Various Works

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