Problems, Concepts and Their History 



velopment a double contribution, deriving 

 from both male and female parent: 



The egge is a certain Conception proceeding 

 from Male and Female, qualified with the power of 

 both: and out of it being One, one Animal is con- 

 stituted. . . . An egge can no more be made without 

 the assistance of the Cock and Henne, then the 

 fruit can be made without the Trees aid. . . . For 

 without a Cock it cannot be fruitfull, without a 

 Henne it cannot be at all (1653, pp. 136, 157, 155). 



Yet even in the case of the chick this is 

 not the egg to Harvey that is the visible 

 entity of the laboratory or kitchen: 



And though it be a known thing, subscribed by- 

 all, that the foetus assumes its original and birth 

 from the Male and Female, and consequently that 

 the Egge is produced by the Cock and Henne. and 

 the Chicken out of the Egge: yet neither the Schools 

 of Physitians, nor Aristotles discerning Brain, have 

 disclosed the manner, how the Cock and its seed, 

 doth mint and coine the Chicken out of the Egge. 

 . . . But that neither the Hen doth emit any Seed in 

 coition, nor poure forth any blood at that time into 

 the cavity of the Uterus; as also that the egge is not 

 formed after Aristotles way; nor yet (as Physitians 

 suppose) by the commixture of Seeds, and likewise 

 that the Cocks seed doth not penetrate into the hol- 

 low of the womb, nor yet is attracted thither, is most 

 manifest, from this one Observation, namely. That 

 after coition there is nothing at all to be found in 

 the Uterus, more then there was before {ibid., pp. 

 250, 199). 



He met the same failure in a vain exam- 

 ination of the uterus of the mammal, and 

 was driven therefore to resolve his dilemma 

 by a poor analogy: 



The Egge is ... a kind of an exposed Womb, and 

 placed where the Foetus is formed: for it executes the 

 office of the Matrix, and shelters the Chicken till 

 its iust time of Birth. . . . Oviparous creatures are 

 therefore not distinguished from Viviparous, in this, 

 that these bring forth their Foetus alive, but they do 

 not; . . . but their maine difference consists in the 

 manner of Generation; namely, in that Viviparous 

 creatures continue their Womb within them, in 

 which the Foetus is fashioned, cherished, and com- 

 pleated: but Oviparous expose their Egge or Matrix 

 without: yet nevertheless they do ripen and cherish 

 it as much by Incubation, as if they did reserve it 

 within their bowels {ibid., p. 127). 



Martin Llewellyn put it more succinctly, 

 if less elegantly, in his poem "To the In- 

 comparable Dr. Harvey, On his Books of the 

 Motion of the Heart and Blood, and of the 

 Generation of Animals," when he wrote 

 {ibid., n.p.): 



That both the Hen and Houswife are so matcht, 

 That her Son Born, is only her Son Hatcht. 



Harvey began his embryology from an 

 Aristotelian metaphysical preconception: 



"All perfect science depends upon the 

 knowledge of all causes: and therefore to 

 the plenary comprehension of Generation, 

 we must ascend from the last and lowest 

 efficient to the very first and most supreme, 

 and know them all" (ibid., p. 259). Frus- 

 trated by the inability of his own senses to 

 find the physical reality he sought, he took 

 solace in a metaphysical conception of his 

 own, at a different level, and envisioned a 

 metaphysical egg: 



The Egge . . . seemes to be a kinde of Medium; 

 not onely as it is the Principium, and the Finis, but 

 as it is the Common work or production of both 

 Sexes, and compounded of both. ... It is also a 

 Medium, or thing between an Animate and an In- 

 animate creature; being neither absolutely impow- 

 ered with life, nor absolutely without it. It is a Mid- 

 way or Passage between the Parents and the Chil- 

 dren; between those that were, and those that are 

 to come. ... It is the Terminus a quo, the Point or 

 Original from which all the Cocks and Hennes in 

 the world do arise and spring: and it is also the 

 Terminus ad quem, the Aim and End proposed by 

 nature, to which they direct themselves all their 

 life long. By which it comes to pass, that all Individ- 

 uals, while to supply their Species they beget their 

 Like, do continue and perpetuate their duration. 

 The Egge is at were [sic"] the Period of this Eternity 

 {ibid., -p. 137). 



But though Harvey necessarily ended as 

 he began in metaphysics, he had shown the 

 embryologists to follow him where to begin 

 their physical investigations. His transmis- 

 sion, therefore, of Aristotle's notions of epi- 

 genesis takes on a new meaning, since his 

 epipjenesis takes place in an egg which to 

 embryologists succeeding him was the visible 

 egg of reality, the egg which he searched 

 for even though he failed to find it. His de- 

 scription of epigenesis, in which 



All . . . parts are not constituted at once, but suc- 

 cessively, & in Order. . . . Nature doth feed and 

 enlarge all the Parts, out of the self same Nutri- 

 ment, whereof the [sic"] first did frame them . . . and 

 like a potter, first she divides her materials, and 

 she allots to the Trunk, the Head, and the Limbs, 

 every one their share or cantlin: as Painters do, 

 who first draw the Lineaments, and then lay on the 

 Colours {ibid., pp. 225, 331), 



is a description significant for the modern 

 embryologist in more ways than by the repe- 

 tition of Aristotle's metaphor. 



The fairly common delusion, however, 

 that Harvey championed the cause of epi- 

 genesis to the exclusion of others has little 

 basis in fact. Harvey was more cautious than 

 many more modern investigators in empha- 

 sizing that "the principles of divers Animals 

 being also diverse . . . the manner of the 



