the next question to raise and to answer is this. if, in the case of those animals which emit semen into the female, that which enters makes no part of the resulting embryo, where is the material part of it diverted if (as we have seen) it acts by means of the power residing in it? it is not only necessary to decide whether what is forming in the female receives anything material, or not, from that which has entered her, but also concerning the soul in virtue of which an animal is so called (and this is in virtue of the sensitive part of the soul)— does this exist originally in the semen and in the unfertilized embryo or not, and if it does whence does it come? for nobody would put down the unfertilized embryo as soulless or in every sense bereft of life (since both the semen and the embryo of an animal have every bit as much life as a plant), and it is productive up to a certain point. that then they possess the nutritive soul is plain (and plain is it from the discussions elsewhere about soul why this soul must be acquired first). as they develop they also acquire the sensitive soul in virtue of which an animal is an animal. for e.g. an animal does not become at the same time an animal and a man or a horse or any other particular animal. for the end is developed last, and the peculiar character of the species is the end of the generation in each individual. hence arises a question of the greatest difficulty, which we must strive to solve to the best of our ability and as far as possible. when and how and whence is a share in reason acquired by those animals that participate in this principle? it is plain that the semen and the unfertilized embryo, while still separate from each other, must be assumed to have the nutritive soul potentially, but not actually, except that (like those unfertilized embryos that are separated from the mother) it absorbs nourishment and performs the function of the nutritive soul. for at first all such embryos seem to live the life of a plant. and it is clear that we must be guided by this in speaking of the sensitive and the rational soul. for all three kinds of soul, not only the nutritive, must be possessed potentially before they are possessed in actuality. and it is necessary either (1) that they should all come into being in the embryo without existing previously outside it, or (2) that they should all exist previously, or (3), that some should so exist and others not. again, it is necessary that they should either (1) come into being in the material supplied by the female without entering with the semen of the male, or (2) come from the male and be imparted to the material in the female. if the latter, then either all of them, or none, or some must come into being in the male from outside.

now that it is impossible for them all to preexist is clear from this consideration. plainly those principles whose activity is bodily cannot exist without a body, e.g. walking cannot exist without feet. for the same reason also they cannot enter from outside. for neither is it possible for them to enter by themselves, being inseparable from a body, nor yet in a body, for the semen is only a secretion of the nutriment in process of change. it remains, then, for the reason alone so to enter and alone to be divine, for no bodily activity has any connexion with the activity of reason.

now it is true that the faculty of all kinds of soul seems to have a connexion with a matter different from and more divine than the so-called elements; but as one soul differs from another in honour and dishonour, so differs also the nature of the corresponding matter. all have in their semen that which causes it to be productive; i mean what is called vital heat. this is not fire nor any such force, but it is the spiritus included in the semen and the foam-like, and the natural principle in the spiritus, being analogous to the element of the stars. hence, whereas fire generates no animal and we do not find any living thing forming in either solids or liquids under the influence of fire, the heat of the sun and that of animals does generate them. not only is this true of the heat that works through the semen, but whatever other residuum of the animal nature there may be, this also has still a vital principle in it. from such considerations it is clear that the heat in animals neither is fire nor derives its origin from fire.

let us return to the material of the semen, in and with which comes away from the male the spiritus conveying the principle of soul. of this principle there are two kinds; the one is not connected with matter, and belongs to those animals in which is included something divine (to wit, what is called the reason), while the other is inseparable from matter. this material of the semen dissolves and evaporates because it has a liquid and watery nature. therefore we ought not to expect it always to come out again from the female or to form any part of the embryo that has taken shape from it; the case resembles that of the fig-juice which curdles milk, for this too changes without becoming any part of the curdling masses.

it has been settled, then, in what sense the embryo and the semen have soul, and in what sense they have not; they have it potentially but not actually.

now semen is a secretion and is moved with the same movement as that in virtue of which the body increases (this increase being due to subdivision of the nutriment in its last stage). when it has entered the uterus it puts into form the corresponding secretion of the female and moves it with the same movement wherewith it is moved itself. for the female’s contribution also is a secretion, and has all the arts in it potentially though none of them actually; it has in it potentially even those parts which differentiate the female from the male, for just as the young of mutilated parents are sometimes born mutilated and sometimes not, so also the young born of a female are sometimes female and sometimes male instead. for the female is, as it were, a mutilated male, and the catamenia are semen, only not pure; for there is only one thing they have not in them, the principle of soul. for this reason, whenever a wind-egg is produced by any animal, the egg so forming has in it the parts of both sexes potentially, but has not the principle in question, so that it does not develop into a living creature, for this is introduced by the semen of the male. when such a principle has ben imparted to the secretion of the female it becomes an embryo.

liquid but corporeal substances become surrounded by some kind of covering on heating, like the solid scum which forms on boiled foods when cooling. all bodies are held together by the glutinous; this quality, as the embryo develops and increases in size, is acquired by the sinewy substance, which holds together the parts of animals, being actual sinew in some and its analogue in others. to the same class belong also skin, blood-vessels, membranes, and the like, for these differ in being more or less glutinous and generally in excess and deficiency.