GENERATION OF ANIMALS, IV. iv. 



spring are formed out of that residue) ? " [It is 

 not di\ided up owing to its causing a certain quantity 

 of milk to set, but the more the amount of milk 

 into which it is put and the more fig-juice there 

 is, so much the greater is the amount that gets 

 curdled.] It is sometimes said that the regions of 

 the uterus draw the semen, and on that account 

 several offspring are formed, because these regions 

 are several in number and because the cotyledons ^ 

 are not a unity. This theory, however, has nothing 

 in it, because often two embryos are formed in the 

 same region of the uterus, and in the case of animals 

 which produce many offspring, when the uterus is 

 full of embryos, they can be seen lying in a row. 

 This is clear from dissections. No ; what happens is 

 this. When animals are being perfected, there is a 

 certain size for each, a limit of bigger and smaller ; 

 none \vill be formed either bigger or smaller than 

 these sizes, but the excess or deficiency of size which 

 they acquire as compared \\ith one another lie within 

 this interval between the two limits, and thus it is 

 that one human being (or any other animal) is formed 

 bigger and another smaller. In precisely the same 

 way, the seminal material out of which (the embryo) 

 is formed is not unlimited in either direction — the 

 amount of it can be neither bigger nor smaller than 

 certain limits ; the embryo cannot be formed out of 

 any casual amount of it. Thus, in the case of those 

 animals which (on account of the cause stated) dis- 

 charge more residue than is requisite for the principle 



juice, which appear to have formed part of a marginal note 

 (c/. below 772 a 22 ff., with which passage they are obviously 

 connected). 



* For the cotyledons, see above, Bk. II. 745 b end. 



^S5 



