The second question, Whether the female has really a seminal liquor similar to the male? demands some discussion. I shall first observe, as a certain matter, that if such a fluid exists, the manner in which the emission of the female is made is not so apparent as by the male, being in general retained within the body.[BJ] The ancients so little doubted of the female having a seminal liquor, that it was by the different mode of its emission that they distinguished the male from the female. But physicians, who have endeavoured to explain generation by the egg, or by spermatic animalcules, insinuate that females have no particular fluid, that we have been deceived by taking the mucus for the seminal, and that the supposition of the ancients upon this subject was destitute of all foundation. Nevertheless this fluid does exist, and it has only been doubted by those who chose to give way to systems, and from the difficulty of discovering the parts which serve for its reservoirs. The fluid which issues from the glands at the neck of the womb, and at the orifice of the urethra, has no apparent reservoir, and as it flows outwardly it cannot be thought to be the prolific liquor, since it cannot concur in the formation of the foetus which is performed within the matrix. The prolific fluid of the female must have a reservoir in another part. It flows even in great plenty, although such a quantity is not necessary, no more than in the male, for the production of the embryo. It is sufficient for propagation if ever so little of the male fluid enters the matrix, so it meets with the smallest drop of that of the female; therefore the observations of some anatomists, who have pretended that the seminal liquor of the male does not enter the womb, makes nothing against what we have advanced, especially as other anatomists, who rely on observations, have pretended the contrary. But the subject will be better discussed in the subsequent pages. [BJ] Quod intra se semen jacit fæmina vocatur; quod in hac jacit, mas, Aristotle, art. 18 de Animalibus.