ON GENERATION. 517 



produced in such order, or as coexistent, that from these, as 

 the elements of animal bodies, conjoined organs or limbs, and 

 finally, the entire animal, should be compounded. But, as has 

 been already said, the first rudiment of the body is a mere 

 homogeneous and pulpy jelly, not unlike a concrete mass of 

 spermatic fluid; and from this, under the law of generation, 

 altered, and at the same time split or multifariously divided, 

 as by a divine fiat, from an inorganic an organic mass results ; 

 this is made bone, this muscle or nerve, this a receptacle for 

 excrementitious matter, &c. ; from a similar a dissimilar is pro- 

 duced ; out of one thing of the same nature several of diverse 

 and contrary natures ; and all this by no transposition or local 

 movement, as a congregation of similar particles, or a separa- 

 tion of heterogeneous particles is effected under the influence 

 of heat, but rather by the segregation of homogeneous than 

 the union of heterogeneous particles. 



And I believe that the same thing takes place in all genera- 

 tion, so that similar bodies have no mixed elements prior to 

 themselves, but rather exist before their elements (these, ac- 

 cording to Empedocles and Aristotle, being fire, air, earth, and 

 water ; according to chemists, salt, sulphur, and mercury ; 

 according to Democritus, certain atoms), as being naturally 

 more perfect than these. There are, I say, both mixed and 

 compound bodies prior to any of the so called elements, into 

 which they are resolved, or in which they end. They are 

 resolved, namely, into these elements according to reason 

 rather than in fact. The so-called elements, therefore, are not 

 prior to those things that are engendered, or that originate, but 

 are posterior rather they are relics or remainders rather than 

 principles. Neither Aristotle himself nor any one else has ever de- 

 monstrated the separate existence of the elements in the nature 

 of things, or that they were the principles of " similar" bodies. 



The philosopher, 1 indeed, when he proceeds to prove that 

 there are elements, still seems uncertain whether the conclu- 

 sion ought to be that they exist in esse, or only in posse; 

 he is of opinion that in natural things they are present in 

 power rather than in action; and therefore does he assert, 

 from the division, separation, and solution of things, that there 



1 Lib. iii, tic Ccelo, cap. 31. 



