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
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
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
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
the egge and what parts are altâ—â—ed especially about the first dayes of Incubation at which time all things are most intricate confused and hard to observe and about which Authors do chiefly stickle for their own observation which they accommodate rather to their own 〈◊〉 conceived perswasions which they have entertained concerning the Material and Efficient causes of the generation of Animals then to truth her self What Aristotle relates concerning the Prâ—câ—â—tion of the Chicken is most true in it selfe yet liâ—â— one who had not experimented the matters him self but had received them from other experienced persons he doth not rightly distinguish them by their proper times and is very much mistaken concerning the place in which the first principle of the Chicken is cast which he decrees to be in thâ— Acute Angle of the Egge and is therefore justly reprehended by Fabricius Nor doth he seem to have observed the beginning of the Pullus in the egge or to have been able to have found those things there which he accounts necessary to every Generation For he would have the White because nothing can possibly be made of nothing according to the natural course to be the Matter constitution the Chicken Nor did hee sufficiently apprehend how the Efficient cause namely the Cocks seed â—â— act without a contact or how the Egge could of its own accord without any inherent geniture of the Male ingender the Foetus Aldrovandus partaking of the same error with Aristotle saith moreover which none but a blind man can subscribe to that the Yolk doth in the first dayes arise to the Acute Angle of the Egge and tinks the Grandines to be the Seed of the Cock and that the Pullus is framed out of them but nourished as well by the Yolk as the White which is clean contrary to Aristotles opinion who conceived the Grandines to conduce nothing to the fecundity of the Egge Volcherus Coiter delivers truer things and more consonant to Autopsie yet his three Globuli are meer fables Nor did he rightly consider the principle from whence the Foetus is derived in the Egg. Hieronymus Fabricius indeed contends that the Grandines are not the Seed of the Cock and yet he â—ill have the body of the Chicken to be framed out of them as out of its first matter being made fruitfull by the Seed of the Cock He likewise saw the Original of the Chicken in the Egge namely the Macula or Cicatricula annexed to the membrane of the Yolke but conceived it to be onely a Relique of the stalk broken off and an infirmity or blemish onely of the Egge and not a Principle part of it Parisanus hath plentifully confuted Fabricius his opinion concerning the Chalazae or Grandines and yet himself is evidently at a loss in some certaine circles and points of the Principle parts of the Foetus namely the Liver and the Heart and seems to have observed a Principium or first Principle of the Foetus but not to have known which it was â—â— that he saith That the Punctum Album in the Middle of the Circles is the Cocks Seed out of which the Chicken is made So that it comes to pass that while each of them desire to reduce the manner of the Formation of the Chicken out of the Egge to their own pre-conceived opinions they are all wide from the mark For some conceive the Seed and Blood to be the Matter which doth constitute the Chicken Others conceive the Seed to be the Efficient and producing cause or Artificer that builds the fabrick of it whâ—â— yet upon deliberate consideration it appears most infallible that there is no matter at hand at all 〈◊〉 no menstruous blood which the Seed of the Male can fall to work upon or coagulate as Aristotle would have it nor is the Foetus made of the Seed of Male or Female or any commixture of them both The first Inspection of the Egge what the first day of Incubation doth produce in the Egge EXERCIT. XV. THat we may the better discover what the first day of incubation hath produced in the Egge we must first know what alterations will befal oâ— egges of their own accord by which a stale egge is distinguished from a fresh without any consideration of the Hens sitting at all that so it may appear what is wrought by the very incubation it selfe There is therefore as we have declared before in all egges a certain cavity or hollow iâ— the blunt end of the egge which cavity as the egge groweth staler increaseth accordingly especially in hot Countries and seasons by reason the exhalation of a thinner part of the white we have spoken in the History of the egge Anâ— while that cavity doth exspatiate it enlarges moâ—â— according to the longitude then latitude of the Egge and obtaineth a figure at last which doth reâ—â—â—e from being orbicular The Egg-shell being now less transparent growth cloudy The White groweth thicker and more viscous â—ding towards a duskey or Straw-colour The Proper membrane or coat of the Yolke becometh more remiss and loose shrinking up into winckles The Chalazae continue still the same place site and consistence at each end of the egge and that not in new-layed egges onely but stale ones nor â—â— those alone that are conceived after coition but wind-eggs also by whose firme connexion the Yolk and White are so fast cemented together that both retain their proper position For these are two abiliments mutually opposed or the Poles and â—â—inges of this Microcosme so composed as if they were onely a conflux of the numerous coats of the White and were wound as it were into a knotty â—â—rd at both ends where they respect the yolk And hence it cometh to pass that the yolk is not easily â—â—ted from the company of the White except the Chalazae be first divided which done they presently dis-join And by the assistance of these hinâ—es the yolk is both fixed in the center and preserâ—ed in its right consistence So that the chief part â—f all namely the Cicatricula retaineth still the 〈◊〉 region or altitude in the Egge and continueth a middle space from both the extremities For â—is Spot or Cicatrice as well in a stale as new-laid â—gge is still found in the same consistence magnifide colour and site But so soon as ever the egge â—lineth to Pullulation be it either from the Incubation of the Hen or the accession of any other foâ—â—ing heat whatsoever this Spot is presently dilated and widened like the Ball of the eye and from it as from the choisest center of the egg the secret plastick faculty doth issue out and germinate And yet this first Principle of the egge was never yet to my knowledge observed by any man Now at the second day of Incubation when the Egge hath grown warm four and twenty houres under the Hen as its cavity which is in the obtuse angle is much amplified and fallen lower so also doth the interiour constitution of the egge vary
which another is made for otherwise they were both the same The Egge also seemes to be a kinde of Medium not onely as it is the Principium and the Finis but as it is the Common work or production of both Sexes and compounded of both which containing in it self the Matter and the Efficient or Operative Faculty it hath the power of both by which he produceth a Foetus like to One or the Other It is also a Medium or thing between an Animate and â—n Inanimate creature being neither absolutely impowered with life nor absolutely without it It is a Mid-way or Passage between the Parents and the Children between those that were and those that are to come and the very Hinge and Center about which the Generation of all the Race and Family of Cocks and Hennes doth move and depend It is the Terminus à quo the Point or Original from which all the Cocks and Hennes in the world do arise and spring and it is also the Terminus ad quem the Aim and End proposed by nature to which they direct themselves all their life long By which it comes to pass that all Individuals while to supply their Species they beget their Like do continue and perpetuate their duration The Egge is at were the Period of this Eternity for it is hard to say Whether the Egge be made for the Chickens sake or the Chicken for the Eggs. Now which of these two namely the Egge or the Henne have the priority in Nature or Time we shall now copiously handle when we come to discourse of the Generation of all Animals in general The Egge also which is chiefly to be noted answers in proportion to the Seeds of Plants and hath obtained the same qualifications with them so that it may justly be stiled the Sperma and Semen or Seed of the Hennes as also the Seeds of Plants may be rightly called Ova Plantarum the Plants Egges not onely ex quo out of which as out of a subject Matter but also à quo by which as by an Efficient cause the Chicken springs In which also there is no part of the Future Foetus actually 〈◊〉 it but yet all the parts of it are in it potentially Now Semen or Seed properly so called doth differ from Genitura Geniture because according to Aristotles definition That is called Genitura which proceeding from the Male-Parent is the chief and principle cause of Generation namely in fâ—ll as nature hath designed to coition but the semen is that which proceeds from both Parents in the act of coition the Seed of all Plants is like to this and so is the Seed of some Animals which have no distinction of Sex at all being as it were at the first a kind of mixture of both Sexes or promiscuous conception or Animal for these kind of creatures have in their single selves as much as is required of both Sexes An Egge therefore is a Natural Body endowed with an Animal power namely with a Principle of Motion Transmutation Rest and Conservation And lastly it is such a thing as all impediments being removed it will passe into an Animal not do heavy bodies when all obstacles are out of their way tend downward more naturally then Seed and the egge do by an inbred Natural Propensity incline to become a Plant or an Animal And the Seed also and the Egge are the Frâ—â— and End of that very thing whose Beginning and Efficient they are Of One Chicken there is but One Egge So Aristotle Of One Seed is begotten One Body as for example of One Graine of Wheat One Eare of One Egge one Animal for a Twinne-egge is Two Eggs. And so Fabricius saith Truly An egge is not onely an exposed Uterus and place of Generation but the very thing also on which the entire Generation of the Chicken depends which the egge accomplisheth both as Agent as Matter as the Place as the Instrument and all other things whatsoever are necessary requisites to Generation He proves it to be in Organum or Instrument because it consists of several parts and that according to Galen who requires this to the very being of an Instrument that it be composed of divers particles which conspire all to one 〈◊〉 but under several capacities and for several uses for some of these parts are the chiefe Agent in the Action some are necessary Assistants without which the Action could not be performed at all others conduce to the more convenient better performance and lastly some againe to the welfare and preservation of all the rest And he also proves it to be an Agent where he propounds out of Aristotle and Galen the two actions of the Egge namely the Generation and Augmentation and Nutrition of the Chicken And lastly he saith exceeding well when he affirms that in the Operations of Nature the Artificer or Agent the Instrument and the Matter are one and the same thing So the Liver is both the Efficient and the Instrument of sanguification and so the other parts of the body wherefore Aristotle was in the right saying It is hard to distinguish the Agents from the Instruments In artificial Operations indeed the Agent and the Instrument are divided as the Smith and his Hammer the Painter and his Pâ—â—cil And the reason is rendered by Galen becauâ—â— in artificial Operations the Artificer is without Work but in Natural the Efficient cause is include in the Instruments and received with intimacy in the very substance of the Organ To which I adâ— those Perspicuous passages of Aristotle Of thing that are some are caused by nature and some by other causes by Nature do Animals and their Parts also Plants and simple bodies as the Earth Fire 〈◊〉 and Water consist For these and the like we sâ—â— are made by Nature Now all these forenamed creatures seem to be differenced from those which are not made by Nature For all those things that 〈◊〉 made by Nature seem to have in themselves a Principle of Motion and Rest some in relation to place some in relation to increase and diminution and sâ—â— in relation to alteration Now a Horse-Litter and Garment and all such kinde of things according to their several notions as farre forth as they are the products of Art they have no inbred principle of Mutation but so far as it chances that they are framed of Stone or Earth or bodies composed of these so far they have one As if Nature were a certain principle and cause why that thing doth move and rest in which it first is of it self and not by Accident Now I say not by Accident because it may come to passe that a man may be the cause of his own health in case he be a Physitian Yet he is not in health under the same Respect as he is a Physitian but it is a men Accident that the same Man should be in Health and a Physitian too And
therefore these two things are sometimes apart And thus it is in all other artificial things for none of them have in themselves an Efficient Principle but some of them have such a Principle in others that are without themselves as a House and all other Manual Productions some indeed have it in themselves but not by themselves namely all those things which may by accident become causes to themselves Nature therefore is that thing which she hath â—â—eady been said to be And all those things have â—ature in them which have such a kind of Principle And all those things are substances For Nature is ever â—â—me subject and in some subject We have related these Passages more at large and in their Authors own words that so it may appear that what we attribute to the egge is â—â—ally in it namely the Matter the Organ the â—â—fficient Cause Place and what ever else is required to the Generation of the Pullus And chiefly for the clearing of some most difficult questions 〈◊〉 namely which is and what kind of Principle it is from whence Motion and Generation do proâ—â—d Also by what Power the Seed doth act according to Aristotle And lastly what it is that â—oth inspire and qualifie the Seed with its faecundity For Aristotle decrees that Nature is the Principle of Motion and Rest Innate in all bodies â—â—d not Accidental Whether that which in the â—gge is the Cause Efficient and Principle of Generation and of the Vegetative and Vital Operations be some Innate thing in it or something Added to it And whether it be in it first and by it selfe as a kinde of Nature or else by Accident as the Physitian is in the Cure Whether it be some Inâ—â—ed or some Acquired power which doth transform the Egge into a Chicken or nourish it when it was but begun in the Ovary augmenting and perfecting also preserving it while it is not Set upon by the Henne Moreover what it is that fructifies the egge whether it be to be called the Soul or a Part of the Soul or some faculty of the Soul or some thing that has a Soul or an Intellect or laâ—â— the Deity because it acts for some end 〈◊〉 disposes all things by providence and 〈◊〉 mitable art and after an incomprehenâ—â—â— manner and always provides what is best bâ—â—â— for the being and well-being as also for defence and ornament And this not onely in perfect egge which it fructifies but even in a subventaneous one too nourishing augmenting and preserving it And doth not onely supply and nourish the yolk in the Vitellary but that very leâ—â— speck whence that proceeds being of no greaâ—â— magnitude then Millet or Mustard-seed which iâ— feeds and enlarges and at last invests it with the White the Chalazae the Membranes and the Shâ—ll For it is probable that even an Improlifical barrâ—â— eggâ— by an innate and inbred principle though it be contained in the Bowels of the Henne and adhear to her doth feed conserve augment alter in like manner as Fishes and Frogs-egges which being exposed do grow and are perfected and transforme it self out of a small Whelke or speâ—k into a yolk and afterward take its journey from the Ovary to the Uterus though it have no Connexion to the Uterus and there inrobe it self in the White and at last compleat it self with the Membranes Chalazae and Shel But be it what it will which doth alike both in a Subventaneous and in a Fruitful equally produce the same effects after the same manner and from the same Causes or Principles whether it be the same Soul or the same Part of the Soul in both it is very well worth our inquiry Now in probability the same things do spring from the same Causes Though the egge while it is making is contained within the Henne and grows to its parent in 〈◊〉 Vitellary by the Pedunculus or stalk and is supplied from the Hens veines yet may it not be â—aid to be a Part of its mother nor to take life and â—â—getation from her soul but from its own proper power and intrinsecal principle As Mushâ—â—s Misletoe and several kindes of Moss are bred 〈◊〉 of Trees which though they adhere to the â—lant and are sustained by the same sap with its â—wn blossomes and leaves yet are they not Parts of those Trees nor are they called so Aristotle to salve these doubts allows a Vegetative soul to â—e even in the very Subventaneous Egge where he saith Both Females and all things that live have a Vegetative soul as hath been often said Wherefore this â—gge treating of a Subventaneous egge considered aâ— the Conception of a Plant is perfect of an Animal it is Imperfect And in another place he teacheth the same thing enquiring After what manner â—â— Subventaneous egges said to live for they cannot be said to live as fruitful egges live For then an Animal might be produced out of them Nor are they in the condition of Wood and Stones because they perish by a kinde of corruption as things that formerly did in some sort partake of life It is certain therefore that they have some Potential soul But what Soul is that doubtlesse that Soul which they last enjoyed which is a vegetable Soul for this is indifferently in all Plants as well as Animals And yet the same soul is not in Subventaneous Egges and in fruitful For if so A Chicken might alike be formed out of both But how their Souls differ and in what Aristotle doth not sufficiently declare in his enquiry Why all the parts of an egge are framed in a Subventaneous Egge and yet an Animal is not procreated thence Because saith he it is necessary it should have a sensative soul As if in fruitful Egges there were a sensative soul besides the vegetative Unlesse you apprehend it thus that the Vegetative soul is Actually in a fruitful egge which containes in it a sensative soul in Potentiâ out of which afterwards an Animal and the sensative parts of an Animal are produced But this doth not sufficiently salve the scruple not release the mind involved in perplexities and doubts For an Egge seems to be the true Sperâ—â— of an Animal according to that of Aristotle In those things that have life and no distinction of Sexes the Seed is a kind of Conception already I call that a Conception which bears proportion to Seed which is the mixture of Male and Female wherefore out of 〈◊〉 Seed proceedeth one Body v. g. out of one egge 〈◊〉 Animal One egge therefore seemes to have one Soul now whether is that Soul the soul of the Henne or of the Cock or a mixt soul of Both For the doubt chiefly concerns those egges which proceed from Animals of a distinct kind as out of a dunghill Henne and a Cock Pheasant I enquire whether such an egge participate of the soul of the Henne or of the Pheasant or is the soul of the Egge compounded of them
there is no Male at all as in the Ruffes and the Roches for they are all taken great with spawn yet whatsoever is produced from a perfect egge doth not proceed but from both Sexes And therefore saith Aristotle The Male and the Female are chiefly to be counted the Principles of Generation The Cock therefore and the Henne are the two first Principles of the egge the fruit or common conception of both which is the egge containing in it the virtue of both Parents So that an egge can no more be made without the assistance of the Cock and Henne then the fruit can be made without the Trees aid And each particular Individuum both Cock and Henne seems to be created for the egges sake that the same Species may be prolonged though by the ruine and obsequies of the Authors And it is also clear that the Parents are no longer youthfull beautifull complete and Jovial then they can generate or fructifie their eggs and produce their own like by the mediation of those eggs Which work of nature so soon as they have accomplished as if then they had attained the highest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Pitch of their perfection and last end for which they were born they presently wither grow old and Emerit and as if God and Nature had forsaken them they decline speedily and hasten to their end like creatures weary of their lives Whereas on the contrary the Males when they arm themselves and are in all respects well appointed for Loves encounter how strangly doth the potent Cupid heighten their enflamed spirits how spruce are they how do they pride it how vigorous how testy are they and prone to conflicts But when this office and performance ceaseth oh how soon doth their force abate and their late fury coole how doe they hale in all their swelling sails and check their darings Nay even while this jocund Sacrifice to Venus is in season no sooner is the act performed but they grow tame and pusillanimous as if it were then deep printed in their thoughts that while they impart a life to others they are in full career to their own urnes Onely our Cock full fraught with seed and spirits approves himselfe the onely cheerfull loser and with the plaudit of his wings and voice crownes his past triumphs and lights his wedding Torch at his own Cinders And yet he also flags after long game and like an Emerit souldier resignes his Commission And so the Hens likewise like Plants worn out grow decayed Matrons and fore-go their Nurseries How a perfect and fruitfull Egge is produced by Male and Female according to Aristotle EXERCIT. XXIX WEe have lately said that an Egge especially a fruitful one is no spontaneous issue nor doth proceed from any thing but a Hen nor yet a fruitfull one from her neither without her intercourse with a Cock According to that of Aristotle We are to conclude that male and female are the chief principles of Generation the Male because he hath the preeminence in the original of the Motus and Generation the Female in the original of the Matter Now according to our decision A fertile egge is truly a sperme and genit all seed Analagous to the seed of Plants and the first conception resulting from both Parents and the promiscuous production of them both For as an Egge cannot have a being without a Hen so it cannot have fecundity without a Cock. It remaines therefore that we enquire how the egge is made by the hen and how it is made fertile by the Cock for we see that subventaneous egges and those animate too are produced by the hen but yet are not prolifical without the Cock And therefore both Cock and Hen lay their stock together to constitute a fertile egge And yet as I conceive not in that manner as Aristotle would have it namely that the Male should be Master only of the original of the Matus and Generation and the Female onely contribute the Matter For the contrary appears in Subventaneous egges And thoâ—â— it be true where he saith The Male and Female are different according to reason because their faculties are diverse and according to sense because someâ— of their parts are divers too The difference between them according to reason consists in this that the Male is that creature which doth generate in another the Female is that which generates in it selfe and out of which that which is generated is made being contained in that which doth generate it But since these 〈◊〉 distinguished by the diversity of the Faculty and of the Office or imployment and every performance of 〈◊〉 office requires an instrument and the parts of the body are commodious instruments to the faculties it iâ— necessary that some parts should be accommodated for procreation and Coition and that those parts should be different too that so the Male and Female may be distinguished Yet it doth not thence follow which he seeâ— desirous to infer saying The Male is the Efficient and by the vertue of its Geniture doth produce that which is designed out of the Matter conteined in 〈◊〉 Female and the Female doth always contribute the Matter So that it is necessary that the Female should contribute the Body and the Quantity or Magnitude but there is no such thing required at the males hand Nor is it necessary that the Instruments or the Efficient it self should be in those things that are produâ—â—â— by them The Body therefore proceeds from the female and the soul from the male For the Substance of 〈◊〉 Body is the soul For an egge and that an animaâ—â— one too is produced by the Hen alone without the Cock Whence it appears that the Female 〈◊〉 Hen is also the Efficient cause and that all power of Production or the Soul doth not proceed 〈◊〉 the Male. And this the example urged by Aristotle seemes to confirm for he saith Those creatures that proceed to Coition and â—re not of the same kind which they do whose season is alike and time of hearing together neer at hand and do not much differ in the dimensions of their bodies do bring forth their first issues like to themselves partaking of the Species of both kindes as those that are begotten by a Wolfe and a Bitch or by a Partridge and the Dunghilâ—rood but in process of time these diverse Parents produce a diverse issue the off-spring at length assuming like form with the Hen as forraigne Seed is at last transformed according to the Nature of the Soile where it growes for the Soile contributes matter and Body to the Seed By which words it is manifest that in the Generation between a Cock-Partridge and a Dunghil-Hen the Male is not the sole efficient but the Female is concerned too because a Common Species and form and not that of the Male onely is produced being alike both in Body and Soul as well to the Female as the Male. Now the Soul â—â— the Forme
and Species of an Animal And againe the Female may seem to have most â—ight to the title of Efficient for he saith in Proâ—â—sse of time these diverse Parents produce a diverse 〈◊〉 the off-spring at length assuming like form with the Hen. As if the Seed of the Male were lesse powerful and did in time lose the Species which it imprints as being razed out and expunged by 〈◊〉 more potent Efficient And this that instance concerning the soil doth more strengthen For â—â—reign Seed is at last transformed according to the â—â—ture of the soile where it growes By all which it 〈◊〉 probable that the Female is a stronger 〈◊〉 in Generation then the Male For in the Universe likewise the Earth is held to be as it were the Female and the Mother But the Heavens and the Sun and the other Bodies of that kind Philosopherâ— call by the name of Father and Genitor Now the Earth also produceth many things of its own accord without any Seed And amongst Animals some Females do procreate of themselves without a Male thus the Henne generates a Subventaneous Egge but the Male never begetteth any thing without a Female Nay by those very Arguments which contend to prove the Male to be the Principle of Generation and the primary Efficient the energy or efficiency of the Female seems to be confirmed and ratified For that is to be counted the Primary Efficient in which the reason of the foetus and form of the Production is most eminent and whose apparent similitude is discovered in the foetus and also which hath an existence it self before and then generates Since therefore the Form Reason and Similitude of thè foetus is no lesse not more in the Female then in the Male and she also is in being before as a Primary Mover We may well conclude that the Female is as eminent an Efficient of Generation as the Male. And though Aristotle truly say that the Conception or egge assumes no part of its body from the Male but onely its form species and soul and that the Female contributes onely the body and quantity Yet it doth no way appear to the contrary 〈◊〉 that the Female doth contribute in some sâ—â— both Form Species and Soul and not the Maâ—â— singly As is evident in the Hen which produâ—â— Egges without a Male as the Trees beare the Fruits Herbs and Seed without any distinction of Sexes at all And Aristotle himself confessâ— that even a Subventaneous Egge hath a Soul The Female therefore must be the Efficient Cause of the Egge And yet though there be a Soul in the Subventaneous Egge yet that Soul is not Prolifical and therefore we must acknowledge that the Henne is not properly the Efficient of a Perfect Egge but that she is so made by Authority and Commission procured from the Cock For an Egge except it be Prolifical cannot justly be said to be Perfect Now such an Egge is produced onely by the Male or rather by the Henne having received such instructions from the Cock as if from his Coition the Female did receive the Art Reason Forme lawes Rule and Model of the future Foetus Thus the Female like a fruitful Tree being made fertile by Coition is made Oviparous bearing perfect and Prolifical Egges For though the Henne have at present no rudiment of Egges at all ready in the Ovary yet being fructified upon Coition â—he suddainly after both hath and layes Egges and those also Prolifical ones And here the experiment of poor Women is of use Which having a Hen at home but never a Cock they commit her for a day or two to a neighbours Cock and from that small communication all her egges succeed fruitful for all that seson That is not onely those Egges which now are Yolks and onely want a White or else have some Rudiment of their future growth though never so litle but even those Egges also which are not yet begun at all and are to be conceived a great while hence are all rendered fruitfull by the same vertue The Benefit of this Disquisition con cerning Fecundity EXERCIT. XXX THe Disquisition wherein we examine What it is in the Egge that renders it fruitful is very subtle and difficult and of exceeding great use As also what is in the Conception what in the Seed and what in the Hen that confers Fecundity upon them Likewise what in the Cock distinguisheth him from a barren cock Is it the same cause which we call the Soule in the Foetus or some part of the Vegetative Soul For the knowledge of the First Cause conduceth much to the compleat science of Generation For Science springs from Known Causes especially those that are the first Causes Nor is this indagation lesse useful to the knowledge of the Nature of the Soul But when once the verity of this is throughly discovered not onely Aristotles opinion concerning the Causes of Generation is refuted and chastised but even those things also which Physitians have written against him are easily disproved Our Quere therefore is whether that which affords the Fertility to the Egge Yolk Papula or Whelke Cock Hen and to its Womb be one and the same thing or diverse Likewise whether it be a Substance from whence this vertue flowes For it seems to be susceptible of Powers Faculties and Accidents Or whether it be also a Corporeal thing For that seems to be mixt it self which generates a mixt thing namely a similitude common to both Cock and Hen such as is that ambiguous Species produced by a Cock-Phesant and a Dung bil Hen. It seems also to be a Corporeal thing which suffers from without in so much that it doth not onely produce feeble issues but deformed also and sickly ones and such as are obnoxious to and do inherit the Virtues and Vices of their Parents We may also make a question concerning each particular whether that which confers the Fertility be ingenerated or comes from without Namely whether it be transferred from the Egge to the Chicken from the Hen to the Egge and from the Cock to the Hen. For it seemes to be a thing ex Traduce namely which is transferred from the Cock to the Hen and from Her to the Egge the Womb and the Ovary From the Seed to the Plant and back again from the Plant to the Seed For this is common to all things that are perpetuated by Generation namely that their first rise should result from Seed Now the Seed the Conception and the Egge are all of one and the same kinde and that which renders these Fruitful is in all of them the same thing or something of a like nature and that is some divine thing and hath an analogy to the Heavens to Art Intellect and Providence As is plain by the wonderful operations artifice and counsel of those creatures in whom nothing is constituted in vain rashly or by chance but all for some Good and to some End We shall hereafter be
more ample concerning the Universal Speculation and knowledge of this thing Having already spoken as far as occasion hath presented it self to discourse of it by the by in order to the Hen-Egge Namely how many things is that thing in which brings Fecundity and how is it in them whether as an Accident as either an Affection a Habit a Power or a Faculty or as a Forme and a Substance or as a thing Contained in a thing Containing or as a thing reserved in some peculiar part For it is most certain that the very Subventaneous egge is compleat in all parts as far as sense can discover and yet it is Barren and likewise that the Uterus and also the Hen are perfect and so is the Cock and yet they all were barren were they deprived of that which conveys their Fecundity to them All which we shall relate after we have expounded What and How the two Principles Male and Female do confer to the Egge and to Generation and likewise in what manner they may both be called the Efficient Causes and Parents of the egge That the Egge doth not proceed from the Cock and Henne after that manner which Aristotle would designe EXERCIT. XXXI IT is most certain that the Fertile Egge cannot be made but by both Cock and Hen and yet not in that fashion as Aristotle thought as if forsooth the Cock alone were the prime Efficient and the Hen did contribute nothing but the Stuff or Materials For I am not of his mind where he saith When the Seed of the Male enters into the Womb of the Female it doth reduce the purest part of the Excrement into a consistence and a litle after But when the excrement of the Female is in the Womb it is made by the Geniture of the Male like to congulated Milke For that Coagulum is Milke conteining vital Heat which carrieth parts that are alike the same way together uniting and joyning them Now the Geniture â—â—â—eanes it self just so towards the Menstrua or excrement For the nature of the Menstrua and of Milk is the same Therefore the parts being gathered together the corpulent humour is discarded and upon the â—refaction of the more earthy part the Membranes result to encompass the whole and this upon necessity and to some intent and use besides And these things proceed in the same manner as well in all Oviparous as Viviparous Animals But the matter is much otherwise in the generation of the Egge For the Seed or Geniture rather proceeding from the Male in Coition can by no means enter the Womb. Nor hath the Hen after Conception any excrementitious substance or purer part of any such substance or any Blood at all in the Cavity of the Womb which might receive perfection from the Geniture of the Male. Nor are the Parts of the Egge namely the membranes and the Liquors procured by any kind of Coagulation nor is there found any thing like Coagulated Milk as is clear and evident out of what hath passed And hence it follows that neither the Conception out of which the Animal springs as out of Fertile Seed is after that manner as Aristotle imagined For the Conception is after the same manner in Viviparous as the Egge is produced in Oviparous creatures as himselfe confesses and shall anon appear in some of our Observations For it is a certain truth that the Egge be it barren or fertile is made and formed by the Hen alone onely the fertility indeed is derived from the Cock I positively affirme that the Cock conferres neither Matter nor Form to the Egge but onely that thing by which the Egge is Fertile and made fit and capable to produce a Chicken And this Faculty the Cock imparts by his Geniture discharged in Coition not onely to the Egge which is then begun or already made but to the Womb also and the Ovary and likewise to the Hen her self and that after such a manner that the egges which are yet to come of which there is now no particle in being either in the Ovary or any other part of the Body shall have the happinesse to be fruitful by it Nor after that manner which Physitians phansie EXER XXXII THe Conception according to the opinion of Physitians is thus In Coition the Male and Female being both delighted do eject their Geniture or Seed into the Cavity of the Womb and there their united stock or contribution is mingled together obtaining from both the potentiality of Matter and the activity or force of the Efficient cause And that so it comes to passe as the Geniture of this or that Parent shall get the upper hand the conception proves either Male or Female And they farther suppose that immediately after Coition the Active and Passive ingredients now cooperating together something of the Conception is put in â—and and begun They still affirming contrary to those who side with Aristotle that the Male is no more the Efficient cause of Generation then the Female but something compounded of them both likewise that neither the Menstruous Blood nor the purest part of it but the Sperm it self is the first Matter of the Conception and upon this ground they call the first ground-works or first parts of the Conception Spermatical Parts which are afterwards to be nourished and supplied by Blood But the thing is plain that this also is not the manner by which the egge is produced by the Cock and Henne For the Hen doth emit no Seed at all in Coition out of which the egge may bee framed nay more then this there is no part of her Seed to be any where found for she is quite destitute of all parts necessary to the Generation of Seed namely of Testicles and Spermatical Vessels For though the Hen hath an Efficient power together with the Cock as appears by our former discourse and that power which renders the egge fertile be in some sort a mixt power yet this proceeds not from the over-ruling force of the Genitures or from the manner of their mixture for it is very certain and Fabricius confesses it that the Cocks Seed enters not into the Cavity of the Womb nor is there any particle of the egge made in the Womb presently upon Coition though Aristotle generally affirms there is saying that some part of the Conception doth forthwith insue Nay I shall demonstrate hereafter that this commixture of Seeds doth never obtain in any Animal whatsoever and that presently after Coition though it succeed and be fruitful there is no particle of Seed or Blood or of any begun or attempted Conception really in the Womb or to be found there Nor is there in truth any thing to be discerned in the Conception or Egge that may any ways argue the Seed the Male to be conteined or mingled in it The Common people indeed do falsly conceive that the Chalazae are the Cocks Seed and I much wonder that since there are two of them in each extremity of
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
be treasured in the egge not onely the matter of the Chicken but his first feeding too that which is provided for a perfect animal ought it self to be perfect too and such is that egge which consists of two distinct complexioned parts whereof the one is the former and more simple and therefore of gentler digestion the other the latter or more remote and therefore translated into the substance of the Chicken with more difficulty now the yolk and white are thus different amongst themselves and therefore Perfect egges are Party-coloured compounded of a white and yolk as containing and storing up in them several provisions of harder or more friendly digestion according to the several age and ability of the Chicken How the Egge is supplied with its White EXER XXXVII IT appears by our History that the primordia of the eggs in the Ovary are wondrous litle resembling small whelks and lesse then the seed of Millet being full of a white watry moisture and that these Papulae or whelks do at length shoot up into yolks and that those yolks are at last invested and cloathed with a white Aristotle seemes to be of opinion that the white is generated out of the yolk by way of Separation Let us read his words The Sex saith he is not the cause of the party-colours as if the white did proceed from the Male and the yolk from the Female but both are derived from the female or Hen. But one is hot and the other cold And in those creatures that have good store of heat they are distinguished from one another but where that heat is fainter they are not distinguished And for that reason the conceptions of such Animals are of one onely colour as is said Now the Males seed onely doth constitute the egge and therefore at first the conception of all Birds is white and small but in process of time it is all yellow because now a larger quantity of blood is admixed and lastly the heat abating the whiter part environs it round as being a humor equally tempered on all sides For the white part of the egge is naturally moist containing in it an animal warmth and therefore it is placed about the egge and the yellow earthy part remains within But Fabricius conceives The White of the Egge to grow to the yolk by a juxt aposition meerly For while saith he the yolk rowleth through the second Uterus and falls down by degrees it doth by degrees gather to â— a part of the White which is purposely generated in the Uterus that it may cleave to the yolk untill the â—â—lke having now passed the intervening or middle â—â—ires and arriving at the last of all it is together with the White encompassed with the membranes also and thou assumes a shell He conceits therefore that the egge attaines its increase in a twofold manner partly by the Veines as it is with the yolke and partly by an additional accession or apposition as it is with the White And this perhaps did induce him to be of that judgement namely because the White being boyled hard doth easily part and distinguish into â—â—kes whereof the one lyes above the other But his also doth befall the yolk not yet departed from the Ovary if it be hard boyled as the former And therefore being otherwise instructed by Experience I rather join in opinion with Aristotle for the White is not adjoined as Fabricius would â—â—ave it but bred also and furnisht with the Chalazae and distinguished by several membranes and divided into two white liquors and all this by the same vegetative soul by whose industry the Egge it self is distinguished into two liquors a yolk and a white For every part of the Egge is formed and constituted by the same faculty which frames the whole Egge Nor is it true that the yolk is first made and then the white adjoyned to it For what wee see in the Ovary is not the yolke of an egge but rather some compound comprehending both liquors mixed together It resembles the yolk indeed in complexion but the white in considence for being boyled hard it is not friable as the yolk is but concrete and glutinous and consisting of several flakes as the White and hath as it were a white Papula or whelk in the 〈◊〉 Aristotle seems to erect this separation from 〈◊〉 diverse nature of the yolk and white For saith 〈◊〉 If you cast diverse egges into a bason or such like 〈◊〉 sel and prepare them over a Chafin-dish of coals in 〈◊〉 sort that the force of the fire be not nimbler the◠〈◊〉 distinction of the eggs the same thing will befall all the heap of eggs as happens to every particular eggs namely all the yolks will gather and assemble themselves into the middle and the Whites get round about thâ—â— And this I have often experimented and what ever will may try it provided he shake the yâ—â— and whites together and with a piece of butter â—â— gest them temperately into a Cake having mingled them between two dishes placed over a Chafin-dish of coales or in an Oven for he shall plâ—â—â—ly see the whites cover the yolks which are assembled at the bottom What the Cock and Henne do conferrâ— to the Generation of the Egge EXER XXXVIII BOth Cock and Hen are to be reputed the Chikens Parents for both of them are necessry principles of the Egge and both alike Efficient causes For the Egge it self is the Henns work aâ— the Fertility the Cocks Both are therefore Instruments of the plastick virtue by whose meanes thâ— species is continued to the world But since in some Animal species as if the 〈◊〉 were a useless thing and the Female alone did â—â—ffice to the perpetuity of the species there are no Males to be found at all but the whole race is female as in some species there are Males onely and no Females at all to be found for they do all by an emission of something out of them into the â—â—d the earth or water progenerate and preserve their species Nature seemes in these and the like creatures to have satisfied her selfe with one sex only using that alone as an instrument for procreation And now again some other creatures have a seed provided for them casually as it were without any distinction of sex at all namely those creatures whose Birth is spontaneous For as some things are the productions of art and the self same things are the issues of chance too as Health for one So likewise some kinde of Animal seed is not simply produced from an univocal Agent as a Man from a Man but onely in some sort univocal namely in all those creatures whose extract and matter out of which they spring is casual in relation to them and yet undergoes a mutation of it selfe as the seed doth namely Those Animals that are not produced by coition but are born of their own accord are produced from such an original as Insects have which
breed a worm For as some Artificers work with their bare hands but others again use instruments in all their operations and the better sort and more excellent Arts do imploy instruments of several figure and magnitude to the execution of several and especially of the more curious and subtile Operations for the more eminent and more laborious works are made for the most part of several motions and doe require several subordinate productions and ends in this thing as in all other Art is Natures Ape and Mimick so in like manner Nature doth of necessity set a work more instruments and those too of divers faculties and abilities in the production of the more perfect and more excellent Animals For the Sun or the Heavens or what ever else is understood to be a common and general Father in the production of living creatures do produce some things by themselves by chance and as it were without imploying any intermediate Instrument by an equivocal generation and yet beget some onely by an univocal procreation namely all those that are begotten by some other of the same kinde which doth contribute both Matter and Form to them And thus in the Generation of the most perfect Animals where these Principles are distinguished and these seeds of the Animals are distinct the Male and Female are the two necessary requisite Instruments to the production And in this manner is our Hen-egg produced from the Cock and Hen. The Henne generates in her self and therefore communicates place materialls nourishment and cherishing to the conception but the Cock conveighs fecundity For the Male saith Aristotle doth ever complete the generation and causeth a sensitive soul to be introduced and from an egge creates an Animal And therefore proper Organs for both faculties are dispersed among the Cocks and Hens Namely in the Hen all the Genital parts are commodious for reception and containing and in the Cock for transferring and immission or preparing of that thing which doth conveigh fecundity to the Henne he being one that generates in another Now having made strict discovery by Anatomical dissection of the parts sacred to Generation we well know what both Male and Female doe conferre to it For the knowledge of the Instruments doth lead in a straight line to their functions and uses Some things worthy observation concerning the Cock EXERCIT. XXXIX THe cock as we have shewed you is the Primary Efficient of the perfect or fertile egge and the main cause of Generation For were it not for the cock a chicken could never spring from the Egge nor the Egge it self have any being in many Oviparous creatures And therefore we must make farther search concerning the Action and use of the cock namely what advantage he brings to the egge and the chicken as well by Coition as other offices It is evident that the cock though as I suppose he wants a Yard doth emit his Geniture commonly called Seed as may be collected from his Genital Parts for the Testicles are furnished with it and there is great abundance of it discoverable in the long and ample Leading Vessels But whether it leap out capering and frothy by the activity of the spirits and at several ejections as in hotter Viviparous creatures I am not yet able to resolve But because I can finde no Vesicles containing the Geniture by which it should be fermented and dart forth heightned by the spirits into a Spuma or froth and also finding no Yard through whose narrower channel it being protruded it might leap and result verberating the Interiours of the Hen especially seeing coition in Cocks so soon over I rather believe that there is onely a light tincture of seminal humour such as doth onely moisten the Orifice of the Pudenda and that the seed is speedily dislodged without any sprightly exilition so that what other Animals do ejaculate by several reverberations at one and the same Inition Birds which do not long insist upon venereal undertakings do expedite by many repeated Coitions For those creatures that dwell long in venereal offices do make but feldom repetitions and such among Birds are the Swan and the Ostrich Because the Cock therefore cannot stay long in his performances he doth execute that at several returnes which other creatures do at several impulses And though he neither have Glans nor Ponis yet the extremity of the deferent Vessels growing turgent by spirits in Coition doth extuberate after the manner of a Glans by which he doth compress the Orifice of the Uterus of the Henne it being bared and exposed by the apertion of the Fundament and so bedewing it with genital moisture he stands in no need of a Yard for the immission of his Geniture Now we have shewed you that the Cocks Seed is of so great vertue that it doth render not the Uterus onely but the Egge in the Uterus the Papula in the Ovary and lastly the whole Hen her self and all the Rudiments of the Eggs either already in being or to be produced hereafter fertile and Prolifical And therefore Fabricius rightly observed that store of Geniture was intrusted to the Testicles and deferent Vessels of the Cock not that the Hen stands want of much of it to fructifie each single egge at that one Cock may approve himself sufficient â—â— his severall Concubines and repeated performances Now the brevity and rectitude of the Cocks spermatical Vessels do conduce to the nimbler discharge of the Seed for that which travels through long and perplexed Meanders makes slower passage and needs a more copious impulsive spirit to quickâ—â— it s Exit Amongst the Males none more jovial none more haughty nor of stiffer garbe nor more effectual in concocting his food then the Cock a great part of whose Aliment is transformed into â—eniture and therefore Polygamy is convenient for him as ten or twelve obedient Hens For in some species of Animals one single Male can treat â—boudance of Females as we may see Stags Bucks and several Cattel and there are others againe there the lusty Female is not satisfied by several Males as the Bitch and the Wolf upon which â—ore Meretrices Lupae dicuntur Prostitutes are called Wolves and Brothel-houses Lupanaria And â—gain some Creatures are more chast and reserve â—s it were a Conjugal integrity so that one Male keeps faith with one Female and both proâ—â—d vertuously to propagate their kind For â—â—ce Nature requires that the Male should supply the defects of the Female in Generation and that â—â— alone is not sufficient to sustain cherish and defend her issue the Male is added as a Consort â—o her who should joyn in the task of generating and nurturing the Young Thus the Partridges enjoy a Conjugal Life and because their 〈◊〉 cannot hatch so many egges at once nor attend the education when the Young are excluded they are reported to build each of them a Nâ—â— And so the cock-Pigeon takes his turnes of Incubation and joynes in the erection
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
one and the same thing with Alibile and Augmentativum a creature fedde and augmented in potentiâ as we shall shew hereafter and do differ onely ipso esse formally as Aristotle saith but otherwise are the very same For for as much as this particular thing is and is convertible into substance Nutritivum est it is Nutritive and for as much as it is quantum indued with quantity it is Augmentativum Augmentative for as much as it is substituted in the room of a substance that is lost Nutrimentum appellatur it is called Nutriment for as much as it is added to a substance already in being Incrementum dicitur it is called Growth And the same thing is Materia the Matter in the Generation Alimentum the Sustenance in the Nutrition and Incrementum the Increase in the Augmentation of the Chicken But that is formally and simply said to be generated whereof no part was existent before but that to be nourished and grow which was and had an existence or being before That part of the Foetus which is first made is said to be begotten or born that which is substituted or superadded to it is said to be annate aggenerate or born to it There is in al things the same generation and transmutation from the same into the same which is performed in respect of a part by Nutrition and Augmentation but in respect of the Whole by Generation else it is the very same in both For from whence the first existent matter proceeds from thence also doth Nutriment and Growth accrew unto it And it shall also appear by that which shall be delivered hereafter that all Parts of Bodies are nourished by the same Nutritive substance diversly transformed or altered For as all Plants do indifferently spring grow and are susteined from the same Common Nutriment diversly varied and digested whether it be Dew or the juice and moisture of the ground so likewise out of the same Liquors of the Egge namely the White and Yolk the whole Chicken and all its parts are procreated and encreased We will then also explaine what Animals are begotten by a Metamorphosis and what kind of pre-existent matter that of the Insects is which spring from a Worme out of which all the parts are together constituted and concorporated and at last a perfect Animal born by Transmutation onely as also what Animals have any order and degrees in their production and have their Parts produced successively and what kind of creatures they are which are first borne imperfect but afterwards shoot up and attain to perfection as all those that are produced out of an Egge These as they are together made and augmented growing and transformed and are by a proposed method and order distinguished into parts so have they no immediate pre-existent Matter such as is usually designed them namely the commixture of the feminine and masculine seed or the Menstruous Blood or some litle portion of the egge out of which the foetus should assume his body but so soon as ever the Matter is made and provided it grows also and takes some shape so soon as there is a Nutriment there is a creature to be nourished by it And this Generation is rather by Epigenesis as a Man is out of a Boy that is the fabrick and structure of the body is out of the Punctum saliens as out of its foundation as out of the Keel the Ship is built and rather as the Potter forms an Image without any pre-existent Matter then out of any subject matter as the Carpenter forms a Bench out of Boards and the Statuary a Statue of Marble For out of the same matter whence the first particle of the Chicken or its least atome arises thence also doth the whole Chicken proceed whence the first small drop of Blood thence also is the whole stream or current of it generated in the egg whatsoever gives a consistence or being to the members or organical parts of the body doth also afford the same to all the similar parts likewise as to the Skin the Flesh Veins Membranes Nerves Cartilages and Bones For that very part which was soft and fleshy at first is afterward upon its increase made a Nerve Ligament Tendon by the same Aliment that which was onely a Membrane becomes a Coat and that which was a Gristle is afterwards advanced into a Skin or Bone and this by the same similar matter variously altered For a similar mixt body which is commonly conceived to be framed out of the Elements is not made of the Elements first subsisting apart by themselves and then afterwards compounded united and altered but out of this particular mixt body being altered another mixt body is born and produced that is Of the Colliquamentum is the blood made of the blood the bulk of the body which bulk at first doth appear similar and like the Spermatical Gluten or clammy substance but from it the parts are delineated by an obscure indiscernable division at first but afterwards become organical and distinct Those similar parts I say do not arise from the dissimilar and heterogeneous Elements united together but are framed and discriminated by Generations out of a similar substance and so become dissimilar As if by the Omnipotents command or fiat the whole Chicken were created As thus let there be a similar White lump and let that lump or mass be divided into parts and increased and while it is increased let there be a secretion and delineation of the parts and let this part be harder thicker and whiter and that softer and well coloured And it was so For thus doth the structure of the Chicken in the Egge proceed daily out of one and the same matter are all its limbs and utensils made nourished and augmented From the Spine first do the Ribs grow out and the Bones are distinguished from the Flesh by their most white slender Lines three Bullae are discernable in the Head which are all fraught with a Crystalline Water being the Rudiments of the braine After-braine and as by a sprinckled black streak is implyed of one of the Eyes The substance which at first resembleth coagulated milk becomes at last gristly spinous and bony and that which at first was white and gelly-ish passeth at length into a blushing flesh and Parenchyma That which was formerly most transparent and pure Water is transformed anon into the braine After-braine and eyes For there is a far greater and diviner mystery in Generation then a bare assembling altering and compounding of Parts for the Whole is made and discovered before its parts the Mixt body before the Elements But of this more hereafter when also its Causes and Principles come to be assigned Of the Efficient Cause of the Generation of the Chicken and Foetus EXER XLVI THus far of the Matter out of which the Chicken springs in the Egge it remaines now that we enquire a little with Fabricius concerning the Efficient cause of the Chicken But because
the Winds the Sun the Heavens Jupiter the Soul and in general Nature which is the Principle of Motion and Rest And so by the same rule Any of the Stoicks who thought the Soul to be fire may decree fire the efficient cause of Animals because fire doth nourish and augment it self and seems in some sort to live at its own dispose and liberty though not our destructive culinary fire but the Natural Celestial Vegetative Generating and Healthy fire which the Heathen worshipped by the name of Jupiter whom they called the Father of Men and Things not his lame Brother Vulcan whose ayd and benefit we notwithstanding daily use in several employments to our great advantage but the divine Animal Spirit the Author of Living creatures And therefore Aristotle saith That this question concerning the Efficient is very dubious namely Whether it be an extrinsecal thing or something inserted in the Geniture or Seed and Whether it be a part of the soul or the soul or something which hath a soul Wherefore that we may deliver and rid our selves of the maze and labyrinth of the manifold Efficient causes in this disquisition of the Efficient of the Chicken we have need of Ariadnes Clew woven and cunningly wrought of the Observations of almost all Creatures living And therefore it is to be deferred to a more general Inquest In the mean time we shall recount those things which relating to the particular generation of the Chicken out of the egge do manifestly appear or are strangers to the common perswasion or else do require any further search How the Efficient cause of the Chicken doth operate according to Aristotle EXERCIT. XLVII ALl men generally confess the Male to be the primary efficient cause in Generation as in whom the Species or Form resides And they farther affirm that his Geniture being emitted in coition doth cause both the being and fertility of the Egge But how the seed of the Cock doth produce the chicken out of the Egge neither the Antient nor Modern Philosophers and Physitians have sufficiently explained nor yet solved the question proposed by Aristotle Nay Aristotle himself hath not done it He saith The Male doth not conduce to the Quantity but the Quality and is Principium Motûs the Principle of Mutation but the Female contributes the matter And a while after Every Male doth not emit seed nor is it any part of the Foetus in those that do emit it As nothing which passeth from the Carpenter contributes to the matter of the Wood nor is there any part of the Carpenters art in that which is made but the form and species doth exist in the matter per motum ab illo by the motion or mutation which proceeds from him Now the soule in which the form and knowledge is moves the hands or other members by the motion of a certain quality which motion is either diverse in such as make a diverse thing or the same in such as make the same But the hands and instruments move the matter So the Nature of the Male which emitteth seed imployes that seed as an Instrument and having motion actually in it as in the productions of Art the Instruments are moved for in them in some sort the motion of Art is implanted By which words he seems to imply that Generation is made by the motion of a certain Quality As in Art though the first cause namely ratio operis the reason or ground of the work be in the soul of the Artist yet afterward the work is effected by the motion of the hands or other Instruments and though the first cause be removed as in automatis things that seem to move of themselves yet is it in some sort said to move that which at present it doth not touch but hath touched formerly so long as the motion goes on in the Instruments And in the following Book he hath these words The seed of the Male when now it hath access into the womb of the Female it doth coagulate and cause a consistence in the purest part of the excrement meaning the menstruous blood residing in the womb and doth transmute the matter which lies ready in the womb by such a motion or mutation that at last though the seed vanish after the motion is performed some part of the foetus is existent and that an animate part as the heart which now doth augment and dispose it self as a Son who is free from his Father and hath taken a house of his own It is necessary therefore that there be some principle by which afterwards the order of the members may be delineated and all things disposed which pertain to the absolution and complement of the Animal and from which growth and motion may arrive to the rest of the parts and be the author of all the similar and dissimilar parts and of their last aliment For that which is now an Animal doth increase but the last aliment of the Animal is blood or something proportionable to blood whose vessels and receptacles are the Veines Now the principle or original of the veines is the Heart But the Veines like Roots extend even to the womb by which the Foetus draweth his aliment The Heart also being the beginning of the whole nature and also the containing End ought to be made first as being a genital part of its own nature which must needs be the first as the original of the rest and of the whole Animal and of Sense in whose heat because all the parts are in the matter potentially since the principle of motion did abide that which follows afterwards is stirred up by it as in those self-moving miracles and the parts are moved not shifting their places but altering in softness hardness heat and other distinctions of similar parts being now actually made which were potentially before This is Aristotles opinion almost word for word by which he conceives the foetus to be made of seed by motion though it do not at present continue touching it but hath touched it formerly a nice opinion and of a fine thread and according to those things which are discovered in the order of the generation of the parts not improbable For the heart together with the ramifications of the Veins is discerned first as being an animate principle in which both sense and motion reside and being also like a free Son and a Genital part by which the order of the member is delineated and all things conducing to the accomplishment of an Animal are disposed and having all those attributes which Aristotle bestowes upon it But it seems impossible that the heart should be made in the egge by the males seed since that seed is neither in the egge nor doth touch nor ever did touch it because it neither enters the womb where the egge is made as Fabricius confesseth nor is any way attracted by it and besides this the mothers blood is not in the egge neither nor any other prepared
that so they may attend the future eggs and chickens which are to be born in their order We have deduced these passages out of Aristotle that from them it might appear how the Cocks seed doth according to him produce the Chicken out of the Egge that so some light might be afforded to this perplext disquisition But seeing they do not explaine how this business is accomplished nor yet salve his own objections we are still sticking in the same mire and involved in the same doubts concerning the Efficient cause of the Foetus in the Generation of Animals nay so far are we from receiving any clear satisfaction that we are rather more perplext and to seek then we were before And therefore no wonder this excellent Philosopher was in the streights concerning this matter and did therefore range together so many several sorts of efficient causes of Animals and sometims betake himself to examples drawn from Automata things seeming to move of themselves sometimes to coagulatedmatter sometimes to Art Instruments and Motion sometimes to the soul in the egge and in the seed of the Male to illustrate the thing and where he seems to be positive and settle upon some determination concerning what it may be that should render the Seed be it of Plants or Animals fertile he renounces Heat and Fire as improper Agents nor doth he admit any such like faculty nor can he find out any thing in the seed it self which should be fit for the undertaking but is compelled to admit of a certain Incorporeal extrinsecal thing which should like Art or the Minde form the foetus by wisedom and providence and ordain and institute all things relating to it to some end and purpose and to its better subsistence He takes I say sanctuary in an obscure and ignote thing namely in a spirit contained in the seed and frothy substance and a certain nature in that spirit answerable in proportion to the substance of the Stars But what that should be he no where reveals Fabricius his Opinion concerning the Efficient cause of the Chicken is confuted EXERCIT. XLVIII SInce I have proposed Aristotle the chiefest of the old Philosophers and Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente an eminent Anatomist amongst the Modern to be my Leaders that from them I might chiefly be enlightened concerning the generation of Animals and since I cannot better my self by Aristotle I have resolved to set upon Fabricius to see what account he can give of it Now he attempts to give resolution to three doubts arising in the case namely First What is the Efficient of the Chicken and that he concludes to be the Males seed 2. How this appears in the egg to be so and by what means the Cocks seed doth rinder the egge fertile Lastly In what Order are the parts of the Chicken procreated As for the first it appears out of our Observations that the Cock and his seed are indeed the Efficicient cause of Generation but not the adaequate cause but that the Henne also comes in for a share In this place therefore we must chiefly enquire how the Cocks seed doth fructifie the Egge and raise a Chicken out of it which would else be subventaneous and improlifical But let us give ear to Fabricius Those creatures saith he that are produced out of an egge are different from those which are born out of seed in this that Oviparous creatures have a matter out of which the Chicken is corporated distinct and separate from the Agent but Viviparous creatures have both the material and efficient cause adjoyned and concorporated together For the Agent in Oviparous creatures is the seed of the Cock in the feathered kind which neither is nor can be in the Egge but the matter out of which the Chicken is corporated is the Chalaza These two are much distant one from another for the Chalaza is in the Yolk now formed and fallen into the second Uterus and is adjoyned intimately to the egge on the contrary the Cocks seed remains neer the fundament and is removed from the Chalaza by a large chasme and yet by its irradiating faculty it fructifies both the Uterus and all the egge But in a Viviparous animal the seed is both the Matter and the Efficient too both being contracted into one body He seems to have introduced this difference between Oviparous and Viviparous Animals that so he might countenance the opinion of Physitians concerning the Generation of Man or at least not subvert it who conceive that the seeds of both Sexes ejected together in coition are mingled and according as the one prevailes over the other so the one approves it self the Efficient and the other submits it self to become the Matter so that they both conspiring together do constitute the conception in Viviparous Animals But when he had observed that neither Seed nor Blood is attracted by means of coition into the womb of the Hen nor contained there and could not believe that any thing emitted from the cock in coition could possibly arrive so farre nor could finde any thing in the Egge that is adjoined to the males seed he was enforced to doubt how the seed which is no where present with nor mingled amongst the feminine geniture nor is adjoined to it nor doth so much as touch it at all should constitute the Chicken or fructifie the Egge especially when he had before delivered that from some premised coitions all the eggs that were to be layed that year were made prolifical For how could it chuse but seem impossible that from the seed of the cock received in the Spring but now departed lost and consumed the posthume eggs layed possibly in Summer or Autumne should be rendered fruitfull and produce chickens That he might rid his hands of this grand difficultie he coined the fore-said distinction and to ratifie his opinion he adds three farther Assertions First that though the cocks seed were neither in the Egge nor at any time in the Womb nor adjoined to the material cause as it is in Viviparous Animals yet it continues for a whole year in the hen Secondly to reserve this seed in he invents a dark perforation neer the door of the Womb wherein the cock should deposite his seed and in which as in a pouch it should be concluded that thence all the eggs might receive their fertility Lastly though the seed in that pouch neither touch the womb the egge nor the Ovary that by that means it might fructifie the egge or raise a Chicken out of it yet he saith that it gains addresses into the very egge by the insinuation or irradiation of a certain spiritual substance in it and by those arts doth fructifie the Chalazae and so model a Chicken And yet by that assertion lie seems to confirme Aristotles opinion who assures us that the female contributes the matter and the male the efficiency to generation which is contrary to the Physitians position concerning the commixture of seeds for whose sake
he seems to have introduced his fore-said distinction between Oviparous and Viviparous Animals And that this his opinion may seem more probable he recites what changes and alterations the seed reserved in the Testicles and seminary Vesicles not yet emitted doth procure in Animals But to take no notice that all this makes litle to his purpose for the question in chief is not How the Cocks seed doth render the egge fertile but rather How it doth frame and erect a Chicken out of the Egge all those things which he hath conjured up to guard his opinion seem for the most part false or very suspicious as appears by our Observations delivered in this History For neither is that blinde perforation in the root of the rump which he calls the purse or pouch destined to cubbard up the Cocks seed nor is there as we have said any seed at all found in it but it is an empty unprovided thing both in the Cock and Henne But what he would have by his spiritual substance and irradiation he is yet to acquaint us as also what substance hee understands that to be which he affirms doth by its virtue vivifie the egg Whether a corporeal or formal substance which should proceed from the irradiation of the seed which lies at roost in the pouch and which is chiefly required should fashion the Chicken out of the egge To conclude in my minde he saith no more in substance then this It makes the Chicken because it irradiates the Egge and forms it because it vivifies it and so he labours to reveal and illustrate the obscure manner of formation by one more obscure then it self For the same scruple returns entire namely how the Cocks seed a meer nontangent an external efficient and disjoyned by place remaining in the pouch can fashion the interiour parts that is the Heart Liver Lungs and Guts c. in the egge out of the Chalazae by Irradiation Unless he will have it sitting in its chair of State like the Creator of all only by this word of comman Fiant Let all things be so namely the Bones for Support the Muscles for Motion the Organs for Sense the Members for Action the Intrals for Concoction and the like and so order and by its beams or influence constitute all things to their proper end with providence wisdom and art For neither doth Fabricius expound the manner nor yet demonstrate the seed to be of such force and virtue that without coming neer it can effect all this especially since an egge can by Incubation of a stranger fowle or any other fostering warmth as in dung in a matt or an oven though never so remote from the pouch of its own mother-hen be quickened and produce a foetus The same difficulty therefore lyes still upon our hands namely How the Cocks seed is the Efficient cause of the Chicken nor is it any whit salved by the influence of this spiritual substance For though we should grant that the seed is reserved in the purse and that by a Metamorphosis and Irradiation it did corporate the chicken out of the Chalazae yet the scruple would stick no less by us namely How the Intrals of the Chicken are modelled But these things are long since confuted by us Wherefore when we are in quest of the efficient cause of the Chicken we must look for it in the Egge and not dormant in a pouch and for such a one which though the egg now grown stale were distant many miles from the Hen and laid under an other Hen as a Turkey-hen or African-hen to be hatched or as in Aegypt under warm sand or dung or in an Oven proper for the purpose would still raise up a chicken of the same species and very like the Cock and Hen that were its natural parents or else in case the Cock were of a different kinde a mungrel of-spring of a mixt species and resemblance Wherefore the knot remains to be united which neither Aristotle nor Fabricius have loosened namely How the seed of the Male or Cock doth produce the chicken out of the egge or is to be named the Efficient cause of the chicken especially since it is neither present tangent nor adjoined to the Egge And though almost all men conclude that the Male and its seed are the Efficient cause of the Foetus no man yet hath sufficiently declared how it can be done especially in our Hen-egg The Efficient cause of the Chicken is hard to be found out EXER XLIX THe disquisition of the Efficient is exceeding difficult as we have said and that the rather because so many names are attributed to it Whereupon Aristotle doth recount very many efficient causes of Animals And many controversies are risen amongst authors chiefly between Physitians and Aristotelians who contend very earnestly about it endeavouring by different opinions to explain both the Efficient cause and the manner of its Efficiency And indeed the Omnipotent Creator doth in none of his works more manifestly reveale the presence of his Deity then in the Fabrick and Structure of Animals And though it be a known thing subscribed by all that the foetus assumes its original and birth from the Male and Female and consequently that the Egge is produced by the Cock and Henne and the Chicken out of the Egge yet neither the Schools of Physitians nor Aristotles discerning Brain have disclosed the manner how the Cock and its seed doth mint and coine the Chicken out of the Egge For it is evident enough by what we have delivered concerning the Generation of Oviparous Animals and others that neither the Opinion of Physitians deducing Generation from the mixture of the Seeds of both Sexes nor Aristotles neither establishing the seed of the Male for the Efficient and the Menstruous Blood for the material Cause are to be embraced because that neither in Coition nor presently upon Coition any thing doth part from the Female into the Cavity of the Uterus out of which as out of the Matter any thing relating to the Foetus should be suddenly produced nor doth the Geniture of the Male whether it be animate it self or an animate Instrument enter into the Womb or is attracted thither or any where else reserved in the Female but doth either vanish or retract nor is there any thing else to be found in the Uterus presently after Coition which issuing either from the Male or Female may be fansied to be the Matter or Original of the future Foetus Nor is the Cocks seed surviving in Fabricius his Pouch or any where else in the Henne that thence either by the irradiation and influence of spiritual substance or by contact the egge is made or a Chicken out of the Egge Nor doth the Hen contribute any other seed then the Papulae the Yolk and the Egge And therefore the contemplation is rendered more intricate by our Observations because by them all those suppositions upon which both the other opinions were supported are thrown
down to the ground But especially when we shall anon demonstrate that all Animals are alike generated out of an Egge and that in Coition whether of Viviparous Brutes or Men no Seed or Blood proceeding from either Male or Female is entertained in the Hollow of the Womb or drawn up thither before Coition or in Coition or after Coition is found in the Womb which may be conceived to be the Matter Efficient or Principle of the future Foetus Daniel Sennertus a late learned Man and a careful Inquirer into Nature having first ballanced other mens opinions attempts at last to resolve the business concluding that the Soul is in the Seed and that it is the very same Soul with that which afterwards informs the Infant so that he makes no scruple to affirm that the Rational soul of man is present in his Seed and that therefore the Egge possesses the Soul of the Chicken and that the soul is conveied with the Seed into the Womb of the Female and from that seed of both Sexes conjoyned as one flame to another but not mixed for mixture saith he respects things of diverse Species but indowed with a soul a perfect Animal doth result And therefore saith he the Seed of both Sexes is required both to the constitution of an Infant and of an egge And thus like one that had subdued all difficulties He conceives he hath delivered a certain and perspicuous Truth But granting that there is a Soul in the egge and that soul united and made up of the souls of the Parents and sometimes proceeding from Parents of of several kinds as from a Mare and an Ass from a Dunghil-Hen and a Cock-Pheasant and that it is not Mixed but United and that the Chicken after the manner of the Seed of Vegetables is made by that efficient soul being afterwards preserved by it all its life long so that it be counted absurd to affirm that the foetus is cherished by one soul out of the Uterus or egge and by another in the Uterus or egge suppose I say we grant all this though it be invalid and doubtful yet our History of the Generation out of the Egge doth utterly subvert and confute as false the very foundation and basis upon which all his doctrine leans and relies Which is this That the egge is constituted of the Seed of Cock and Hen or that the seed is transmitted from both into the Uterus or that the foetus or any part of it is formed of the seed so entertained by the womb or cast into it or that the seed of the Cock as an Efficient cause or Operatour is any where reserved in the Hen which as he conceives draws matter and nutriment from her into the Womb to support the foetus which it hath made For the conditions which he himself according to Aristotle reputes necessary will be found wanting namely that the foetus ought to be made of that which actually is in being and doth pre-exist and that the Chicken is nourished by that which is present with it and in the same place where it self is first constituted As also that it should be made by that which doth operate being immediately conjoyned to it and ought to be the same thing by which the chicken is preserved and augmented all its life-time For the cocks seed whether Animate or Inanimate it matters nothing is not at all in the Egge not in the Uterus present and conjoyned nor in the matter whence the chicken is framed as neither in the Chicken it self now begun that so it may either frame or perfect it He miscarries likewise when he goes about to illustrate his opinion concerning the Animal seed by allusion to that of Plants and Mast because he did not understand the difference alledged by Aristotle between the Geniture proceedings by coition and the first conception made out of both Sexes nor did observe that an egge might be first conceived in the Cluster of the Vitellary without the translation of any Geniture from Male and Female into the Uterus Nor did he apprehend that the Uterus even for some time after Coition is quite void of any matter at all either transmitted from the Parents or made by Coition or occasioned any other way Nor had he read or at least observed Fabricius his experiment namely that after some Coitions of the Cock the Hen may be so fructified that from that time for the whole succeeding year she may lay all Prolifical Egges though she have not in the interim conversed with the cock whereby each particular egge might receive fecundity nor yet retained so long the seed she formerly received This is agreed upon by universal consent that all Animals whatsoever which arise from Male and Female are generated by the coition of both Sexes and so begotten as it were per contagium aliquod by a kind of contagion In like manner as Physitians observe that contagious diseases as the Leprosie the Pox the Plague and Pthisick do propagate their infection and beget themselves in bodies yet sound and untoucht meerly by an extrinsecal contact nay sometimes onely by the breath and per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by inquination and that at a distance through an inanimate medium and that medium no way sensibly altered So that that which had the first touch begets an Univocal like it self not as touching at this instant nor yet now actually in being nor as present or conjoined but meerly because it once hath touched Of so great operation and energy is Contagion And perhaps the same thing obtains in the Generation of Animals For Fishes egges which acquire their growth abroad at their own dispose without any Male-seed and therefore do without all doubt live without it being besprinkled with the Males prolifical milkey substance and only tinctured from without do generate fishes T is not I say an intromission or intimate reception of the masculine seed into each particular egge which sets it a work about the fabrick of bodies or introduces the soul but a bare contact Whereupon Aristotle calls lac maris the Males milk or genital seed cast into water sometimes genital and propagating liquor and sometimes Vital Venom For saith he The Masculine fish sprinckles the egges with genital seed and those egges which that Vitale Virus Vital or quickning Venom touches out of them are born fishes It being therefore laid down as an undoubted principle that the foetus is made by Contagion there will a weighty doubt arise namely how bare Contagion can be the author of so great a work and how the parents can by that generate issues like themselves or the males seed produce an Univocal like that creature from which it proceeded since after contact it bids adieu and is no longer in being or touching or present at all but clean corrupted and a Non-ens How say I can a Non-ens act or a Non-tangens erect a fabrick like it self or that which is dead it self impart a life to
another thing and meerly upon this account that the time was when it did touch For Aristotles argumentation seems false or lame at least where he contends That Generation cannot be without an Agent and a Patient and those things cannot act and suffer which do not mutually touch each other but those things do mutually touch which having each their particular magnitude and place apart have their extremities meeting one another But since the case is plain that Contagion where the things touch not nor have their extremities kissing one another can destroy living creatures what should hinder but that it should be as powerful to conduce to the life and generation of animals The Efficient in an Egge by a plastical vertue because the male did but onely touch though he now be far from touching and have no extremity reached out towards it doth frame and set up a foetus in its own species and resemblance And this author of fecundity this peircing power is translated through so many mediums or instruments that one cannot pattern it neither by that mutation procured by instruments as in the productions of Art nor by Aristotles Automata nor our Clocks or Watches nor by the instance of a King in his own dominions where his command is every where a law nor can you ratifie this our doctrine by introducing a soul into the seed or geniture And hereupon many controversies and problemes are started concerning the attractive power of the Load-stone and Jet concerning Sympathy and Antipathy concerning Poyson and the contagion of pestilential diseases concerning Alexipharmacal Medicines and such as cure or kill from an occult or rather ignote quality and propriety all which seem to execute their pleasures without any touching And chiefly this What is there in generation that by a momentany touch nay not touching at all unlesse through the sides of many mediums can orderly constitute the parts of the Chicken by an Epigenesis and produce an Univocal creature and its own like and for no other reason but because it touched heretofore How I say can that which is not present and did onely touch outwardly constitute orderly dispose and limne all the members of the Chicken in an egg which is now exposed to the wide world and oftentimes transported a great way off For nothing can make and generate it selfe into anothers likeness What the Efficient cause of Animals is and what its Conditions EXERCIT. L. THat therefore we may in some proportion dive into the knowledge of the efficient cause so far forth as concerns our present contemplation we must take notice first of the Instruments or Mediums which pertain to the efficient or forming cause and into this rank is the Male and Female for to be reduced likewise the Geniture and the egg and its first rudiment For some males and females too are barren or unfruitful And likewise the males geniture is sometimes more and sometimes less fertile for the Semen Virile as it is barely conteined in the Seminal Vesicles except it be rarified into froth by the spirits and forceably leap out is unfruitful And this too possibly is not always successful Nor are the Papulae or Yolks bred in the Cluster of the Ovary or the Egges conteined in the Womb all presently fruitfull Now I call that fruitful which except some impediment happen from without will attaine its designed end by the efficient power implanted in it and compass that for whose sake it is ordained So that Cock is reputed fertile who causes his Hens to lay oftner and more constantly and also renders their egges generative So likewise that Hen is fruitful which is useful in laying egges and hath a good retention in order to the prolifical vertue imparted to her from the Cock So the Cluster of the Papulae and Ovary it self are counted fertile when they are well fraught with store of rudiments and foundations of egges and those mature Likewise that egge is fertile which is farthest from being subventaneous or addle and doth less faile in producing a Chicken howsoever you dispose of it either to Incubation or any other fostering-heat Therefore such an efficient of the Chicken is required as may impart virtue to all these by which they may be fructified and obtain an efficient power for the same thing or at least something proportionable to it is in them all bestowing fecundity upon them And the Inquiry is the same namely what it is in the Egge that renders it fertile what in the Ovary and what in the Papula likewise what in the female and lastly in the seed and Cock himself c. What in the Blood and Punctum saliens or first genital particle from whence afterwards the rise fabrick and order of all the other parts is derived as also what is it in the Chicken it self from whence it grows sturdy and active attains its youth and maturity lives a healthy life and a long Nor is that inquiry unlike this which demands what both male and female Cock and Hen confer to the fertile egge or what it is which proceeds from both towards the perfection and similitude of the chicken as whether the egge conception matter and nutriment proceed from the female and the Operative virtue from the male whether a certain contagion sent forth by coition or created by it or received from it remaining in the Hen or Egges work upon the matter of the egge or attract a nutriment from the Hen concocting and distributing it to the encrease of the egge and afterwards to the production of the chicken Or lastly whether all that which relates to the form soul and fecundity do proceed from the male but from the female whatever relates to the matter constitution place and sustenance For in animals whose Sexes are distinct it is so contrived that because the female cannot alone generate nourish protect the foetus the male is joined as yoke-fellow in the task as the Superior and more eminent progenitor to supply her failings and so to correct the infirmity of the Subventaneous eggs and inspire them with fertility For as a chicken born of an egge is indebted to that egge for his body soul and principal or genital part So is the egge for all it has to the Henne and the Henne also for her fecundity to the Cock. But whether the male be the first and principal cause of the progeny or whether the male and the female are intermediate and Instrumental causes set awork by nature or the first and Supreme Genitor we have here an occasion offered to enquire and it is a very worthy and necessary one because all perfect science depends upon the knowledge of all causes and therefore to the plenary comprehension of Generation we must ascend from the last and lowest efficient to the very first and most supreme and know them all But as for the first and highest Efficient of the chicken we shall determine what that is afterwards when we treat of the Efficient
of all other Animals but what kind of one it is we will here declare The first condition or qualification of the first and primary Efficient properly so called is that it be the first principal fructifier from whence all intermediate causes assume their derived fecundity For instance the chicken is derived from the Punctum saliens in the egg not only in regard of its bulk but also and that chiefly in regard of its soul the Punctum saliens or Heart is derived from the egg the egg from the Hens and the Hens fertility from the Cock Another requisite or condition of the primary Efficient is desumed ex opere facto from the production it self viz. the Chicken because that is the prime efficient in which the reason of the effect doth chiefly appear But because every Generative efficient doth generate its like and the issue is of a mixt nature the first efficient must needs be mixt too Now I therefore pronounce their issue to be of a mixt nature because the mixture of both parents is refulgent in it both in the figure and lineaments of the body and all its parts as in complexion or colors moles or spots diseases and other accidents of the body Likewise in the soul and actions and functions as in like manners docility gate and voice such a kinde of temperature is discoverable For as we say that a similar mixt body is made of the Elements because their virtues heat cold moisture and sâ—ccity are found compounded in the same similar body so likewise the paternal and maternal handy-work may be tracked and pointed out both in the body soul and other accidents of the Chicken which follow the temperature or happen unto it for instance In a Mule the soul body manners and voice of both parents viz. of the Mare and the Ass are apparent So also in those Chickens which are the Ofspring of the dunghill-hen and Cock-Pheasant and in that mungrel Curre which is produced by the sodomie of a Wolf and a Bitch Since therefore the Chicken resembles both parents and is a mixt Effect the generant primary cause which it resembles must needs be mixt likewise Therefore that which frames the Chicken in the Egge is a mixt nature as being united or compounded of both and the work of both parents And if any contagion do arise or remain in the female upon coition in which they two are mixt and become as it were one Animal that also will be of a mixt nature or power by which the egge shall afterwards become fertile and atchieve a plastical virtue which is an Agent of a mixt nature or a mixt efficient-Instrument producing a Chicken of a mixt nature also The contagion I say because Aristotles perswasion is altogether refractory to experience her self namely where he saith that some part of the Foetus is instantly made upon coition Nor is that true neither which some of the Moderns averre namely that the soul of the future chicken is in the egge for that is no whit the chickens soul which is in no part of the chickens body Nor can the soul be said either to be begotten or left behind presently upon coition for otherwise there should be two souls in a Woman with child Therefore till it be determined what the efficient of the egge is which is of a mixt nature and ought to remaine present upon coition give me leave to call it contagium Contact or contagion But where the contagion lurks in the female after coition and how it is communicated and derived to the egge requires a more exact Disquisition and we will afterwards fall upon it when we treat generally of the conception of females It shall suffice in the mean time to have taken notice that it must needs be the fate of the first efficient in which the reason of the future off-spring doth abide that since its off-spring is mixt to be of a mixt nature it selfe and either to proceed from both Parents or from something which makes use of both as animate Instruments cooperative and mixt and moulded into one by coition The third condition of the Primary Efficient is that either it impart motion successively to all its intermediate instruments or else employ them otherwise but that it selfe be subservient to none whence a doubt arises whether the Cock be the Primary Efficient in the Generation of the chicken or have any before or superior to him For all generation seems to be derived from Heaven and issue from the motion of the Sun and Moon But we wil be positive in this matter when we have first declared what an instrument or the instrumental efficient cause is and how divided Now Instrumental Efficients are of diverse kinds some according to Aristotle are factiva Making and some activa Doing some do not operate but when they are conjoyned with a prior efficient as the hand foot and genital parts others operate disjoined as the Geniture and the Egge some Instruments have not motion or action but what is given them by the first Efficient others have proper internal principles of their own to which nature affords no motion in generation but yet employs their faculties and sets them the rule and law of their performances as the Cook employes fire and the Physitian herbs and the vertues of medicines to cures Sennertus to maintain his conceipt concerning the soul in the Seed and the formative faculty in the Egge affirms that not onely the Egge but the Cocks seed also is indowed with the soul of the future Chicken and is not the Instrumental Agent but the principal absolutely denying that any separate Efficient is Instrumental but pronouncing that onely that is to be reckoned an Instrument in propriety of speech which is conjoined with the primary efficient and that that onely is an Instrumental efficient which hath no other motion or action then that which is immitted or continually and successively received from the primary efficient by whose power it acts And upon that account he rejects the instance concerning things cast or hurled which receiving their force from the thing that doth hurle do yet notwithstanding move even when they are separated from it As if the Sword and Speare were to be counted Instruments of War but not Arrows and Bullets Hee also rejects the instance drawn from a Republick and denies that the Magistrates Counsellors or Officers of a Common-wealth are the Instruments of a Nation And yet Aristotle reckons a Counsellor for an Efficient and calls on Officer an Instrument in plain termes He likewise decries the instance of the Automata and many other things that so he may ratifie the seed or egge to be Animals and not an Instrumental but a Principal Agent And yet as if he were enforced by the truth he laies down such conditions for a Principal Agent as do absolutely prove contrary to his own fore-mentioned opinion Whatsoever produceth a work or effect more noble then it selfe or else an effect lake
to it selfe is not an Efficient but an Instrumental cause Which being granted who will not conclude that Seed and an Egge are Instruments Since a chicken is an effect nobler then the egge and neither like an Egge nor Seed Wherefore when this most Learned Man denies the Seed or Egge to be an Instrument because they are separated from the Primary Agent he stands upon a false bottom For since the first generant produceth its off-spring by several mediums whether any of those mediums be conjoined to it as the Hand to the Artist or whether it be separated from it as the Arrow shot from the Bow yet both are called Instruments From these recited Conditions of the Instrumental cause it may seem to insue that the cock or at least the cock with the hen are the Primary efficients in the Generation of the chicken for the chicken is like them nor can it be thought to be more noble then its Efficients or Parents I shall therefore adde one condition more to the Primary efficient by which perhaps it may appear that the Male is not the Primary but the Instrumentall cause namely that it is required of the Primary efficient in the fabrick of the Chicken that he employ Skill Providence Wisdome Goodness and Understanding far above the capacity of our rational soules as that in which the Reason or Idea of the future work ought to consist and which ought likewise to act for some destinated end disposing and perfecting all parts forming the smallest and most inconsiderable appendixes of the Chicken for some use and employment not providing onely for the structure of the creature but for its wellfare ornament and defence Now the male or his seed either in or after coition is not so qualified that Art Understanding and Providence may be attributed to it Which things being pondered the Male seems to be an Instrumental efficient as well as his seed and the Hen likewise as well as the Egge she laies And therefore we must take our flight to a more Primary Superior and more excellent cause to which we may justly attribute Providence Understanding Art and Goodness and such a one as is as much superiour to its effects and Workmanship as an Architect is better then a Barn he sets up a Prince then his Officers or an Artist then his owne hands And therefore both Male and Female are but Instrumental efficients subservient to the high Creator or Protogenitor And in this sense it is truly said that the Sun and Man beget an Animal because the Spring and Autumn do insue upon the Approaching and Receding Sun at which times commonly the generation and corruption of Animals happen So the chiefest of Philosophers The first Movers motion is not the cause of generation and corruption but the motion of the Oblique circle for that is continual and hath also two Motions for if generation and corruption were to be always continual it were necessary that something should be always moved least those mutations should fail but yet it must have two motions least one onely of the two mutations should succeed The cause therefore of the continuity is the motion of the Universe but the declivity it selfe is the cause of the Approach and the Recesses For it comes to pass that He namely the Sun is sometimes neerer and sometimes farther from the earth And when the Interval is inequal the motion must be inequal too If then he therefore generate because he approaches neerer and cause corruption because he remotes and recedeth farther from the earth Then it follows that if he often do generate it is because he often approacheth and if he often cause corruption it is because he often recedeth For contraries have contrary causes And therefore in the Spring all things flourish and grow namely from the Approach of the Sun who is the Common Father and Parent or at least the immediate and Common Instrument in Generation imployed by the high Creator and that not Vegetables onely but Animals too nor they onely which are Spontaneous issues but those also which are generated by Male and Female As if at the approach of this noble Planet soft Venus did descend from the Skie with Cupid and the Graces entertained for her Retinue inciting and provoking all living things by their Allegeance to Love to propagate their kind Or as it is in the Fable as if Saturne did then become an Eunuch and threw his masculine evidences into the Sea to raise a Foam which might give birth to Venus For in the Generation of Animals Superat tener omnibus humor A gentle dew doth moisten all as the Poet hath it and the genital parts doe foam and strut with Seed And therefore the cock and Hen are chiefly fruitfull in Spring as if the Sun or Heavens Nature the Soul of the Universe or the Omnipotent Deity for these are Synonoma's were a Superiour and Diviner cause of Generation then they So Sol homo generant hominem The Sun and Man beget a Man that is to say the Sun by Man as its Instrument And so the Creator of all things and the cock beget an egge and out of an egge a chicken namely by the constant approach and recesse of the Sun who according to the will and decree of the Almighty is emploied in the generation of all things We conclude therefore that the male though he be a Primary and more excellent efficient then the female is only an Instrumental Efficient and doth himselfe no less then the Female owe his fecundity or generative Virtue to the Sun his Creditour and therefore the artifice and providence which we discover in his workmanship doth not proceed from him but God For the Male uses neither counsel nor understanding in generation nor doe Men generate by any part of their reasonable soule but by a faculty of their vegetative which is not inrouled amongst the primary and more devine powers of the soule but the meanest and basest Since therefore in the structure of a chicken Art and Providence are no less visible then in the Fabrick of Man himselfe and the creation of the Universe we must needs acknowledge that in the generation of Man there is an Efficient cause more excellent then man himselfe or else that the vegetative faculty or that part of the soule which raiseth this pile of man and doth conserve it is much more divine and excellent and doth more personate the Image of God then the Rational part it selfe whose worth and dignity we more cry up then all the faculties of the soule beside though she were Regent and Empress of the rest and held them all as Tributaries to her Or at least wee must confess that there is neither prudence nor skill nor understanding in the workes of Nature but they seem such onely to our apprehensions who iudge of the divine productions of nature by our owne Arts and Faculties or copies drawne by our own fancies as if the active principles of
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
Physitians treat of the Blood in stotle did constitute the blood out of parts and differences in some manner alike Physitians indeed do onely take notice of humane blood and of that as it spins into a Sawcer in Phlebotomy and so coagulates Aristotle contemplates the blood of all creatures in general or that which beareth an Analogy with blood But laying aside all cavil and omitting the inconveniences which do pursue their opinion I shall briefly touch upon those things which they both consent in and are plainly discovered by sense it self and are more pertinent to our business intending elsewhere to examine them at large Though as I have informed you the blood is called a part of the body and that the primigenial and principal part yet if it be considered in the whole lump as it is in the Veins nothing hinders why we may not say that it conteins Aliment concocts it and doth apply it to all parts and that being one and the same thing yet in that acceptation it may be said both to feed and to be fed as also to be both the material and efficient cause of the Body and naturally to have that very constitution which Aristotle conceived to be necessary in the primigenial part namely that the blood is partly of a similar and partly of a dissimilar constitution For saith he Since for senses sake it is necessarily ordered that there should be similar members in Animals and since both the power of sensation motion and nutrition are all comprehended in the same member namely the Primogenit it is necessary that that member which conteins such principles in it should both be simple that it may be capable of all sensible objects and also dissimilar that it may move and act Wherefore he goes on in the race of creatures that have blood the Heart is counted such a member but in the bloodless that member which is proportionable to the Heart Now if by the Heart he understand that particle which is first seen in the Egge namely the Blood together with its receptacles the Vesiculae pulsantes and the Veins as one and the same Organ I then conceive he speaks most true for the Blood as it is discovered in the Egge and the Vesicula is partly similar and partly dissimilar But if he understand it otherwise that which is seen in the egge will easily confute him for the substance of the Heart being considered without the Blood namely its Cones and the Walls or partitions of its Ventricles is generated long after and continues so long white without any irrigation of blood upon it untill the Heart be fashioned into an Organical form such as may spout the blood through the whole body Nor doth the Heart then appear of a similar or simple constitution as is fit for a Primogenit part to do but fibrous fleshey and musculous and indeed as Hippocrates would have it a plain Muscle or Instrument of motion But the blood as it is first seen and as it beats being yet comprehended in the Vesicula is plainly of that constitution which Aristotle judgeth necessary to a Principal part For the blood while it is in its natural constitution in the body is altogether similar But so soon as it is dislodged and out of its receptacles and puts of its native heat it presently degenerates into several parts as some dissimilar thing But if the blood were naturally designed onely to the nourishing of the body it would be onely of a similar constitution like the Chyle or White of an egge or at least it would be a mixt body being compounded of the foresaid parts or juyces and yet truly one as those other juyces namely the Choler and Phlegme which after death even when they are taken out of their habitations remain the same as when they were seen in the live body but are not so soon changed Wherefore what Aristotle attributes to a Principal part that very same thing is proper to blood For blood as it is a Natural body being an Heterogeneous or Dissimilar substance is compounded of those parts or juyces But as it lives and it the chief Animal part compounded of a body and soul But when that soul by reason of the expiration of the native heat doth vanish and its native substance is presently corrupted and is dissolved into those parts of which it was formerly made namely first into a Watry Blood next into Red and White parts and the Red parts which are uppermost are most florid but those that sinck downwards grow dark and black Now some of the parts also are fibrous and thicker as being the tye and connexion of the rest others are ichorous and serous upon which the coagulated lump useth to float And into this Serum almost all the blood degenerates Now these parts are not in the live blood but onely when it is now corrupted and dissolved by death Besides the recited parts there is seen in hotter and stronger Animals as in Horses Oxen and Men also of a more lively constitution another part of blood which when the blood is let out and grumefieth seating it selfe in the upper part of the redder blood doth condense and plainly resemble a Gelly made of Harts-horn or kind of Mucilage or thicker white of an egge The vulgar count it the Phlegme and Aristotle the crude and unconcocted part of the blood I have observed this part to differ as well from the serous upon which the coagulated gore useth to swim as from the other parts as likewise from the Urine which is dreined by the Kidnies from the blood Nor is it to be thought the cruder and colder part of the blood but the more spirital as I suppose and that by two experiments First because it swimmes above the florid and brighter part of the blood which is vulgarly conceived to be the Arterial blood as being hotter and fuller of spirits then it and upon the disgregation of the blood obtaines the upper place Also in breathing a Veine this sort of blood where of there is plenty in persons of a hot temperature that are strong and fleshy it darts it self out in a longer stream and more vehemency as if it spirted out of a Syringe hereupon we count it hotter and more spirital as that geniture is counted most fertile fraught with spirits which leaps farthest and most forcibly And that this gelly doth much differ from that ichorous and watry substance which as being colder then the rest sinketh down to the bottom of the sawcer is evident for two reasons for the watry and washy part is more crude and inconcocted then that it may be wrought up into perfect blood But the gelly which is thicker and more fibrous swimming above the lump of blood appeareth more concocted and elaborate then it And therefore in the solution or partition of the blood this gelly keeps aloof the whey or sanies lowest but the lump and red parts as well the brighter as the darker possess the
middle region Now is it most certain that not onely that part but all the blood nay the very flesh it self as may be observed in Bodyes hanged in Chains may may be corrupted into ichorous whey As being resolved into that substance of which they were first compounded so Salt is resolved into Lie from whence it first sprung So likewise in every Cachexie the blood that is let abounds with plenty of Serum so that sometimes there scarce appears any grumous part at all but all the blood seems to be one entire washy gore as we finde in that kinde of Dropsie called Anasarca and it is also natural in creatures that are bloodless Likewise if you breath a veine immediately after you have eat and drank before the second concoction be finished and the Serum descended through the Kidnies or upon the first approach of a fit of an Ague you shall finde the blood to be washy inconcocted and mingled with much whey But on the contrary if upon an empty Stomack or discharge of the Urine or a large Sweat you open a Veine you shall finde the blood thick as being quite destitute of Serum and being almost all condensed into a lump And as when the blood growes raw and crude you shall perceive but very litle of this gelly floating a top So if you poure out the Serum separated from the lump or mass and let it simper upon a gentle fire you shall soon see it changed into this gelly which is a manifest signe that that washy or serous substance which is now divided from the rest of the blood is perhaps some matter of the Urine but not the Urine it self though in colour and consistence it look like it For the Urine being boyled is not thickned into a fibrous Gelly but rather into a Lie but this washy or serous part being a while gently heated condenseth into a gelly like that above as on the contrary that â—uâ—ago or gelly degenerating into more crudity by corruption is dissolved into Serum And thus farre have I brought this part of the blood which is my own Observation upon the Stage of which and the other parts of blood which are apparent to sense and allowed by the authority of Aristotle and Physitians I shall more copiously discourse hereafter In this place not to digress farther I conceive the blood to be taken with Aristotle not as it is simply understood and called Cruor but as it is a living part of an Animal body For so Aristotle The blood is hot in such a sense as if we could call hot water by one onely word and not as a subject receiving heat into it For heat is in the essence of the blood as whiteness in a white man But when blood is made hot by any distemper or passion of the Minde it is not then calidus perse hot by its own heat And thus we may say of that which is moist or dry Wherefore partly a hot and partly a moist substance is in the nature of such kinde of things but if you divide them they then grow cold and congeale and such is blood Blood therefore as it is a living part of the Body is of a doubtfull nature and falls under a two fold consideration And therefore materialiter per se it is called nutriment but formaliter as it is endued with heat and spirits which are the immediate instruments of the Soul and with the Soul it self it is to be counted the Bodies Genius and Conserver the Principal Primogenit and Genital part And as a Prolifical egg is the Matter Instrument and Efficient cause of the Chicken and as all Physitians count the geniture of both Sexes mingled in the womb after coition both for the material and efficient of the Foetus so upon a better right may we affirm That the Blood is both the Matter and Preserver of the Body and not the bare Aliment For it is a known thing in Creatures that are starved by hunger and Men also that dye of Consumptions that a great quantity of blood remains in their Veins even after death And also Young men that are in their growth and Old men that are declining have a proportionable quantity of blood namely according to the increase or diminution of their Flesh So that the blood is a part and not the nutriment onely of the Body For if that were the onely use of it no man would be starved so long as any drop of the blood remains in the veins as the flame of a Lamp doth not expire so long as any oyle at all remains to support it But while I affirm the soul to reside first and principally in the blood I would not have any man hastily to conclude from hence that all Blood-letting is dangerous or hurtfull or believe with the Vulgar that as much of blood so much of life is taken away because Holy-writ placeth the life in the blood For dayly experience shewes that Letting blood is a safe cure for several Diseases and the chiefest of Universal Remedies because the default or superfluity of the blood is the seminary of most distempers and a seasonable evacuation of it doth often rescue men from most desperate maladies and Death it self For look how much blood is according to Art taken away so many years are added to the Age. Nature her self was our Tutor here whom Physitians transcribe for She of her own accord doth many times vanquish the most mortal Infirmities by a plentifull and critical evacuation either at the Nose Haemorrhoids or by menstruous Purgations And therefore young people who feed high and live idlely unless about the eighteenth or twentieth yeare of their age at which time the stock of blood encreases together with the bulk of their bodies they be disburdened of the load and oppression of their blood either by a spontaneous release at the Nose or Inferiour parts or by breathing a Vein they are dangerously set upon by Feavers Small-pox Head-aches and other more grievous Distempers and Symptomes Alluding to which the Farriers do begin almost all Cures of Beasts with Letting blood What Observations are to be collected from the Ramifications of the Umbilical veines in the Egge EXERCIT. LIII WE see the Blood is made in the Egge and Conception before any thing else and neere upon that time doe its Receptacles that is the Veines and Vesicula pulsans appear And therefore if we admit the Punctum saliens together with the blood and veines as one and the same Organical part visible in the first dawning of the Foetus to stand for the Heart whose Parenchyma doth afterwards in the formation of the Foetus grow to the Vesicula it is clear then that the Heart under this acceptation namely as an Organ compounded of a Parenchyma Ventricles Deaf-ears Vessels and Blood is truly according to Aristotles owne minde the principal and primary part of the body and yet its first and chief part is blood and that not onely in order
work about the Generation of other parts or else to remove some Obstructions in her proceedings which in case they continue the Generation may be retarded and others are under another capacity therefore it comes to pass that according to the disposition of the matter and other requisites the parts are diversly made some after other and some of them are in hand before but are not finished till afterwards some are begun and finished before others are begun and others are as soon begun as their fellows but finished after them And therefore in the generation of some Animals the same order is not always observed but it is much different and various and in some no order at all but all the parts are begun and finished at a heat namely by a Metamorphosis as we shewed And lastly hence it happens that the Primogenit part is such that in it is concluded both the Beginning and the End as well that for whose sake all are made namely the soul as also that which is its cause in chief and Genital part The Heart therefore or according to my perswasion the Blood is the first throne of the Soul the fountain of life the Vestal fire the Genital warmth and the very Calidum Innatum the first Efficient of all his ministring parts having atcheived the soul for his end which commands them all as her leige-people The Heart I say as Aristotle will have it is he for whose sake the whole Fabrick and Family of the parts are provided and who also is the Fountain and Father of them all Of the Order of Parts in Generation as it appears by our Observations EXER LVI THat we may at last propose our own opinion of the Order of Parts as we have collected it out of several Observations of our own we intend to distinguish the whole work of Generation in all Animals whatsoever into two Fabricks Whereof the first is that of the Egge namely of the Conception and Seed or of that whatsoever it is which in Spontaneous productions answereth in proportion to Seed whether we understand it under the notion of Calidum nativum coeleste in humido primigenio the Innate celestial substance in the Primigenial moist with Fernelius or with Aristotle of Calor Vitalis in humors comprehensus the vital heat concluded in moisture For the Conception in Viviparous Animals as we have said is answerable to the Seed and Fruit of Plants as also the Egge in Oviparous in Spontaneous productions the Worme or some Bulla teeming by the Vital heat of the conteined moisture In all which the same thing is comprehended which may truly call them Seeds namely out of which and by which as the matter and Efficient and pre-existent Organ every Animal is first made and borne The Other Fabrick is of the Foetus born out of the Seed or Conception For the Matter and the Final and Efficient causes and the Instruments necessary to the worke must first be before any part of the Production can begin The Fabrick of the Egge we have already seen but that of the Foetus so far as we could discover out of dissections is perfected especially in the more perfect race of Animals and such as have blood chiefly by four degrees or processions which according to the several times of generation we shall reduce into as many Orders demonstrating withall that the same thing which is discerned in the Egge is alike in every conception and seed The First progress is of the Primogenit and Genital part namely of the blood with its receptacles or if you will have it so of the Heart and his Veins Now this part is first begotten chiefly for two reasons both because it is the principal part which makes use of all the rest as its Instruments and for whose sake the other parts seem to be produced as also because it is the Chiefe Genital part the Fountain and Author of the rest The part in which is concluded both the Beginning and End of Generation the same being Pater Rex Parent and Sovereign In the Generation of these Parts which is determined in the Egge the Fourth day though I could not observe any Order because all its particles Blood Veins and Vesicula pulsans appear at once yet I believe as I said that the blood is in it before the Pulse and that it also in Natures Law is before it receptacles the Veins for the substance and structure of the Heart namely the one with its Ventricles and Auricles as it is generated long after with the other Intrals so ought it to be registered in their Classis which is the Third In this structure the veines are conspicuous before the Arteries at least as farre as we could observe The Second Journal which sets out after the fourth day discovers a certain Concrementum or coagulated substance which I call Vermiculum seu Galbam the litle Worm or Magot for it seems to enjoy the life and obscure motion of a Galba and this as it congeals into a gelly is divided into two parts whereof the upper and the larger is conglobated and distinguished into three Vesicles namely that of the Brain After-brain and one of the Eyes but the lesser carinam referens resembling the Keel of a Ship is superinduced upon the Vena Cava and is extended according to its length In the structure of the Head the Eyes are first discerned and anon a white spot starts up for the Bill and the filme drying about it becomes protected by a membrane At this time also the adumbration or rough draft of the rest of the Body seems to succeed where first upon the Carina the sides or plancks as it were of a Boat seem to arise being at first of a similar consistence but afterwards by most white streaks they are signified to be the lines of the Ribs After this the members of Motion namely the Wings and Legs do appear and at last the Keel and Limbs born by a kinde of Superfoetation are distinguished into Muscles Bones and Joints Those two first mishapen materials of the Head and Body do together appear and are together distinguished but afterwards when they tend towards growth and perfection the body gets the start and is much sooner grown and shaped so that the Head which did at first out-strip the whole body beside in bulk and magnitude is now very much short of it And this is likewise natural to humane productions The like Disparity is between the Body it selfe the Limbs for in an Infant from that time that the Embryo exceeds not the length of the Nail of the litle Finger till he be encreased to the stature of a Frog or a Mouse his Arms are so short that if you stretch out his fingers over his breast to their farthest extent they will not be able to touch one another and his thighs are so short that being reflected upon his Abdomen they will hardly reach to his Navel Nay in Children lately born the
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
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.
L. de nat puer de hist an l. 6. c. 2. Ibid. pag. 29. One Chicken proceeds but from One Egge An egge is a Conception Both the Beginning and the Fruit. De gen an l. 1. c. 18. It is also a certain Medium It is also the Sperma Ibid. The difference between Sperma Genitura Gen. an l. 1. c. 20. pag. 47. de gen an l. 2. c. 4. 1. de form Foet Phys l. 1. e. 1. The Efficient Cause of Generation is in the Egge Whether the Egge be a Part of the Henne de gen an l. 3. c de gen an l. 2. c. 4. de gen an l. 1. c. 20. What soul is that wherewith the Egge is informed The Egge doth not live by the Soul of the Henne pag. 8. de gen an l. 2. c. 1. 6. Aenead Hist an l. 5. c. 32 De Gen. an l. 3. c. 11. Ibid. l. 4. c. 11. de gen an l. 2. c. 3. Lib. 9. c. 16. de gen an l. 1. c. 2. De gen an l. 1. c. 2. De gen an l. 2. c. 4. De gen an l. 1. c. 2. de gen an l. 2. c. 4. Ibid. Fabric pag. 37. de gen an l. 1. c. 4. Metaphys l. 7. c. 8. de gen an l. 3. c. 7. pag. 10. De gen an l. 3. c. 1. de gen an l. 3. c. 1. pag. 12. Ibid. Arist phys l. 1. c. 1. de gen an l. 3. c. 9. Gen. an l. 2. c. 3. Hist an l. 6. c. 37 pag. 38. 39. Arist de gen an l. 2. c. 3. Ibid. Lib. 9. c. 50. Lib. 17. c. 10. Nat. quest l. 3. c. 27. pag. 28. De gen an l. 1. c. 18. pag. 28. De Nat. pueri Hist an l. 6 c. 3. and De gen an l. 3. c. 1. 3. l. 10. c. 53. pag. 34. pag. 35. pag. 35. Hist an l. 3. c. 8. de gen an l. 2. c. 1. de gen an l. 2. c. 4. Metaphys l. 7. c. 9. Metaph. l. 3. c. 2. Phys l. 2. c. 28. a Metaphys 1. 2. 4. 1. b Meta. 7. 10. c De par an 1. 1. d De gen an 1. 20. e Ibid. l. 2. c. 3. f l. 5. c. 3. g l. 4. c. 2. h l. 4. c. 4. i De par an 2. 2. k De gen an 4. 2. De gen corrup l. 2. c. 30. De gen an l. 2. c. c. De gen an l. 1. c. 20. Lib. 2. c. 4. De gen an l. 1 c. 18. de gen an l. 2. c. 4. Ibid. l. 2. c. 1. Ibid. pag. 38. Hist an l. 6. c. 13. de gen an l. 1. c. 6. Polit. l. 1. c. 4. De Gen. Corr. l. 2. c. 10. de gen an l. 2. c. 1. Ibid. c. 1. Ib. c. 4. pag. 28. Levit. 17. 11. 14. De hist an l. 3. c. 19. De part an l. 2. c. 4. Hist an l. 3. c. 9. De Anima l. 1. c. 2. De hist an l. 1. c. 19. de part an l. 2. c. 3. De gen an l. 2. c. 3. De hist an l. 2. c. 3. De gen an l. 3. c. 1. 3. De gen an l. 3. c. 1. pag. 44. De gen an l. 2. c. 4. Ibid. Nat. quest l. 3. c. 19. Lucret. l. 1. In the place before cited De gen an l. 2. c. 4. De gen an l. 2. c. 4. De form foet p. 19. or 134. l. de carn de nat puer pag. 137. pag. 50. l. 10. de us Part. Hist an l. 6. c. 2. l. 10. c. 52. Plin. ibid. Id. l. 8. c. 25 l. 10. c. 52. pag. 47. Hist an l. 6. c. 2. De gen an l. 3. 5 2. pag. 34. pag. 54. pag. 57. pag. 54. pag. 55. Ibid. Hist an l. 6. c. 3. Hist an l. 1. c. 1. Hist an l. 1. c. 5. Gen. an l. 3. c. 7. Hist an l. 1. c. 5. Hist an l. 5. c. 29. Ibid. c. 30. Gen. an l. 3. c. 9. De form Ovi Pulli c. 1. De gon an l. 1. c. 18. Ibid. Hist an l. 1. c. 5. De gen an l. 3. c. 9. Hist an l. 7. c. 7. Anthrop l. 2. c. 34. L. 8. c. 32. Hist an l. 1. c. 5. de gen an l. 2. c. 1. de gen an l. 3. c. 9. Hist an l. 7. c. 7. Hist an l. 7. c. 7. L. de nat Mul. de morb vulg Sect. 5. aphor 45. De part an l. 2 c. 3. Dictato 7. De gen an l. 2. c. 3. De gen an l. 4. c. ult Aenead 10. L. 36. c. 16. De abd rer caus l. 2. c. 17 De gen an l. 1. c. 18. L. 3. de coelo c. 31. De gen corr l. 2. c. 50. De form Foetus c. 9. pag. 140. The Position of the Foetus in the Womb. Hist an 2. c. 8. The Matrix Gen. an l. 4. c. 8. l. 7. c. 5. pag. 141. De gen an l. 4. c. 4. ult Hist an l. 7. c. 4. Ibid. De usu part l. 15. c. 7. The manner of the Birth Hist an l. 5. c. 34. Two things required in a Natural Birth L. 7. c. 8. De form foet pag. 142. De us part l. 15. c. 7. pag. 143. De part an l. 1. c. 5. De gen an l. 3. c. 1. I. de foetu Com. in hist an Arist l. 7. c. 3. Lib. de for foetus c. 1. cap. 7. cap. 5. Of the Humours De gen an l. 3. c. 9. Ibid. Hist an l. 7. c. 7. Ibid. Of the Membranes cap. 3. 5. apho 45. cap. 3. De form foet pag. 122. cap. 4. De Acetabulis Hist an l. 7. c. 8. Of the Navel cap. 2. Analyt l. 2. c. 35. Metaph. l. 1. c. 2. Ibid. Metaph l. an â— Arist hist an l. 7. c. 6. de gen an l. 1. c. 17 l. 7. c. 11. de part an l. 1. c. 1. Phys l 2. tract 3. de gen an l. 2. c. 1. de gen an l. 2. c. 4. Arist de part an l. 1. c. 6.