GENERATION OF ANIMALS, I. xviii. 



for by that tirae the division would be made as it were 

 from a new plant or animal, not of semen. <* 



Further, transplanted cuttings bear seed — derived, 

 of course, from themselves : which is proof positive 

 that the fruit they bore before they were trans- 

 planted was derived from that identical amount of 

 the plant which is now the cutting, and that the 

 seed was not drawn from the whole of the plant. 



The weightiest proof of all, however, we have 

 sufficiently established by our observations of Insects. 

 Perhaps not in all Insects, but certainly in most, 

 during copulation the female extends a part of itself 

 into the male [so, as we said earlier,* this is actually 

 the way in which they effect copulation] : the 

 females can be seen inserting something into the 

 males upwards from below. This does not applv to 

 all Insects, but to most of those which have been 

 observed. Hence surely it is clear that even in the 

 case of those males which discharge semen genera- 

 tion is not caused by the semen's being drawn from 

 the whole of the body, but it is brought about in some 

 other way, which we must consider later on. And 

 indeed, if it were really true that the semen is di-awn 

 from the whole body, as these people say, there would 

 still be no call for them to assert that it is drawn 

 from all the parts ; they need only say it is drawn from 

 the creative part which does the fashioning — from 

 the artificer, in other words, not from the material 

 which he fashions. As it is, they talk as though even 

 the shoes which the parent wears were included 

 among the sources from which the semen is drawn, 

 for on the whole a son who resembles his father wears 

 shoes that resemble his. 



It is true that there is intense pleasure in sexual 



69 



