The works of Aristotle, the famous philosopher : containing his Complete masterpiece and Family physician ; his Experienced midwife, his Book of problems and his Remarks on physiognomy

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Chapter III

The reason why children are like their parents ; and that the Mother's imagination contributes thereto ; and whether the man or the woman is the cause of the male or female child.

In the case of similitude, nothing is more power ful than the imagination of the mother ; for if she fix her eyes upon any object it will so impress her mind, that it oftentimes so happens that the child has a representation thereof on some part of the body. And, if in act of copulation, the woman earnestly look on the man, and fix her mind on him, the child will resemble its father. Nay, if a woman, even in unlawful copulation, fix her mind upon her husband, the child will resemble him though he did not beget it. The same effect has imagination in occasioning warts, stains, mole-spots, and dartes ; though indeed they sometimes happen through frights, or extravagant longing. Many women, in being with child, on seeing a hare cross the road in front of them, will, through the force of imagination, bring forth a child with a hairy lip. Some children are born with flat noses and wry mouths, great blubber lips and ill-shaped bodies ; which must be ascribed to the imagination of the mother, who has cast her eyes and mind upon some ill-shaped creature. Therefore it behoves all women with child, if possible, to avoid such sights, or at least, not to regard them. But though the mother’s imagination may contribute much to the features of the child, yet, in manners, wit, and propension of the mind, experience tells us, that children are commonly of the condition with their parents, and possessed of similar tempers. But the vigour or disability of persons in the act of copulation many times cause it to be otherwise ;

for children begotten through the heat and strength of desire, must needs partake more of the nature and inclination of their parents, than those begotten at a time when desires are weaker ; and, therefore, the children begotten by men in their old age are generally weaker than those begotten by them in their youth. As to the share which each of the parents has in begetting the child, we will give the opinions of the ancients about it.

Though it is apparent that the man’s seed is the chief efficient being of the action, motion, and generation : yet that the woman affords seed and effectually contributes in that point to the procreation of the child, is evinced by strong reasons. In the first place, seminary vessels had been given her in vain, and genital testicles inverted, if the woman wanted seminal excrescence, for nature does nothing in vain ; and therefore we must grant, they were made for the use of seed and procreation, and placed in their proper parts ; both the testicles and the receptacles of seed, whose nature is to operate and afford virtue to the seed. And to prove this, there needs no stronger argument, say they, than that if a woman do not use copulation to eject her seed, she often falls into strange diseases, as appears by young men and virgins. A second reason they urge is, that although the society of a lawful bed consists not altogether in these things, yet it is apparent the female sex are never better pleased, nor appear more blythe and jocund, than when they are satisfied this way ; which is an inducement to believe they have more pleasure and titulation therein than men. For since nature causes much delight to accompany ejection, by the breaking forth of the swelling spirits and the swiftness of the nerves ; in which case the operation on the woman’s part is double, she having an enjoyment both by reception and ejection, by which she is more delighted in.

Hence it is, they say, that the child more frequently resembles the mother than the father, because the mother contributes more towards it. And they think it may be further instanced, from the endeared affection they bear them ; for that, besides their contributing seminal matters, they feed and nourish the child with the purest fountain of blood, until its birth. Which opinion Galen affirms, by allowing children to participate most of the mother ; and ascribes the difference of sex to the different operations of the menstrual blood ; but this reason of the likeness he refers to the power of the seed ; for, as the plants receive more nourishment from fruitful ground, than from the industry of the husbandman, so the infant receives more abundance from the mother than the father. For the seed of both is cherished in the womb, and then grows to perfection, being nourished with blood. And for this reason it is, they say, that children, for the most part, love their mothers best, because they receive the most of their substance from their mother ; for about nine months she nourishes her child in the womb with the purest blood ; then her love towards it newly born, and its likeness, do clearly show that the woman affords seed, and contributes more towards making the child than the man.

But in this all the ancients were very erroneous ; for the testicles, so called in women, afford not only seed, but are two eggs, like those of fowls and other creatures ; neither have they any office like those of men, but are indeed the ovaria, wherein the eggs are nourished by the sanguinary vessels disposed throughout them ; and from thence one or more as they are fecundated by the man’s seed is separated and conveyed into the womb by the ovaducts. The truth of this is plain, for if you boil them the liquor will be of the same colour, taste and consistency, with the taste of birds’ eggs. If any object that they have no shells, that signifies nothing : for the eggs of fowls while they are on the ovary, nay, after they are fastened into the uterus, have no shell. And though when they are laid, they have one, yet that is no more than a defence with which nature has provided them against any outward injury, while they are hatched without the body ; whereas those of women being hatched within the body, need no other fence than the womb, by which they are sufficiently secured. And this is enough, I hope, for the clearing of this point.

As for the third thing proposed, as whence grow the kind, and whether the man or the woman is the cause of the male or female infant — the primary cause we must ascribe to God as is most justly His due, who is the Ruler and Disposer of all things ; yet He suffers many things to proceed according to the rules of nature by their inbred motion, according to usual and natural courses, without variation ; though indeed by favour from on high, Sarah conceived Isaac; Hannah, Samuel; and Elizabeth, John the Baptist ; but these were all extraordinary things, brought to pass by a Divine power, above the course of nature. Nor have such instances been wanting in later days ; therefore, I shall wave them, and proceed to speak of things natural.

The ancient physicians and philosophers say that since these two principles out of which the body of man is made, and which renders the child like the parents, and by one or other of the sex, viz., seed common to both sexes and menstrual blood, proper to the woman only ; the similitude, say they, must needs consist in the force of virtue of the male or female, so that it proves like the one or the other, according to the quantity afforded by either, but that the difference of sex is not referred to the seed, but to the menstrual blood, which is proper to the woman, is apparent ; for, were that force altogether retained in the seed, the male seed being of the hottest quality, male children would abound and few of the female be propagated ; wherefore, the sex is attributed to the temperament or to the active qualities, which consists in heat and cold and the nature of the matter under them — that is, the flowing of the menstruous blood. But now, the seed, say they, affords both force to procreate and to form the child, as well as matter for its generation ; and in the menstruous blood there is both matter and force, for as the seed most helps the maternal principle, so also does the menstrual blood the potential seed, which is, says Galen, blood well concocted by the vessels which contain it. So that the blood is not only the matter of generating the child, but also seed, it being impossible that menstrual blood has both principles.

The ancients also say that the seed is the stronger efficient, the matter of it being very little in quantity, but the potential quality of it is very strong ; wherefore, if these principles of generation, according to which the sex is made were only, say they, in the menstrual blood, then would the children be all mostly females ; as were the efficient force in the seed they would be all males ; but since both have operation in menstrual blood, matter predominates in quantity and in the seed force and virtue. And, therefore, Galen thinks that the child receives its sex rather from the mother than the father, for though his seed contributes a little to the natural principle, yet it is more weakly. But for likeliness it is referred rather to the father than to the mother. Yet the woman’s seed receiving strength from the menstrual blood for the space of nine months, overpowers the man’s in that particular, for the menstrual blood rather cherishes the one than the other ; from which it is plain the woman affords both matter to make and force and virtue to perfect the conception ; though the female’s be fit nutriment for the male’s by reason of the thinness of it, being more adapted to make up conception thereby. For as of soft wax or moist clay, the artificer can frame what he intends, so, say they, the man’s seed mixing with the woman’s and also with the menstrual blood, helps to make the form and perfect part of man.

But, with all imaginary deference to the wisdom of our fathers, give me leave to say that their ignorance of the anatomy of man’s body have led them into the paths of error and ran them into great mistakes. For their hypothesis of the formation of the embryo from commixture of blood being wholly false, their opinion in this case must of necessity be likewise. I shall therefore conclude this chapter by observing that although a strong imagination of the mother may often determine the sex, yet the main agent in this case is the plastic or formative principle, according to those rules and laws given us by the great Creator, who makes and fashions it, and therein determines the sex, according to the council of his will.

Chapter IV

That Man's Soul is not propagated by their parents , but is infused by its Creator, and can neither die nor corrupt. At what time it is infused. Of its immortality and certainty of its resurrection.

Man’s soul is of so divine a nature and excellency that man himself cannot comprehend it.

being the infused breath of the Almighty, of an immortal nature, and not to be comprehended but by Him that gave it. For Moses, relating the history of man, tells us that “ God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul.” Now, as for all other creatures, at His word they were made and had life, but the creature that God had set over His works was His peculiar workmanship, formed by Him out of the dust of the earth, and He condescended to breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, which seems to denote both care and, if we may so term it, labour, used about man more than about all other living creatures, he only partaking and participating of the blessed divine nature, bearing God’s image in innocence and purity, whilst he stood firm ; and when, by his fall, that lively image was defaced, yet such was the love of the Creator towards him that he found out a way to restore him, the only begotten son of the Eternal Father coming into the world to destroy the works of the devil, and to raise up man from that low condition to which sin and his fall had reduced him, to a state above that of the angels.

If, therefore, man would understand the excellency of his soul, let him turn his eyes inwardly and look unto himself and search diligently his own mind, and there he shall see many adrnirable gifts and excellent ornaments, that must needs fill him with wonder and amazement ; as reason, understanding, freedom of will, memory, etc., that clearly show the soul to be descended from a heavenly original, and that therefore it is of infinite duration and not subject to annihilation.

Yet for its many operations and offices while in the body it goes under several denominations : for when it enlivens the body it is called the soul ; when it gives knowledge, the judgment of the mind ; and when it recalls things past, the memory ; when it discourses and discerns, reason ; when it contemplates, the spirit ; when it is the sensitive part, the senses. And these are the principal offices whereby the soul declares its powers and performs its actions. For being seated in the highest parts of the body it diffuses its force into every member. It is not propagated from the parents, nor mixed with gross matter, but the infused breath of God, immediately proceeding from Him ; not passing from one to another as was the opinion of Pythagoras, who held a belief in transmigration of the soul ; but that the soul is given to every infant by infusion, is the most received and orthodox opinion. And the learned do likewise agree that this is done when the infant is perfected in the womb, which happens about the twentyfourth day after conception ; especially for males, who are generally born at the end of nine months ; but in females, who are not so soon formed and perfected, through defect of heat, until the fiftieth day. And though this day in either case cannot be truly set down, yet Hippocrates has given his opinion, that it is so when the child is formed and begins to move, when born in due season. In his book of the nature of infants, he says, if it be a male and be perfect on the thirtieth day, and move on the seventieth, he will be bom in the seventh month ; but if he be perfectly formed on the thirty-fifth day, he will move on the seventieth and will be bom in the eighth month.

Again, if he be perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day, he will move on the ninetieth and be born in the ninth month. Now from these paring of days and months, it plainly appears that the day of forming being doubled, makes up the day of moving, and the day, three times reckoned, makes up the day of birth. As thus, when thirty-five perfects the form, if you double it, makes seventy the day of motion ; and three times seventy amounts to two hundred and ten days ; while allowing thirty days to a month makes seven months, and so you must consider the rest. But as to a female the case is different ; for it is longer perfecting in the womb, the mother ever going longer with a girl than with a boy, which makes the account differ ; for a female formed in thirty days does not move until the seventieth day, and is born in the seventh month ; when she is formed on the fortieth day, she does not move till the eightieth and is born in the eighth month ; but, if she be perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day she moves on the ninetieth, and the child is born in the ninth month ; but if she that is formed on the sixtieth day, moves on the one hundred and tenth day, she will be born in the tenth month. I treat tho more largely of love that the reader may know that the reasonable soul is not propagated by the parents, but is infused by the Almighty, when the child has its perfect form, and is exactly distinguished in its lineaments.

Now, as the life of every other creature, as Moses shows, is in the blood, so the life of man consists in the soul, which although subject to passion, by reason of the gross composures of the body, in which it has a temporary confinement, yet it is immortal and cannot in itself corrupt or suffer change, it being a spark of the Divine Mind. And that every man has a peculiar soul plainly appears by the vast difference between the will, judgment, opinions, manners, and affections in men. This David observes when he says : “ God hath fashioned the hearts and minds of men, and has given to every one his own being and a soul of its own nature.” Hence Solomon rejoiced that God had given him a soul, and a body agreeable to it. It has been disputed among the learned in what part of the body the soul resides ; some are of opinion its residence is in the middle of the heart, and from thence communicates itself to every part, which Solomon (Prov. iv. 23) seems to confirm when ho says : “ Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” But many curious physicians, searching the works of nature in man’s anatomy, do affirm that its chief seat is in the brain, from whence proceed the senses, the faculties, and actions, diffusing the operations of the soul through all parts of the body, whereby it is enlivened with heat and force to the heart, by the arteries, corodities, or sleepy arteries, which part upon the throat ; which, if they happen to be broken or cut, they cause barrenness, and if stopped an apoplexy ; for there must necessarily be ways through which the spirits, animal and vital, may havo intercourse and convey native heat from the soul.

For though the soul has its chief seat in one place, it operates in every part, exercising every member which are the soul’s instruments, by which she discovers her power. But if it happen that any of the original parts are out of tune, its whole work is confused, as appears in idiots and mad men ; though, in some of them, the soul, by a vigorous exertion of its power, recovers its innate strength and they become right after a long despondency in mind, but in others it is not recovered again in this life. For, as fire under ashes, or the sun obscured from our sight by thick clouds, afford not their native lustre, so the soul, overwhelmed in moist or morbid matter, is darkened and reason thereby overclouded ; and though reason shines less in children than it does in such as are arrived at maturity, yet no man must imagine that the soul of an infant grows up with the child, for then would it again decay ; but it suits itself to nature’s weakness, and the imbecility of the body wherein it is placed, that it may operate the better. And as the body is more capable of recovering its influence, so the soul does more and more exert its faculties, having force and endowment at the time it enters the form of a child in the womb ; for its substance can receive nothing less. And thus much to prove that the soul does not come from the parents, but is infused by God. I shall next prove its immortality and demonstrate the certainty of our resurrection.

OP THE IMMORTALITY OP THE SOUL

That the soul of man IS a Divine ray, infused by the Sovereign Creator, I have already proved, and now come to show that whatever immediately proceeds from Him, and participates of His nature, must be as immortal as its original ; for, though all other creatures are endowed with life and motion, they yet lack a reasonable soul, and from thence it is concluded that their life is in thoir blood, and that being corruptible they perish and are no more ; but man being endowed with a reasonable soul and stamped with a Divine image, is of a different nature, and though his body is corruptible, yet his soul being of an immortal nature cannot perish ; but at the dissolution of the body returns to God who gave it, either to receive reward or punishment. Now, that the body can sin of itself is impossible, because wanting the soul, which is the principle of life, it cannot act nor proceed to anything either good or evil ; for could it do so, it might even sin in the grave. But it is plain that after death there is a cessation ; for as death leaves us so judgment will find us.

Now, reason having evidently demonstrated the soul’s immortality, the Holy Scriptures do abundantly give testimony of the truth of the resurrection, os the reader may see by perusing the 14th and 19th chapters of Job and 5th of John. I shall, therefore, leave the further discussion of this matter to divines, whose province it is, and return to treat of the works of nature.

Chapter V

Of Monsters and Monstrous Births ; and the several reasons thereof, according to the opinions of the Ancients. Also, whether the Monsters are endowed with reasonable Souls ; and whether the Devils can engender ; is here briefly discussed.

By the ancients, monsters are ascribed to depraved conceptions, and are designated as being excursions of nature, which are vicious in one of these four ways : either in figure, magnitude, situation, or number.

In figure, when a man bears the character of a beast, as did the beast in Saxony. In magnitude, when one part does not equalise with another ; as when one part is too big or too little for the other parts of the body. But this is so common among us that I need not produce a testimony.

There was a Monster at Ravenna in Italy of this kind, in the year 1512.

I now proceed to explain the cause of their generation, which is either divine or natural. The divine cause proceeds from God’s permissive will, suffering parents to bring forth abominations for their filthy and corrupt affections, which are let loose unto wickedness like brute beasts which have no understanding. Wherefore it was enacted among the ancient Romans that those who were in any way deformed, should not be admitted into religious houses.

And St. Jerome was grieved in his time to see the lame and the deformed offering up spiritual sacrifices to God in religious houses. And Keckerman, by way of inference, excludes all that are ill-shapen from this presbyterian function in the church. And that which is of more force than all, God himself commanded Moses not to receive such to offer sacrifice among his people ; and he also renders the reason Leviticus, xxii. 28, “ Lest he pollute my sanctuaries.” Because of the outward deformity, the body is often a sign of the pollution of the heart, as a curse laid on the child for the incontinency of its parents. Yet it is not always so. Let us therefore duly examine and search out the natural cause of their generation, which (according to the ancients who have dived into the secrets of nature) is either in the mother or in the agent, in the seed, or in the womb.

The matter may be in default two ways — by defect or by excess : by defect, when the child has only one arm ; by excess, when it has four hands or two heads. Some monsters are begotten by a woman’s unnatural lying with beasts ; as in the year 1603, there was a monster begotten by a woman’s generating with a dog ; which from the navel upwards had the perfeot resemblance of its mother : but from its navel downwards it resembled a dog.

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The agent or womb may be in fault three ways ; firstly, the formative faculty, which may be too strong or too weak, by which is procured a depraved figure ; secondly, to the instrument or place of conception, the evil confirmation or the disposition whereof will cause a monstrous birth ; thirdly, in the imaginative power at the time of conception ; which is of such a foroe that it stamps the character of the thing imagined on the child. Thus the children of an adulteress may be like her husband, though begotten by another man, which is caused through the force of imagination that the woman has of her own husband at the act of coition. And I have heard of a woman, who, at the time of conception, beholding the picture of a blackamoor, conceived and brought forth an Ethiopian. I will not trouble you with more human testimonies, but conclude with a stronger warrant. We read (Gen. xxi. 31) how Jacob having agreed with Laban to have all the spotted sheep

“ Where children thus are born with hairy coats Heaven’s wrath unto the kingdom it denotes.”

for keeping his flock to augment his wages, took hazel rods and peeled white streaks on them, and laid them before the sheep when they came to drink, which coupling together there, whilst they beheld the rods, conceived and brought forth young.

Another monster representing a hairy child. It was all covered with hair like a beast. That which made it more frightful was. that its navel was in the place where its nose should stand, and its eyes placed where the mouth should have been, and its mouth placed in the chin. It was of the male kind, and was born in France, in the year 1597, at a town called Arles in Provence, and lived a few days, frightening all that beheld it. It was looked upon as a forerunner of desolations which soon after happened to that kingdom, in which men to each other were more like brutes than human creatures.

There was a monster bom at Nazar a in the year 1530. It had four arms and four legs.

The imagination also works on the child, after conception, of which we have a pregnant instance.

A worthy gentlewoman in Suffolk, who being with child and passing by a butcher who was killing his meat, a drop of blood sprung on her face, whereupon she said her child would have a blemish on its face, and at the birth it was found marked with a red spot.

Likewise in the reign of Henry III, there wan a woman delivered of a child having two heads and four arms, and the bodies were joined at the back ; the beads were so placed that they looked contrary ways ; each had two distinct arms and hands. They would both laugh, both speak, and both cry, and be hungry together ; sometimes the one would speak and the other keep silence, and sometimes both speak together. They lived several years, but one outlived the other three years, carrying the dead one (for there was no parting them) till the survivor fainted with th5 burden, and more with the stench of the dead carcase.

It is certain that monstrous births often happen by means of undue copulation ; for some there are, who, having been long absent from one another, and having an eager desire for enjoyment, consider not as they ought, to do as their circumstances demand. And if it happen that they come together when the woman’s menses are flowing, and notwithstanding, proceed to the act of copulation, which is both unclean and unnatural, the issue of such copulation does often prove monstrous, as a just punishment for doing what nature forbids. And, therefore, though men should be ever so eager for it, yet women, knowing their own condition, should at such times positively refuse their company. And though such copulations do not always produce monstrous birth, yet the children, thus begotten, are generally heavy, dull, and sluggish, besides defective in their understandings, lacking the vivacity and loveliness with which ohildren begotten in proper season are endowed.

In Flanders, between Antwerp and Mechlin, in a village called Uthaton, a child was born which had two heads, four arms, seeming like two girls joined together, having two of their arms lifted up between and above their heads, the thighs being placed as it were across one another, according to the figure on p. 39. How long they lived I had no account of.

By the figure on p. 40 you may see that though some of the members are wanting, yet they are supplied by other members.

It remains now that I make some inquiry whether those that are born monsters have reasonable souls, and are capable of resurrection. And here both divines and physicians are of opinion that those who, according to the order of generations deduced from our first parents, proceed by mutual means from either sex, though their outward shape be deformed and monstrous, have notwithstanding a reasonable soul, and consequently their bodies are capable of resurrection, as other men’s and women’s are ; but those monsters that are not begotten by men, but are the product of women’s unnatural lusts in copulating with other creatures shall perish as the brute beasts by whom they were begotten, not having a reasonable soul nor any breath of the Almighty infused into them ; and such can never be capable of resurrection. And the same is also true of imperfect and abortive births.