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Aristotle's Book Of Problems, a non-fiction book by Aristotle |
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Of Monsters |
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_ Q. Doth nature make any monsters? A. She doth; if she did not, then would she be deprived of her end. For of things possible, she doth always propose to bring forth that which is most perfect and best; but in the end, through the evil disposition of the matter, not being able to bring forth that which she intended, she brings forth that which she can. As it happened in Albertus's time, when in a certain village, a cow brought forth a calf, half a man; then the countrymen suspecting a shepherd, would have burnt him with the cow; but Albertus, being skilled in astronomy, said that this did proceed from a certain constellation, and so delivered the shepherd from their hands. Q. Are they one or two? A. To find out, you must look into the heart, if there be two hearts, there be two men. Q. Why are some children like their father, some like their mother, some to both and some to neither? A. If the seed of the father wholly overcome that of the mother the child doth resemble the father; but if the mother's predominate, then it is like the mother; but if he be like neither, that doth sometimes happen through the four qualities, sometimes through the influence of some heavenly constellation. Q. Why are children oftener like the father than the mother? A. It proceeds from the imagination of the mother in the act of copulation, as appeared in a queen who had her imagination on a blackamoor; and in the Ethiopian queen who brought forth a white child, because her imagination was upon a white colour; as is seen in Jacob's skill in casting rods of divers colours into the water, when his sheep went to ram. Q. Why do children born in the eighth month for the most part die quickly, and why are they called the children of the moon? A. Because the moon is a cold planet, which has dominion over the child, and therefore doth bind it with coldness, which is the cause of its death. Q. Why doth a child cry as soon as it is born? A. Because of the sudden change from heat to cold: which cold doth affect its tenderness. Another reason is, because the child's soft and tender body is wringed and put together coming out of the narrow and strait passage of the matrix, and especially, the brain being moist, and the head being pressed and wrinkled together, is the cause that some humours distil by the eyes, which are the cause of tears and weeping. Q. Why doth the child put its fingers into its mouth as soon as it cometh into the world? A. Because that coming out of the womb it cometh out of a hot bath, and entering into the cold, puts them into its mouth for want of heat. _ |
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