The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher | Page 6

its sex rather from the mother than the father, for though his seed contributes a little to the natural principle, yet it is more weakly. But for likeliness it is referred rather to the father than to the mother. Yet the woman's seed receiving strength from the menstrual blood for the space of nine months, overpowers the man's in that particular, for the menstrual blood rather cherishes the one than the other; from which it is plain the woman affords both matter to make and force and virtue to perfect the conception; though the female's be fit nutriment for the male's by reason of the thinness of it, being more adapted to make up conception thereby. For as of soft wax or moist clay, the artificer can frame what he intends, so, say they, the man's seed mixing with the woman's and also with the menstrual blood, helps to make the form and perfect part of man.
But, with all imaginary deference to the wisdom of our fathers, give me leave to say that their ignorance of the anatomy of man's body have led them into the paths of error and ran them into great mistakes. For their hypothesis of the formation of the embryo from commixture of blood being wholly false, their opinion in this case must of necessity be likewise. I shall therefore conclude this chapter by observing that although a strong imagination of the mother may often determine the sex, yet the main agent in this case is the plastic or formative principle, according to those rules and laws given us by the great Creator, who makes and fashions it, and therein determines the sex, according to the council of his will.
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV
That Man's Soul is not propagated by their parents, but is infused by its Creator, and can neither die nor corrupt. At what time it is infused. Of its immortality and certainty of its resurrection.
Man's soul is of so divine a nature and excellency that man himself cannot comprehend it, being the infused breath of the Almighty, of an immortal nature, and not to be comprehended but by Him that gave it. For Moses, relating the history of man, tells us that "God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul." Now, as for all other creatures, at His word they were made and had life, but the creature that God had set over His works was His peculiar workmanship, formed by Him out of the dust of the earth, and He condescended to breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, which seems to denote both care and, if we may so term it, labour, used about man more than about all other living creatures, he only partaking and participating of the blessed divine nature, bearing God's image in innocence and purity, whilst he stood firm; and when, by his fall, that lively image was defaced, yet such was the love of the Creator towards him that he found out a way to restore him, the only begotten son of the Eternal Father coming into the world to destroy the works of the devil, and to raise up man from that low condition to which sin and his fall had reduced him, to a state above that of the angels.
If, therefore, man would understand the excellency of his soul, let him turn his eyes inwardly and look unto himself and search diligently his own mind, and there he shall see many admirable gifts and excellent ornaments, that must needs fill him with wonder and amazement; as reason, understanding, freedom of will, memory, etc., that clearly show the soul to be descended from a heavenly original, and that therefore it is of infinite duration and not subject to annihilation.
Yet for its many operations and offices while in the body it goes under several denominations: for when it enlivens the body it is called the soul; when it gives knowledge, the judgment of the mind; and when it recalls things past, the memory; when it discourses and discerns, reason; when it contemplates, the spirit; when it is the sensitive part, the senses. And these are the principal offices whereby the soul declares its powers and performs its actions. For being seated in the highest parts of the body it diffuses its force into every member. It is not propagated from the parents, nor mixed with gross matter, but the infused breath of God, immediately proceeding from Him; not passing from one to another as was the opinion of Pythagoras, who held a belief in transmigration of the soul; but that the soul is given to every infant by infusion, is the most received and orthodox opinion. And the learned do likewise agree that this is done when