If Hermaphrodites actually existed, sure there might have been before now some probable Conjectures made to shew the Reasons, or Necessity of such Beings upon Earth, since so many Authors have been busy’d about them from the Beginning of the World. But there appears throughout their several Opinions, so general a Train of Absurdities, that I cannot but wonder, they were any more satisfactory to Mankind in their Days than they are to me at present. However, when the several Causes laid down by certain Authors from Time to Time, for the producing of those Creatures, are consider’d, it will not be difficult Matter to point out innumerable Errors amongst them, and deny that those Causes can produce any such Effect as a double Nature in human Bodies.
The first then that I shall take notice of is that of Constantinus Africanus[42], who accuses Nature of being hindered, or of forgetting its duty in the Formation of the Fœtus, and by this Mistake Hermaphrodites are generated.
‘[43]It happens to some Men, in Generation, to have added to them those Female Parts, and to some Women those Masculine Parts that are luxuriant in them, when Nature is hinder’d, or grows forgetful; for when by any Accident it happens thus, that Superfluity of humid Matter that usually contributes to either the inordinate Size or Number of any Limb, goes to the Formation of a Member of any other Nature without Rule or Order.’
Before we can in any wise understand whether the Cause assigned by this Author be just or not, we must guess at what he means by the Word Nature.
Amongst the Poets, and some Philosophical Authors, Natura and Deus may be conceived to signify the same Thing; in this Sense, not the least Impediment can be ascribed, nor Oblivion attributed to it.
If it be a Term used to hint at the Vis Formatrix, or at the Matter of which the Fœtus is form’d, his Reason for giving this as a Cause will appear to be as ill grounded as any other; because as to the latter, all reasonable Men must allow, that as Matter is totally passive, it cannot be said to err or forget; and as to the former, if such an occult Power existed, it must have been by God’s Appointment, and consequently not liable to such Imperfections, in conducting so great a Work as that of Generation, with which so many Authors have taken much pains to charge this Vis Plastica; but of both these in another Place.
Avicenna[44] sums up a great many Causes for Masculinity and Femineity, as his Translator Gerardus Cremonensis translates it: For the former, or the Production of Males, the Heat and Abundance of the Sperma virile; its being promoted from the right Testicle; because (according to our Author) it is of a thicker Consistence, more hot, and drawn from the Right-Rein, è rene dextro; which is, says he, both warmer and higher than the other as being nearer the Liver; its falling into the right Side in the Coitus, &c. and that on the other Hand Females are engender’d by Causes contrary to these: All these Opinions he has gather’d from Hypocrates, Galen, and Rhasus, and because he does not seem in the least, to contradict them, we are inclin’d to believe them his own also.
Now from this Manner of accounting for Masculinity and Femineity, or the Production of Males and Females, there arises a third Doctrine to which this Author seems to assent, and by which he accounts for the rise of Hermaphrodites; and tho’ he confesses that some say so; which signifies he has it from others, yet he delivers it with an Air of Approbation, and consequently was not displeased with the Hypothesis[45].
‘And some say, that if it runs from the Right-side of the Man to the same of the Woman, it produces a Male; and from their Left-sides a Female; and if from the Man’s Left-side to the Right of the Woman, the Production will be a masculine Woman; but if from his Right, to her Left-side, it will be a feminine Male.’