ARISTOTLE 



to him, action can only be exerted, change can only 

 be brought about, by something that can come into 

 contact with another thing. Therefore in any case 

 something corporeal must be supplied by the male as 

 well as Form, and this is of course the substance which 

 carries the (potential) Form : it is the substance with 

 which the sort of Form known as Soul is specially and 

 regularly connected, and in which it resides, viz., 

 connate pneuma. This pneuma, which is thus present 

 in the semen, is charged with the " movements " 

 proper to Soul, including (in the case of the male) the 

 " movements " proper to sentient Soul ; and these 

 " movements," when given the right material to 

 work upon (viz., material which is potentially an 

 animal of the right kind) and the right conditions, are 

 able to produce an animal of the same kind as that 

 which they would have produced or maintained in the 

 male parent even if the blood in which they were 

 originally present had not undergone the further 

 stage of being concocted into semen. 



Hence it is clear that fundamentally the contribu- 

 tions of both parents in generation are identical ; 

 both are potentially a living animal of a certain kind, 

 and this involves that both possess the living animal's 

 Form, viz., its Soul, potentially ; and the only differ- 

 ence between them is that the male's contribution 

 possesses also sentient Soul potentially. 



At the same time, this is an important difference, 

 and makes itself apparent in the difference of bulk 

 between the two : the female's is large in bulk, the 

 male's is small. And this difference of bulk is 

 accounted for by the fact that the female's is less 

 " concocted " than the male's — it is less concentrated. 

 Further, the only Matter that the semen need con- 



