THESE things then being so, and proceeding merely from the immediate Reasons above-mentioned, ought to serve for a memorable Caution to all Parents, that, in their conjugal Duties, they behave themselves orderly and decently, not like insatiable Brutes; but, like rational Men, to the end that their Families may be preserved, and their Persons succeeded, not by an opprobrious Race, but, by a univocal Generation of hopeful Children, Men of Probity and Integrity both in Body and Mind.
CHAP. VIII.
Of Imaginary Conceptions.
THERE remains yet one Sort of spurious Conception, which happens without any virile Help or Assistance, merely by the Force of Imaginary VENERY: Especially among Salacious Women, a Seminal Fluxion may happen upon many coherent occasions; which joining and incorporating with the Menstruous Blood, may be so much fomented by the Uterine Calidity, and the other Faculties of the Womb, that the Rudiments of an imperfect Animal may be amassed and conceived. But——
AS the Masculine SEED (the efficient Cause) which ministers both Form and Life, is wanting, it can assume neither of these Perfections: The Maternal Matter serving only to bring it to a rude indigested Consistency, or a confused fleshy Substance of a strange and uncommon FIGURE.
THIS in short, is no ways improbable, if we consider that HENS, without the COCK’s assistance, lay Eggs; however, of such a Nature, that whatever Pains the HEN is afterwards at to sit and brood upon them, the Eggs can never be animated so as to produce CHICKENS. Or, if we consider, that tho’ feminine Trees or Roots, having of themselves less Power and Strength, as they are only imbued with a frigid and infœcund Humidity, may smile a little in their SEASON; yet, because of the natural Deficiency of HEAT, and their innate Debility or Impotency, they only yield an empty or imperfect Rudiment of either FRUIT or SEED, unless, by the Vicinity and delectable Conjunction of the MALE, they participate of its Fœcundity, as Pliny testifies[[216]] of the Palm.
AGREEABLE to this Position, the Practical Observations of many eminent Physicians, teach us, that WOMEN have and may conceive at this rate, without any virile Energy or Concurrence; of which Dr. Burnet[[217]] gives us a notable Instance, concerning a certain Noble-Woman, a Matron of undoubted Virtue, who some Years after her Course of Nature had alter’d, in the 56th of her Age, brought forth several fleshy Moles, as he calls them, and that attended with a great Flooding, and the most severe Pains of Labour, as if in the Case of a Natural Birth. Again moreover——
DO we not know, in fine, that the necessitous, and such as suffer Want, may be refreshed purely by the Savour of our Dishes? And that the Hunger-starved may be satiated merely by the Odours of our Kitchins? As possibly thus may the marriageable Girl, but more readily however the Widow, fill her self with her own odd Imagination; and being debarr’d the Enjoyment of her Paramour, hug him tacitely in her Bosom, and embrace him heartily, however absent, in her Mind. Which, if frequently done, may occasion a Collection and Commixture of gross Humours in the Womb; whence a deformed Concretion, or shapeless Mass, may be engendred, and that only by Imaginary VENERY. To which Case and Purpose, I think, Virgil, very pertinently alludes,[[218]] saying——
Scilicet ante omnes furor est insignis Equarum,