Q. Why do those of a hot constitution seldom conceive?  A. Because the seed in them is extinguished or put out, as water cast into fire; whereof we find that women who vehemently desire the flesh seldom conceive.

Q. Why are whores never with child?  A. By reason of divers seeds, which corrupt and spoil the instruments of conception, for it makes them so slippery, that they cannot retain seed.  Or, else, it is because one man’s seed destroys another’s, so neither is good for generation.

Q. Why do women conceive twins?  A. Because there are seven cells or receptacles in the womb; wherefore they may naturally have so many children at once as there falls seed into these cells.

Q. Why are twins but half men, and not so strong as others?  A. The seed that should have been for one, is divided into two and therefore they are weakly and seldom live long.

Of Hermaphrodites.

Q. How are hermaphrodites begotten?  A. Nature doth always tend to that which is best, and always intendeth to beget the male and not the female, because the female is only for the male’s mate.  Therefore the male is sometimes begotten in all its principal parts; and, yet, through the indisposition of the womb and object, and inequality of the seeds, when nature cannot perfect the male, she brings forth the female too.  And therefore natural philosophers say, that an hermaphrodite is impotent in the privy parts of a man, as appears by experience.

Q. Is an hermaphrodite accounted a man or a woman?  A. It is to be considered in which member he is fittest for copulation; if he be fittest in the woman’s, then he is a woman; if in a man’s, then he is a man.

Q. Should he be baptized in the name of a man or a woman?  A. In the name of a man, because names are given ad placitum, and therefore he should be baptized, according to the worthiest name, because every agent is worthier than its patient.

Of Monsters.

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.