‘The same Reason that accounts for the monstrous Births of Men with us, may serve to account also for those of Nations that are so; for God the Creator of all, knew when and where every thing should be created.’ As yet we know not of any Nation or Genus of Men heterogeneous to us in their Form, tho’ some[75] have wrote concerning such; but later Progresses and Discoveries round the World, shew us to the contrary; if such a Nation was to be found, we might indeed with some Reason, suppose them to be a Race, created on Purpose by God; but we must not therefore assent to the Saint, in imagining God to be the immediate Author of any Form in those poor Children (commonly call’d monstrous) that might be painful or disadvantageous to their well-being and Preservation; and therefore his Comparison is not justly laid down, because, tho’ the first Semina of any Species of Animals are planted by the Ordination of the Almighty, in an absolute Manner in the Beginning, from which they cannot digress in their successive Generations; yet a Woman, possessing all the greatest Beauties and Proportion in an hereditary Succession, may bring forth a Child, deformed in every Member; which can reasonably be accounted no other than one accidentally injured in the Uterus. A Word or two more of this great Man may be necessary here, to shew that amongst those monstrous Births we have enumerated from him, he was not less certain of the Existence of Hermaphrodites, than of any other, which appears in these Words[76]. ‘Altho’ the Androgyni, which are also call’d Hermaphrodites, are not often, yet, no doubt, they sometimes are, found, in whom the two Sexes are so apparent, that it is uncertain from which they should be named; however the Custom of speaking has prevail’d that they should be nominated after the superior Sex, which is the masculine, for no Body has ever said Androgynecas or Hermaphroditas.’ These amount to the Majority of the physical Causes, commonly assign’d for the Growth of Hermaphrodites; many more as unreasonable as these might be drawn from the Opinions of Astronomers[77], who have endeavour’d to account for such Births, by the Motions of certain planetary Bodies, that, they think, influence the Actions of Generation in a particular Manner, and produce Variety of Monsters; but what are already laid down, are fully sufficient to demonstrate the Errors that reign thro’ the whole; and that the Existence of Hermaphrodites being once granted amongst them, the greater the Number of Authors that strove to shew the Causes of their Generation, the greater the Distance to which Truth was banished on this Occasion. CHAP. III. _A general View of other Authors concerning Hermaphrodites._