5/8 ON CONCEPTION.
natural object of desire, does the natural (organic) conception arise in the uterus, even as the animal conception does in the brain.
From this desire/ or conception, it results that the female produces an offspring like the father. For just as we, from the conception of the " form" or " idea" in the brain, fashion in our works a form resembling it, so, in like manner, the "idea," or " form," of the father existing in the uterus generates an offspring like himself with the help of the formative faculty, impressing, however, on its work its own immaterial " form." In the same way art, which in the brain is the sTSog or "form" of the future work, produces, when in operation, its like, and begets it out of " matter." So too the painter, by means of conception, pictures to himself a face, and by imitating this internal conception of the brain carries it out into act ; so also the builder constructs his house according to previous con- ception. The same thing takes place in every other action and artificial production. Thus, what education effects in the brain, viz. art, with its analogue does the coitus of the male endow the uterus, viz. the plastic art ; hence many similar or dissi- milar foetuses are produced at the same coitus. For if the pro- ductions and first conceptions of art (the mere imitations of nature) are in this way formed in the brain, how much more probable is it that copies (exemplaria) of animal generation and conception should in like manner be produced in the uterus ?
And since Nature, all of whose works are wonderful and divine, has devised an organ of this kind, viz. the brain, by the virtue and sensitive faculty of which the conceptions of the rational soul exist, such as the desires and the arts, the first principles and causes of so many and such various works, of which man, by means of the impulsive faculty of the brain, is by imitation the author ; why should we not suppose that the same Nature, who in the uterus has constructed an organ no less wonderful, and adapted it by means of a similar structure to perform all that appertains to conception, has destined it for a similar or at least an analogous function, and intended an organ altogether similar for a similar use ? For as the skilful artificer accomplishes his works by ingeniously adapting his in- struments to each, so that from the substance and shape of these
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