THE PREFACE.
* 1.1GOD, the Creator and maker of all things, immediately after the Creation of the World, of his unspeakable counsel and inestimable wisdom, not on••y distinguis••ed mankinde, ••u•• all 〈◊〉〈◊〉 living Creatures also into a double sex, to wit, of Male and Female; that so they 〈◊〉〈◊〉 moved and enticed by the allurements of lust, might desire copulation, thence to have ••••••∣creation.* 1.2 For this bountiful Lord hath appointed it as a solace unto every living creature against the most certain and fatal necessity of death: than for as much as each particu•• living creature cannot continue for ever, yet they may endure by their species or kind by pr••pagation and succession of creatures, which is by procreation, so long as the world endureth. In this conjunction or 〈◊〉〈◊〉 repleni••hed with such delectable pleasure, (which God hath chiefly established by the law of Matrimony,) the male and female yield forth their seeds, which presently mixed and conjoyned, are received and kept in the females womb.* 1.3 For the seed is a certain spum••us ••r foamy humor replenished with vital spirit, by the ben••fit whereof, as it were by a certain ebullition or fermentation, it is puffed up, and swoln bigger, and both the seeds being separated from the more pure bloud of both the Parents, are the material and formal beginning of the issu••; for the seed of the male being cast and received into the womb, is accounted the principal and efficient cause; but the seed of the female is reputed the subj••cent matter, or the matter wherein it worketh. Goo•• and laudable seed ought to be white,* 1.4 shining, clammy, knotty, smelling like unto the elder or palm, delectable to Bees, and sinking down in the bottom of water being put into it, for that which swimmeth on the water is esteemed unfruitful; for a great portion cometh from the brain, yet s••me thereof falls from the wh••le b••dy, and from all the parts both firm and soft thereof.* 1.5 For unless it come from the whole body and every part thereof, all and every part of the issue cannot be formed thereby: because like things are engendred of the•••• like: and therefore it cometh that the childe resem••leth the Parents, not only in stature and fav••ur, but also in the conformation and proportion of his limbs and members, and complexion and temperature of his in••ward parts, so that dis••ases are oft times hereditary, the weakness of this or that entral being translated from the parent to the child.* 1.6 There are some which suppose this falling of the seed from the whole bodie not to ••e u••∣derstood according to the weight and matter, as if it were a certain portion of all the bloud separated from the rest; but according to the power and form, that is to say, the animal, natural and vital spirits, being the fr••mers of formation and life, and also the formative faculty to fall down from all the parts into the seed, that is wrought or perfected by the Testicles; for proof and confirmation whereof, they alledge that many per∣fect, sound, absolute, and well proportioned children, are born of ••ame and decrepit Parents.