Some Naturalists tell us, that where Nature design’d Seed in the Womb for a Male only, (as working up for the best, and aiming at the highest Perfection of its Workmanship) too much Cold and Moisture accidentally falling into the Work, before it is perfected in the Womb, at the same time there being too great a quantity of Seed and menstrous Blood, what was intended for Man in part degenerates, and renders the Infant of a double Sex or Nature, placing it in the middle of both Sexes, as seeming to participate of Male and Female.

Others say.  That Nature having always a particular care of the Propagation of Mankind, endeavours for the most part to produce Females:  And thus we may observe, the Number of Men Hermaphrodites to exceed the Women ones, Nature having chalk’d out to the first the Lines of a Woman’s privy Parts.  To this Opinion it is objected, that Nature being nothing but the Power of God in the production of Creatures, it never works but according to his Orders upon the Matter that is given the Female; and of consequence Hermaphrodites depend more upon the Disposition of the Matter for Generation, than upon any previous Design of Nature.

Some are of Opinion, that God having created Man and Woman, we have essentially within us a Faculty to become either the one Sex or the other; for which Reason it is no wonder if an Hermaphrodite is sometimes produc’d, since we are potentially so.  This Notion is drawn from Plato; and though some part of the Scripture may at first seem to favour it, yet, strictly consider’d, one may find a quite different Sense; and this Opinion was condemn’d by Pope Innocent III.

The Ancients were of Opinion, that there is a certain Cell in the Womb of some Women, into which the Seed falling, when Mercury and Venus, or Mercury and Luna are in Conjunction, an Hermaphrodite is engender’d; or that the Conjunction of Mars and Venus disposes the Matter that serves for the forming of the Child so confusedly in the Mother’s Womb, that it becomes the Cause of the Birth of an Hermaphrodite.  In answer to this, those Planets are too remote from us to be the proximate Causes, and to have an absolute Influence on the Body of the Child that is forming in its Mother’s Womb; and admitting such a Conjunction might cause a Deformity, it would not appear however in two Hermaphrodites born at different Seasons:  But in Turkey, and other Eastern Countries, where these Planets have the greatest Influence, Hermaphrodites are more numerous than in the Western Parts of the World, and they are oblig’d to go in different Habits from other People (viz. with Cloaths partly belonging to Men and partly Women) to prevent their lying with any; and if they go without these Habits they are punish’d severely.