incorporeal, as the mind is which moves the body; but the effused matter
is corporeal. Strato and Democritus, that the essential power is a body;
for it is like spirit.

CHAPTER V. WHETHER WOMEN DO GIVE A SPERMATIC EMISSION AS MEN DO.

Pythagoras, Epicurus, and Democritus say, that women have a seminal
projection, but their spermatic vessels are inverted; and it is this
that makes them have a venereal appetite. Aristotle and Plato, that
they emit a material moisture, as sweat we see produced by exercise and
labor; but that moisture has no spermatic power. Hippo, that women
have a seminal emission, but not after the mode of men; it contributes
nothing to generation, for it falls outside of the matrix; and therefore
some women without coition, especially widows, give the seed. They also
assert that from men the bones, from women the flesh proceed.

CHAPTER VI. HOW IT IS THAT CONCEPTIONS ARE MADE.

Aristotle says, that conception takes place when the womb is drawn down
by the natural purgation, and the monthly terms attract from the whole
mass part of the purest blood, and this is met by the seed of man. On
the contrary, there is a failure by the impurity and inflation of the
womb, by fear and grief, by the weakness of women, or the decline of
strength in men.

CHAPTER VII. AFTER WHAT MANNER MALES AND FEMALES ARE GENERATED.

Empedocles affirms, that heat and cold give the difference in the
generation of males and females. Hence is it, as histories acquaint us,
that the first men originated from the earth in the eastern and southern
parts, and the first females in the northern parts. Parmenides is of
opinion perfectly contrariant. He affirms that men first sprouted out
of the northern earth, for their bodies are more dense; women out of
the southern, for theirs are more rare and fine. Hippo, that the more
compacted and strong sperm, and the more fluid and weak, discriminate
the sexes. Anaxagoras and Parmenides, that the seed of the man is
naturally cast from his right side into the right side of the womb, or
from the left side of the man into the left side of the womb; there
is an alteration in this course of nature when females are generated.
Cleophanes, whom Aristotle makes mention of, assigns the generation of
men to the right testicle, of women to the left. Leucippus gives the
reason of it to the alteration or diversity of parts, according to which
the man hath a yard, the female the matrix; as to any