by Aristotle
it is the cause of the development. The difference, then, of these
parts as compared with each other in the two sexes is only a
concomitant result; not this but something else must be held to be the
first principle and the cause of the development of an embryo as
male or female; this is so even if no semen is secreted by either male
or female, but the embryo is formed in any way you please.
The same argument as that with which we meet Empedocles and
Democritus will serve against those who say that the male comes from
the right and the female from the left. If the male contributes no
material to the embryo, there can be nothing in this view. If, as they
say, he does contribute something of the sort, we must confront them
in the same way as we did the theory of Empedocles, which accounts for
the difference between male and female by the heat and cold of the
uterus. They make the same mistake as he does, when they account for
the difference by their 'right and left', though they see that the
sexes differ actually by the whole of the sexual parts; for what
reason then is the body of the uterus to exist in those embryos
which come from the left and not in those from the right? For if an
embryo have come from the left but has not acquired this part, it will
be a female without a uterus, and so too there is nothing to stop
another from being a male with a uterus! Besides as has been said
before, a female embryo has been observed in the right part of the
uterus, a male in the left, or again both at once in the same part,
and this not only once but several times.
Some again, persuaded of the truth of a view resembling that of
these philosophers, say that if a man copulates with the right or left
testis tied up the result is male or female offspring respectively; so
at least Leophanes asserted. And some say that the same happens in the
case of those who have one or other testis excised, not speaking truth
but vaticinating what will happen from probabilities and jumping at
the conclusion that it is so before seeing that it proves to be so.
Moreover, they know not that these parts of animals contribute nothing
to the production of one sex rather than the other; a proof of this is
that many animals in which the distinction of sex exists, and which
produce both male and female offspring, nevertheless have no testes,
as the footless animals; I mean the classes of fish and of serpents.
To suppose, then, either that heat and cold are the causes of male
and female, or that the different sexes come from the right and
left, is not altogether unreasonable in itself; for the right of the
body is hotter than the left, and the concocted semen is hotter than
the unconcocted; again, the thickened is concocted, and the more
thickened is more fertile. Yet to put it in this way is to seek for
the cause from too remote a starting-point; we must draw near the
immediate causes in so far as it is possible for us.
We have, then, previously spoken elsewhere of both the body as a
whole and its parts, explaining what each part is and for what
reason it exists. But (1) the male and female are distinguished by a
certain capacity and incapacity. (For the male is that which can
concoct the blood into semen and which can form and secrete and
discharge a semen carrying with it the principle of form- by
'principle' I do not mean a material principle out of which comes into
being an offspring resembling the parent, but I mean the first
moving cause, whether it have power to act as such in the thing itself
or in something else- but the female is that which receives semen,
indeed, but cannot form it for itself or secrete or discharge it.)
And (2) all concoction works by means of heat. Therefore the males
of animals must needs be hotter than the females. For it is by
reason of cold and incapacity that the female is more abundant in
blood in certain parts of her anatomy, and this abundance is an
evidence of the exact opposite of what some suppose, thinking that the
female is hotter than the male for this reason, i.e. the discharge
of the catamenia. It is true that blood is hot, and that which has
more of it is hotter than that which has less. But they assume that
this discharge occurs through excess of blood and of heat, as if it
could be taken for granted that all blood is equally blood if only
it be liquid and sanguineous in colour, and as if it might not
become less in quantity but purer in quality in those who assimilate
nourishment properly. In fact they look upon this residual discharge
in the same light as that of the intestines, when they think that a
greater amount of it is a sign of a hotter nature, whereas the truth
is just the opposite. For consider the production of fruit; the
nutriment in its first stage is abundant, but the useful product
derived from it is small, indeed the final result is nothing at all
compared to the quantity in the first stage. So is it with the body;
the various parts receive and work up the nutriment, from the whole of
which the final result is quite small. This is blood in some
animals, in some its analogue. Now since (1) the one sex is able and
the other is unable to reduce the residual secretion to a pure form,
and (2) every capacity or power in an organism has a certain
corresponding organ, whether the faculty produces the desired
results in a lower degree or in a higher degree, and the two sexes
correspond in this manner (the terms 'able' and 'unable' being used
in more senses than one)- therefore it is necessary that both female
and male should have organs. Accordingly the one has the uterus, the
other the male organs.
Again, Nature gives both the faculty and the organ to each
individual at the same time, for it is better so. Hence each region
comes into being along with the secretions and the faculties, as
e.g. the faculty of sight is not perfected without the eye, nor the
eye without the faculty of sight; and so too the intestine and bladder
come into being along with the faculty of forming the excreta. And
since that from which an organ comes into being and that by which it
is increased are the same (i.e. the nutriment), each of the parts
will be made out of such a material and such residual matter as it
is able to receive. In the second place, again, it is formed, as we
say, in a certain sense, out of its opposite. Thirdly, we must
understand besides this that, if it is true that when a thing perishes
it becomes the opposite of what it was, it is necessary also that what
is not under the sway of that which made it must change into its
opposite. After these premisses it will perhaps be now clearer for
what reason one embryo becomes female and another male. For when the
first principle does not bear sway and cannot concoct the
nourishment through lack of heat nor bring it into its proper form,
but is defeated in this respect, then must needs the material which it
works on change into its opposite. Now the female is opposite to the
male, and that in so far
as the one is female and the other male.
And since it differs in its faculty, its organ also is different, so
that the embryo changes into this state. And as one part of first-rate
importance changes, the whole system of the animal differs greatly
in form along with it. This may be seen in the case of eunuchs, who,
though mutilated in one part alone, depart so much from their original
appearance and approximate closely to the female form. The reason of
this is that some of the parts are principles, and when a principle is
moved or affected needs must many of the parts that go along with it
change with it.
If then (1) the male quality or essence is a principle and a
cause, and (2) the male is such in virtue of a certain capacity and
the female is such in virtue of an incapacity, and (3) the essence
or definition of the capacity and of the incapacity is ability or
inability to concoct the nourishment in its ultimate stage, this being
called blood in the sanguinea and the analogue of blood in the other
animals, and (4) the cause of this capacity is in the first
principle and in the part which contains the principle of natural
heat- therefore a heart must be formed in the sanguinea (and the
resulting animal will be either male or female), and in the other
kinds which possess the sexes must be formed that which is analogous
to the heart.
This, then, is the first principle and cause of male and female, and
this is the part of the body in which it resides. But the animal
becomes definitely female or male by the time when it possesses also
the parts by which the female differs from the male, for it is not
in virtue of any part you please that it is male or female, any more
than it is able to see or hear by possessing any part you please.
To recapitulate, we say that the semen, which is the foundation of
the embryo, is the ultimate secretion of the nutriment. By ultimate
I mean that which is carried to every part of the body, and this is
also the reason why the offspring is like the parent. For it makes
no difference whether we say that the semen comes from all the parts
or goes to all of them, but the latter is the better. But the semen of
the male differs from the corresponding secretion of the female in
that it contains a principle within itself of such a kind as to set up
movements also in the embryo and to concoct thoroughly the ultimate
nourishment, whereas the secretion of the female contains material
alone. If, then, the male element prevails it draws the female element
into itself, but if it is prevailed over it changes into the
opposite or is destroyed. But the female is opposite to the male,
and is female because of its inability to concoct and of the
coldness of the sanguineous nutriment. And Nature assigns to each of
the secretions the part fitted to receive it. But the semen is a
secretion, and this in the hotter animals with blood, i.e. the
males, is moderate in quantity, wherefore the recipient parts of
this secretion in males are only passages. But the females, owing to
inability to concoct, have a great quantity of blood, for it cannot be
worked up into semen. Therefore they must also have a part to
receive this, and this part must be unlike the passages of the male
and of a considerable size. This is why the uterus is of such a
nature, this being the part by which the female differs from the male.
2
We have thus stated for what reason the one becomes female and the
other male. Observed facts confirm what we have said. For more females
are produced by the young and by those verging on old age than by
those in the prime of life; in the former the vital heat is not yet
perfect, in the latter it is failing. And those of a moister and
more feminine state of body are more wont to beget females, and a
liquid semen causes this more than a thicker; now all these
characteristics come of deficiency in natural heat.
Again, more males are born if copulation takes place when north than
when south winds are blowing. For in the latter case the animals
produce more secretion, and too much secretion is harder to concoct;
hence the semen of the males is more liquid, and so is the discharge
of the catamenia.
Also the fact that the catamenia occur in the course of nature
rather when the month is waning is due to the same causes. For this
time of the month is colder and moister because of the waning and
failure of the moon; as the sun makes winter and summer in the year as
a whole, so does the moon in the month. This is not due to the turning
of the moon, but it grows warmer as the light increases and colder
as it wanes.
The shepherds also say that it not only makes a difference in the
production of males and females if copulation takes place during
northern or southerly winds, but even if the animals while
copulating look towards the south or north; so small a thing will
sometimes turn the scale and cause cold or heat, and these again
influence generation.
The male and female, then, are distinguished generally, as
compared with one another in connexion with the production of male and
female offspring, for the causes stated. However, they also need a
certain correspondence with one another to produce at all, for all
things that come into being as products of art or of Nature exist in
virtue of a certain ratio. Now if the hot preponderates too much it
dries up the liquid; if it is very deficient it does not solidify
it; for the artistic or natural product we need the due mean between
the extremes. Otherwise it will be as in cooking; too much fire
burns the meat, too little does not cook it, and in either case the
process is a failure. So also there is need of due proportion in the
mixture of the male and female elements. And for this cause it often
happens to many of both sexes that they do not generate with one
another, but if divorced and remarried to others do generate; and
these oppositions show themselves sometimes in youth, sometimes in
advanced age, alike as concerns fertility or infertility, and as
concerns generation of male or female offspring.
One country also differs from another in these respects, and one
water from another, for the same reasons. For the nourishment and
the medical condition of the body are of such or such a kind because
of the tempering of the surrounding air and of the food entering the
body, especially the water; for men consume more of this than of
anything else, and this enters as nourishment into all food, even
solids. Hence hard waters cause infertility, and cold waters the birth
of females.
3
The same causes must be held responsible for the following groups of
facts. (1) Some children resemble their parents, while others do
not; some being like the father and others like the mother, both in
the body as a whole and in each part, male and female offspring
resembling father and mother respectively rather than the other way
about. (2) They resemble their par
ents more than remoter ancestors,
and resemble those ancestors more than any chance individual. (3)
Some, though resembling none of their relations, yet do at any rate
resemble a human being, but others are not even like a human being but
a monstrosity. For even he who does not resemble his parents is
already in a certain sense a monstrosity; for in these cases Nature
has in a way departed from the type. The first departure indeed is
that the offspring should become female instead of male; this,
however, is a natural necessity. (For the class of animals divided
into sexes must be preserved, and as it is possible for the male
sometimes not to prevail over the female in the mixture of the two
elements, either through youth or age or some other such cause, it
is necessary that animals should produce female young). And the
monstrosity, though not necessary in regard of a final cause and an
end, yet is necessary accidentally. As for the origin of it, we must
look at it in this way. If the generative secretion in the catamenia
is properly concocted, the movement imparted by the male will make the
form of the embryo in the likeness of itself. (Whether we say that it
is the semen or this movement that makes each of the parts grow, makes
no difference; nor again whether we say that it 'makes them grow' or
'forms them from the beginning', for the formula of the movement is
the same in either case.) Thus if this movement prevail, it will make
the embryo male and not female, like the father and not like the
mother; if it prevail not, the embryo is deficient in that faculty
in which it has not prevailed. By 'each faculty' I mean this. That
which generates is not only male but also a particular male, e.g.
Coriscus or Socrates, and it is not only Coriscus but also a man. In
this way some of the characteristics of the father are more near to
him, others more remote from him considered simply as a parent and not
in reference to his accidental qualities (as for instance if the
parent is a scholar or the neighbour of some particular person).
Now the peculiar and individual has always more force in generation