286 ON GENERATION. 



the rising to the setting, in his passage over the various regions 

 of the earth, so also is there a vis enthea, a divine principle in- 

 herent in our common poultry, showing itself now as the plastic, 

 now as the nutritive, and now as the augmentative force, though 

 it is always and at all times present as the conservative and 

 vegetative force, and now assumes the form of the fowl, now that 

 of the egg; but the same virtue continues to inhere in either to 

 eternity. And although some animals arise spontaneously, or 

 as is commonly said from putrefaction, and some are produced 

 from the female alone, for Pliny 1 says: "in some genera, as in 

 certain fishes, there are no males, every one taken being found 

 full of roe ;" still whatever is produced from a perfect egg is so 

 in virtue of the indispensable concurrence of male and female. 

 Aristotle 2 consequently says : " the grand principles of generation 

 must be held to be the male and the female ;" the first two prin- 

 ciples of the egg are therefore the male and the female ; and the 

 common point or conception of these is the egg, which combines 

 the virtues of both parents. We cannot, in fact, conceive an egg 

 without the concurrence of a male and female fowl, any more 

 than we can conceive fruit to be produced without a tree. We 

 therefore see individuals, males as well as females, existing for 

 the sake of preparing eggs, that the species may be perennial, 

 though their authors pass away. And it is indeed obvious, that 

 the parents are no longer youthful, or beautiful, or lusty, and 

 fitted to enjoy life, than whilst they possess the power of pro- 

 ducing and fecundating eggs, and, by the medium of these, of 

 engendering their like. But when they have accomplished this 

 grand purpose of nature, they have already attained to the 

 height, the a/c^urj of their being, the final end of their existence 

 has been accomplished ; after this, effete and useless, they begin 

 to wither, and, as if cast off and forsaken of nature and the 

 Deity, they grow old, and, a-weary of their lives, they hasten 

 to their end. How different the males when they make them- 

 selves up for intercourse, and swelling with desire are excited by 

 the venereal impulse ! It is surprising to see with what passion 

 they are inflamed; and then how trimly they are feathered, how 

 vainglorious they show themselves, how proud of their strength, 

 and how pugnacious they prove ! But, the grand business of life 

 accomplished, how suddenly, with failing strength and pristine 

 1 Hist. Natur. lib. ix, cap. 16. 2 De Gen. Anim. lib. i, cap. 2. 



