EXERCISE THE FIFTIETH.
Of the efficient cause of animals, and its conditions.
That we may proceed in our subject, therefore, and penetrate so far into the knowledge of the efficient cause of animal generation as seems needful in this place, we must begin by observing what instruments or media are devoted to it. And here we come at once to the distinction into male and female; seminal fluid and ovum, and its primordium. For some males, as well as some females, are barren, or but little prolific; and the seed of the male is at one time more, at another time less prolific; because the semen masculinum stored up in the vesiculæ seminales is esteemed unfruitful, unless it is raised into froth by the spirits and ejected with force. And even then perchance it is not endowed with equal fecundating force at all times. Neither are all the germs of yelks in the ovary, nor all the eggs in the uterus made fertile at the same instant.
Now I call that fruitful which, unless impeded by some extrinsic cause, attains by its inherent force to its destined end, and brings about the consequence for the sake of which it is ordained. Thus the cock is called fruitful which has his hens more frequently and surely pregnant, the eggs they lay being at the same time perfect and proper for incubation.
The hen in like manner is esteemed fruitful which has the faculty of producing eggs, or of receiving and long retaining the virtue of prolific conception from the cock. The cluster of germs and the ovary itself are regarded as prolific when the germs are numerous and of good size.
The egg in the same way is fruitful which differs from a subventaneous or hypenemic egg, and which, cherished by incubation, or in any other way, does not fail to produce a chick.
Such an efficient cause consequently is required for the chick, as shall impart the virtue of fecundity to it, and secure it the power of acting as an efficient cause in its turn. Because that, or its analogue at least, by means of which they become prolific, is present in all animals. And the inquiry is the same in each case, when we ask what it is in the egg which renders it prolific, and distinguishes it from a wind egg; what in the vitellary germ and ovary; what in the female; what, finally, in the semen and the cock himself? What, moreover, it is in the blood and punctum saliens, or first formed particle of the chick, whence all the other parts arise with their appropriate structures and arrangements; what in the embryo or chick itself whereby it becomes more or less robust and agile, attains to maturity with greater or less rapidity, and lives with various degrees of health, for a longer or shorter period?
Nor is the inquiry very different which goes to ascertain what sex the male and the female, or the cock and the hen, confer upon the prolific egg; and what proceeds from each that contributes to the perfection or resemblance of the chick, viz., whether the egg, the conception, the matter, and the nutriment proceed from the mother, and the plastic virtue from the father; or rather a certain contagion immitted during intercourse, or produced and received from him, which in the body of the hen, or in the eggs, either permanently excites the matter of the eggs, or attracts nourishment from the female, and concocts and distributes it first for the growth of the eggs, and then for the production of the chicks; finally, whether from the male proceeds all that has reference to form and life and fecundity, from the female, again, all that is of matter, constitution, place, and nourishment? For among animals where the sexes are distinct, matters are so arranged, that since the female alone is inadequate to engender an embryo and to nourish and protect the young, a male is associated with her by nature, as the superior and more worthy progenitor, as the consort of her labour, and the means of supplying her deficiencies; in the case of the hen, of correcting by his contagion the inferiority of the hypenemic eggs which she produces, and so rendering them prolific. For as the pullet, engendered of an egg, is indebted to that egg for his body, vitality, and principal or generative part, so and in like manner does the egg receive all that is in it from the female, the female in her turn being dependent on the male for her fecundity which is conferred in coition.
And here we have an opportunity of inquiring, whether the male be the first and principal cause of the generation of the offspring; or whether the male along with the female are the mediate and instrumental causes of nature itself, or of the first and supreme generator? And such an inquiry is both becoming and necessary, for perfect science of every kind depends on a knowledge of causes. To the full understanding of generation, therefore, it is incumbent on us to mount from the final to the first and supreme efficient cause, and to hold each and every cause in especial regard.
We shall have occasion to define that which is the first and supreme efficient cause of the chick in ovo by and by, when we treat of that which constitutes the efficient cause [of generation] among animals in general. Here, meantime, we shall see what its nature may be.
The first condition, then, of the primary efficient cause of generation, properly so called, is, as we have said, that it be the prime and principal fertilizer, whence all mediate causes receive the fecundity imparted. For example, the chick is derived from the punctum saliens in the egg, not only as regards the body, but also, and this especially, as respects the life (anima): the punctum saliens, or heart, is derived from the egg, the egg from the hen, and the hen has her fecundity from the cock.
Another condition of the prime efficient is discovered from the work achieved, viz., the chick, because that is the prime efficient in which the reason of the effect is principally displayed. But since every generative efficient engenders another like itself, and the offspring is of a mixed nature, the prime efficient must also be a certain mixed something.
Now, I maintain that the offspring is of a mixed nature, inasmuch as a mixture of both parents appears plainly in it, in the form and lineaments, and each particular part of its body, in its colour, mother-marks, disposition to diseases, and other accidents. In mental constitution, also, and its manifestations, such as manners, docility, voice, and gait, a similar temperament is discoverable. For as we say of a certain mixture, that it is composed of elements, because their qualities or virtues, such as heat, cold, dryness, and moisture, are there discovered associated in a certain similar compound body, so, in like manner, the work of the father and mother is to be discerned both in the body and mental character of the offspring, and in all else that follows or accompanies temperament. In the mule, for instance, the body and disposition, the temper and voice, of both parents (of the horse and the ass, e. g.) are mingled; and so, also, in the hybrid between the pheasant and the fowl, in that between the wolf and the dog, &c., corresponding traits are conspicuous.
When, therefore, the chick shows his resemblance to both parents, and is a mixed effect, the primary genital cause (which it resembles) must needs be mixed. Wherefore that which fashions the chick in the egg is of a mixed nature, a certain something mixed or compounded, and the work of both parents. And if any kind of contagion, engendered under the influence of sexual intercourse, in which the male and female mingle and form but one body, either originates or remains in the body of the female, that, too, must be of a mixed nature or power, whence, subsequently, a fertile egg will be produced, endowed with plastic powers, the consequence of a mixed nature, or of a mixed efficient instrument, from which a chick, also of a mixed nature, will be produced.
I have used the word contagion above, because Aristotle’s view is contradicted by all experience, viz., that a certain part of the embryo is immediately made by intercourse. Neither is it true, as some of the moderns assert, that the vital principle (anima) of the future chick is present in the egg; for that cannot be the vital principle of the chick which inheres in no part of its body. Neither can the living principle be said either to be left or to be originated by intercourse; otherwise in every pregnant woman there would be two vital principles (animæ) present. Wherefore, until it shall have been determined what the efficient cause of the egg is, what it is of mixed nature that must remain immediately upon intercourse, we may be permitted to speak of it under the title of a Contagion.
But where this contagion lies hid in the female after intercourse, and how it is communicated and given to the egg, demands quite a special inquiry, and we shall have occasion to treat of the matter when we come to discuss the conception of females in general. It will suffice, meantime, if we say that the same law applies to the prime efficient—in which inheres the reason of the future offspring—as to the offspring; as this is of a mixed nature, the nature of its cause must also be mixed; and it must either proceed equally from both parents, or from something else which is employed by both concurrently as instruments, animated, co-operating, mixed, and in the sexual act coalescing unto one. And this is the third condition of the prime efficient, that it either imparts motion to all the intermediate instruments in succession, or uses them in some other way, but comes not itself into play. Whence the origin of the doubt that has arisen, whether, in the generation of the chick, the cock were the true prime efficient, or whether there were not another prior, superior to him? For, indeed, all things seem to derive their origin from a celestial influence, and to follow the movements of the sun and moon. But we shall be able to speak more positively of this matter after we have shown what we understand by the “instrument,” or “instrumental efficient cause,” and how it is subdivided.
Instrumental efficients, then, are of different kinds: some, according to Aristotle, are factive, others active; some have no capacity any way unless conjoined with another prior efficient, as the hand, foot, genital organs, &c. with the rest of the body; others have an influence even when separate and distinct, as the seminal fluid and the ovum. Some instruments, again, have neither motion nor action beyond those that are imparted to them by the prime efficient; and others have peculiar inherent principles of action, to which nature indeed allows no motion in the business of generation, though she still uses their faculties, and prescribes them laws or limits in their operations, not otherwise than the cook makes use of fire in cooking, and the physician of herbs and drugs in curing diseases.
Sennert, that he may uphold the opinion he had espoused of the vital principle (anima) being present in the semen, and the formative faculty of the chick being extant in the egg, asserts that not only is the egg, but the semen of the cock, endowed with the living principle of the future chick. Moreover, he distinctly denies that there is any separate instrumental efficient; and says, that that only ought to be entitled “instrument” which is conjoined with the prime efficient; and that only “instrumental efficient,” which has no motion or action save that which is imparted to it by the prime efficient, or which is continuously and successively received, and in virtue of which it acts. And on this ground he rejects the example of projectiles, which have received force from the projecting agent, and, separated from it, act nevertheless; as if swords and spears were properly to be called warlike weapons, but arrows and bullets to be refused this title. He also rejects the argument derived from the republic, denying thereby that magistrates, counsellors, or ministers, are instruments of government; although Aristotle regards a counsel as an efficient, and in express terms calls a minister an instrument.[269] Sennert likewise denies the example of automata; and says and gainsays much besides, with a view to confirming himself in his position, that the semen and the egg are possessed of a living principle (anima), and are not mediate or instrumental, but principal agents. Sennert, nevertheless, as it were compelled by the force of 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 instruments? 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; because, 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 generation 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 instrumental, 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 preservation. 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 instrument; and the female not less than the egg she lays the same. Wherefore, we have to seek refuge in a prior, superior, and more excellent cause, to which, with all propriety, are ascribed foresight, intelligence, goodness, and skill, and which is by so much more excellent than its effect or work, as the architect is more worthy than the pile he rears, as the king is more exalted than his minister, as the workman is better than his hands or tools.
The male and female, therefore, will come to be regarded as merely the efficient instruments, subservient in all respects to the Supreme Creator, or father of all things. In this sense, consequently, it is well said that the sun and moon engender man; because, with the advent and secession of the sun, come spring and autumn, seasons which mostly correspond with the generation and decay of animated beings. So that the great leader in philosophy says:[270] “The first motion [of the sphere?] is not the cause of generation and destruction; it is the motion of the ecliptic that is so, this being both continuous and having two movements; for, if future generation and corruption are to be eternal, it is necessary that something likewise move eternally, that interchanges do not fail, that of the two actions one only do not occur. The cause of the perpetuity [of animal species?] is, therefore, the law of the universe; and the obliquity [of the ecliptic?] is the cause of the approach and accession, [of the sun?] and of his being now nearer, now more remote: when he quits us, and removes to a distance, it is then that decay and corruption intervene; and, in like manner, when he approaches, it is then that he engenders; and if, as he frequently approaches, he engenders; so, because he frequently recedes, does he cause corruption; for the causes of contraries are contrary.”
All things, therefore, grow and flourish in spring, (on the approach of the sun, that is to say, he being the common parent and producer, or at all events the immediate and universal instrument of the Creator in the work of reproduction); and this is true not of plants only but of animals also; nor less of those that come spontaneously, than of those that are propagated by the consentient act of male and female. It is as if, with the advent of this glorious luminary, Venus the bountiful descended from heaven, waited on by Cupid and a cohort of graces, and prompted all living things by the bland incitement of love to secure the perpetuity of their kinds. Or (and it is thus that we have it in the mythology) it is as if the genital organs of Saturn, cast into the sea at this season, raised a foam, whence sprung Aphrodite. For, in the generation of animals, as the poet says, “superat tener omnibus humor,”—a gentle moisture all pervades,—and the genitals froth and are replete with semen.
The cock and the hen are especially fertile in the spring; as if the sun, or heaven, or nature, or the soul of the world, or the omnipotent God—for all these names signify the same thing—were a cause in generation superior and more divine than they; and thus it is that the sun and man, i.e. the sun through man as the instrument, engender man. In the same way the preserver of all things, and the male among birds, give birth to the egg, from whence the chick, the perfect bird, is made eternal in its kind by the approach and recession of the god of day, who, by the divine will and pleasure, or by fate, serves for the generation of all that lives.
Let us conclude, therefore, that the male, although a prior and more excellent efficient than the female, is still no more than an instrumental efficient, and that he, not less than the female, must refer his fecundity or faculty of engendering as received from the approaching sun; and, consequently, that the skill and foresight, which are apparent in his work, are not to be held as proceeding from him but from God; inasmuch as the male in the act of kind neither uses counsel nor understanding; neither does man engender the rational part of his soul, but only the vegetative faculty; which is not regarded as any principal or more divine faculty of the soul, but one only of a lower order.
Since, then, there is not less of skill and prescience manifested in the structure of the chick than in the creation of man and the universe at large, it is imperative even in the generation of man to admit an efficient cause, superior to, and more excellent than man himself: otherwise the vegetative faculty, or that part of the soul or living principle which fashions and preserves a man, would have to be accounted far more excellent and divine, and held to bear a closer resemblance to God than the rational portion of the soul, whose excellence, nevertheless, we extol over all the faculties of all animals, and esteem as that which has right and empire in them, and to which all created things are made subservient. Or we should else have to own that in the works of nature there was neither prudence, nor art, nor understanding; but that these appeared to us, who are wont to judge of the divine things of nature after our own poor arts and faculties, or to contrast them with examples due to ourselves; as if the active principles of nature produced their effects in the same way as we are used to produce our artificial works, by counsel, to wit, or discipline acquired through the mind or understanding.
But nature, the principle of motion and rest in all things in which it inheres, and the vegetative soul, the prime efficient cause of all generation, move by no acquired faculty which might be designated by the title of skill or foresight, as in our undertakings; but operate in conformity with determinate laws like fate or special commandments—in the same way and manner as light things rise and heavy things descend. The vegetative faculty of parents, to wit, engenders in the same way, and the semen finally arrives at the form of the fœtus, as the spider weaves her web, as birds build nests, incubate their eggs, and cherish their young, or as bees and ants construct dwellings, and lay up stores for their future wants; all of which is done naturally and from a connate genius or disposition; by no means from forecast, instruction, or reason. That which in us is the principle or cause of artificial operations, and is called art, intellect, or foresight, in the natural operations of the lower animals is nature, which is ἀυτοδίδακτος, self-taught, instilled by no one; what in them is innate or connate, is with us acquired. On this account it is, that they who refer all to art and artifice are to be held indifferent judges of nature or natural things; and, indeed, it is wiser to act in the opposite way, and selecting standards in nature to judge of things made by art according to them. For all the arts are but imitations of nature in one way or another; as our reason or understanding is a derivative from the Divine intelligence, manifested in his works; and when perfected by habit, like another adventitious and acquired soul, gaining some semblance of the Supreme and Divine agent, it produces somewhat similar effects.
Wherefore, according to my opinion, he takes the right and pious view of the matter, who derives all generation from the same eternal and omnipotent Deity, on whose nod the universe itself depends. Nor do I think that we are greatly to dispute about the name by which this first agent is to be called or worshipped; whether it be God, Nature, or the Soul of the universe,—whatever the name employed,—all still intend by it that which is the beginning and the end of all things; which exists from eternity and is almighty; which is author or creator, and, by means of changing generations, the preserver and perpetuator of the fleeting things of mortal life; which is omnipresent, not less in the single and several operations of natural things, than in the infinite universe; which, by his deity or providence, his art and mind divine, engenders all things, whether they arise spontaneously without any adequate efficient, or are the work of male and female associated together, or of a single sex, or of other intermediate instruments, here more numerous, there fewer, whether they be univocal, or are equivocally or accidentally produced: all natural bodies are both the work and the instruments of that Supreme Good, some of them being mere natural bodies, such as heat, spirit, air, the temperature of the air, matters in putrefaction, &c., or they are at once natural and animated bodies; for he also makes use of the motions, or forces, or vital principles of animals in some certain way, to the perfection of the universe and the procreation of the several kinds of animated beings.
From what has now been said, we are apprized to a certain extent of the share which the male has in the business of generation. The cock confers that upon the egg, which, from unprolific, makes it prolific, this being identical with that which the fruit of vegetables receives from the fervour of the summer sun, which secures to them maturity, and to their seeds fertility; and not different from that which fertilizes things spontaneously engendered, and brings caterpillars from worms, aurelias from caterpillars, from aurelias moths, butterflies, bees, &c.
In this way is the sun, by his approach, both the beginning of motion and transmutation in the coming fruit, and the end, also, inasmuch as he is the author of the fertility of its included seed: and, as early spring is the prime efficient of leaves and flowers and fruits, so is summer, in its strength, the cause of final perfection in the ripeness and fecundity of the seed. With a view to strengthen this position, I shall add this one from among a large number of observations. Some persons in these countries cultivate orange trees with singular care and economy, and the fruit of these trees, which, in the course of the first year, will grow to the size of the point of the thumb, comes to maturity the following summer. This fruit is perfect in all respects, save and except that it is without pips or seeds.
Pondering upon this with myself, I thought that I had here an example of the barren egg, which is produced by the hen without the concurrence of the cock, and which comprises everything that is visible in a fruitful egg, but is still destitute of germinant seed; as if it were the same thing that was imparted by the cock, in virtue of which a wind-egg becomes a fruitful egg, which in warmer countries is dispensed by the sun, and causes the fruit of the orange tree to be produced replete with prolific seed. It is as if the summer in England sufficed for the production of the fruit only, as the hen for the production of the egg, but like the female fowl was impotent as a pro-genetrix; whilst in other countries enjoying the sun’s light in larger proportion, the summer acquired the characters of the male, and perfected the work of generation.
Thus far have we treated this subject by the way, that, from the instance of the egg, we might learn what conditions were required in the prime efficient in the generation of animals;—for it is certain, that in the egg there is an agent,—as there is also in every conception and germ,—which is not merely infused by the mother, but is first communicated in coitu by the father, by means of his spermatic fluid; and which is itself primarily endowed with such virtue by heaven and the sun, or the Supreme Creator. It is equally manifest, that this agent, existing in every egg and seed, is so imbued with the qualities of the parents, that it builds up the offspring in their likeness, not in its own; and this mingled also as proceeding from both united in copulation. Now, as all this proceeds with the most consummate foresight and intelligence, the presence of the Deity therein is clearly proclaimed.
But we shall have to speak at greater length upon this subject, when we strive to show what it is that remains with the female immediately after intercourse, and where it is stored; at the same time that we explain—since there is nothing visible in the cavity of the uterus after intercourse—what that prolific contagion or prime conception is; whether it is corporeal and laid up within the female, or is incorporeal; whether the conception of the uterus be of the same nature or not with the conceptions of the brain, and fecundity be acquired in the same way as knowledge—a conclusion, in favour of which there is no lack of arguments; or, as motion and the animal operations, which we call appetites, derive their origin from the conceptions of the brain, may not the natural motions and the operations of the vegetative principle, and particularly generation, depend on the conception of the uterus? And then we have to inquire how this prolific contagion is of a mixed nature, and is imparted by the male to the female, and by her is transferred to the ovum? Finally, how the contagious principle of all diseases and preternatural affections spreads insensibly, and is propagated?