186 GENERATION. 



and his horns will grow to the length of those of a cow, or longer. 

 Take a hoar, and his tusks will not grow. In the eunuch the child's 

 voice keeps the same [at maturity]. 



Distinction of the Sex inappreciable at early Age. 



The distinction of the sex, exclusive of the parts of generation, is 

 but very small in childhood and youth. Boys and girls are very 

 similar in all their features when first formed ; even the parts peculiar 

 to each are similar to one another [in the embryo] ; both seeming to 

 shoot out from one point, but each on a different plan ; therefore they 

 become very different by the time they arrive at perfection. "We not 

 only find this circumstance in the most perfect animals, but in the less 

 perfect, viz. Birds. All young birds, male and female, are very much 

 alike : the distinction does not take place till they cast their first 

 feathers ; and then the second begins to distinguish the sex, viz. the 

 cock becoming different from what it was before. 



It is to be observed, that in the whole progress of separation 

 [departure from^he common character], it is always the male that goes 

 off from the female. However, the female has her distinctions ; but 

 they are not all peculiar to her : the male has the very same, besides 

 those peculiar to himself, viz. the adult female has the hair on the 

 pubis, so has the male ; the swan has the second growth of feathers, 

 so has the male. 



Acts of Generation. 



The parts of the male and female, in their natural state, bear a 

 pretty near proportion with regard to variety ; but as the female parts 

 are subject to changes from impregnation, this produces a variety of 

 itself ; and as these changes vary in almost every anima., it produces 

 in the whole a vast variety in the one sex more than [occurs] in the 

 other. 



The act of generation seems intended by Nature to give pleasure. 

 Those animals that are male and female, and those which are her- 

 maphrodites, have it in a strong degree. How far those have it which 

 cannot be called of either sex, or wholly of both, such as the Polypus, 

 is not easily determined ; but in the others it is obvious. 



In those that copulate, the pleasure is in the copulation, whether 

 viviparous or oviparous. Those that do not copulate are oviparous, 

 and have their pleasure in the evacuation of their eggs ; such as frogs, 

 toads, and all the roe-fish kind. This pleasure, most likely, is not in 

 the simple passage of the eggs ; but, in one class, in the embrace of 



