, seed
common to both sexes and menstrual blood, proper to the woman only; the
similitude, say they, must needs consist in the force of virtue of the
male or female, so that it proves like the one or the other, according
to the quantity afforded by either, but that the difference of sex is
not referred to the seed, but to the menstrual blood, which is proper to
the woman, is apparent; for, were that force altogether retained in the
seed, the male seed being of the hottest quality, male children would
abound and few of the female be propagated; wherefore, the sex is
attributed to the temperament or to the active qualities, which consists
in heat and cold and the nature of the matter under them--that is, the
flowing of the menstruous blood. But now, the seed, say they, affords
both force to procreate and to form the child, as well as matter for its
generation; and in the menstruous blood there is both matter and force,
for as the seed most helps the maternal principle, so also does the
menstrual blood the potential seed, which is, says Galen, blood well
concocted by the vessels which contain it. So that the blood is not only
the matter of generating the child, but also seed, it being impossible
that menstrual blood has both principles.
The ancients also say that the seed is the stronger efficient, the
matter of it being very little in quantity, but the potential quality of
it is very strong; wherefore, if these principles of generation,
according to which the sex is made were only, say they, in the menstrual
blood, then would the children be all mostly females; as were the
efficient force in the seed they would be all males; but since both have
operation in menstrual blood, matter predominates in quantity and in the
seed force and virtue.
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