ON GENERATION. 441 



more limpid part ; and the rest of the colliquament in which 

 the fo3tus swims is like crude milk, or milk deprived of its purer 

 portion. The purer part does not require any of that ulterior 

 concoction of which the remainder stands in need; and to un- 

 dergo which it is taken into the stomach, where it is trans- 

 muted into chyle. Similar to this is the crude and watery milk 

 which is found in the breasts immediately after parturition. 

 The liquefied albumen of the egg, and the crude or watery milk 

 of the mammae seem to have in all respects the same colour, 

 taste, and consistence. For the first flow of milk is serous and 

 watery, and women are wont to express water from their breasts 

 before the milk comes white, concocted, and perfect. 



Just as the colliquament found in the crop of the chick is a 

 kind of crude milk, whilst the same fluid discoveredin the stomach 

 is concocted, white, and curdled; so in viviparous animals, before 

 the milk is concocted in the mammae, a kind of dew and colli- 

 quament makes its appearance there, and the colliquament only 

 puts on the semblance of milk after it has undergone concoc- 

 tion in the stomach. And so it happens, in Aristotle's opinion, 

 that the first and most essential parts are formed out of the 

 purer and thinner portion of the colliquament, and are increased 

 by the remaining more indifferent portion after it has under- 

 gone elaboration by a new digestion in the stomach. In the 

 same way are the other less important parts developed and 

 maintained. Thus has nature, like a fond and indulgent 

 mother, been sedulous rather to provide superfluity, than to 

 suffer any scarcity of things necessary. Or it might be said to 

 be in conformity with reason to suppose that the foetus, now 

 grown more perfect, should also be nourished in a more per- 

 fect manner, by the mouth, to wit, and by a more perfect kind 

 of aliment, rendered purer by having undergone the two ante- 

 cedent digestions and been thereby freed from the two kinds of 

 excrementitious matter. In the beginning and early stages, 

 nourished by the ramifications of the umbilical veins, it leads 

 in some sort the life of a plant ; the body is then crude, white, 

 and imperfect; like plants, too, it is motionless and impas- 

 sive. As soon, however, as it begins by the mouth to par- 

 take of the same aliment farther elaborated, as if feeling a 

 diviner influence, boasting a higher grade of vegetative exist- 

 ence, the gelatinous mass of the body is changed into flesh, the 



