Part 7

Pontanus, besides being of the same Opinion with Averroës, seems also to lay a great deal of blame to Heat, by which I suppose, he means the Calor Nativus, because he says,——he endeavours to make this plain, by likening Generation to a Vessel of Water on a Fire; alledging that a gentle Heat will render the Water hot, as well as an inordinate one; and that, as by a very great Heat, the Water will be subject to a total Evaporation, so the Oeconomy of Generation may be destroyed, or become monstrous or preposterous by the same. Innate Heat is indeed a necessary Quality that attends every Part as well as Action of animal Bodies; but I cannot conceive any Excess of Heat in such Bodies, but what is symptomatick of some morbid State, and therefore not to be assign’d as a Cause for any effect, whether regular or irregular, in Generation.

By this Author’s laying so much Stress upon inordinate Heat, one would imagine, he had nothing else to blame for causing Hermaphrodites; yet he joins with Peucerus so as to mention his very Words, in consequence of this Notion of a Superfluity of Particles producing more Members than are natural; and makes an offer at explaining this also in the following Manner; however inartful and unreasonable, let every Reader judge.

‘When therefore this acting or procreating Virtue directly influences either Sex, so as to conquer or quite overcome, Women bring forth Children of either Sex; but where she partly conquers and partly is subdued, then the thing is otherwise conducted, and one both Male and Female is begotten.’

By this Manner of accounting for it, we are to suppose, when the Vis Agens chiefly predominates over the Materia Seminalis, the Male Sex is begotten; and when the seminal Matter totally rules the Vis Agens, a Female is produced; but if the latter is partly conquer’d and partly overcomes, then one of both Sexes is the Consequence.

How inconsiderately does this Author give way to an erroneous Principle? For it is very plain to all Capacities, if it be necessary that such a Power as he calls his Vis Agens should accompany and direct the seminal Matter, in order to assist, and carry on, the Work of Generation, that whensoever she was so overcome, as not to have any concern in the Work, or act upon the seminal Matter, it ought to be deprived of any Manner, or Power, of growing into any Form whatsoever; whereas, by our Author’s System, we find, that when this Vis Agens has any thing to do, it is only towards the Formation of a Male; because if she be, as he expresses it, overcome, the Matter will produce a Female of itself; so that, an Hermaphrodite cannot be formed, till the Matter and the Vis Agens quarrel, and strive for Mastership, when in the Scuffle, each contributes something towards its favourite Sex, and a fœtus of both Sexes is made; yet he does not say both are perfect; for, as we observ’d before, he says one is obscure, so that in the Dispute they never come off equal; and this he proves in these Words; ‘Nature in Mankind in general distinguishes the Male from the Female, so that both Sexes cannot exist in the same Body, in their proper degrees of Perfection.’

This last Opinion is not consistent with the rest, because, according to his first Principles, there should be an absolute Male or Female, just as either prevail’d over the other; and an Hermaphrodite, when each was so stubborn, as to force in upon the poor Fœtus it’s different Sex.

The contrary Qualities of Albertus Magnus in their Strife about the Formation of the Fœtus, are not much unlike the foregoing Hypothesis; he says, ‘When contrary Qualities join together in the Body, either of which is absolute, and, by the help of the Vis Formativa, capable of terminating in a different Sex, that then Hermaphrodites are begotten.’

I should be glad to find out what these Qualities are, for as the Matter is stated it is hard to apply it; however therefore, if by the Contumacy of these Qualities, a Fœtus may be impressed with two Sexes, we must conclude that human Nature is very unhappy under the Guidance of such capricious Directors; but he ought here more particularly to lay the blame to the Vis Formatrix; for tho’ according to him either quality may be complexional of and terminating in its Sex; yet, these are but as Instruments made use of by the Vis Formatrix, to work upon the Matter withal; and therefore, the Tools used by a Workman may be as well blamed for making a bad Piece of Work, as these supposed Qualities; but as this Hypothesis in general, is as weak as any of the former, enough is said of it; let us therefore pass on to another, in which we shall find a great Variety.

Not a few old Authors imagined there were several Cells and Ditches in the Uterus for the Reception of Fœtus’s of the different Sexes; and those who were of Opinion that the Cells were but seven, thought that three were on the Right-side for Males; as many on the Left, for Females; and the seventh in the middle for Hermaphrodites; which were generated, whenever the Semen Virile happen’d to fall into it. Another supposes but three, one on each side for Males and Females, and the central Cell for Androgyni; and that ‘Nature always intends the Formation of a Male, being inclin’d to form the best; that a Woman is but a Man, having an accidental Change in the Parts, and is therefore a Monster in Nature; that a Male is always begotten, but because of the ill Disposition of the Matrix and the Object it contains, and the Inequality of the Semen, (whensoever Nature cannot accomplish the Formation of a perfect Man) a Female or Hermaphrodite must be the Consequence.’

If Nature intended the Procreation of no Sex but the Male, there would have been no Female; but if it was, at first, necessary, that a Female should accompany the Male in order to propagate their Likeness and Species, without which (it is evident) Generation could neither have been begun nor carry’d on, the same Necessity must always hold, and a Race of Females as well as Males ought always to continue, in order to carry on that great Work. How then are Women Monsters in Nature?

The first Woman as well as the first Man, when created, were endowed with different Organs serving to Generation, tho’ in all other Respects alike in their Members; and since every Woman afterwards had no difference in the Formation of those Parts, but must have been exactly the same with her Female Predecessors, even back to the first; by what Reason can her Parts be accounted monstrous or accidentally changed?

Besides, whatsoever is monstrous in Nature ought to be of no further Use in the Oeconomy of that particular System to which it properly may be said to belong, if in a natural State. But this Hypothesis is of such a Nature, as scarce to be worth taking any more trouble to confute, being the produce of a mere Monster in Nature.

St Augustin, who was more inclin’d to deal in Matters metaphysical than natural, makes a long detail of several Kinds of Cripples, and what he calls monstrous Kinds of Men, such as, those having but one Eye in the Forehead, Pigmies, Sciopoda’s, Cynocephales, and such like; and proposes this Question: Whether it was from Adam, or the Sons of Noah, that such Kinds of Men had proceeded? But seems to believe that whatsoever they be, they were brought upon the Earth by the special Appointment of God.

This he gives as the Cause in general, but argues that the same will hold for those particularly believed to exist in this Part of the World, as Hermaphrodites, and those of a doubtful Sex.

‘The same Reason that accounts for the monstrous Births of Men with us, may serve to account also for those of Nations that are so; for God the Creator of all, knew when and where every thing should be created.’

As yet we know not of any Nation or Genus of Men heterogeneous to us in their Form, tho’ some have wrote concerning such; but later Progresses and Discoveries round the World, shew us to the contrary; if such a Nation was to be found, we might indeed with some Reason, suppose them to be a Race, created on Purpose by God; but we must not therefore assent to the Saint, in imagining God to be the immediate Author of any Form in those poor Children (commonly call’d monstrous) that might be painful or disadvantageous to their well-being and Preservation; and therefore his Comparison is not justly laid down, because, tho’ the first Semina of any Species of Animals are planted by the Ordination of the Almighty, in an absolute Manner in the Beginning, from which they cannot digress in their successive Generations; yet a Woman, possessing all the greatest Beauties and Proportion in an hereditary Succession, may bring forth a Child, deformed in every Member; which can reasonably be accounted no other than one accidentally injured in the Uterus.

A Word or two more of this great Man may be necessary here, to shew that amongst those monstrous Births we have enumerated from him, he was not less certain of the Existence of Hermaphrodites, than of any other, which appears in these Words.

‘Altho’ the Androgyni, which are also call’d Hermaphrodites, are not often, yet, no doubt, they sometimes are, found, in whom the two Sexes are so apparent, that it is uncertain from which they should be named; however the Custom of speaking has prevail’d that they should be nominated after the superior Sex, which is the masculine, for no Body has ever said Androgynecas or Hermaphroditas.’

These amount to the Majority of the physical Causes, commonly assign’d for the Growth of Hermaphrodites; many more as unreasonable as these might be drawn from the Opinions of Astronomers, who have endeavour’d to account for such Births, by the Motions of certain planetary Bodies, that, they think, influence the Actions of Generation in a particular Manner, and produce Variety of Monsters; but what are already laid down, are fully sufficient to demonstrate the Errors that reign thro’ the whole; and that the Existence of Hermaphrodites being once granted amongst them, the greater the Number of Authors that strove to shew the Causes of their Generation, the greater the Distance to which Truth was banished on this Occasion.

CHAP. III.

A general View of other Authors concerning Hermaphrodites.

It is observable, that when Authors are fond of having their Readers believe what they assert, they generally favour their own Opinions either in Descriptions or Figures, so much as even to stretch from the Truth of the Subject; which so far answers their Ends as to beget in some People, indolently credulous, a Belief of what they see, and leads them into an Error. This will appear, by the following Animadversions upon such Authors as I thought would further answer our Intentions on the present Occasion.

Of MANARDUS.

It is not much to be wondered at, that the Name Hermaphrodite should be so profusely made use of as it is among Men, when we find an Author of no small esteem giving the same Name, in a general Way, to such as were even troubled with several Kinds of Disorders in the Pudenda, besides a supposed Existence of both Sexes in the same Person; for Manardus in a Letter to one Michael Sactanna, a Surgeon, sends him a List of the Diseases incident to the exterior Parts of the Body, with a short Definition of each, and speaking of such as he calls utrique Sexui communes has these Words:

‘Hermaphrodites are so call’d by both Greeks and Latins, of which there are three Kinds in Men, one in Women. In Men the Similitude of the Parts of Generation of a Woman is sometimes in the Scrotum; sometimes it appears in the Perinæum; and sometimes Urine passes out by the Middle of the Scrotum.

‘In Women, above the Pudenda, by the Pubis, the Form of the Parts of a Man is prominent.’

It is very reasonable to imagine from this Passage, that the Author cannot, by what he has here laid down, signify an hermaphrodital Nature in a strict Sense, in any Person; because, according to our Definition in the Beginning, there should be both Sexes amply subsisting in the same Body, whereas here he says, in Men there are three Kinds of them; in Women, one; and therefore if Men or Women, how can they be Hermaphrodites? However, as to the first difference in Men, where he says, ‘the Similitude of a Woman’s Parts is sometimes in the Scrotum.’—The first Notion we can form of it is, that here is a Man perfect in the Parts proper to him; besides which the Likeness of the Parts of a Woman in the Scrotum. Now whenever any thing like a Fissure appears in this Manner, I am inclined to believe it is the divided Scrotum of certain Authors, which are no other than the Labia Muliebria with the Clitoris over them, being equally protuberant to the lowermost Part of the Orificium Vaginæ.

The Second is the perfect Man still supposed, and the Likeness of the Pudenda Muliebria in the Perinæum. This amounts to the same thing as the former, only the Thickness of the Labia reaches not down so far as the Fissura Magna is continued; and therefore he supposes, that beneath the said Protuberance, the rest of the Chink is the Perinæum.