generation or some other cause has not yet been observed.
Part 16
Some insects copulate and the offspring are produced from animals of the same name, just as with the sanguinea; such are the locusts, cicadae, spiders, wasps, and ants. Others unite indeed and generate; but the result is not a creature of the same kind, but only a scolex, and these insects do not come into being from animals but from putrefying matter, liquid or solid; such are fleas, flies, and cantharides. Others again are neither produced from animals nor unite with each other; such are gnats, ‘conopes’, and many similar kinds. In most of those which unite the female is larger than the male. The males do not appear to have spermatic passages. In most cases the male does not insert any part into the female, but the female from below upwards into the male; this has been observed in many cases (as also that the male mounts the female), the opposite in few cases; but observations are not yet comprehensive enough to enable us to make a distinction of classes. And generally it is the rule with most of the oviparous fish and oviparous quadrupeds that the female is larger than the because this is expedient in view of the increase of bulk in conception by reason of the eggs. In the female the part analogous to the uterus is cleft and extends along the intestine, as with the other animals; in this are produced the results of conception. This is clear in locusts and all other large insects whose nature it is to unite; most insects are too small to be observed in this respect.
Such is the character of the generative organs in animals which were not spoken of before. It remains now to speak of the homogeneous parts concerned, the seminal fluid and milk. We will take the former first, and treat of milk afterwards.
Part 17
Some animals manifestly emit semen, as all the sanguinea, but whether the insects and cephalopoda do so is uncertain. Therefore this is a question to be considered, whether all males do so, or not all; and if not all, why some do and some not; and whether the female also contributes any semen or not; and, if not semen, whether she does not contribute anything else either, or whether she contributes something else which is not semen. We must also inquire what those animals which emit semen contribute by means of it to generation, and generally what is the nature of semen, and of the so-called catamenia in all animals which discharge this liquid.
Now it is thought that all animals are generated out of semen, and that the semen comes from the parents. Wherefore it is part of the same inquiry to ask whether both male and female produce it or only one of them, and to ask whether it comes from the whole of the body or not from the whole; for if the latter is true it is reasonable to suppose that it does not come from both parents either. Accordingly, since some say that it comes from the whole of the body, we must investigate this question first.
The proofs from which it can be argued that the semen comes from each and every part of the body may be reduced to four. First, the intensity of the pleasure of coition; for the same state of feeling is more pleasant if multiplied, and that which affects all the parts is multiplied as compared with that which affects only one or a few. Secondly, the alleged fact that mutilations are inherited, for they argue that since the parent is deficient in this part the semen does not come from thence, and the result is that the corresponding part is not formed in the offspring. Thirdly, the resemblances to the parents, for the young are born like them part for part as well as in the whole body; if then the coming of the semen from the whole body is cause of the resemblance of the whole, so the parts would be like because it comes from each of the parts. Fourthly, it would seem to be reasonable to say that as there is some first thing from which the whole arises, so it is also with each of the parts, and therefore if semen or seed is cause of the whole so each of the parts would have a seed peculiar to itself. And these opinions are plausibly supported by such evidence as that children are born with a likeness to their parents, not in congenital but also in acquired characteristics; for before now, when the parents have had scars, the children have been born with a mark in the form of the scar in the same place, and there was a case at Chalcedon where the father had a brand on his arm and the letter was marked on the child, only confused and not clearly articulated. That is pretty much the evidence on which some believe that the semen comes from all the body.
Part 18
On examining the question, however, the opposite appears more likely, for it is not hard to refute the above arguments and the view involves impossibilities. First, then, the resemblance of children to parents is no proof that the semen comes from the whole body, because the resemblance is found also in voice, nails, hair, and way of moving, from which nothing comes. And men generate before they yet have certain characters, such as a beard or grey hair. Further, children are like their more remote ancestors from whom nothing has come, for the resemblances recur at an interval of many generations, as in the case of the woman in Elis who had intercourse with the Aethiop; her daughter was not an Aethiop but the son of that daughter was. The same thing applies also to plants, for it is clear that if this theory were true the seed would come from all parts of plants also; but often a plant does not possess one part, and another part may be removed, and a third grows afterwards. Besides, the seed does not come from the pericarp, and yet this also comes into being with the same form as in the parent plant.
We may also ask whether the semen comes from each of the homogeneous parts only, such as flesh and bone and sinew, or also from the heterogeneous, such as face and hands. For if from the former only, we object that resemblance exists rather in the heterogeneous parts, such as face and hands and feet; if then it is not because of the semen coming from all parts that children resemble their parents in these, what is there to stop the homogeneous parts also from being like for some other reason than this? If the semen comes from the heterogeneous alone, then it does not come from all parts; but it is more fitting that it should come from the homogeneous parts, for they are prior to the heterogeneous which are composed of them; and as children are born like their parents in face and hands, so they are, necessarily, in flesh and nails. If the semen comes from both, what would be the manner of generation? For the heteroeneous parts are composed of the homogneous, so that to come from the former would be to come from the latter and from their composition. To make this clearer by an illustration, take a written name; if anything came from the whole of it, it would be from each of the syllables, and if from these, from the letters and their composition. So that if really flesh and bones are composed of fire and the like elements, the semen would come rather from the elements than anything else, for how can it come from their composition? Yet without this composition there would be no resemblance. If again something creates this composition later, it would be this that would be the cause of the resemblance, not the coming of the semen from every part of the body.
Further, if the parts of the future animal are separated in the semen, how do they live? and if they are connected, they would form a small animal.
And what about the generative parts? For that which comes from the male is not similar to what comes from the female.
Again, if the semen comes from all parts of both parents alike, the result is two animals, for the offspring will have all the parts of both. Wherefore Empedocles seems to say what agrees pretty well with this view (if we are to adopt it), to a certain extent at any rate, but to be wrong if we think otherwise. What he says agrees with it when he declares that there is a sort of tally in the male and female, and that the whole offspring does not come from either, ‘but sundered is the fashion of limbs, some in man’s...’ For why does not the female generate
