ber of males surpasses that of females. See Sect. XV.
3. 4. and XVIII. 13. And what further confirms this idea is, that the male
children most frequently resemble the father in form, or feature, as well
as in sex; and the female most frequently resemble the mother, in feature,
and form, as well as in sex.

It may again be objected, if a female child sometimes resembles the father,
and a male child the mother, the ideas of the father, at the time of
procreation, must suddenly change from himself to the mother, at the very
instant, when the embryon is secreted or formed. This difficulty ceases
when we consider, that it is as easy to form an idea of feminine features
with male organs of reproduction, or of male features with female ones, as
the contrary; as we conceive the idea of a sphinx or mermaid as easily and
as distinctly as of a woman. Add to this, that at the time of procreation
the idea of the male organs, and of the female features, are often both
excited at the same time, by contact, or by vision.

I ask, in my turn, is the sex of the embryon produced by accident?
Certainly whatever is produced has a cause; but when this cause is too
minute for our comprehension, the effect is said in common language to
happen by chance, as in throwing a certain number on dice. Now what cause
can occasionally produce the male or female character of the embryon, but
the peculiar actions of those glands, which form the embryon? And what can
influence or govern these actions of the gland, but its associations or
catenations with other sensitive motions? Nor is this more extraordinary,
than that the catenations of irritative motions with the apparent
vibrations of objects at sea should produce sickness of the stomach; or
that a nauseous story should occasion vomiting.

4. An argument, which evinces the effect of imagination on the first
rudiment of the embryon, may be deduced from the production of some
peculiar monsters. Such, for instance, as those which have two heads joined
to one body, and those which have two bodies joined to one head; of which
frequent examples occur amongst our domesticated quadrupeds, and poultry.
It is absurd to suppose, that such forms could exist in primordial germs,
as explained in No. IV. 4. of this section. Nor is it possible, that such
deformities could be produced by the growth of two embryons, or living
filaments; which should afterwards adhere together; as the head and tail
part of different poly