Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/466

 truth, lays down such conditions for a principal agent, as fully and effectually contradict all that he had said before. He tells us, for instance, that " whatever produces a work or an effect more noble than itself, or an effect unlike itself, is not a principal efficient, but an instrumental cause ;" granting which, who would not infer that the semen and the egg were instru- ments ? seeing that the pullet is an effect more noble than the egg, and every way unlike either this or the spermatic fluid. Wherefore, when the learned Sennert denies the semen and the egg to be instruments or organs, because they are distinct from the prime agents, he takes his position upon a false basis; be- cause, as the prime generator procreates offspring by various means or media, the medium being here conjunct, as the hand of the workman is with his body, there separate and distinct, as is the arrow let loose from the bow, it is still to be regarded as an instrument.

From the conditions now enumerated of an instrumental cause, it seems to follow that the prime efficient in the gene- ration of the chick is the cock, or, at all events, the cock and hen, because the resulting pullet resembles these ; nor can it be held more noble than they, which are its prime efficients or parents. I shall, therefore, add another condition of the prime efficient, whence it may, perhaps, appear that the male is not the prime, but only the instrumeutal, cause of the chick ; viz., that the prime efficient in the formation of the chick makes use of artifice, and foresight, and wisdom, and goodness, and intelligence, which far surpass the powers of our rational soul to comprehend, inasmuch as all things are disposed and perfected in harmony with the purpose of the future work, and that there be action to a determinate end ; so that every, even the smallest, part of the chick is fashioned for the sake of a special use and end, and with respect not merely to the rearing of the fabric, but also to its well-being, and elegance and pre- servation. But the male or his semen is not such either in the act of kind or after it, that art, intelligence, and foresight can be ascribed to him or it.

The proper inference from these premises appears to be that the male, as well as his seminal fluid, is the efficient instru- ment ; and the female not less than the egg she lays the same. Wherefore, we have to seek refuge in a prior, superior, and