cient to convince us, that diversity of the sex is
necessary even to those animals, as well as to the generation of man.
But diversity of sex, though it be necessary to conception, yet it will
not do alone; there must also be a congression of the different sexes;
for diversity of sex would profit little if copulation did not follow. I
confess I have heard of subtle women, who, to cover their sin and
shame, have endeavoured to persuade some peasants that they were never
touched by man to get them with child; and that one in particular
pretended to conceive by going into a bath where a man had washed
himself a little before and spent his seed in it, which was drawn and
sucked into her womb, as she pretended. But such stories as these are
only for such who know no better. Now that these different sexes should
be obliged to come to the touch, which we call copulation or coition,
besides the natural desire of begetting their like, which stirs up men
and women to it, the parts appointed for generation are endowed by
nature with a delightful and mutual itch, which begets in them a desire
to the action; without which, it would not be very easy for a man, born
for the contemplation of divine mysteries, to join himself, by the way
of coition, to a woman, in regard to the uncleanness of the part and the
action. And, on the other side, if the woman did but think of those
pains and inconveniences to which they are subject by their great
bellies, and those hazards of life itself, besides the unavoidable pains
that attend their delivery, it is reasonable to believe they would be
affrighted from it. But neither sex makes these reflections till after
the action is over, considering nothing beforehand but the pleasure of
the enjoyment, so that it is from this voluptuous itch that nature
obliges both sexes to this congression. Upon which the third thing
followeth of course, viz., the emission of seed into the womb in the act
of copulation. For the woman having received this prolific seed into her
womb, and retained it there, the womb thereupon becomes depressed, and
embraces the seed so closely, that being closed the point of a needle
cannot enter into it without violence. And now the woman may be said to
have conceived, having reduced by her heat from power into action, the
several faculties which are contained in the seed, making use of the
spirits with which the seed abounds, and which are the instruments which
begin to trace out the fir