by Aristotle
15
The cephalopoda entwine together at the mouth, pushing against one
another and enfolding their arms. This attitude is necessary,
because Nature has bent backwards the end of the intestine and brought
it round near the mouth, as has been said before in the treatise on
the parts of animals. The female has a part corresponding to the
uterus, plainly to be seen in each of these animals, for it contains
an egg which is at first indivisible to the eye but afterwards
splits up into many; each of these eggs is imperfect when deposited,
as with the oviparous fishes. In the cephalopoda (as also in the
crustacea) the same passage serves to void the excrement and leads to
the part like a uterus, for the male discharges the seminal fluid
through this passage. And it is on the lower surface of the body,
where the mantle is open and the sea-water enters the cavity. Hence
the union of the male with the female takes place at this point, for
it is necessary, if the male discharges either semen or a part of
himself or any other force, that he should unite with her at the
uterine passage. But the insertion, in the case of the poulps, of
the arm of the male into the funnel of the female, by which arm the
fishermen say the male copulates with her, is only for the sake of
attachment, and it is not an organ useful for generation, for it is
outside the passage in the male and indeed outside the body of the
male altogether.
Sometimes also cephalopoda unite by the male mounting on the back of
the female, but whether for generation or some other cause has not yet
been observed.
16
Some insects copulate and the offspring are produced from animals of
the same name, just as with the sanguinea; such are the locusts,
cicadae, spiders, wasps, and ants. Others unite indeed and generate;
but the result is not a creature of the same kind, but only a
scolex, and these insects do not come into being from animals but from
putrefying matter, liquid or solid; such are fleas, flies, and
cantharides. Others again are neither produced from animals nor
unite with each other; such are gnats, 'conopes', and many similar
kinds. In most of those which unite the female is larger than the
male. The males do not appear to have spermatic passages. In most
cases the male does not insert any part into the female, but the
female from below upwards into the male; this has been observed in
many cases (as also that the male mounts the female), the opposite
in few cases; but observations are not yet comprehensive enough to
enable us to make a distinction of classes. And generally it is the
rule with most of the oviparous fish and oviparous quadrupeds that the
female is larger than the because this is expedient in view of the
increase of bulk in conception by reason of the eggs. In the female
the part analogous to the uterus is cleft and extends along the
intestine, as with the other animals; in this are produced the results
of conception. This is clear in locusts and all other large insects
whose nature it is to unite; most insects are too small to be observed
in this respect.
Such is the character of the generative organs in animals which were
not spoken of before. It remains now to speak of the homogeneous parts
concerned, the seminal fluid and milk. We will take the former
first, and treat of milk afterwards.
17
Some animals manifestly emit semen, as all the sanguinea, but
whether the insects and cephalopoda do so is uncertain. Therefore this
is a question to be considered, whether all males do so, or not all;
and if not all, why some do and some not; and whether the female
also contributes any semen or not; and, if not semen, whether she does
not contribute anything else either, or whether she contributes
something else which is not semen. We must also inquire what those
animals which emit semen contribute by means of it to generation,
and generally what is the nature of semen, and of the so-called
catamenia in all animals which discharge this liquid.
Now it is thought that all animals are generated out of semen, and
that the semen comes from the parents. Wherefore it is part of the
same inquiry to ask whether both male and female produce it or only
one of them, and to ask whether it comes from the whole of the body or
not from the whole; for if the latter is true it is reasonable to
suppose that it does not come from both parents either. Accordingly,
since some say that it comes from the whole of the body, we must
investigate this question first.
The proofs from which it can be argued that the semen comes from
each and every part of the body may be reduced to four. First, the
intensity of the pleasure of coition; for the same state of feeling is
more pleasant if multiplied, and that which affects all the parts is
multiplied as compared with that which affects only one or a few.
Secondly, the alleged fact that mutilations are inherited, for they
argue that since the parent is deficient in this part the semen does
not come from thence, and the result is that the corresponding part is
not formed in the offspring. Thirdly, the resemblances to the parents,
for the young are born like them part for part as well as in the whole
body; if then the coming of the semen from the whole body is cause
of the resemblance of the whole, so the parts would be like because it
comes from each of the parts. Fourthly, it would seem to be reasonable
to say that as there is some first thing from which the whole
arises, so it is also with each of the parts, and therefore if semen
or seed is cause of the whole so each of the parts would have a seed
peculiar to itself. And these opinions are plausibly supported by such
evidence as that children are born with a likeness to their parents,
not in congenital but also in acquired characteristics; for before
now, when the parents have had scars, the children have been born with
a mark in the form of the scar in the same place, and there was a case
at Chalcedon where the father had a brand on his arm and the letter
was marked on the child, only confused and not clearly articulated.
That is pretty much the evidence on which some believe that the
semen comes from all the body.
18
On examining the question, however, the opposite appears more
likely, for it is not hard to refute the above arguments and the
view involves impossibilities. First, then, the resemblance of
children to parents is no proof that the semen comes from the whole
body, because the resemblance is found also in voice, nails, hair, and
way of moving, from which nothing comes. And men generate before
they yet have certain characters, such as a beard or grey hair.
Further, children are like their more remote ancestors from whom
nothing has come, for the resemblances recur at an interval of many
generations, as in the case of the woman in Elis who had intercourse
with the Aethiop; her daughter was not an Aethiop but the son of
that da
ughter was. The same thing applies also to plants, for it is
clear that if this theory were true the seed would come from all parts
of plants also; but often a plant does not possess one part, and
another part may be removed, and a third grows afterwards. Besides,
the seed does not come from the pericarp, and yet this also comes into
being with the same form as in the parent plant.
We may also ask whether the semen comes from each of the homogeneous
parts only, such as flesh and bone and sinew, or also from the
heterogeneous, such as face and hands. For if from the former only, we
object that resemblance exists rather in the heterogeneous parts, such
as face and hands and feet; if then it is not because of the semen
coming from all parts that children resemble their parents in these,
what is there to stop the homogeneous parts also from being like for
some other reason than this? If the semen comes from the heterogeneous
alone, then it does not come from all parts; but it is more fitting
that it should come from the homogeneous parts, for they are prior
to the heterogeneous which are composed of them; and as children are
born like their parents in face and hands, so they are, necessarily,
in flesh and nails. If the semen comes from both, what would be the
manner of generation? For the heteroeneous parts are composed of the
homogneous, so that to come from the former would be to come from
the latter and from their composition. To make this clearer by an
illustration, take a written name; if anything came from the whole
of it, it would be from each of the syllables, and if from these, from
the letters and their composition. So that if really flesh and bones
are composed of fire and the like elements, the semen would come
rather from the elements than anything else, for how can it come
from their composition? Yet without this composition there would be no
resemblance. If again something creates this composition later, it
would be this that would be the cause of the resemblance, not the
coming of the semen from every part of the body.
Further, if the parts of the future animal are separated in the
semen, how do they live? and if they are connected, they would form
a small animal.
And what about the generative parts? For that which comes from the
male is not similar to what comes from the female.
Again, if the semen comes from all parts of both parents alike,
the result is two animals, for the offspring will have all the parts
of both. Wherefore Empedocles seems to say what agrees pretty well
with this view (if we are to adopt it), to a certain extent at any
rate, but to be wrong if we think otherwise. What he says agrees
with it when he declares that there is a sort of tally in the male and
female, and that the whole offspring does not come from either, 'but
sundered is the fashion of limbs, some in man's...' For why does not
the female generate from herself if the semen comes from all parts
alike and she has a receptacle ready in the uterus? But, it seems,
either it does not come from all the parts, or if it does it is in the
way Empedocles says, not the same parts coming from each parent, which
is why they need intercourse with each other.
Yet this also is impossible, just as much as it is impossible for
the parts when full grown to survive and have life in them when torn
apart, as Empedocles accounts for the creation of animals; in the time
of his 'Reign of Love', says he, 'many heads sprang up without necks,'
and later on these isolated parts combined into animals. Now that this
is impossible is plain, for neither would the separate parts be able
to survive without having any soul or life in them, nor if they were
living things, so to say, could several of them combine so as to
become one animal again. Yet those who say that semen comes from the
whole of the body really have to talk in that way, and as it
happened then in the earth during the 'Reign of Love', so it happens
according to them in the body. Now it is impossible that the parts
should be united together when they come into being and should come
from different parts of the parent, meeting together in one place.
Then how can the upper and lower, right and left, front and back parts
have been 'sundered'? All these points are unintelligible. Further,
some parts are distinguished by possessing a faculty, others by
being in certain states or conditions; the heterogeneous, as tongue
and hand, by the faculty of doing something, the homogeneous by
hardness and softness and the other similar states. Blood, then,
will not be blood, nor flesh flesh, in any and every state. It is
clear, then, that that which comes from any part, as blood from
blood or flesh from flesh, will not be identical with that part. But
if it is something different from which the blood of the offspring
comes, the coming of the semen from all the parts will not be the
cause of the resemblance, as is held by the supporters of this theory.
For if blood is formed from something which is not blood, it is enough
that the semen come from one part only, for why should not all the
other parts of the offspring as well as blood be formed from one
part of the parent? Indeed, this theory seems to be the same as that
of Anaxagoras, that none of the homogeneous parts come into being,
except that these theorists assume, in the case of the generation of
animals, what he assumed of the universe.
Then, again, how will these parts that came from all the body of the
parent be increased or grow? It is true that Anaxagoras plausibly says
that particles of flesh out of the food are added to the flesh. But if
we do not say this (while saying that semen comes from all parts of
the body), how will the foetus become greater by the addition of
something else if that which is added remain unchanged? But if that
which is added can change, then why not say that the semen from the
very first is of such a kind that blood and flesh can be made out of
it, instead of saying that it itself is blood and flesh? Nor is
there any other alternative, for surely we cannot say that it is
increased later by a process of mixing, as wine when water is poured
into it. For in that case each element of the mixture would be
itself at first while still unmixed, but the fact rather is that flesh
and bone and each of the other parts is such later. And to say that
some part of the semen is sinew and bone is quite above us, as the
saying is.
Besides all this there is a difficulty if the sex is determined in
conception (as Empedocles says: 'it is shed in clean vessels; some
wax female, if they fall in with cold'). Anyhow, it is plain that
both men and women change not only from infertile to fertile, but also
from bearing female to bearing male offspring, which looks as if the
cause does not lie in the semen coming from all the parent or not, but
in the mutual proportion or disproportion of that comes from the woman
and the man, or in something of this kind. It is clear, then, if we
are to p
ut this down as being so, that the female sex is not
determined by the semen coming from any particular part, and
consequently neither is the special sexual part so determined (if
really the same semen can become either male or female child, which
shows that the sexual part does not exist in the semen). Why, then,
should we assert this of this part any more than of others? For if
semen does not come from this part, the uterus, the same account may
be given of the others.
Again, some creatures come into being neither from parents of the
same kind nor from parents of a different kind, as flies and the
various kinds of what are called fleas; from these are produced
animals indeed, but not in this case of similar nature but a kind of
scolex. It is plain in this case that the young of a different kind
are not produced by semen coming from all parts of the parent, for
they would then resemble them, if indeed resemblance is a sign of
its coming from all parts.
Further even among animals some produce many young from a single
coition (and something like this is universal among plants, for it is
plain that they bear all the fruit of a whole season from a single
movement). And yet how would this be possible if the semen were
secreted from all the body? For from a single coition and a single
segregation of the semen scattered throughout the body must needs
follow only a single secretion. Nor is it possible for it to be
separated in the uterus, for this would no longer be a mere separation
of semen, but, as it were, a severance from a new plant or animal.
Again, the cuttings from a plant bear seed; clearly, therefore, even
before they were cut from the parent plant, they bore their fruit from
their own mass alone, and the seed did not come from all the plant.
But the greatest proof of all is derived from observations we have
sufficiently established on insects. For, if not in all, at least in
most of these, the female in the act of copulation inserts a part of
herself into the male. This, as we said before, is the way they