GENERATION OF ANIMALS, II. ^n. 



and not only the heat of animals which operates 

 through the semen, but also any other natural residue 

 which there may be has witliin it a principle of life. 

 Considerations of this sort show us that the heat 

 which is in animals is not fire and does not get its 

 origin or principle from fire. 



Consider now the physical part of the semen. 

 (This it is which, when it is emitted by the male, is 

 accompanied by the portion of soul-principle and acts 

 as its vehicle. Partly this soul-principle is separable 

 from physical matter — this appUes to those animals 

 where some divine element is included, and what 

 we call Reason is of this character — partly it is in- 

 separable.) This physical part of the semen, being 

 fluid and watery, dissolves and evaporates ; and on 

 that account we should not always be trying to 

 detect it leaving the female externally, or to find it 

 as an ingredient of the fetation when that has set 

 and taken shape, any more than we should expect 

 to trace the fig-juice which sets and curdles milk. 

 The fig-juice undergoes a change ; it does not remain 

 as a part of the bulk which is set and curdled ; and 

 the same applies to the semen. 



We have now determined in what sense fetations 

 and semen have Soul and in what sense they have not. 

 They have Soul potentially, but not in actuality. 



As semen is a residue, and as it is endowed with 

 the same movement as that in wtue of which the 

 body grows through the distribution of the ultimate 

 nourishment," when the semen has entered the 

 uterus it " sets " the residue produced by the female 

 and imparts to it the same movement with which it 

 is itself endowed. The female's contribution, of 

 course, is a residue too, just as the male's is, and 



17S 



