at the same time formed and Augmented In those the Plastical vertue divides the same fimilar Matter and being divided disposes and reduces it into members out of a similar Matter making a dissimilar or out of a similar subject Matter dissimilar Organs But in these while it produces diverse parts and those parts diversly disposed one after another it requires and makes a diverse Matter and that Matter diversly disposed or qualified such as may be convenient to the production of different parts For which cause we conceive that the Perfect Egge is constituted and made up of several parts It therefore is clear by our History that the generation of the Chicken out of the Egge proceeds rather per Epigenesin quam per Metamorphosin by an Epigenesis then by a Metamorphosis and that all its parts are not constituted at once but successively in Order and that while it is augmented it is also formed while it is formed it is also augmented as likewise that some parts are superadded to others and distinguished from others and that the beginning increase and perfection of it do proceed by way of growth till at the last the Foetus doth result For the forming Faculty of the Chicken doth rather acquire and temper its own Matter then find its Matter ready tempered and fitted to its hand and the Chicken seems more to be framed and increased by his own self then by any other And as all things are increased or nourished by the same things out of which they are made so likewise the Chicken is in all likelyhood made by the same thing be it the Soule or some faculty of the Soul by which he is preserved and sustained For the same Efficient and Preserver is found both in the egg in the Chicken and out of the same Matter of which it doth constitute the first particle or rudiments of the Chicken it nourisheth augmenteth and superaddeth all the other parts Lastly in Generation by Metamorphosis the whole is distributed and distinguished into parts but by Epigenesis the whole is constituted and made of parts by a certain order and succession Wherefore Fabricius did erroniously seek after the Matter of the Chicken as if it were some distinct part of the egge which went to the imbodying of the Chicken as though the Generation of the Chicken were effected by a Metamorphosis or transfiguration of some collected lump or mass and that all parts of the body at least the Principal parts were wrought off at a heat or as himself speaks did arise and were corporated out of the same Matter and not by Epigenesis in which an order is observed according to the dignity and worth and use of the Parts where first a small foundation is laid which at the same time while it doth increase grows distinct and formed and so attains all its parts by degrees according to their proper order which are supergenerated and born to it For as the litle top or point which jets forth or protuberateth from the Acorne taking heat and encreasing multiplies into a Root Wood Sap Bark Shoots Tendrels Boughs Blossoms and Fruits and at last ariseth into a compleat Tree such is the progress of the Chicken in the Egge the Cicatricula or small speck which is in the foundation of the future Pile increases in Oculum into an Eye and at the same instant is distinguished into a Colliquamentum or dissolved substance in whose Center is born the Punctum sanguineum pulsans the Bloody panting point together with the Ramifications of the Veins from these doth by and by result the Nebula or litle cloudy Substance and first concrete Matter of the future Body which also as it grows is divided and distinguished into parts but not all at once but such as give place and eldership to one another To conclude therefore in the Generation of those Animals which are produced by Epigenesis as the Chicken in the Egge is we are not to enquire a particular or distinct matter out of which the productions should be imbodyed different from that out of which they are nourished and increased for it is nourished and encreased by the same matter whereof it is made and so on the othe hand the Pullus in the Egge is constituted out of the same matter by which it is susteined and augmented And potentiâ animal an Animal in potentiâ is
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
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
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
white is turned into a kind of straw-coloured substance For that complexion is in the the thicker white of all egges that are stale and is daily increased in them namely according as the Egge groweth Staler as is said and that without any assistance of veins by reason of the thinner substance exhaling But the Foetus growing bigger as we shall declare in its place and the circles of the branches of the veins being disseminated up and down part of both the juyces are dissolved not as Aldrovandus would have it by an innate vertue of the veins but by the heat of the blood inhabiting there For into what part soever of the moisturer the foresaid veins extend their Territories there presently appears a colliquation or resolution in the bordering parts and therefore the Yolk at that time seems double because its superior part which is joined to the cavity above about the obtuse angle being more mollified and dissolved then the rest of the Yolk appears like melted Wax compared to the other cold compacted part And upon that score as all melted things do it obtaineth a larger roome And that Upper part liquefied by the genital warmth is disterminated from the other liquors and especially from the White by a peculiar most thin coat of its own Whence it happens that a breach being made upon this slender frail and invisible membrane there presently follows a confusion and mixture of the Yolk and White which disturbs the whole frame And it is many times a cause to frustrate and void Generation when those liquors become to be of a diverse nay of a contrary nature according to that Text in Aristotle so often cited Egges are depraved and made addle most in hot weather and that upon good reason For as Wines grow sower in hotter weather the dregs being subverted for that is the cause of their depravation so Egges are destroyed their Yolk being corrupted for these are the more terrene and earthy parts in both So that Wine is disturbed by a commixture of the dregs and the Egges by diffusion of the Yolk And hither you may justly reduce that of him too where he saith Egges that are under the Henne in tempestuous thunders are corrupted For the exceeding smal membrane is by so great a noise quickly torne asunder And therefore perhaps confused and putrid Egges are called Ova Cynosura because as we have observed it thunders most in the Dog-days And therefore Columella rightly admonisheth that most men deeme the Summer-Solstice to be inconvenient for hatching of chickens This is most certain that Egges suffer quassation concussion and dissolution very easily if any man disturb them while the Hen is Sitting because at that time the liquors in them are liquefied and swell and the membranes embracing them are dilated and grow tender The fourth Inspection of the Egge EXERCIT. XVIII THE fifth day of Incubation is discerned first saith Aristotle the body of the Pullus being very small and white wherein the head is conspicum and in it the eyes much turgent which continue so a long time for it is long ere they abate and connive But in the lower part of the body there is no part â—â— first extant correspondent to the upper But thâ—sâ— Branches which shoot out from the Heart one tending to the ambient membrane the other to the Yolk do suppâ—â— the office of the Navel The original of the Chicken therefore from the White but its nourishment from the Yolk by the Navel By which words Aristotle seems to distribâ—â—â— the whole Generation of the Pullus into three classâ—â— or orders namely from the first day of Incubation to the fifth and thence on to the tenth or fourteenth and so on to the twentieth As if he had oâ—â— recorded those things in his History which he â— covered at these three Inspections The great changes in the Egge do indeed happen at these times as if by these Decretory days as by three distinct degrees the progresse of the perfect Egge to the utmost exclusion of the Chicken were distinguished For the fourth day the first particle of the Foetus namely the Punctum saliens and the Blood appear and after that the Foetus is corporated The Seventh the Chicken is distinguished into parts and beginnes to move The tenth it beginnes to be down-feathered about the twentieth it breathes and cryes according to its kind and seeks to make its escape The Life which it obtains about the fourth day seems to emulate that of Plants and is to be esteemed onely a vegitative animation But from that to the tenth it enjoyes a sensative and moving soul as Animals do and after that it is compleated by degrees and being adorned with Plâ—â—es Bill Clawes and other furniture it hastens to get out that being at length emancipated it may be unconfined and free Aristotle therefore enumerates amongst those things which befall after the fourth day chiefly three that is to say the fabrick of the body the branchings of the veines which now supply the Nature and Office of the Navel and the matter or substance whence the Foetus doth first spring and is constituted and nourished Concerning the Fabrick of the Body he relates four things first what magnitude it is of secondly what complexion thirdly what parts are most conspicuous namely the Head and Eyes and lastly what distinction or difference there is between the Parts Truth is the Body is exceeding small resembling in form that common worm or Maggot out of which the Flie is bred it is also white of colour like that little Worm which the Flie depositeth in putrified flesh to be cherished and bred up and he elegantly addes that it is most notorious from its Head and Eyes For that which first appears is a similar and indistinct Body as if it were some concrete and congealed substance of the colliquamentum it self like that Gelly which is made of the decoction of Harts-horn being like a transparent cloud which were hardly distinguishable were it not divided as it were into two parts whereof the one lies in a heap together and is much larger then the other being the Rudimens of the Head which is first discerned on the fifth day in which the Eyes are anon manifestly distinguished which at first are the biggest of all much puffed up and prominent and are discriminated both from the rest of the Head and the whole Body besides by a certain blackness cast round about them Any one of these is larger then the whole Head as also the Head alone exceeds all there of the Body in magnitude This Whiteness of the Body endureth a while as also the tumor of the Eyes which are filled also with a most clear moisture or water within but are dark and blackish without as it is also with the Brain that is to say to the tenth day and more for saith Aristotle It is late ere they diminish and contract to their allotted proportion Nay according to my observation
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
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
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
like to those but the spirit which is inclosed in the seed and spumous body and the nature which is in that spirit being answerable and like in proportion to the Element or substance of the Stars Wherefore though wee should indulge Fabricius in his opinion that the Seed is reserved in that pouch yet notwithstanding after the prolifical effervency or the spirit is resolved it would grow useless and improlifical And from hence may Physitians take notice that the geniture of the male is not therefore the architect of the foetus because the first cenception assumes its body from it but because it is spirituous and boyling as being inspired with a fertile spirit and turgent like a thing possessed For otherwise Averrhoes his fable of the woman that conceived in a Bath might have some title to true story But of these things more in their proper place As therefore the Egg is made by the Hen so iâ— it also very likely that all the first conceptions aâ— shall be shown hereafter doe assume both their Matter and Form from the female and that also after the males geniture is immitted and now for some time quite departed and vanished away For the Cock doth not conferre any fertility to the Hen or Eggs by the bare emission of his geniture but onely so farre forth as that geniture is prolifical and impowered with a plastical virtue that is to say spiritous operative and proportionable to the subtence of the Stars The male therefore is no more to be prized as the chief principle of the conception and foetus by reason he can concoct and emit seed then a female which can produce an egg without his help But he therefore rather claims prerogative in that he impowers his seed with spirit and divine efficacy and so that in a moment it can perform its affaires and conveigh fertility For as we see things immediately set on fire and infamed by a spark struck from a flint or by a flash of Lightning from a cloud so the geniture of the male doth immediately affect the female with the touch and transferres fruitfulness unto her which doth not onely virtuate the eggs but the womb also and the Hen herself and all in an instant for to combustible substance is sooner set on fire by the approach of the flames then the Hen is made pregnant by the coition of the Cock. But what it is that is transferred from him to her we shall have occasion to discover in its order then we shall determine the matter more perspicuously and in general In the mean time we must take notice that if it be derived from the soul for it is most likely that whatsoever is fruitfull the same is also animate and we have said before that an Egg in Aristoiles opinion is indowed with a vegetative soul as also all the seed of Plants that soul at least the vegetative must of necessity be ex traduce and derived in a Prolificall Conception as after it as it is in the Generation of the Chicken out of the Egge and just in that manner as Plants do spring from seeds of their own kind For it doth not appear that the Male is required to the intent that hee should be as an Agent Operatour or Efficient per se nor that the Female is required that she should contribute the matter but both Male and Female are to be esteemed in some sort the Operatour and Parent and the foetus is procreated a mixt similitude and resemblance as if it proceeded from both mixt together Nor is it true which Aristotle often affirms and Physitians take for granted namely that presently after Coition there is something to be found of the foetus or conception as the Heart or the Tres Bullae or some other Principle part or something at least in the cavity of the Womb as some Coagulum or Spermatical mixt substance or the like But on the contrary in case the Female prove fertile and pregnant it happens that the eggs and conception in the most and most perfect creatures is first begun long after coition And that the Female also is prolifical before any thing of the conception be at all contained in the Womb many indications do conspire to ascertain as shall be afterwards discovered in the History of Viviparous Animals as the enlargement of the Breasts and the turgid swelling of the Womb by which and other Symptomes we may perceive an Alteration in the whole Body But as for the Hen though she have for the most part the Rudiments of eggs in her before coition which are afterwards by the Tread made prolificall and therefore she then hath something in her presenly upon coition or treading yet when it falls out so with her that like other creatures she hath nothing at hand ready in her Ovary or hath already layd all the egges she formerly had there she being afterwards trod though some time pass between and intervene as if she were then both Principles her self alone or did possess the power of both Sexes doth after the manner of Plants generate egges by her self and those too I speak it knowingly not subventaneous but prolifical For if you take all the eggs from under a Hen that is now sitting in case that very Hen was a fruitful Hen in former time though she have now already layd all the eggs she hath and have not so much as one remaining in her Ovary she wil lay again and those eggs shal be fructifying prolifical eggs having the principles of both Sexes in them In what respect the Henne may be called the Primum Efficiens the first or Chiefe Efficient And also of her issue EXERCIT. XLI WE have already pronounced the Hen to be an Efficient Cause of Generation or natures Instrument in that employment but she is not absolutely and per se but by commission and by vertue of the Male rendered prolifical But as the Male is by Aristotle counted the first principle of Generation suo merito upon his own score because the first Motus or progress towards Generation proceeds from him so the Hen also may in some respect be esteemed the first cause of Generation insomuch as the male by the approach and presence of the female like one possessed is inflamed to Venery The female-Fish saith Pliny at the time of coition will pursue and follow the Male punching his belly with her head And again about the time of bringing forth the Male will do the like to the Female I my self have sometimes seen the male Fishes follow the female that was ready to spawn just as Doggs doe a salt-Bitch all in troops that they might sprinckle her eggs so soon as she had laid them lacte suo with their milkey substance or seed But that is most sensible in wanton and lascivious females which will stirre up Cupids slow and drowsie fires in their tame males and instill a silent love into them And hence it is that the Dunghill-cock so soon
so destructive that if God would leave the reins in their own hands they would spread a sweeping desolation over Men and Beasts for greater things then these are the dayly results of the generation of Animals For more and abler operations are required to the Fabrick and erection of Living creatures then to their dissolution and plucking of them down For those things that easily and nimbly perish are slow and difficult in their rise and complement Seneca as he is wont elegantly saith How long a time is required to ripen the conception for the Birth With how great care and tenderness is it trained when now it is an Infant With what choice of aliment is it cherished to a Youth and yet how obnoxious is this carkass at last how lost without any paines An age builds Towers which one hour levels with the ground With great caution things continue but perish at an easie rate The Forrest which is growing long one active spark and moment turns to cinders Nay not so much as a spark for the conflagration of the vastest bodies will put us onely to the expence of a Burning-glass where the Sunne beames being assembled and directed in a Cone will raise a nimble flame to speed the mischief So that nothing is difficult to Natures Royalty which to the production of things is sparing of her power and warily dispenseth it with a great deal of thrift by insensible accessions but she is quick to destroy running in full speed In the generation of things the best eternal and omnipotent God or Natures deity is evidently seen but all mortal things finde out a thousand wayes to ruine of their own accord How the generation of the Chicken is procured out of the Egge EXER XLII WE have thus farre considered the Egge as the Fruit and End it remaines that wee now treat of it as the Seed and Principle Now we must enquire saith Fabricius how the generation of the Chicken follows out of the Egge taking our rise from that Principle or Position of Aristotle and Galen and approved by all namely That all things that are made in this world are produced of these three the Agents the Instruments and the Matter But because in natural Productions the Agent is not without but either existent in the Matter or Instruments he concludes That we are to consider of the Agent and Matter only But because we are here to shew after what manner the Chicken is made out of the Egge I conceive it not useless to demonstrate how many several wayes one thing may be said to be made out of another for by that means it will more clearly and distinctly appear how many several wayes generation doth proceed from an Egge and what is to be resolved concerning the Matter Instruments and Efficient Aristotle hath taught that one thing is made out of another four manner of wayes First when we say the Night is made out of the Day and a Man of a Boy because this is after that The second when a Statue is made out of Brass or a Bed-stead out of Wood or whatsoever we affirm to be made of matter that so a whole may result from something that is formed and in it Thirdly when of a Musical a man unskilled in Musick or of a Sound a Sick man or one contrary of another Fourthly as Epicharmus makes his exaggeration of Calumnies Cursings of Cursings Conflict All which are referred to the first beginning of the progress for the Calumnies are a certain part of the whole Broile Since therefore one thing may be made out of another so many wayes it is apparent that the Seed is in another two of these wayes For that which is begotten is out of it either as out of its matter or as its first mover For it is not barely as this thing is after that as Navigation after the Panathenaea nor as one contrary out of another for a contrary is begotten out of the corruption of a contrary and there must needs be some subject matter out of which as out of a first immanent thing it should be made By which words Aristotle truly inferres that the Seed proceeding from the male is the efficient cause of the Foetus or else the Instrumental because it is no part of the Foetus neither according to the First nor third acceptation namely as this thing out of that or as out of its contrary nor is it the subject matter But as he saith in the same place that which proceeds from the Male in coition is not truly and properly called Seed but Geniture rather and doth differ from Seed properly so called For that is called Geniture which proceeding from the Generant is that first cause which obtains the beginning of the generation namely in those creatures which Nature hath designed to generation but the Semen is that thing which takes its original from the coition of those two namely the Male and Female and such is the seed of all Plants and of some Animals in whom there is no distinction of Sex as being that which is first mixt by the Male and Female as it were a promiscuous conception and such as we have formerly in our History declared the Egge to be which is called both a Fruit and a Seed For the Seed and the Fruit are distinct things and differ ratione prioris posterioris under the notion of that which is first and that which is after for the Fruit is that which proceeds from another the Seed is that out of which another doth proceed otherwise they were both the same It remaines therefore that we enquire how many of the foresaid wayes the Foetus doth proceed not from the Geniture of the Male but from the true Seed or Egg or Conception which are truly the seeds of Animals How many waies the Chicken may be said to be made out of the Egge EXERCIT. XLIII IT is therefore granted that the Chicken is made out of a prolifical Egg as out of its Matter and as by its Efficient and that the same Egge is both the Causes of the Chicken For as it deduceth its original from the Hen and is esteemed the fruit it is the Matter but in as much as it containeth in it throughout all its substance a plastical and prolifical virtue infused by the Male it is called the Efficient of the Chicken So that not onely as Fabricius would have it these things are inseparably joyned together in one and the same Egge namely the Agent and the Instrument but it is also necessary that the same place should also containe Aliment by which it should be nourished So that in a prolifical Egge these four things are to be found together namely the Efficient the Instrument the Matter and the Aliment as appears plainly in our History Wherefore we affirme that the Chicken is made out of the prolifical Egge all the fore-said waies namely as out of its Matter Efficient and Instrument and also as
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
it is a perplext business and Authors do no where more cavil and contend and Aristotle himself is wonderful intricate in explaining it and also many doubts not to be despised do interpose I conceive it worth the while as we have done in making search after the Matter in the first place to set down how many ways a thing may be said to be Efficient or Effective that so it may more certainly and distinctly appear what is to be enquired after under the name of Efficient as also what is to be resolved concerning the opinion of Authors about this matter and that it may likewise appear out of our own observations what is to be truely and properly called an Efficient Aristotle defines an Efficient cause to be that from whence the first beginning of Mutation or Rest proceeds as an Adviser a Father and simply he that doth a thing of the thing that is done that which is the transmutor of that which is transmuted Whereupon many and sundry kinds of causes from whence a motion or mutation doth proceed are brought and amassed in the Generation of Animals sometimes an accident or quality is assigned the Efficient and so the animal heat and forming faculty are alledged as the Efficient Sometimes an external substance before existent in which the plastical power and forming faculty resides as the father or the seed of that creature by whose efficacy the Chicken is procreated of the egge Sometimes some internal substance existent by it self as the spirit or Calidum innatum And sometimes some other substance as the Form or Nature or Soul or some Vegetative part of the Soul which kinde of principle we have said is in the Egge Moreover because some things from which mutation doth proceed are neerer causes of it and some more remote thereupon sometimes media the things between the first efficient and the last effect and also the Instruments are counted Efficients as also subordinate ends or the principles of subsequent things are ranked amongst efficient causes and hereupon is it that some parts are called Genital parts as the Heart from which Aristotle affirms the other parts to proceed as is clear also by our History I say the Heart or at lest the rudiment of the Heart namely the Vesicula and Punctum saliens doth erect and set up the rest of the Body as a future habitation for it self and when it is built takes possession enlivens and swayes it and fortifies it with the superaddition of the Ribs and Breast-bone as with a Bulwark and becomes as it were a Tutelar God the first chamber that entertaines the soule the first receptacle of the primigenial heat and the Vestal animal-fire the source and fountain of all the Faculties and the only solace in Afflications Again since the Efficient is so called in order to the Effect seeing by Epigenesis some parts are after other in order and divers also spring from those that are before them it is therefore probable that as the Effects so the Efficients are also diverse which produce diverse works from which also diverse mutations do proceed So Physitians in the Physiological part of Physick do constitute some Instruments of Chylification some of Sanguification and some of Generation and some Anatomists an Ossifical Carnifical and a Nervifical faculty which they depute to make the Bones the Flesh and the Nerves But in the Generation of the Chicken the efficient causes must needs differ by reason of the several actions relating to it which differ very much which though they may seem Efficientes per accidens contingent Efficients of Generation yet are they necessarily required since nothing could be done without their associat ayd For while they remove external Impediments or do cherish or awaken the conception and de potentiâ in actum deducunt raise it from possibility into actual being they are justly stiled efficients And in this Rowle the Incubation of the Hen the temper and warmth of the Place and Air the Spring-time and the approach of the Sun by the Zodiack may be well listed as also the preparing causes which cause the Yolk to ascend the Macula to be dilated and the resolution or melting of the humours in the Egge may be mustered amongst efficients And then the Generative and Architectonical faculties which Fabricius calls parts are to be numbred with the efficient causes as the Immutatrix Concoctrix Formatrix Auctrix the Altering Concocting Forming and Augmenting faculty as also those causes that are efficients in the Accidents relating to the Chicken as that by which the Chicken is either a Cock or a Henne resembling the He or Shee-parent and that in relation to the form of the Cock which was concerned in the former or latter coition whence it comes to pass that the Chicken is an animal and that an entire one and not dismembered sturdy and sound not diseased and crasie but a long liver and retaining the Species or degenerating from it or proves a Monster or of a mixt race Lastly since in treating of the efficient cause of the foetus we discover the notable structure of it and the actions functions uses and benefits of all the parts and members and with what prudence skill and judgment by how divine an inspiration all things are managed and artificially composed for the advantage of Life we must not only amuse our selves in inquiring which is the Efficient Architect and Projector but also adore and admire the Omnipotent Author and Preserver of so great a Fabrick as justly merits the title of a Microcosme We also enquire when and whence it proceedeth and where this divine Vicar and Vice-Roy of the deity which is analogous to the substance of Stars and neer allyed to Art and Intellect takes up its residence and keeps its Court. It is apparent therefore by what hath been said that it is a difficult thing to enumerate all the efficient causes of the Pullus and we must needs referre the fuller disquisition of the thing to a general consideration nor is it possible to treat fully and profitably of those things which agree to all in general out of the single generation of the Chicken without a clearer light borrowed by experience from other Animals And that the rather because Aristotle himself hath recounted so many various efficient principles of Animals For sometimes he ordaines the Male the chief efficient cause as in whom the Ratio pulli the Reason or ground of the Made Chicken consists according to that all things are made by the same Univocal Sometimes the Males seed or the Nature of the Male ejecting seed Sometimes that which is in the seed causing seed to be fruitfull namely the Spirit and the nature in that Spirit answerable in proportion to the substance of the Starres Else where heat moderate heat a certain proportionable degree of heat the heat in the Blood and in some places the heat of the Ambient Aire Likewise
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
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
In like manner because the Vesiculae pulsantes do as Instruments minister to the motion of the Blood and likewise the whole Frame and Fabrick of the Heart as we have evidenced in our Book de Motu Sanguinis is Instrumental namely that the Blood may be continually hurried round the Body in a Circle the Blood seems to have a being both in Order of Nature and Generation before the Heart which he imployes as an Instrument having begotten it also and doth persist to nourish and convey heat spirits life unto it by the Coronal Artery But how this General Rule of Aristotle concerning the prae-ordering of the Parts doth appear to be true by Anatomical Observation we shall declare hereafter In the mean time we will enquire after what manner he himself doth sufficiently deduce the Causes of Priority as I may so say in Generation according to this Rule After the Principle namely the Heart are the Interiour parts begotten before the exteriour the superiour before the inferiour for the inferiour are for the superiours sakes as being their instrument after the pattern observed in Plants which shoot forth their Roots before their Branches But Nature doth not use that method in Generation nor is the instance alwayes true for in Beanes Ciches and other Pulse also in Acornes or Mast and Corne it is apparent that at the same time the Stalk shootes upward from the same Bud and the Roots downward Likewise Onions and other bulbous plants do germinate upwards before they fix downwards But he adjoines another cause of this order to wit Nature makes nothing superfluous nor nothing in vaine whence it appears that nothing is made by her either before or after another otherwise then need requires Namely those parts are first generated whose uses and functions are first required some also are sooner begun because they call for more time to perfect them that so they may be ready for the birth together with others that are forwarder then they As the Cook being to provide a feast where some provisions by reason of their solidity aske a slower fire and longer time to prepare them he laies them down to the fire first but to those that are sooner dispatched and are dressed with a gentler heat he applyeth himselfe last and such also as are to be served up in the first course he makes ready first but those in the second last So likewise nature in the generation of Animals is late ere she delineate the moist soft and fleshey parts as being quickly cooked and reduced into shape but for the hard and more solid as the bones because they exact a large Evaporation and Exsiccation and their matter continues long indigested to them she addresses her selfe first of all For in the Braine also saith he the same falls out namely that at first it is very moist and great in quantity but anon the humidity evaporating and being concocted it growes more solid and so the quantity of the Head and Eyes do abate In the beginning therefore the Head seems very bigge in comparison of all the rest of the body which it much exceeds in bulke by reason of the Braine and the eyes very large by reason of the humour conteined in them But yet the eyes are perfected last because even the Braine it selfe is long ere it grow to a consistence For it is long ere it get the mastery and drein the water and especially in a Man For the Sinciput is last confirmed of all the Bones for that bone is yet soft even when the Child is born into the World He also proceeds to another reason namely that the parts are framed of different materials The more noble parts saith he and those that participate the worthiest principles are constituted of the concocted purest and chiefest aliment the other necessary parts made for their sakes are fashioned out of the baser matter the reliques and dregs For Nature like a prudent Master of a Family loseth nothing out of which he can make any advantage but so manages the matter in his house that his Children may fare best his Servants harder then they and the scraps or refuse thrown to the Dogs As therefore Incremento jam addito mens advena facit haec that is as I interpret it a prudent man grown to years of discretion disposes thus of his Charge So in the framing of things Nature by an inbred wisdome and prudence formes the flesh and substance of the instruments of sense out of the most refined matter but the Bones Nerves Hair Nailes Hoofes and the like out of the Dregs that is the refuse remainders or fragments And therefore these are made last when nature hath now good store of course materials And after this he distinguisheth of two sorts of Aliment one of Nutrition the other of Augmentation That of Nutrition saith he doth supply a being to the whole and all the parts that of augmentation procureth an accession to the magnitude According to what we finde in the Egge where the White as the more refined Aliment relates to the first Nutrition of the Chicken the Yolk to its augmentation And the thinner White as hath been shewed conduceth to the formation of the First and nobler Parts but the Courser and the Yolk to the augmentation of the Nobler and formation of the more Ignoble For he saith the Nerves are framed as the Bones out of the seminal and nutritive excrement But the Nailes Haire Spurres and all like these are formed out of augmentative and adventitious meats which the Foetus both receives from the Mother and also doth provide of it selfe And after this he at last gives the reason why Man since other Animals are provided with their Garments and Weapons at Natures price should be borne naked and unarmed namely that those kind of parts are constituted of the excrementitious parts and reliques but the materials of Men are purer in which there is very litle terrene or crude excrement to be found And thus far have we made use of Aristotle concerning the Order of Generation where all seems to be bottomed upon one foundation namely Natures Perfection which in all her Workmanship hath nothing short nor nothing superfluous but always disposeth matters for the best And therefore no parts had been precedent or subsequent to one another if it had been more advantagious to have formed them altogether which is to be understood of Her as often as she acts freely and by choice For sometimes she acts otherwise being as it were under constraint and put beside her purpose which happens when either by defect of matter or superfluity thereof or by the default of her instruments or some outward impediments she is hindered in her work and frustrated of her aime or end And hence it comes to pass sometimes that the final parts are generated before the Instrumental I call those final parts which employ others as their instruments And because some parts are Genital parts which Nature sets to
the Whole Egge Fabricius doth recount the Figure Quantity and Number of the Egges The Figure of the Egge saith he is round that the whole bulk of the Chicken might be contained in the lesser space for which cause God made the Universe Round to comprehend all things and for the same cause this Figure saith Galen appeared alwayes most lovely and convenient to Nature Besides in that it hath no angle exposed to outward injuries it is therefore esteemed the safest figure and most convenient for the Exclusion of the Chicken Now Fabricius upon this ground ought to have assigned the reason why Hen-egges are not spherical as the fry or eggs of fishes worms and froggs are but acuminated and oblong What impediment is there which hinders them from this perfect figure Therefore in my judgement the figure of the egge hath no influence at all upon the Generation of the Chicken but is meerly accidental which I the rather conceive because there are so many several varieties of figures even in the Hen-eggs only For the figure differs according to the diversity of the Uterus in which as in a Mould it receives its form Aristotle indeed saith That oblong eggs produce Hens but the rounder Cocks But I have never yet observed any such thing And Pliny affirmes the clean contrary The rounder sort of eggs saith he exclude Hens and the rest Cocks And to say truth if there were any certainty to be collected hence some Hens would ever generate Cocks and other Hens for some do lay eggs which are alwayes of one and the same figure that is ever oblong or ever round And the oblong would rather exclude Cocks because they are the more perfect and better concocted and therefore Horace esteemed them to be more pleasant then the round The Reasons alledged by Fabricius for the figures of the Eggs we willingly pass by because they are invalid As for the Magnitude of the Egge that indeed doth seem to conduce to the largeness of the fatus which is thence to be generated for your great Hens lay fairer eggs And yet the Crocodile layes egges no bigger then Goose-eggs no living creature spreading into so large a bulk from so small an Original It is also probable that the largeness of the Egge and the plenty of the liquours contained in it do conduce something to the fecundity of the Egge for the very small eggs called Centenina are all of them addle The Number of Eggs affords the same benefit as plenty of Conceptions do in Viviparous creatures that is they are useful to the continuation of the species For Nature doth commonly bestow a plenteous issue upon those Animals which are weak and lyable to the insolences of other Creatures recompensing the shortness of their lives with the number of their ofspring Nature saith Pliny hath bequeathed this legacy to the Race of Birds that the more fearfull amongst them should be more fruitfull then the more valiant For since all Generation is designed by Nature for Perpetuity sake it befalls those Animals more frequently which are shorter lived and obnoxious to outward injuries that so their species may not decay Hereupon Birds of Prey which excell in strength and thence maintain their lives the longer and remain in more security do seldom lay above two eggs Indeed the Pigeon Turtle and Ring-dove hatch but two egges at once but the frequency makes satisfaction for the paucity for they hatch ten times a year So that they Generate Much though not Many Of the Benefits or Uses of the Yolk and White EXERCITATION LX. AN Egge saith Fabricius properly so called is compounded of several parts because it is the Organ or Instrument of the Generant and Galen affirms That every Organ consists of several parts Which gives an occasion of doubt whether every egge be not Heterogeneous seeing every egge is an Organ And indeed every egge seems to be constituted out of several parts even the very eggs of Insects and Fishes for they all consist of Membranes Coverings and Muniments and the Matter also contained in them is not altogether destitute of a dissimilar constitution Fabricius doth also farther conclude truly with Galen That some parts of the Egge are the chief Instruments of Action others such Instruments as the Action cannot be performed without them others as conducing to the better performance of the Action and lastly others as usefull to the safety and preservation of all the rest But he is deceived where he saith If we speak of the chiefe Action of all which is the Generation of the Chicken the chief cause thereof is the Seed and the Chalaza for these two are the prime cause of the generation of the chicken the Seed being the Efficient cause and the Chalaza the material onely For as Aristotle affirms he must of necessity acknowledge that the Generant must be within the Egg. But he denies the Cocks seed to be within the Egge Nor is he less mistaken concerning the Material cause out of which the Chicken is made by the artifice of the seed For it is neither made of both the Chalazae nor yet of any one of them as hath been discovered in our History Nor is the Generation of the Chicken accomplished by a Metamorphosis or delineation and division of the Chalazae but by in Epigenesis as we have explained Nor is the Chalaza principally fructified by the seed but the Cicatricula rather or the Eggs-eye as we call it out of which being enlarged the colliquamentum doth result and afterward in the colliquamentum and out of it the Blood Veines Vesiculae pulsantes and the whole Body is at last constituted And upon his own confession the seed of the Cock doth not so much as pass into the womb of the Hen at all and yet notwithstanding it doth fructifie not only the Eggs already formed but those also that shall be formed hereafter To the Eggs second Action which is the Nutrition and Augmentation of the Chicken Fabricius calls in the White and Yolk The Quantity of the yolk and white saith he is proportioned to the better performance of the former action as also to the absolution and just encrease of the chicken The Egg-shell and Membranes are constituted for the safeguard of the whole and also of the action of the Egg. But the veins and arteries which do convey the aliment are such as without them the encrease and nutrition could not proceed But yet he leaves us in suspense not knowing whether he mean the Umbilical Vessels of the foetus it self or the veines and arteries of the mother as those instruments by which the egg is augmented And yet upon as good ground both the Uterus and the Incubation it self may be reduced into this classis Come we then to the Liquors of the Egge namely the Yolk and White for these are rather then the other parts instituted for the sake of the foetus and also in them the second action of the
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
is placed below and neer to these humours being alwaies present with them Adde also moreover that a certain mucous and pituitous substance is alwaies found about the orifice of the womb But in my opinion this worthy man is mistaken for the Neck of the womb is not hard by complication but of its own essence and nervous constitution and likewise those accidental Causes which he alledgeth are of litle advantage to this purpose For doubtless this is done by the Divine Providence of Nature as well as the rest of the wonderfull Fabrick of the Body which doth direct her workmanship to a certain End Action and Use The Wombs constitution therefore is such that in the first Conception it should have its nervous Orifice constringed for retention sake which afterwards in the delivery of the foetus like the fruit in the Tree doth of hard become soft and mellow for the convenience of expulsion and that not from any unfolding but from the alteration of its Temper for even the connexion of the bones themselves namely the Synchondrosis of the Haunch-bone with the Share and Holy-bone the synneuresis or natural union or coalition of the Rump or utmost end of the Os Sacrum is dissolved and mollified It is indeed a wonderfull thing that the litle bud of a growing Nut as suppose of the Kernel of an Almond or other Fruit should break those bones which a Malet can hardly bruise and that the tender fibers of the Ivy-root crawling along the narrow chinks or crannies of stones should at last demolish large walls But it is nothing so wonderfull that the genital parts of Women which are relaxed in the birth should afterward harden and draw themselves together because it is natural to those parts especially if we consider that the Yard of the Male is in coition very much stretched and hardened and anon doth flagge and soften We are more to admire which is beyond all plicature or folding that the substance of the Uterus is not onely dayly amplified and distended according to the growth of the foetus as if it were according to the opinion of Fabricius unfolded but doth grow thicker more carnous and stronger then before That indeed is more wonderfull yet as Fabricius admireth it that the so large bulk of the Uterus should in so few dayes space by the customary purgations of Child-bed return to its pristine dimensions since it is not so in other â—umours and impostumations which consisting of praeternatural and digestive faculties which rebell against the expulsive are longer under cure And yet this is no more admirable then the other works of Nature for all things are filled with the Deity and the God of Nature displayeth himself in all things In the last place Fabricius doth most admire that those Vessels of the Embryo namely the Oval perforation out of the Hollow-vein into the Venal Arterie and the passage from the Arterial Vein into the Aorta whereof we have treated at large in our Tract of the Circulation of the Blood should presently after the birth wither and be obliterated and is enforced to betake himself to that reason cited by us before out of Aristotle namely that all parts are constituted for some Action ot other and that Action being taken away the parts also themselves do vanish As the Eye seeth the Eare heareth the Braine perceiveth the Stomack concocteth not because they are endowed with such a kinde of temper and fabrick but those organs are therefore endowed with such a kinde of temper and fabrick that so they may perform the Functions assigned them by Nature By which argument it appeareth that the Uterus is the chiefest of the Parts dedicated to Generation for the Testicles are constituted for the geniture or seed but the seed for coition and coition it self or emission of seed that the Uterus may receive fecundity and so generation ensue thereby We have formerly said that the Egge is as it were the fruit of Animals and as it were an exposed Womb. Now on the contrary we shall contemplate the Uterus as an Egge residing within For as Trees at set times do flourish with leaves flowers and fruits and Oviparous Animals do sometimes generate eggs and lay but sometimes they grow emerit and the place or part which did contain them is not to be found so also Viviparous Animals have their Spring and Autumne At the Seasons of fecunditie and generation the Genital parts especially in Females are very much altered insomuch that the Ovary in Birds which at other times is conspicuous doth then appear something turgid and the Belly of Fishes about the time of Spawning doth much exceed all the rest of their body by reason of the multitude of their eggs and affluence of their seed or spawne In many Viviparous Animals the Genitals namely the Uterus and Spermatical Vessels are perceived to be at some times of a diverse Constitution Temper and Fabrick but as they grow pregnant or forbear to be so so do they diversly change so that a man can hardly know them for the same things For as in Nature nothing is wanting so there is no superfluity And therefore the Genital parts when there is no more use of them do wither are retracted and as it were obliterated and expunged At the times of Coition the Testicles are conspicuous in male Hares and Moles and the Hornes are then visible in the Uterus of their females It were strange to relate how great an affluence of seed is then conspicuous in the larger sort of Moles and Mice in which at other times no seed at all is to be seen but their Testicles are extenuated and retracted into their Bellies but when they forgoe impregnation there is hardly any such thing as a Uterus to be perceivd insomuch that it is a difficult matter to distinguish Male from Femal The Womb doth chiefly in Women exceedingly vary both in Temper as also in those Adjuncts which follow the Temper namely Scituation Magnitude Figure Colour Thickness Hardness Density Unripe Virgins as their Breasts are no bigger then the Breasts of Boyes so is their Uterus very small white of a skinny substance destitute of Veines and in magnitude not exceeding the top of ones Thumb or a large Bean. So also antient Women as their breasts do sink so have they a retreated flaggy lank pallid Womb void of Veins and Blood Which I also conceive to be the cause why Women growing Antient have not their monthly Termes but that they descend into the Haemorrhoides or else do abruptly forsake them and so endanger their health But when the Womb is now chill and as it were defunct all the Veins and Arteries thereof are expunged the superfluous blood when it boileth doth either restagnate or divert its course into the neighbouring Haemorrhoids But on the contrary in pale Virgins and such as have the Green sickness whose Womb is slender and their Terms are at a stay by Coition with
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
onely imitations of the natural are thus produced by the Braine how much more probable is it that the Exemplars of Animal Generation and conception are in like manner produced by the Uterus And because Nature all whose works are admirable and divine doth institute such an Organ namely the Braine by whose sensitive faculty and virtue the conceptions of the rational soule doe exist namely Desires and Arts and the Principles and Causes of so many several productions whereof man by the motive faculty of the Braine is the Author by Imitation why shall we not think that the same Nature which hath contrived the Womb which is a no lesse admirable Organ then the Braine and hath framed it of a like constitution to execute the office of Conception hath designed it also to a like function or at least to one which beareth an Analogy with it and that Nature did intend an Organ which is every way like the Braine to an imployment like to that to which the Braine is assigned For since a skilful Artificer doth accomplish his Workmanship by his ingenious proportioning one Instrument to one thing and the same to the same and the like to the like So that by the materials and shape of his Instruments a man may easily judge of their use and actions no less then Aristotle hath instructed us to know the nature of Natural Bodies by their conformation and the Fabrick of their Parts and the Art of Physiognomy doth by lineaments and parts of the face as the Eye Nose Fore-head c. give judgement of the manners and dispositions of Men What shall hinder us out of the same fabrick of parts to pass our conjecture that their Office is also the same But such is the preposterous success of things that when we come to debate customary and familiar things their frequency doth diminish their greatness and admiration which is due unto them but when matters of less consequence but such as are more unusual do present themselves wee instantly magnifie them because of their novelty and rarity Whosoever shall weigh with himself how the brain of the Artist or the Artist himself by virtue of his brain doth form things which are not present with him but such as he only hath formerly seen so much to the life and how litle birds which immure themselves all winter long do exactly chant and recall to minde those Ditties the next Spring which they had learned the Summer before though they did never practise them all the while and which is yet more strange how a litle bird will most artificially contrive a Nest whereof shee never saw any platform before and that not from her memory or any habit implanted in her but onely by meere phansie and how a young Spider without any pattern or brain by the help of phansie onely doth dispose her web whosoever I say doth diligently ponder these things will I conceive not think it an absurd or monstrous matter for a woman to become the efficient cause of Generation being impregnated by the conception of a generall immateriall Idea I know full well that some scoffing persons will laugh at these conjectures approving nothing but their owne private inventions Yet this is the wont of Philosophers when they cannot clearly discover how things themselves are brought about to conceive some way consonant to the course of nature and the next borderer upon truth her selfe how such matters may be atchieved And indeed all those Opinions which we now cry up were at first meere figments and imaginations untill they wrought a solid credit in us by sensible experiment and were ratified by their necessary knowne causes Aristotle saith That Philosophers are in some sort lovers of Fables because a Fable doth consist of strange things And indeed those who were first possessed with the admiration of things did advance Philosophy And for my owne particular since I plainly see that nothing at all doth remaine in the Uterus after coition whereunto I might ascribe the principle of generation no more then remaines in the braine after sensation and experience whereunto the principle of Art may be reduced but finding the constitution to be alike in both I have invented this Fable Let the Learned and ingenious stock of men consider of it let the supercilious reject it and for the scoffing ticklish generation let them laugh their swinge Because I say there is no Sensible thing to be found in the Uterus after coition and yet there is a necessity that something should be there which may render the female fruitfull and that in probability can be no corporeal essence we have no refuge left us but to fly to meere Conception and reception of Species without any matter namely to apprehend that the same thing is effected in the womb as in the Braine unless some cunning Philosopher whom the Gods have better provided for can finde out some efficient cause which is not concluded in our recapitulation Some Philosophers even of our owne time have furbushed over the old opinion concerning the Atomes and doe therefore conceive that this Contagion as also all other doth proceed from the most subtle effluviums or emanations of the masculine seed which do easily transpire after the manner of Odours and so are shot into the Uterus at the time of coition Some againe raise up certaine incorporeal spirits like so many Agents Angels or Daemons Others understand a Contagion like to a kinde of ferment or sower levening Others phansie and imagine otherwise Allow therefore amongst others some place for this conjecture of mine untill there be some certainty established in the business I have observed many things which will easily extirpate the recited opinions of other men so that now it is much more obvious to say what it is not then what it is but those Observations relate not to this place but must be proposed elsewhere At the present I shall say this onely If that which we commonly call Contagion as being derived from the spermatical contact in coition and remaining behinde in the female when the Geniture it selfe is not then in presence is the efficient and operatour of the future procreation if I say this Contagion whether it be Atomes or Odour or Ferment or whatsoever else be free from the nature of a body it must of necessity be an incorporeal thing And if moreover upon enquiry it do appear to be neither a Spirit nor a Daemon nor a Soul nor any part of a Soul nor yet something which hath a Soul as I conceive I can demonstrate by several arguments and experiments What remains since I can imagine nothing else nor no man hath hitherto dreamed of any other thing but freely to profess my self to be at a stand But He that doubts admires saith Aristotle doth confess he doth not know Wherefore if to avoid the stain of Ignorance ingenuous Men turn Philosophers it is cleare that they pursue Knowledge for Knowledge sake and not
for any other use Wee ought not therefore to be condemned if being desirous of knowing things and upon that account walking in untrodden paths wee set before you something which at first blush may seem fabulous and fictitious For as all things are not to be swallowed with too much credulity so those things which have been exactly and long considered are not utterly to be despised though they doe not appeare so rare to sharp-witted men Aristotle himself wrote a Book de Mirabilibus Auditis of Heare-say Wonders And in another place hee saith That wee must not onely pay thankes to them to whose Opinions a man may safely subscribe but to those also who have spoken but superficially to the purpose For even they also are of some use for they exercise our habits For had not Timotheus been wee had lost a great deale of Musicke And yet if Phrynis had not been Timotheus had not been existent neither In like manner they who have delivered any kinde of truth for wee have received some Opinions from some Philosophers and yet some others were the occasion of these Philosophers And therefore being moved by the example and authority of so Gallant a person as Aristotle least I might seem made up of nothing but the subversion of other mens Doctrines I have chosen rather to propose a feigned Opinion then none at all and have contented my self in this place to play the Phrynis to Timotheus viz. to shake off the sloth and drowziness of the Age wee live in and to awaken the wits of Industrious heads permitting rather that abler men should sport themselves with my proposals then that any carefull Enquirer into the nature of Things should accuse mee of sluggishness Truth is a man cannot search after a more august Theorem nor learn any thing of more use then this namely How all things are produced by an Univocal Agent or after what manner the same thing doth still generate the same and that not onely in the productions of Art for so a House erects a House one Face limnes another and one Image formeth another Image but in those also which relate to the Minde as a Minde begets a Minde and one Opinion another Opinion Democritus his Atomes and Eudoxus his Chiefest Good placed in Pleasure did impregnate Epicurus Empedocles his Foure Elements Aristotle the Doctrine of antient Thebes Pythagoras and Plato and Geometrie Euclid Just in this manner is the Son borne like the Father and the Virtues which doe innoble a Family and the Hereditary Vices also are sometimes after many Generations transported to Posterity some Diseases also produce their like in other subjects as the Leprosie the Gout Syphilis or French-Pox and so forth But what talke I of Diseases since Succession hath at a vast remove repeated the very Moles Warts and Scarres which the Great-grand-sires formerly wore The marke of the Familie saith Plinie is repeated in the armes of the Daci every fourth Birth That Minde Opinion and those very Manners which are now out of use may many yeares hence when all those are decryed which are now received returne againe For the Eternall minde of the Divine Creatour which is imprinted in Things doth create the Image of it selfe in Humane Conceptions Having therefore overcome some difficulties which relate to this Subject I have a strong desire to discourse the Matter more closely that what I have hitherto delivered cursorily may seeme to carry a fairer probability at least with it and also to excite the Wits of Studious men to make a deeper search into the businesse Therefore that we may illustrate the thing the better let A stand for the fruitfull egge namely the matter of the fruitfull chicken which is alterable and convertible into a chicken or is a chicken in posse and let B stand for that which fructifieth the egge distinguishing it from a subventaneous egge namely the efficient cause of the chicken or that which doth alter the Egge and convert or terminate it into a chicken And C for the chicken it selfe or final cause for whose sake both the Egge and that which fructifieth the Egge doe exist namely the act or reason of the chicken Now we take it for granted which Aristotle doth demonstrate that every first Mover or Alterer is together with that thing which is moved or altered by it Now those things are most properly said to be simul together which are generated at the same time so that movens mobile the thing altering and the thing altered are actually together and in case one of them be the other must needs bee also for of necessity if the effect be in being the cause thereof must also be Whensoever therefore A namely the fruitful Egge is actually in Being B likewise namely the internal mover and efficient or fructifier is actually in being also But whensoever B is actually existent C also at least in some sort namely the Species of the chicken or the form without matter is existent For B is the internal efficient of the chicken that is to say that thing which doth move or alter A namely the Egge into C namely the Reason of the chicken That therefore every moving thing may be together with the thing that is moved and every cause with the thing caused it is necessary that C should exist together with B because the Final cause as well in Nature as Art is the first of all the causes for it moveth and is it selfe not moved But the efficient moveth because it is incited by the finall cause For there is in every efficient in some sort ratio finis the reason of the End or finall cause by which final cause the efficient operating with providence is moved Aristotles Authority is clearly on our side That seemeth saith he to be chiefest amongst Natural causes which we signifie under this notion Cujus Gratia for whose sake For that is the reason but the reason is the first cause as well in Natural as Artificial effects For when the Physitian doth define Health and the Mason a House by either the Intellect or by Sense he useth to render the reasons and causes of the thing which he doth effect and also subjoineth the reason why hee maketh it so though that cause which is the cause for whose sake which is the cause and reason of the good and faire is rather conjoined to the works of Nature then of Art But the End saith he is the thing for whose sake as the thing for whose sake we walk is Health For if you aske why a man doth walk we reply to continue his Health and having made that answer we conceive we have rendered the cause thereof And therefore whatsoever is interposed some other thing moving thereunto is done for the Ends sake as Extenuation is procured for Health sake or Purgation or Physick or any other instruments for all those are for the Ends sake And a while after But we ought alwayes to seek
out the first cause of every thing as in other matters As a man buildeth because he is a Builder but he is a Builder by reason of his Art of building this therefore is the first cause and so it is in all things whatsoever And hereupon he affirmeth that that cause which doth first move and in which the Reason and form doth lye is a worthier and more divine cause then the material In every Natural Generation of Animals therefore both the matter out of which and the efficient by which namely A the thing moved and B the thing moving are both for the sake of the Animal already begotten or which is to be begotten because that which moveth and is not moved it selfe namely C is alike in them both For both they namely A B are both movable and moved namely the thing fructifying which is B which doth both move and is moved and that thing which is fructified which is A namely the Matter or Egge which is onely moved or altered Wherefore if no moveable thing be actually moved unlesse the thing moving be together present with it Certainly neither shall the Matter be moved nor the Efficient move or effect any thing unlesse the first mover bee in some sort present too viz. the form or species which is without Matter and is the principal cause For the Efficient and Generant according to Aristotle as they are such do belong to that which is effected and generated And therefore it is a syllogisme framed out of the first and necessary causes namely Whensoever B is actually existent C also is actually existent namely moving in some sort Whensoever A is actually existent B is also actually existent Therefore whensoever A is actually existent C also is actually existent Indeed Natural and Artificial Generation are after one and the same manner For both are instituted for the sake of something and doe alike out of a kinde of providence direct themselves to a proposed End for both are first moved by some conceived form which is immaterial and is produced by Conception For the Braine is the Organ of the Conception of the one for Art is the Reason of the Worke devoyd of all Matter in the Soule whose Organ the Braine is but the Uterus or Egge of the Other The Conception therefore of the Egge or Uterus is in some sort like the Conception of the Braine it selfe and both of them doe alike partake of the End For the Species or Forme of the Chicken is in the Uterus or Egge without any matter at all as the reason of the Work is in the Artificer and the Reason of the House in the Brain of the Builder But because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inesse this word to bee in is perhaps an Equivocal word and things may bee said to bee Simul together severall wayes therefore we say and affirme that the Species and Immateriall Forme of the future Chicken is Aliquo modo in some sort the cause of the pregnation and fecundity of the Uterus because after coition there is no corporeal thing found therein But how this Immateriall cause as the principle can be alike in the Braine and in the Vterus and how they agree among themselves or doe differ namely the Conceptions of the Braine and of the Vterus or Art and Nature and in what manner that which fructifieth namely the internal Efficient cause of the procreation of an Animall is in the Male and its Geniture in the Female and her Wombe in the Egge also or mixt Workmanship of both and what the difference betweene them is hereafter when wee shall treat Universally of the Generation of all Animals even of those also which are generated by Metamorphosis namely of Insects and Spontaneous Productions in whose Egges or first Rudiments there is a plaine Species or Immateriall forme as being the moving principle in regard of those things which are to be produced as also in all other Seed whatsoever and also when we shall discourse of the Soule and its affections and also how Arts Memory and Experience are onely the Conceptions of the Brain wee shall endeavour both largely and perspicuously to explaine FINIS ERRATA PAg. 42. lin 36. read arising from the Chine p. 46. l. 30. r. doth but by Juxtaposition p. 67 l. 11. carried it to p. 69. l. 20. every other p. 70. l. 27. clocking p. 93. l. 23. its growth p. 105. l. 11. is yet p. 291. l. 13. cone p. 292. l. 5. for are not r. would not be ibid. l. 12. after part r. made up of those humours mixt together it is a similar animate part ibid. l. 14. del and. p. 293. l. 16. del it p. 294. l. 25. for pour out the Serum r. pour it out L. 1. c. 2. 3. Post 2. Epist 58. Analyt post l. 1. c. 1. Ib. l. 2. cap. ult Metaph. l. 1. c. 1. Apud Plat. in Gorgiâ De gen an l. 3. c. 1. pag. 3. De Gen. An. l. 3. c. 2. The Perforations in the Fundament of a hen The Sink The scituation of the orifice of the womb The Perforation of the Purse so called by Aquapendens The passage of Urine in a Hen. The Orifice of the Uterus Hist an l. 5. c. 5. and l. 6. c. 2. Virgil. 2. Georg. Ornith lib. 20. p. 541. Gen. an l. 3 pag. 30. pag. 17. de Gen. an l. 3. c. 1. pag. 38. pag. 17. pag. 8. de Gen. an l. 3. c. 2. pag. 11. pag. 22. de Hist an l. 6. c. 2. pag. 13. Hist an l. 6. c. 2. gen an 1. 8. l. 10. c. 52. de gen an l. 3. c. 2. pag. 22. The White The Yolk pag. 23. Hist an l. 6. c. 2. Hist an l. 6. c. 2. de gen an l. 3. c. 1. The Chalazae pag. 48. pag. 57. The Cavity The Cicatrice Hist an l. 1. c. 5. de gen an l. 1. c. 2. pag. 19. The distinction and difference of Eggs from their Age. From their Figure Hist an l. 6. c. 2. l. 10. c. 52. lib. 9. de Rust c. 5. Scaliger upon the place From their Fecundity de Re rust c. 1. Hist an l. 6. c. 2. Pliny lib. 10. c. 54. Ibid. pag. 19. Hist an l. 6. c. 2. From Number Hist an l. 6. c. 1. Incubation Magnitude pag. 10. Aldrovand Ornithol l. 14. pag. 260 Hist an l. 6. c. 2. In loc Hist an l. 6. c. 3. Ornithol l. 14. Nobil exer l. 6. Hist an l. 6. c. 3. Ibid. l. 3. c. 2. Hist an l. 6. c. 3. Hist ◠1. ◠6. c. 3. Ornithol l. 14. pag. 217. In loc supra dict Lib. de Animâ pag. 217. de gen an l. 3. c. 2. Hist an l. 6. c. 2. Lib. 8. c. 5. Hist an l. 6. c. 3. Hist an l. 5. c. 19 de gen an l. 3. c. 9. De hist an l. 5. c. 9. Hist an l. 6 c. 3. Hist an l. 6. c. 3. pag. 55. Lib. 10. c. 53. de Hist an l. 6. c. 3.
truth is but what other men say it is and inferring Universal conclusions from particular premisses thence shaping to themselves irrational deductions they transmit to us things like truth for truth it self Hence it is that Sophisters and halfe-knowing men polling other mens inventions saucily impose them upon us for their own shifting onely the phrase and order and adding some impertinencies of their own and render Philosophy which ought to be clear and perspicuous obscure intricate and confused For whosoever they be that read authors and do not by the aid of their own Senses abstract true representations of the things themselves comprehended in the authors expressions they do not resent true Ideas but deceitful Idols Phantasms by which means they frame to themselves certaine shadows and Chimaera's and all their theory and contemplation which they count Science represents nothing but waking mens dreams and sick mens phrensies Give me leave therefore to whisper this to thee friendly Reader that thou be sure to weigh all that I deliver in these Exercitations touching the Generation of living Creatures in the steady scale of experiment and give no longer credit to it then thou perceivest it to be securely bottomed by the faithful testimony of thy own eyes This very thing did Aristotle perswade us to who when he had discoursed much of Bees added at last That the Generation of Bees is after this manner appears by reason and by those things which are seen to come to pass after the maner of Bees Yet have we not a sufficient discovery of what may fall out Therefore when the discovery shall be compleated then is Sense more to be trusted to then Reason For so far onely is Reason to be relied upon as those things which are demonstrated agree with those things which are perceived by sense Of the Method to be observed in the knowledge of Generation SInce therefore in the Generation of Animals as in all other things of which we covet to know any thing every inquisition is to be derived from its Causes and chiefly from the Material and Efficient it seems fit to me looking back on perfect animals namely by what degrees they are begun and compleated to retreat as it were from the end to the beginning that so at last when there is no place for farther retreat we may be confident we have arrived at the principles themselves and then it will appear out of what first matter by what efficient and what procession the plastick power hath its original and then also what progress Nature makes in this work For both the first and remoter matter appears the clearer being stripped naked as it were by Negation and whatsoever is first made in Generation that is as it were the material cause of that which succeedeth So for example A Man was first a Boy because from a Boy he grew up to be a Man before he was a Boy he was an Infant and before an Infant an Embryo Now we must search farther what hee was in his Mothers Womb before he was this Embryo or Foetus whether three bubbles or some rude and indigested lump or a conception or coagulation of mixed seed or whether any thing else according to the opinion of writers In the same manner before a Hen or Cock came to perfection and that is called a perfect Animal that can beget its like there was a Chicken before that Chicken there is seen in the egge an Embryo or Foetus and before that Embryo Hieronymus Fabricius Aquapendens hath descried the rudiments of the Head Eyes and Spine of the Back But where he affirms that the Bones are made before the Muscles Heart Liver Lungs and all the Viscera and that all the inward parts ought to exist before the outward he relieth upon probability rather then experience and laying aside the verdict of sense which is grounded upon dissections he flies to petty reasonings borrowed from mechanicks which is very unbeseeming so famous an Anatomist For he ought to have told us what daily changes his own eyes had discovered in the egge ere ever the Foetus came to perfection Especially seeing he professedly wrote the History of the Generation of the Chicken out of the Egge and hath described in pictures what progress is made from day to day It was I say befitting so much diligence to have acquainted us from the allegation of his own sight what things in the egge are made first what last and what happen together and not to have confined himself to the example of building of Ships and Houses to render a cloudy conjecture and perswasion only of the order and manner of forming the parts We therefore according to the Method proposed will explaine first in an Egge and afterwards in other Conceptions of several creatures what is constituted first and what last in a most miraculous order with a most inimitable prudence and wisdome by the great God of nature and at length we will discover what we have found out concerning the first matter out of which and the first efficient by which the foetus is made as also of the order Oeconomy of Generation that thence we may attain to some infallible knowledge of each faculty of the formative and vegetative Soul by the effects of it and of the nature of the Soul it selfe by the parts or organs of the body and their functions Now this indeed we could not perform in all kind of Animals because some of them cannot be gotten and others again are so exceeding small that our eyes can hardly discern them Let it suffice therefore that we have done it in some creatures which are more known to us to whose platform the first originals of all other creatures may be reduced We have made choice therefore of such as might render the credit of our experiments lesse questionable namely larger and perfecter creatures and such as are within our own power For in the larger creatures all things are more conspicuous in the perfecter more distinct and in those that are in our own power conversant amongst us more obvious so that we have liberty at pleasure by searching into them to rescue our observations from wavering hesitation And of this sort in the race of Oviparous creatures are Hens Geese Pigeons Ducks Eishes Shel-fish of both kinds as Lobsters Oysters c. Fishes that have no shells at all Frogs Serpents also Infects as Bees Waspes Butterflies Silkworms And of Viviparous Sheep Goats Dogs Cats all Cattel that divide the Hoofe and in chief the perfectest of all creatures Man himself Having thorough insight knowledge of these things we may then contemplate the abstruse nature of the Vegetative Soul and discern in all creatures what ever the manner order and causes of their Generation because all other creatures agree either generically or specifically with the fore-cited or at the least with some of them and are procreated after the same manner of generation or else in a manner proportioned
to it For Nature being divine and perfect is always consonant to her self in the same things And as her works do either agree or differ namely in kind species or some analogy so her operation that is to say generation or Fabrick is the same or different in them Whoever entereth this new and unfrequented path and inquires for truth in the vast volume of Nature by Anatomical dissections and experiments he meets with such a croud of observations and those too in such exotick shapes that to unfould to others the mysteries himself hath discovered will bee more toyl then the finding of them out for many things occurr which have yet no name such is the plenty of things and the dearth of words So that if a man should cloath them in Metaphors and express his new inventions by old words and such as are in use the Reader could no more understand them then canting and would never be able to comprehend the business since he never saw it And then again to mint up new and fictitious terms would rather cast a mist then enlighten For so he must needs express things unknown by that which is lesse known and the Reader would be more afflicted to unriddle the words then to understand the matter And therefore Aristotle by unexperimented persons is thought obscure And this perhaps was the reason why Fabricius ab Aquapendente chose rather to describe the Fabrick of the Chicken in the Egge by tables then words Therefore be not offended Courteous Reader if in setting out the History of an Egge and in the description of the Generation of the Chicken I make use of a new method and sometimes of unusual terms nor think me hereby more desirous of vain-glory then of advantaging others by true experiments and such as are grounded in Natures self To take off that prejudice know I tread but the steps of other men who have lighted me the way and so farre as is fit I make use of their notions But in chief of all the Ancients I follow Aristotle and of the later Writers Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente Him as my General and This as my Guide For as they which finde out new Plantations and new Shores call them by names of their own coyning which Posterity afterwards accepts and receives so those that finde out new Secrets have good title to their compellation And here me thinks I hear Galen advising If we consent in the things contend not about the words OF GENERATION The Reason why we begin with a Henns Egge EXERCITATION I. HIeronymus Fabricius Aquapendens whom as I said before I have chosen for my guide in the beginning of his Book concerning the formation of the Egge and Chicken hath these words My purpose is to treat of all sorts of formation of the foetus taking my rise from that which proceeds from an egge For this ought to precede all other discourses of this nature in that it not only be friends us with a more easie discovery of Aristotles thoughts concerning this matter but because the Treatise of framing the foetus out of an egge is much the fullest and exceeds the other both in extent and difficulty But we begin our discourse from the history of an Egge both for the reasons by him recited and likewise because we may thence borrow more infallible grounds which in regard they are more known to us may enlighten us to contemplate the Generation of any other Animals For since Egges are a cheap merchandize and are at hand at all times and in all places it is an easie matter to observe out of them which are the first evident and distinct ground-works of Generation what progress nature makes in formation and with what wonderfull providence shee governes the whole worke Fabricius goes on That the contemplation of framing the foetus out of Egges is the largest of all appeares in this that the greatest part of animals are begotten of egges For to pass by almost the whole race of Insects and imperfect Creatures which sense it self discovers to spring from eggs even the most part of perfect productions are of that extraction Hither he referreth All sorts of Birds and of Fishes too bating only Whales also Crusted-fish Shell-fish and Fishes without scales and amongst Terrestrials all Creeping things Creatures that have numerous feet and also all kindes of Serpents and amongst four-footed Beasts all sorts of Lizards But we pronounce as shall appeare hereafter all animals whatever even Viviparous also nay man himself to be made of an Egge and that the first conceptions of all living creatures which bring forth young are certain Egges just as the first conceptions of all Plants are certain seeds And therefore Empedocles rightly stiled the seeds of Plants a sort of Egges The history therefore of Egges is most spacious because it yields an insight into all kinde of generation Wherefore of an Egge we shall first shew where whence and how it is made And then by what means order and degrees the foetus or chicken is fashioned and perfected in the Egge and of it Here again Fabricius The productions of Animals do some of them spring out of Egges some out of Seed and some out of Putrifaction and hence it is that some are called oviparous some viviparous others the issues of putrifaction or creatures born of their own accord by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I dislike this division because all Animals may in some sort be said to be born out of Egges and in some sort out of Seed besides they are stiled Oviparous Viviparous or Vermiparous rather from the issues themselves bring forth then from the original matter of which themselves were made namely because they produce an Egge a Worm or a living Creature Some of them are also said to be sponte nascentia creatures born of their own accord not because they quicken out of putrid matter but because they are begotten by chance by natures own accord and by an aequivocal generation as they call it and by parents of a different species from themselves For other Animals also do bring forth an Egge or a Worm as their Conception and Seed out of which after they have exposed it to the wide world they produce a foetus and so are named Oviparous or Vermiparous But now the Viviparous are therefore so called because they retain and cherish their conception or seed so long within their own bowels till the foetus come forth shaped and alive Of the place of Generation EXERCITATION II. NAture saith Fabricius was first solicitous of the place which she at length decreed to be either within the Animal or without it and appointed the womb to be the place within the creature but without the egge in the womb nature generates of seed and blood but in the egge of such parts as the egge is made of For whatsoever is begotten of seed properly so called is begun and perfected either in the same place or in a diverse