was intended for Man in part degenerates, and renders the Infant of a
double Sex or Nature, placing it in the middle of both Sexes, as seeming
to participate of Male and Female.

Others say. That Nature having always a particular care of the
Propagation of Mankind, endeavours for the most part to produce Females:
And thus we may observe, the Number of Men Hermaphrodites to exceed the
Women ones, Nature having chalk'd out to the first the Lines of a
Woman's privy Parts. To this Opinion it is objected, that Nature being
nothing but the Power of God in the production of Creatures, it never
works but according to his Orders upon the Matter that is given the
Female; and of consequence Hermaphrodites depend more upon the
Disposition of the Matter for Generation, than upon any previous Design
of Nature.

Some are of Opinion, that God having created Man and Woman, we have
essentially within us a Faculty to become either the one Sex or the
other; for which Reason it is no wonder if an Hermaphrodite is sometimes
produc'd, since we are potentially so. This Notion is drawn from
_Plato_; and though some part of the Scripture may at first seem to
favour it, yet, strictly consider'd, one may find a quite different
Sense; and this Opinion was condemn'd by Pope _Innocent_ III.

The Ancients were of Opinion, that there is a certain Cell in the Womb
of some Women, into which the Seed falling, when _Mercury_ and _Venus_,
or _Mercury_ and _Luna_ are in Conjunction, an Hermaphrodite is
engender'd; or that the Conjunction of _Mars_ and _Venus_ disposes the
Matter that serves for the forming of the Child so confusedly in the
Mother's Womb, that it becomes the Cause of the Birth of an
Hermaphrodite. In answer to this, those Planets are too remote from us