But, as might naturally be expected, this does not suffice to fructify barren women; and consequently another ceremony, one which is doubtless more efficacious, was required. The parties who resort to this fair, slept for two nights, some in the church of the Capuchian friars and the others in that of the Cordeliers, and when these two churchs were found to be insufficient to contain the whole of such devotees, the church of the Hermitage of St. Cosmo received the surplus. In the three edifices, the women were during the two nights, separated from the men, the latter lying under the vestibule, and the women, in the church, these, whether in the church of the Capuchins or in that of the Cordeliers, were under the protection of the Father guardian, the vicar, and a monk of merit. In the hermitage, it was the hermit himself who watched over them. From this it may easily be imagined how the miracle was effected without troubling Saint Cosmo and Saint Damianus at all, in the matter, as well as that the virtue, possessed by those two saints was extended even to young maidens and widows. Essay II. ANAPHRODISIA; OR, ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER. A description of the symbols under which the _reproductive power_ was anciently worshipped, having been given in the preceding Essay, the present one will contain some account of the _negation_ or _absence_ of that faculty, whether total or partial, as known under the names of _Impotency_ and _Sterility_. Potency or power, as regards the generative act, may be defined as--the aptitude or ability to beget; and Impotency, the negation or absence of such power. The canon law distinguished three kinds of impotency--viz., that which proceeds from frigidity; that which is caused by sorcery (ligature or point-tying), and that which proceeding from some defect of conformation is properly designated as _impotentia coeundi_. The different lends of impotency may be thus classed--1. Those which are proper to men; 2. Those proper to women, and 3. Those common to both sexes. The causes of impotency proper to man are natural frigidity; defect of conformation, and accident. The causes of impotency proper to women are all such obstacles as arise _ex clausurâ uteri aut nimia arctitudine_. The causes common both to men and women are the defect of puberty and imperfect conformation.[39] Impotency may also be divided into natural and accidental; the former being that which a person is born with, or which proceeds _ex vitio naturalis temperamenti vel partium genitalium_; and the latter that which arises from some accident, as _ex casu vel morbo_.[40] Another definition of impotency in man is the _non posse seminare in vase idoneo_; three things being considered as indispensable to his due performance of the generative act.--_Ut arriget_ or erection; 2, _Ut vas fœmineum resaret_, or intromission, and 3, _Ut in vase seminat_, or emission.