GENERATION OF ANIMALS, IV. iii. 



parent from which the larger portion of the semen 

 comes, and that the whole of the offspring takes after 

 the whole of the parent, and part after part (this 

 assumes that semen is drawn from each of the parts) ; 

 if the same amount comes from each of the two, then, 

 they say, the offspring formed resembles neither. 

 But if this is untrue (as it is), i.e., if the semen is not 

 drawn from the whole of the body, then, clearly, the 

 reason they give for the similarity and dissimilarity 

 of the offspring cannot be true either. Further, they 

 cannot explain with any ease how it is that at the 

 same time a female offspring takes after the father 

 and a male offspring after the mother ; for those who 

 state the cause of male and female as Empedocles or 

 Democritus state it," make statements which on an- 

 other score are impossible ; while those '' who maintain 

 that it all depends upon whether more or less semen 

 comes from either the male or the female, and that 

 this is why one offspring is formed as a male, and 

 another as a female, these people, I am sure, are not 

 in a position to show how the female is going to take 

 after the father and the male after the mother, since it 

 is impossible for more semen to come from both parents 

 at one and the same time. And further, for what 

 cause is it that the offspring for the most part takes 

 after its ancestors, even distant ones ? Surely no 

 portion at ail of the semen has come from them, 

 anyway. (2) One more type of explanation of the 

 resemblance remains to be mentioned, and those who 

 adopt it make a better show all round, including this 

 particular question. There are some who hold that 

 the semen, though a unity, is as it were a " seed- 

 aggregate " consisting of a large number of in- 

 gredients ; it is as though someone were to mix and 



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