* * * * *
CHAPTER II
_Of Conception; what it is; how women are to order themselves after
Conception._
SECTION I.--_What Conception is, and the qualifications requisite
thereto._
Conception is nothing but an action of the womb, by which the prolific
seed is received and retained, that an infant may be engendered and
formed out of it. There are two sorts of conception: the one according
to nature, which is followed by the generation of the infant in the
womb; the other false and wholly against nature, in which the seed
changes into water, and produces only false conceptions, moles, or other
strange matter. Now, there are three things principally necessary in
order to a true conception, so that generation may follow, viz., without
diversity of sex there can be no conception; for, though some will have
a woman to be an animal that can engender of herself, it is a great
mistake; there can be no conception without a man discharge his seed
into the womb. What they allege of pullets laying eggs without a cock's
treading them is nothing to the purpose, for those eggs should they be
set under a hen, will never become chickens because they never received
any prolific virtue from the male, which is absolutely necessary to this
purpose, and is sufficient to convince us, that diversity of the sex is
necessary even to those animals, as well as to the generation of man.
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