Page - 1480 - in The Complete Aristotle

say it is with the generative fluid, which is a mixture of many elements, for the offspring resembles that parent from which it has derived most. Though this theory is obscure and in many ways fictitious, it aims at what is better expressed by saying that what is called ‘panspermia’ exists potentially, not actually; it cannot exist actually, but it can do so potentially. Also, if we assign only one sort of cause, it is not easy to explain all the phenomena, (1) the distinction of sex, (2) why the female is often like the father and the male like the mother, and again (3) the resemblance to remoter ancestors, and further (4) the reason why the offspring is sometimes unlike any of these but still a human being, but sometimes, (5) proceeding further on these lines, appears finally to be not even a human being but only some kind of animal, what is called a monstrosity. For, following what has been said, it remains to give the reason for such monsters. If the movements imparted by the semen are resolved and the material contributed by the mother is not controlled by them, at last there remains the most general substratum, that is to say the animal. Then people say that the child has the head of a ram or a bull, and so on with other animals, as that a calf has the head of a child or a sheep that of an ox. All these monsters result from the causes stated above, but they are none of the things they are said to be; there is only some similarity, such as may arise even where there is no defect of growth. Hence often jesters compare some one who is not beautiful to a ‘goat breathing fire’, or again to a ‘ram butting’, and a certain physiognomist reduced all faces to those of two or three animals, and his arguments often prevailed on people. That, however, it is impossible for such a monstrosity to come into existence—I mean one animal in another—is shown by the great difference in the period of gestation between man, sheep, dog, and ox, it being impossible for each to be developed except in its proper time. This is the description of some of the monsters talked about; others are such because certain parts of their form are multiplied so that they are born with many feet or many heads. The account of the cause of monstrosities is very close and similar in a way to that of the cause of animals being born defective in any part, for monstrosity is also a kind of deficiency. < div id=“section46” class=“section” title=“4”> 4 1480