needs partake more of the nature and inclination of their parents, than
those begotten at a time when desires are weaker; and, therefore, the
children begotten by men in their old age are generally weaker than,
those begotten by them in their youth. As to the share which each of the
parents has in begetting the child, we will give the opinions of the
ancients about it.

Though it is apparent that the man's seed is the chief efficient being
of the action, motion, and generation: yet that the woman affords seed
and effectually contributes in that point to the procreation of the
child, is evinced by strong reasons. In the first place, seminary
vessels had been given her in vain, and genital testicles inverted, if
the woman wanted seminal excrescence, for nature does nothing in vain;
and therefore we must grant, they were made for the use of seed and
procreation, and placed in their proper parts; both the testicles and
the receptacles of seed, whose nature is to operate and afford virtue to
the seed. And to prove this, there needs no stronger argument, say they,
than that if a woman do not use copulation to eject her seed, she often
falls into strange diseases, as appears by young men and virgins. A
second reason they urge is, that although the society of a lawful bed
consists not altogether in these things, yet it is apparent the female
sex are never better pleased, nor appear more blythe and jocund, than
when they are satisfied this way; which is an inducement to believe they
have more pleasure and titulation therein than men. For since nature
causes much delight to accompany ejection, by the breaking forth of the
swelling spirits and the swiftness of the nerves; in which case the
operation on the woman's part is double, she having an enjoyment both by
reception and ejection, by which she is more delighted in.

Hence it is, they say, that the child more frequently resembles the