THE _Contents_ of this SECTION will appear more evident, by looking curiously upon a _Female SKELETON_: In which (for Distinction’s-sake I recite _This_) that the lower Parts of the _Seat-Bones_, are generally more _distant_, and not so much bent _inwards_, down towards the Point of the OS COCCYGIS, as in a _Male SKELETON_. Which Difference, in short, the Omniscient CREATOR has so order’d, for preventing difficult _BIRTHS_; and yet, notwithstanding all this wise Provision of Nature, they happen too often in the World. However, having thus, in fine, described the PELVIS and its BONES, as far as is requisite for _MIDWIVES_, I come next, more particularly to describe that astonishing _Piece_ of GOD’S _Handy-work_, to which all the afore-mention’d _Parts_ are ordain’d to _minister_, and that both _conjunctly_ and _severally_, without any _Exception_: viz. [Illustration] CHAP. IX. _Of the WOMB._ I Say this is that _Body_, which the _Learned Great Men_ of all Ages have esteem’d and look’d upon as the most wonderful MIRACLE of _Nature_, not only because of its singular _Substance_ and _Structure_, but also of its peculiar _Qualities_ and _Faculties_. AS to the _Substance_ and _Structure_, I have before observed in _Chap. 6._ of this SECTION, that it is singularly composed, of an innumerable Multitude of _Fibrous Vessels_ and _Muscular Parts_; which being _All_ most curiously interwoven, are admirably form’d together in its Constitution. BUT how particular soever I have been on this _Head_, in _Chap. 5_, and _6_. I must resume this _Topick_ here, and add, that the WOMB, and its _Vagina_ or _Neck_, are closely join’d together: For it terminates in a POINT near its _Orifice_, intrudes itself into the _Vagina_, and hangs so down, that in _Women not with_ CHILD, and sometimes also in the first Months of _Pregnancy_, This sharp POINT may be perceiv’d by the _Touch_. AND how closely soever this _Orifice_ of the WOMB is shut after _Conception_ or during _Pregnancy_; yet in a _BIRTH_ it is so expanded, that the WOMB and _Vagina_ both seem to have but _One_ and the _same Cavity_, like a BAG of equal Dimensions; there being then no Difference perceivable between that _Orifice_ and the _Vagina_, excepting that the _VAGINA_ is _Softer_ and _Thinner_. THE WOMB may be otherwise aptly compar’d to the EARTH; because the same Degree of _Affinity_ that the EARTH has to the _Seed of Plants_, the WOMB bears to the _Seed of Men_: It being the very _Secundary Cause_ in the _Constitution_ of the _Human Conception_; not indeed the _Instrumental_ only, but also the _Active Cause_: For whereas the _Instrument_ takes _Motion_ from, and _operates_ by Virtue of _Another_, the WOMB only _acts_ of _itself_ and _operates_ by Virtue of its own _Active Faculties_.