f

Of the (generation of Animals. it

grew such by nature. And in process of time, they were born whb such head?*io that they needed not to be so framed by handling ; for whereas the generativefeed is derived from all the parts of the body, found bodies yielding good-seed,but crazie bodies unsound Iced ; and oftentimes bald fathers be, et ba;d children ;and blear-eyed fathers, blear-eyed children; and a deformed father, for the mollpart a deformed childe; and the like also cotneth to passe concerning other shapes;why should not also long-headed fathers generate long-headed children? Butnow they are not born with such heads, because that practise is quite out ofuse; and so nature, which was upheld by that custom , ceaseth together withthe custom. So if we would produce a two-legged Dog, such as some arecarried about to be seen; we must take very young whelps, and cut off theirfeet, but heal them up very carefully: and when they be grown to strength,join them in copulation with other dogs that have but two legs left j and iftheir whelps be not two-legged, cut off their legs still by succession, and acthe last, nature will be overcome to yield their two-legged dogs by generati-on. By some such practise as you heard before, namely by handling, andoften framing the members of young children, Mid-wives are wont to amendimperfections in them; as the crookedness: or sbarpnesse of their noses, or such like.

Chap. XIX.

Of the wonderful force of imagination ; and how to produce party-coloured births.

P Lutarkfm his rehearsal of the opinions of Philosophers, writes, that Empedoclesheld that an infant is formed according to that which the mother looks upon acthe time of conception: for, faith he, women were wont to have commonly picturesand images in great request, and to bring forth children resembling the same. Hippo-crates , to clear a certain wemans honesty that had brought forth children veryunlike kheir parents, ascribed the cause of it to a certain picture which she hadin her chamber. And the same defence Quintihan ufctb on the behalf of a woman,who being her self fair, had brought forth a Black-moor, which was supposed by allmen to be her stives son. *Damafcen reports, that a certain young woman broughtforth a child that was all hairy ; and searching out the reason thereof r he found thehiary image of fohn Baptism her chamber, which she was wont to look upon.Heliodorus begins that excellent history which he wrote, with the Queen of Æthi-opia, who brought forth Chariclea a fair daughter ; the cause whereof was, thefable of Andromeda pictured in that chamber, wherein she lay with the King.We read of some others, that they brought forth horned children , J^causein the rime of their coition they looked upon the fable of Att&on pairnwrbe-fore them. Many children have hare-lips- and all because their mothers beingwith child, did look upon a Hare. The conceit of the mind, and the forceof Imagination is great; but it is then most operative, when it is excessivelybent upon any such thing as it cannot attain unto. Women with child»when they long most vehemently, and have their minds earnestly set uponany thing, do thereby alter their inward spirits; the spirits move the blood,and Co imprint the likenessc of the thing mused upon, in the tender substanceof the child. And surely all children would have some such marks or other,by reason of their mothers longing, if this longing were not in some sort sa-tissted. Wherefore the searchers out of secrets have justly ascribed the marks andsignes in the young ones, to the imagination of the mother ; especially thatimagination which prevails with her in the chiefest actions, as in coition, inletnng go her seed, and such like: and as man of all other living creatures, is mostMeeting in his thoughts, and fullest of conceits; so the variety of his witaffords much variety of such effects; and therefore they are more in mankind, thenm other living creatures: for other creatures are not so divers minded, so that

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