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
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
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
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
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
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
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
and Species of an Animal And againe the Female may seem to have most â—ight to the title of Efficient for he saith in Proâ—â—sse of time these diverse Parents produce a diverse 〈◊〉 the off-spring at length assuming like form with the Hen. As if the Seed of the Male were lesse powerful and did in time lose the Species which it imprints as being razed out and expunged by 〈◊〉 more potent Efficient And this that instance concerning the soil doth more strengthen For â—â—reign Seed is at last transformed according to the â—â—ture of the soile where it growes By all which it 〈◊〉 probable that the Female is a stronger 〈◊〉 in Generation then the Male For in the Universe likewise the Earth is held to be as it were the Female and the Mother But the Heavens and the Sun and the other Bodies of that kind Philosopherâ— call by the name of Father and Genitor Now the Earth also produceth many things of its own accord without any Seed And amongst Animals some Females do procreate of themselves without a Male thus the Henne generates a Subventaneous Egge but the Male never begetteth any thing without a Female Nay by those very Arguments which contend to prove the Male to be the Principle of Generation and the primary Efficient the energy or efficiency of the Female seems to be confirmed and ratified For that is to be counted the Primary Efficient in which the reason of the foetus and form of the Production is most eminent and whose apparent similitude is discovered in the foetus and also which hath an existence it self before and then generates Since therefore the Form Reason and Similitude of thè foetus is no lesse not more in the Female then in the Male and she also is in being before as a Primary Mover We may well conclude that the Female is as eminent an Efficient of Generation as the Male. And though Aristotle truly say that the Conception or egge assumes no part of its body from the Male but onely its form species and soul and that the Female contributes onely the body and quantity Yet it doth no way appear to the contrary 〈◊〉 that the Female doth contribute in some sâ—â— both Form Species and Soul and not the Maâ—â— singly As is evident in the Hen which produâ—â— Egges without a Male as the Trees beare the Fruits Herbs and Seed without any distinction of Sexes at all And Aristotle himself confessâ— that even a Subventaneous Egge hath a Soul The Female therefore must be the Efficient Cause of the Egge And yet though there be a Soul in the Subventaneous Egge yet that Soul is not Prolifical and therefore we must acknowledge that the Henne is not properly the Efficient of a Perfect Egge but that she is so made by Authority and Commission procured from the Cock For an Egge except it be Prolifical cannot justly be said to be Perfect Now such an Egge is produced onely by the Male or rather by the Henne having received such instructions from the Cock as if from his Coition the Female did receive the Art Reason Forme lawes Rule and Model of the future Foetus Thus the Female like a fruitful Tree being made fertile by Coition is made Oviparous bearing perfect and Prolifical Egges For though the Henne have at present no rudiment of Egges at all ready in the Ovary yet being fructified upon Coition â—he suddainly after both hath and layes Egges and those also Prolifical ones And here the experiment of poor Women is of use Which having a Hen at home but never a Cock they commit her for a day or two to a neighbours Cock and from that small communication all her egges succeed fruitful for all that seson That is not onely those Egges which now are Yolks and onely want a White or else have some Rudiment of their future growth though never so litle but even those Egges also which are not yet begun at all and are to be conceived a great while hence are all rendered fruitfull by the same vertue The Benefit of this Disquisition con cerning Fecundity EXERCIT. XXX THe Disquisition wherein we examine What it is in the Egge that renders it fruitful is very subtle and difficult and of exceeding great use As also what is in the Conception what in the Seed and what in the Hen that confers Fecundity upon them Likewise what in the Cock distinguisheth him from a barren cock Is it the same cause which we call the Soule in the Foetus or some part of the Vegetative Soul For the knowledge of the First Cause conduceth much to the compleat science of Generation For Science springs from Known Causes especially those that are the first Causes Nor is this indagation lesse useful to the knowledge of the Nature of the Soul But when once the verity of this is throughly discovered not onely Aristotles opinion concerning the Causes of Generation is refuted and chastised but even those things also which Physitians have written against him are easily disproved Our Quere therefore is whether that which affords the Fertility to the Egge Yolk Papula or Whelke Cock Hen and to its Womb be one and the same thing or diverse Likewise whether it be a Substance from whence this vertue flowes For it seems to be susceptible of Powers Faculties and Accidents Or whether it be also a Corporeal thing For that seems to be mixt it self which generates a mixt thing namely a similitude common to both Cock and Hen such as is that ambiguous Species produced by a Cock-Phesant and a Dung bil Hen. It seems also to be a Corporeal thing which suffers from without in so much that it doth not onely produce feeble issues but deformed also and sickly ones and such as are obnoxious to and do inherit the Virtues and Vices of their Parents We may also make a question concerning each particular whether that which confers the Fertility be ingenerated or comes from without Namely whether it be transferred from the Egge to the Chicken from the Hen to the Egge and from the Cock to the Hen. For it seemes to be a thing ex Traduce namely which is transferred from the Cock to the Hen and from Her to the Egge the Womb and the Ovary From the Seed to the Plant and back again from the Plant to the Seed For this is common to all things that are perpetuated by Generation namely that their first rise should result from Seed Now the Seed the Conception and the Egge are all of one and the same kinde and that which renders these Fruitful is in all of them the same thing or something of a like nature and that is some divine thing and hath an analogy to the Heavens to Art Intellect and Providence As is plain by the wonderful operations artifice and counsel of those creatures in whom nothing is constituted in vain rashly or by chance but all for some Good and to some End We shall hereafter be
the egge one that no man hath hither to fondly pronounced that the one was the Cock and the other the Hens Seed But this popular error is soon blown over for the Chalazae are a like manner found both in the Subventaneous and Fertile egge That both the Male and Female are the Efficients of Generation EXERCIT. XXXIII THe Physitians do rightly maintain against the Aristotelians that both Sexes participate â—â— the Efficient power because that which is generated is a thing compounded of them both for it is mixt of them both in the figure and similitude of the Body and in the Species too as suppose it a thing mixt between a Partridge-Cock and a Dunghil-Hen And it is very consonant to reason for a man to conceive that those are the Efficient causes of a Conception whose com-mâ—â—ture that which is produced doth represent and express And this is Aristotles opinion In some creatures saith he it is apparent that that which generates is such like as that which is generated and yet not the â—ame not that very numerical thing but of the same Species as in natural productions For a Man begets â— man unless something befal praeturnatural as when â—â— Horse begets a Mule and the like For that which is common to a Horse and an Ass is not called Propinquissimum genus the Next Kind and yet they two may be commixed in one for such is a Mule And in the same place he saith The Generant is sufficient to generate and be the cause of the existence of the Species in the matter but such a Species being now in such particular flesh and Bones is now several persons is Callias and Socrates are Wherefore since such an entire forme as namely of a Mule is mixt of both namely Horse and Asse the Horse alone is not sufficient to produce this form of a Mule in the Matter but as the whole entire form is mixt so another efficient cause must be conferred and joyned to it from the Asse That therefore that doth produce a Mule mixed of both must be it self adequate and mixed too if it be Univocal As for example This Man and that Woman do beget this Socrates not under the capacity of being both of them Homines Men and so are of one and the same species but by reason that this particular Man and that particular Woman are of humane kind composed of this and that particular flesh and bones of both which since socrates is a kind of Mixture and is mingled of them both that of which Socrates is made must needs be as it were a compounded Univocal mixt â—â—ing that is to say the mixt Efficient of a mixt Effect And therefore the Male and Female are not generative apart but as they are united in Coition and made as it were one entire Animals and thence from them both as from one the true efficient immediate cause of the Conception doth result and is deduced The Physitians also while they minding onely what befalls humane kind give resolutions at large concerning Generation in general and it seeming probable to them that the Geniture flowing in Coition from both Parents is the true Sperme or Seed proportionable to the Seed of Plants doe not without reason constitute that mixture which is the next efficient cause of the future Foetus out of the mixture of the Seed of both Parents and therefore affirme that such a mixt body is conteined in the Womb presently upon Coition and is the first Conception But our precedent History makes it appear that the thing is clean otherwise in an Egge which is a true Conception Concerning the Matter of the Egge contrary to Physitians and Aristotelians EXERCIT. XXXIV THat which Physitians deny in opposition to the Aristotelians namely that the Blood is the First Matter of the Conception doth evidently appear out of the Generation of the Egge For there is no Blood at all conteined in the Womb of the Hen either in Coition or before or after it Nor are the Rudiments of the Egge sanguine but white And many living Creatures conceive in whose Genitals if you open them nimbly not one drop of Blood is to be seen But while they contend that the Mothers Blood is the Nutriment of the Foetus in the Womb especially of the Partes Sanguineae the bloody parts as they call them and that the Foetus at first as if it were a part of the Mother is sustained by her blood and quickened by her spirits in so much that the Heart beats not and the Liver sanguifies not nor any part of the foetus doth execute any publick function but all of them make Holy-day and lie idle in this Experience it selfe confutes them For the Chicken in the egge enjoyes his own Blood which is bred of the liquors contained within the egge and his Heart hath its motion from the very beginning and he borrowth nothing either blood or spirits from the Hen towards the Constitution either of the Sanguineous parts or Plumes as those that strictly observe it may plainly perceive And I make no question fully to demonstrate in my succeeding Observations that the foetus of Viviparous creatures while they are yet imprisoned in the Womb are no way sustained by the Mothers blood nor vegetated by her spirits but do rejoice in their own Soules and indowments as the Chicken uses to do in the egg and sate themselves from their owne stocke of Blood But as for that which concerns the Matter of the foetus arising from Male and Female and that so magnified manner of Generation so much countenanced by the confident Schools namely that the Conception is rendered prolifical from the comâ—â—sture of the Genitures and their mutual Action and Passion as also those other Heresies of their concerning the Seed of Females and concerning the division of Parts into Spermatical and Sanguineous many and those very remarkable and excellent observations which shall be treated â—â— hereafter have compelled me to dissent from them I shall at present say onely this that I extreamly wonder how Physitians especially such as are skilfull Anatomists should prop up their opinion upon two arguments as most invincible â— when those very arguments if rightly understood â— do make against them rather As for Instance From that Concussion Solution and Profusion of Humour which befalls Women many times with delight in Coition they concludeâ— that all Women do emit a Semen in Coition and that that Semen is necessary to Generation Whereas to passe by this reply namely that the Female of all Animals nay all Women have not such a Profusion and that it is no way necessary that thâ—â— Conception must be frustrate without it for â— know many Women that are Mothers without it and some also which upon having it were indeed much affected with enjoyment but came much short of their former fruitfulnesse Besides infinite and innumerable examples of Women whâ—â— though they receive much satisfaction by their Husbands do yet emit
nothing but do conceive how ever But I most admire that those who comâ— this Emission necessary to Propágation did not mind how that humour is ejected clean out and lost for the most part neer the Clitoris and outâ—â—â— of the Secrets but is seldom admitted into them and never into the Uterus that so it may be come mixt with the Sperma of the Male and that it also of an Ichorous and Serous consistence 〈◊〉 is and not so Compact and Unctuous as â—â— Geniture which the very touch denoteth Now wherefore should that be excluded out of 〈◊〉 which is of so great consequence within 〈◊〉 that humour under pretence of departure thrown out to the utmost approaches of the Uâ—â— that so it may be recalled again with the â—â—ter bounty and favour Another Argument they erect upon the Spermatical Organs of Women namely the Testiculi and â—â— Spermatical preparing and leading Vessels which 〈◊〉 supposed to conduce to the Generation of the 〈◊〉 But for my part I wonder much how they fanâ—â— that so elaborate concocted and quickening â—â—men can arise from so imperfect and obscure 〈◊〉 so that that of theirs when the controversie concerning the preeminence and overruling â—â—wer is in debate namely whether the Males or â—eirs commands in chief and which of the two â—â— to be reputed the Efficient or Agent or the Matâ—â— or Patient should exceed the Males in power 〈◊〉 and generative ability and should subject the Males seed under it inforcing it to submit it self to supply the place of the Material Cause notwithstanding it is digested by so quick active â—heat refined in such variety of Vessels and daring it self with so much activity But of these more hereafter In the mean time it is most certain that the hen-egge is generated by no such conjugal Profuâ—â—â— though the Mother after recreation as one â—ished with delight shakes her feathers for Ioy â—nd as if she grew proud from the Boone she received composeth and rectifieth all her extravagant 〈◊〉 like one that adored the deity for the grand benediction of multiplying issues Thaâ— Pigeon especially that kind of Pigeon which 〈◊〉 transported hither out of Africa expresseth wonderful content from the enioyment of her Male leaping and spreading her taile and sweeping the low earth with the bristles of it and them combing and rectifying her Plumes with her Bill as though she deemed nothing comparable to the blessing of fertility We have said before that the first matter of the Egge is not formed of Blood as Aristotle thought nor yet as the Physitians conjecture out of the commixture of the Males and Females Geniture But from whence we do derive it is partly already shewen in our History and shall be more largely explained hereafter when we treat in generall of the matter which doth constitute every foetus How far the Henne is an Efficient Cause in the Generation of the Egge according to Aristotle and why the assistance of the Male is required EXER XXXV WE have already proved the Cock and Henne to be the two Principles of Generation in regard of the Egge though we are otherwise pâ—â—â— swaded of the manner how it comes to passe 〈◊〉 Aristotle and Physitians are For we have made it manifest out of the generation of the Egge that the Hen as well as the Cock is an efficient cause and hath in her a principle from whence the mutation suceeds and also a constituting faculty though â— Coition neither the Cock doth confer matter to â—â—e Egge nor doth any profusion of seed result â—â—om the Hen by which the Egg should arise It â—â— therefore evident that nature amongst some Animals at least did not therefore institute a distinction of Sexes that the one as an Agent should contribute the form and the other as the Patient the matter as Aristotle did conceive nor that a semen should result from both in coition that about of the mixture of them a Conception or Egg should be framed as Physitians imagine Now since these two opinions doe comprehend the whole Legend of Antiquity concerning the causes and principles of Generation it appears that all men were hitherto ignorant of the reason doth why the female doth not generate alone by her selfe as Plants doe but requires the assocition of the male and also how the conception or â—gge is procreated both by male and female thus enjoyned and likewise in what either of them enduce to the work and to what end and purpose coition was instituted Aristotle contrary to his own universal Hypostasis namely That the male is the Agent and the female only for the matters sake perceiving the egg â—â— proceed from the Hen without any help of the â—ack at all was inforced to subscribe that the female also is an efficient cause and that the Egge â—hen it is excluded doth conserve nourish and â—â—ment it selfe and produce a foetus out of it 〈◊〉 as the egges or spawn of fishes doe and therefore he concludes that there is also a soule even in a subventaneous barren egg And how far forth the Female is an Efficient and also a subventaneous egge informed by a soule he attempts to explain where he saith Subventaneous eggs admit Generation as far as they may but that they should be compleated to the very fecundity of an Animal is quite impossible for to that a sensitive soule is required But even females and all things that live at all do obtain the vegetative faculty of the soul as hath bin often repeated And therefore this barren egg considered as the conception of a Plant is compleat but considered as an Animals it is incompleat By which words he seems to consent that the Vegetative soule is also in the very subventaneous egge because that soule is in all living things now an egge doth live He also allowes the Hen a creating Prerogative and a power of inducing a Vegetative soule because all females have that priviledge and therefore a subventaneous egge considered under the capacity of a Plant and living as that doth is stiled a perfect conception but under the rank of Animals an imperfect one Aâ— if the male were no whit requisite to the being of the perfect conception or egge but onely that out of that egg an Animal might proceed Not to the complement of the egge in order to any perquisite relating to its own perfection for the conceptions of plants themselves are in this sense compleat but that it may be endowed with aâ— Animal principle So then the Egg is made by the Hen but is made prolifical by the Cock Aristatle in the same place goes on In all the Genealogy â—â— Birds there is a male and a female so that a Hen may make her conception perfect as a Plant though is be unalterod by coition but as an Animal she cannot perfect it nor can she impower it to produce any other thing out of it Nor is it rendred as the fruit of a Plant simply nor as of an Animal
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
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
Nature did so produce their effects as we do our artificial issues namely by consultation and rules desumed from the Minde and Intellect But Nature which is the Principle of Motion and Rest in all those things wherein she is and the vegetative soule which is the primary Efficient cause of every generation doe move and act by no acquired faculty as we doe which may be distinguished by the name of Art or Providence but work by a certain Destiny and Mandat according to rule after the same manner and constraint as light things fly up and heavy press downwards The Vegetative faculty of Parents doth generate and the seed arrives at last at the forme of the foetus after the same manner as the Spider spreads her Net the Bees and Ants build their Cottages and furnish their store-houses for future exigences Birds compile their Nests hatch and protect their young namely Naturally and by their Mother-wit not by any discursive providence discipline or consultation For that which is in us the Principle of Artificial operations is called Art Understanding or Prudence is in those naturall effects Nature which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 her own Tutor and taught by no man and what is acquired and a purchase in us is in them inbred and a Birth-right And therefore they who look back to Art are incompetent and partial Judges of natural things for we are rather to judge of the contrary and compare artificial productions to their Sampler in Nature For all Arts are attained by an imitation and personating of Nature and our Reason or Intellect is derived from the divine understanding exercised in its works And when it is rooted in us by a compleat habit like another adventitious acquired soul reflecting a resemblance of the highest and divinest Agent it produceth like effects and operations Wherefore in my opinion he is the right and pious Philosopher who deduceth the generations of all things from that eternal and Omnipotent Deity upon whose pleasure the Universe dependeth Nor do I think we ought to contend by what notion we call or adore this first Agent to whom all the names of veneration are most due whether that of Deus or Natura naturans or Anima mundi For all men understand him to be that Beginning and End of all things which is Omnipotent and everlasting the Author and Creator of all things preserving and perpetuating the fluxibility of mortall creatures by the several vicissitudes of generations which being every where present is no less assistant to the particular operations of natural things then of the whole Universe that so he may propagate all Animals by his Deity Providence Art and divine Understanding Whereof some are spontaneous births without any Univocal efficient some born by the associat operations of male and female some from one Sex onely others by other intermediate Instruments which Instruments are sometimes fewer sometimes more sometimes univocal and sometimes equivocal and ex accidenti casual But all natural bodies whatever are both the productions and Instruments of that Great God and are either onely natural as Heat Spirit the tepidity or warmth of the Air or Putrefaction c. or animate also for he makes use in some sort of the motions faculties and souls of animals themselves in order to the perfection of the Universe and procreation of Animals It appears therefore in some proportion what the males contribution is towards generation namely the cock brings that same virtue to the egg by which of a subventaneous it becomes a fertile one as vegetable Fruits borrow from the Summer heat to ripen themselves and fructifie their seeds and which induceth fertility into spontaneous productions by which from worms they become a Canker-worm and from a Canker-worm they become the worm called Aurelia and from an Aurelia Butterflies common Flies and Bees c. And in this manner the Sun by his access to the earth is the Beginning of the motion and transmutation in the Increase of Fruits and the End also when he becomes the author of the fertility of their Seeds And as in the early Spring he is the primary efficient of Leaves Blossoms and Fruits so is he the last compleater of the maturity and fecundity of the Seed in the strength of Summer For confirmation of which amongst many other observations I shall insert this one There are some amongst us who manure their Orange-trees with a great deal of care and husbandry so that the Oranges which the first year grew to the bigness of the top of ones thumb are the next Summer mature and complete save onely that they have no kernels or seeds While my thoughts were bent upon this contemplation I fanfied these Oranges to be a Specimen of the Subventaneous eggs which are produced by the Hen without the Cocks assistance having all the sensible appearances or requisites of fruitful eggs bating onely the fecundity or propagating seed As if the same thing were conferred by the Cock upon a subventaneous egg to make it fruitful which the Sun contributes in hotter climats whereby the fruit of their trees are produced with kernels And as if the English Summer were no farther usefull to some fruit then the simple Hen to the Egge and were onely like the female an impotent progenitress which Summer in other Countries where they enjoy a greater bounty from the Suns presence were a masculine Summer and did complete her productions This by the by that by the eggs example it might appear what qualifications are required to a primary efficient in the generation of Animals For it is clear that there is in an egg an operator and also in every conception and rudiment which is not only infused into it from the fentale but is first communicated from the male by the gemture in coition but yet first of all contributed to the Male from the Heavens the Sun or the Almighty Creator It is likewise manifest that this Operator or Agent which is existent in the egge and in every seed is so inspired with power from the Parents that it fashions the chicken to the likeness of the Parents not of it self and that a mixt likeness too as proceeding from them both united in coition and since all things are transacted with an admirable providence and wisdom the presence of the divine Deity is clearly implyed But of this we shall more largely treat elsewhere when we shall endeavour to shew what remaines in the Female presently after coition and where it abideth and likewise because nothing at all is discoverable in the cavity of the womb after coition what that prolifical contagion or first conception is Whether it be any corporeal thing any where reserved in the female or something incorporeal And whether the conception of the womb be like the conception of the Brain and so Fecundity be attained as Science is for there are arguments not wanting to prove it and as Motion and Animal operations do take their rise from the
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
ascititious Wardrobe or some few daies Pageantry or Masquingstuff but a lasting one and Natures liberal Dowry which delights not onely in the Embroidery of Animals and chiefly of Birds but hath imploied her Pencil upon Flowers and Plants adorning them with wonderful Art and variety of colours Certain Paradoxes and Problemes to be considered of concerning this Subject EXEECIT LVII THus far have we spoken concerning the Order of Generation by which the difference between those creatures which are produced by a Metamorphosis and those which are borne by an Epigenesis hath been discovered as also between those that spring from a Worme and those that arise from an Egge for these are bodied out of one part of the prepared matter and fed with the other But they take up the whole matter in their frame or Constitution these are together augmented and formed they are augmented first and from a Canker-Worme grow into an Aurelia and are afterwards formed and made consummate Animals as Butterflies Silk-wormes and such like Animals And therefore Aristotle as Fabricius observes as he constitutes a kind of twofold nature of the egge and a kind of twofold Egge in these creatures so he laies down a twofold action and a twofold Animal produced by it For saith he out of the first egges which are the first rudiments of the Generation a Worm constantly doth proceed namely out of the Egges of Files Ants Bees Silk-wormes c. in which a certain fluid matter is conteined and out of all that fluid matter is the Worme made But out of the second Egges which are layed by the Worm himselfe the Butterflie is born and proceeds that is a Volatile Animal which is concluded in a kind of Shell Skin little bag or egge and when that bag is broken it departs thence as Aristotle delivereth concerning the Locusts egges Lastly these are perfected by a succession of parts but they namely such as are generated by a Metamorphosis are made intire at once And in the same manner are both Spontaneous productions generated which obtain their first matter and first extraction from putrefaction filth dew excrements or out of the parts of Plants or Animals as also those issues which proceed from the seed of Univocal Animals For it is common to all Animals to desume their Original from seed or an egge whether that seed proceed from other Animals of the same species or happen there casually from some thing else For as it sometimes befalls in Art so also in Nature namely that the same things are sometimes casuall which at other times are effected by Art as Aristotle doth instance in Health so in like manner is the Generation of any Animals as far as they proceed from Seed whether their seed be casuall or else proceed from an Univocal Agent of the same kind For even in casuall seed there is a motive principle of Generation which can generate out of it self and by it self and the same thing is found in it as in Univocal Animals namely a power to form a living creature But of this more at large hereafter Now some Paradoxes do here arise to be examined For since the Macula is dilated the Colliquamentum concocted and prepared and many other things not without great providence ordered towards the formation and growth of the Chicken before any particle of the Chicken appear what should hinder the Innate beat and vegetative soul of the Chicken to be existent before the Chicken it self For what can produce the effects and operations of Life but that which is the cause and efficient of those Effects and Operations namely the heat and faculty of the Vegetal soul And therefore the soul doth not seem to be Actus corporis Organici vitam habentis in potentiâ the Act of an Organical body which hath life in it in potentiâ for we conceive the form of the Chicken to be such an Act. Now in what can we imagine the form or soul of the Chicken to be but in the Chicken it self unless we allow the forms to be separate or grant a Metempsychôsis But this is most manifest where the same Animal lives by a succession of forms as Aristotle speaks as for example Out of a Canker-worm an Aurelia and then a Butterfly For the same Efficient Nutritive and Preserving principle must needs be in each of these unless we will place one soul in the Boy another in the Young man and a third in the Old or affirm that the Canker-worm and that worm which becomes a Silk-worm also the Silk-worm and the Butterfly have the same form of which matter Aristotle hath accurately written and whereof more largely hereafter Again it seems a Paradox that the blood should be made and move and be endowed with Vital spirits before any sanguifying or Motive Organs are constituted at all Nor is it less new and unheard of that there should be Sense and Motion in the Foetus before his brain is made for the Foetus moves contracts and extends himself when there is nothing yet appears for a brain but clear water Besides the body is nourished and encreased before the Organs dedicated to Concoction namely the Stomack and Liver are formed And likewise Sanguification which is the second Concoction is performed before the first which is by the Stomack and called Chylification The Excrements of the first and second Concoction namely in the Guts and the two bladders of Urine one the other of Gall are coetaneous to the concocting Instruments themselves Lastly there is a Minde Providence and Understanding not onely in the Vegetal part of the soul but even before the soul it self procuring disposing and ordering all things and artificially molding the future foetus to a resemblance with his parents even from the very first original and all this to advance the being and well being of the Foetus Concerning which Resemblance we may enquire what should be the cause why the Foetus sometimes resembles the Father sometimes the Mother and sometimes also the Progenitors and those either of the Father or Mothers side And this the rather since upon one single coition and at the same moment of time many Egges are fructified together This also is a wonderful thing that the Virtues and Vices the Diseases the Marks the Moles or Spots should be transferred to Posterity and that into some onely of the Progeny and not unto all In the race of Cocks some are of a generous spirit and born to battle who will dye rather then turn their backs upon their Adversaries and yet their Nephews unless they proceed of like parents do by degrees forfeit their galantry according to that saying Fortes creantur fortibus In many other Animals and especially in Man the Bravery of the Succession or Family is observable and many of the Indowments both of body and soul are derived down to it ex traduce This I have often admired that when the Issue hath obtained a mixt fabrick or composition from both Parents and that in
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
doth not salve the doubt which is why the Blood and sanguineous parts may not for the fore-cited reasons be as well nourished by the White as the Yolk If he had said that the hotter parts are rather nourished by that blood or Aliment conteined in the blood which is proportionable to the Chyle which is attracted out of the Yolk then out of the White and so on the contrary that the cold parts are supplied rather by that Nutriment which the Veins transport from the White then from the Yolk I should not have much opposed him The main thing that disturbs him in this business is this how the Blood can be made in the Egge or what Artificer can transform the two Liquors into blood when there is yet no Liver in Being For he could not say that the blood in the Egge is derived from the Mothers blood But saith This blood is rather wrought in the Veins then in the Liver but it becomes a bone a gristle or flesh c. in the parts themselves where it is exactly concocted and assimulated without any farther addition at all not signifying by whom the blood which is in the Veins dispersed both into the Yolk and White is concocted elaborated and made perfect when as yet no Liver at all is extant or any particle of the body that might concoct or compleat it And when he had formerly said that the cold parts are nourished by the White the hot by the Yolk not mindful of his assertion he here concludes the quite contrary viz. that the same blood doth transmigrate into bones gristles flesh and other parts But he lets that grand difficulty which so much disouiets the Physitians minds glide by in silence without taking any knowledge of it namely how the Liver can be the Original and Author of the blood seeing that blood is not onely found in the egge before any one of the bowels are framed at all but Physitians themselves do teach that all the substance or Parenchyma of the bowels themselves are meerly so many affusions or confluxes of blood Is the Effect the Author of its own Efficient If the Parenchyma of the Liver is made of blood how can the Liver be the cause of blood And the insuing passages are of the same batch where he saith There is also another use of the White when it is now segregated from the Yolk namely that the foetus may swimme in it and so be susteined lest tending downwards by his own weight hee might incline to one part rather then another and so drawing the Vessels along with him might break them in sunder and to this use the purity and tenacity of the White do conduce For if the foetus should take up his residence in the Yolk he would easily descend down into the bottome and so disorder and break the Yolk also A very weak construction this For what doth the purity of the White availe to the sustentation of the Chicken Or how can the White which is more thin better support the Chicken then the Yolk which is thicker and more gross then it Or what danger is there that the Chicken should fall down Since the egge in Incubation lies always side-long so that there is no fear of ascent or falling down True it is indeed that not only the Chicken but every foetus whatsoever while it is forming doth swim but that innatation is in the Colliquamentum spoken of by us and not in the Yolk or White and we have rendered the reason thereof elsewhere Aristotle saith he Writes that when the Chicken is conceived the Yolk ascends to the Obtuse Angle of the Egge and the reason is because the Chicken is formed out of the Chalaza which adhereth to the Yolk whereupon it behooves the Yolk which is placed in the middle to mount up to the larger part of the Egge that so the Chicken may be there made where there is a natural cavity very necessary to the welfare of the Chicken But the Chalaza is more fastened to the White then to the Yolk But the reason of that ascent of the Yolk is this the Macula or litle cicatrice which appears in the coat of the Yolk is by reason of the spirituous colliquamentum which is bred in it dilated and thereupon requiring more roome doth tend towards the Obtuse Angle of the Egge and so likewise that portion of the Yolk and White which is melted is distended and being now grown more concocted and spirituous doth swimme upon the other parts that remaine crude as those parts of water which are warmed in any vessels arise from the bottome up to the top an experiment approved by all Physitians who holding the Urinal conteining a thick and troubled Urine in warm water do perceive the upper part thereof to clear and grow transparent first This following Instance will explain the matter There is a device known to most men which is intended rather for a jocular bable to gaze upon and laugh at then for any useful implement namely a certain Glass-globe which is almost filled up with clear water wherein several Glass-balls which are fraught with nothing but Air do swim upon the surface of that water which by reason of their levity do support several figures of quivered Cupids armed Centaures Chariots of the Sun and the like which else would all sink down to the bottom So in like manner this Oculus pulli this Eye of the Chicken as I terme it or first Colliquation being dilated by the heat of the Sitting-Hen and the Genital vertue in the Egge and so made lighter ascends to the top and draws up the Yolk to which it adheres together with it Hereupon the thicker White gives place to it and the Chalazae retire to the sides of the Egge because the Cicatricula which was formerly fituate in the side of the egge now mounteth directly upward Of the Uses of the other parts of the Egge EXER LXI THe Shell is hard and thick that so it may fence the Liquors and the Chicken which dwells in them from outward injuries But yet it is brittle and especially in the Obtuse end and neer the time of the exclusion of the Chicken lest it might obstruct the Chickens Exit This Shell is also porous for while an egge especially a new-laid one is in roasting before the fire it doth breath out a kind of sweat trickling down as it were drop by drop Now these pores are useful for Ventilation as also for the more easie penetration of the heat which results from the Sitting Hen and likewise that the Chicken may attract aire from without for as we have said before the chicken doth without all question both breath and cry before his exclusion The Membranes serve to contein the Liquors and therefore they are as many in number as the liquors are And the Colliquamentum also so soon as it is in being is presently invested in its owne proper tunicle as Aristotle did imply in these words A membrane
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
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
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
to it selfe is not an Efficient but an Instrumental cause Which being granted who will not conclude that Seed and an Egge are Instruments Since a chicken is an effect nobler then the egge and neither like an Egge nor Seed Wherefore when this most Learned Man denies the Seed or Egge to be an Instrument because they are separated from the Primary Agent he stands upon a false bottom For since the first generant produceth its off-spring by several mediums whether any of those mediums be conjoined to it as the Hand to the Artist or whether it be separated from it as the Arrow shot from the Bow yet both are called Instruments From these recited Conditions of the Instrumental cause it may seem to insue that the cock or at least the cock with the hen are the Primary efficients in the Generation of the chicken for the chicken is like them nor can it be thought to be more noble then its Efficients or Parents I shall therefore adde one condition more to the Primary efficient by which perhaps it may appear that the Male is not the Primary but the Instrumentall cause namely that it is required of the Primary efficient in the fabrick of the Chicken that he employ Skill Providence Wisdome Goodness and Understanding far above the capacity of our rational soules as that in which the Reason or Idea of the future work ought to consist and which ought likewise to act for some destinated end disposing and perfecting all parts forming the smallest and most inconsiderable appendixes of the Chicken for some use and employment not providing onely for the structure of the creature but for its wellfare ornament and defence Now the male or his seed either in or after coition is not so qualified that Art Understanding and Providence may be attributed to it Which things being pondered the Male seems to be an Instrumental efficient as well as his seed and the Hen likewise as well as the Egge she laies And therefore we must take our flight to a more Primary Superior and more excellent cause to which we may justly attribute Providence Understanding Art and Goodness and such a one as is as much superiour to its effects and Workmanship as an Architect is better then a Barn he sets up a Prince then his Officers or an Artist then his owne hands And therefore both Male and Female are but Instrumental efficients subservient to the high Creator or Protogenitor And in this sense it is truly said that the Sun and Man beget an Animal because the Spring and Autumn do insue upon the Approaching and Receding Sun at which times commonly the generation and corruption of Animals happen So the chiefest of Philosophers The first Movers motion is not the cause of generation and corruption but the motion of the Oblique circle for that is continual and hath also two Motions for if generation and corruption were to be always continual it were necessary that something should be always moved least those mutations should fail but yet it must have two motions least one onely of the two mutations should succeed The cause therefore of the continuity is the motion of the Universe but the declivity it selfe is the cause of the Approach and the Recesses For it comes to pass that He namely the Sun is sometimes neerer and sometimes farther from the earth And when the Interval is inequal the motion must be inequal too If then he therefore generate because he approaches neerer and cause corruption because he remotes and recedeth farther from the earth Then it follows that if he often do generate it is because he often approacheth and if he often cause corruption it is because he often recedeth For contraries have contrary causes And therefore in the Spring all things flourish and grow namely from the Approach of the Sun who is the Common Father and Parent or at least the immediate and Common Instrument in Generation imployed by the high Creator and that not Vegetables onely but Animals too nor they onely which are Spontaneous issues but those also which are generated by Male and Female As if at the approach of this noble Planet soft Venus did descend from the Skie with Cupid and the Graces entertained for her Retinue inciting and provoking all living things by their Allegeance to Love to propagate their kind Or as it is in the Fable as if Saturne did then become an Eunuch and threw his masculine evidences into the Sea to raise a Foam which might give birth to Venus For in the Generation of Animals Superat tener omnibus humor A gentle dew doth moisten all as the Poet hath it and the genital parts doe foam and strut with Seed And therefore the cock and Hen are chiefly fruitfull in Spring as if the Sun or Heavens Nature the Soul of the Universe or the Omnipotent Deity for these are Synonoma's were a Superiour and Diviner cause of Generation then they So Sol homo generant hominem The Sun and Man beget a Man that is to say the Sun by Man as its Instrument And so the Creator of all things and the cock beget an egge and out of an egge a chicken namely by the constant approach and recesse of the Sun who according to the will and decree of the Almighty is emploied in the generation of all things We conclude therefore that the male though he be a Primary and more excellent efficient then the female is only an Instrumental Efficient and doth himselfe no less then the Female owe his fecundity or generative Virtue to the Sun his Creditour and therefore the artifice and providence which we discover in his workmanship doth not proceed from him but God For the Male uses neither counsel nor understanding in generation nor doe Men generate by any part of their reasonable soule but by a faculty of their vegetative which is not inrouled amongst the primary and more devine powers of the soule but the meanest and basest Since therefore in the structure of a chicken Art and Providence are no less visible then in the Fabrick of Man himselfe and the creation of the Universe we must needs acknowledge that in the generation of Man there is an Efficient cause more excellent then man himselfe or else that the vegetative faculty or that part of the soule which raiseth this pile of man and doth conserve it is much more divine and excellent and doth more personate the Image of God then the Rational part it selfe whose worth and dignity we more cry up then all the faculties of the soule beside though she were Regent and Empress of the rest and held them all as Tributaries to her Or at least wee must confess that there is neither prudence nor skill nor understanding in the workes of Nature but they seem such onely to our apprehensions who iudge of the divine productions of nature by our owne Arts and Faculties or copies drawne by our own fancies as if the active principles of