ON GENERATION. 339 



wood, or a statuary his statue from a block of marble. For out 

 of the same material from which the first part of the chick or 

 its smallest particle springs, from the very same is the whole 

 chick born; whence the first little drop of blood, thence 

 also proceeds its whole mass by means of generation in the 

 egg ; nor is there any difference between the elements which 

 constitute and form the limbs or organs of the body, and those 

 out of which all their similar parts, to wit, the skin, the flesh, 

 veins, membranes, nerves, cartilages, and bones, derive their 

 origin. For the part which was at first soft and fleshy, after- 

 wards, in the course of its growth, and without any change in 

 the matter of nutrition, becomes a nerve, a ligament, a tendon ; 

 what was a simple membrane becomes an investing tunic ; what 

 had been cartilage is afterwards found to be a spinous process 

 of bone, all variously diversified out of the same similar mate- 

 rial. For a similar organic body (which the vulgar believe to 

 consist of the elements) is not created out of elements at first 

 existing separately, and then put together, united, and altered ; 

 nor is it put together out of constituent parts; but, from a trans- 

 mutation of it when in a mixed state, another compound is 

 created : to take an instance, from the colliquameut the blood 

 is formed, from the blood the structure of the body arises, 

 which appears to be homogeneous in the beginning, and re- 

 sembles the spermatic jelly ; but from this the parts are 

 at first delineated by an obscure division, and afterwards be- 

 come separate and distinct organs. 



Those parts, I say, are not made similar by any successive 

 union of dissimilar and heterogeneous elements, but spring out 

 of a similar material through the process of generation, have 

 their different elements assigned to them by the same process, 

 and are made dissimilar. Just as if the whole chick was cre- 

 ated by a command to this effect, of the Divine Architect : " let 

 there be a similar colourless mass, and let it be divided into 

 parts and made to increase, and in the meantime, while it is 

 growing, let there be a separation and delineation of parts ; 

 and let this part be harder, and denser, and more glistening, 

 that be softer and more coloured," and it was so. Now it is in 

 this very manner that the structure of the chick in the egg 

 goes on day by day ; all its parts are formed, nourished, and 

 augmented out of the same material. First, from the spine 



