ON CONCEPTION. 577 



solicitations of the male animal ; it is itself, however, a purely 

 natural result, just as is the ripening of the fruit in trees. What 

 these changes are I will now recount, as I have found them by 

 observation. 



The uterus first appears more thick and fleshy; then its 

 inner surface, the future residence, that is, of the " concep- 

 tion/' becomes softer, and resembles in smoothness and deli- 

 cacy the ventricles of the brain ; this I have already described 

 in the deer and other cloven-footed tribes. But in the dog, 

 cat, and other multiparous and digitated animals, the horns of 

 the uterus clearly corresponding to the round tubes of the 

 woman [Fallopian tubes], the appendices of the intestines in 

 birds, or the ureters in man exhibit little protuberances at cer- 

 tain intervals, which swell up and become extremely soft; these, 

 after intercourse, appear to open themselves, (as I have ob- 

 served in deer ;) from them the first white fluid transudes into 

 the uterus, and out of this the " conception/' or ovum, is 

 formed. In this way the uterus, by means of the male, (like 

 fruit by the summer's heat,) is brought to the highest pitch of 

 maturity, and becomes impregnated. 



But since there are no manifest signs of conception before 

 the uterus begins to relax, and the white fluid or slender threads 

 (like the spider's web) constituting the "primordium" of the 

 future " conception/' or ovum, shows itself; and since the 

 substance of the uterus, when ready to conceive, is very like 

 the structure of the brain, why should we not suppose that the 

 function of both is similar, and that there is excited by coitus 

 within the uterus a something identical with, or at least analo- 

 gous to, an "imagination" (phantasma) or a "desire" (appetitus) 

 in the brain, whence comes the generation or procreation of the 

 ovum ? For the functions of both are termed " conceptions," 

 and both, although the primary sources of every action through- 

 out the body, are immaterial, the one of natural or organic, the 

 other of animal actions; the one (viz. the uterus) the first 

 cause and beginning of every action which conduces to the 

 generation of the animal, the other (viz. the brain) of every 

 action done for its preservation. And just as a " desire" arises 

 from a conception of the brain, and this conception springs 

 from some external object of desire, so also from the male, 

 as being the more perfect animal, and, as it were, the most 



37 



