Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/424

 quarrel. Since then these are the methods in which one thing is made from another, it is clear that the seed is in one of two of these. For that which is born arises out of it, either as from matter, or as from the prime mover. For it is not, ' as this is after that/ in the same way as after the Panathenoea navi- gation ; nor as ' one contrary from another ;' for in such case, a thing would be born out of its contrary, because it is in a state of decay, and there must be something else as subject matter."

By these words, Aristotle rightly infers, that the semen pro- ceeding from the male, is the efficient or instrumental cause of the embryo ; since it is no part of what is born, either in the first or third manner; (namely, as one thing is after another, or as it is out of its contrary ;) nor does it arise from the sub- ject matter.

But then, as he adds, in the same place, " that which comes out of the male in coition, is not with truth and pro- priety called semen, but rather geniture ; and it is different from the seed properly so called. For that is called the geni- ture which, proceeding from the generant, is the cause which first promotes the beginning of generation. I mean in those creatures, which nature designed to have connection ; but the seed is that which derives its origin from the intercourse of the two (i. e. of the male and female); such is the seed of all plants; and of some animals in which the sex is not distinct ; it is the produce, as it were, of the male and female mixed together originally, like a kind of promiscuous conception;" and such as we have formerly in our history declared the egg to be, which is called both fruit and seed. For the seed and the fruit are distinct from each other, and in the relation of ante- cedent and consequent ; the fruit is that which is out of some- thing else, the seed is that out of which something else comes; otherwise both were the same.

It remains then, to inquire, in how many of the aforesaid ways the foetus may arise, not indeed from the geniture of the male, but out of the true seed, or out of the egg or conception, which is in reality the seed of animals.