But as to a female the case is different; for it is
longer perfecting in the womb, the mother ever going longer with a girl
than with a boy, which makes the account differ; for a female formed in
thirty days does not move until the seventieth day, and is born in the
seventh month; when she is formed on the fortieth day, she does not move
till the eightieth and is born in the eighth month; but, if she be
perfectly formed on the forty-fifth day she moves on the ninetieth, and
the child is born in the ninth month; but if she that is formed on the
sixtieth day, moves on the one hundred and tenth day, she will be born
in the tenth month. I treat the more largely of love that the reader may
know that the reasonable soul is not propagated by the parents, but is
infused by the Almighty, when the child has its perfect form, and is
exactly distinguished in its lineaments.
Now, as the life of every other creature, as Moses shows, is in the
blood, so the life of man consists in the soul, which although subject
to passion, by reason of the gross composures of the body, in which it
has a temporary confinement, yet it is immortal and cannot in itself
corrupt or suffer change, it being a spark of the Divine Mind. And that
every man has a peculiar soul plainly appears by the vast difference
between the will, judgment, opinions, manners, and affections in men.
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