GENERATION OF ANIMALS, II. iv. 



the soil provides the material — i.e., the physical body 

 — for the seeds. And on this account the part in 

 females which receives the semen is not a passage, 

 but it — i.e.. the uterus — is fairly \\ide, whereas the 

 males that emit semen have passages only, and these 

 have no blood in them." 



It is only when it occupies its own proper place 

 that each of the residues becomes that particular 

 residue *• : before that time none of them can do so 

 without great violence exerted contrar}- to nature. 



We have now given the reason for the secretion of 

 the generative residues in animals. 



In those species which emit semen, when the 

 semen from the male has entered, it causes the purest 

 portion of the residue to " set " — I say " purest por- 

 tion," because the most part of the menstrual dis- 

 charge is useless, being fluid, just as the most fluid 

 portion of the male semen is, and in most cases the 

 earlier discharge during any one emission is less 

 fertile than the later, because it has less soul-heat 

 owing to its being unconcocted, whereas that which 

 has been concocted is thicker and has more 

 body in it."^ 



In those cases (whether women or other female 

 animals) where there is no external discharge (due to 

 there being no large amount of useless residue in the 

 generative secretion), the amount of stuff which is 

 produced within them corresponds in quantity to 

 that which remains behind in those animals which 

 discharge externally. This stuff gets " set " by the 

 dynamis of the male (a) present in the semen which 



and 718 a 5 above), which explains the phenomenon here 

 mentioned. In fishes and serpents the semen is already con- 

 cocted before the time of copulation (ibid.). 



187 



