when they are laid, they have one, yet that is no more than a defence
with which nature has provided them against any outward injury, while
they are hatched without the body; whereas those of women being hatched
within the body, need no other fence than the womb, by which they are
sufficiently secured. And this is enough, I hope, for the clearing of
this point.

As for the third thing proposed, as whence grow the kind, and whether
the man or the woman is the cause of the male or female infant--the
primary cause we must ascribe to God as is most justly His due, who is
the Ruler and Disposer of all things; yet He suffers many things to
proceed according to the rules of nature by their inbred motion,
according to usual and natural courses, without variation; though indeed
by favour from on high, Sarah conceived Isaac; Hannah, Samuel; and
Elizabeth, John the Baptist; but these were all extraordinary things,
brought to pass by a Divine power, above the course of nature. Nor have
such instances been wanting in later days; therefore, I shall wave them,
and proceed to speak of things natural.

The ancient physicians and philosophers say that since these two
principles out of which the body of man is made, and which renders the
child like the parents, and by one or other of the sex, viz., 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