GENERATION OF ANIMALS, I. xvm. 



nails. (3) The semen may be drawn from both uni- 

 form and non-uniform parts. The question then 

 arises : What can be the manner in which generation 

 takes place ? The non-uniform parts are constructed 

 out of uniform ones assembled together ; so that 

 being drawn from the non-uniform parts would come 

 to the same thing as being drawn from the uniform 

 parts plus the assemblage of them." (It is just Uke 

 the case of a word written down on paper : if there 

 were anything drawn from the whole of the word, it 

 would be drawn from each of the syllables also,** and 

 this of course means that it would be dra^Ti from the 

 letters plus the assemblage of them together.) Now 

 flesh and bones, we should agree, are constructed out 

 of fire and the like substances '' ; which means that 

 the semen would be drawn from the elements only, 

 because how can it possibly be drawn from the 

 assemblage of them ? And yet without this assem- 

 blage the parts would not have the resemblance ; so 

 if there is something which sets to work later on to 

 bring this assemblage about, then surely this some- 

 thing, and not the drawing of the semen from the 

 whole of the body, will be the cause of the 

 resemblance. 



Further, if the parts of the body are scattered about 



Hence, the theory boils down to an assertion that the semen 

 is drawn from the simplest forms of matter, and as this 

 excludes any distinctive characteristics, the theory loses all 

 meaning. 



* Contrast the interesting theory examined in Plato, Theae- 

 tetus 201 D ff., that " elements " {aroixeta), whether physical 

 elements or " letters " of the alphabet, are " aXoya " and 

 cannot be known, until they are assembled into a " syllable," 

 which is an entity over and above its comiwnents, and " has 

 -a Aoyo?," and so can be known. — See also 715 a 12, n. 



' The " elements " ; see Introd. § 24. 



57 



