# History of Monsters, 393

in these words: "The 'container' is a certain skin enveloping the fetus, known as the afterbirth; thus, if this is ruptured, a fetus with two heads and only one body, or twins joined at the back, are born."

Licetus, in his work on monsters, explains this efficient cause with an exuberant and elegant abundance of speculation. He divides the cause into "remote" and "proximate." The remote cause is further subdivided: the first is the Supreme Creator of all things, who works alongside natural agents to produce all effects; the second remote cause he calls Heaven, which governs lower things through its perpetual motion and light. Next, he identifies the instrumental proximate efficient cause as the heat of the mother’s internal organs, while he points to the uterus itself as the secondary proximate cause. Furthermore, he divides the primary efficient cause of monsters into the principle that acts—which philosophers call "commensurate"—and this is that portion of the seed from which fertility arises. He further distinguishes this into the principle *by which* the commensurate agent acts: the power and soul of the seed communicated to it by the parents, insofar as it is the constitutive faculty for building the body of a living being—though not in an absolute sense, but rather as it is hindered from perfectly achieving its intended goal. From this, we gather that the proper efficient cause of monsters is the formative power of the parts of a living body.

If we turn our attention to the "final cause" (the purpose), we will not find it in the doctrine of Aristotle; since monsters are pure privations, they are neither intended nor understood by Nature. For this reason, monsters lack a final cause. However, St. Augustine, speaking theologically, attempts to assign a final cause to monsters when he writes: "For God is the Creator of all things, and He Himself knows where and when something ought to be or should have been created, for He knows the beauty of the universe and from which parts, whether by similarity or diversity, He weaves it together. But he who cannot inspect the whole is offended by the deformity of a part, for he is ignorant of what it fits and how it relates to the rest." Thus, from these words of St. Augustine, we can conclude that the final cause of monsters is the grace and beauty of the universe.

Ambroise Paré does not differ much from this opinion. Considering the matter, he stated that there are several causes for monsters, but the primary one is the glory of God—specifically, that His immense power might become known to all through the restoration of those things that occur outside the course of nature. Thus we read in the Gospel of the man born blind, to whom Christ restored sight beyond the power of nature. When the disciples investigated the reason why the man was born blind—asking if it was because he or his parents had sinned—the Lord replied that it happened not because of crimes, but so that the glory of God might be manifested through him. Paré adds that monsters were sometimes created for this purpose: so that God might either punish the sins of men or show signs of impending vengeance. Indeed, when men mingle without measure or law, in shameful and wandering unions, foul and horrific monsters that deviate from the norm of nature are sometimes born. Furthermore, Abulensis adds that such defects sometimes occur by the will of God to avoid greater evils for the one who suffers the defect, who might otherwise have become wicked if he had been formed with a healthy body. It must be noted, however, that this is a particular cause and cannot apply to all monsters.

Weinrichius, also looking toward these ends, attempts to show the two aforementioned causes—the glory of God and His wrath toward mortals—as the final cause of monsters. He adds a third cause: the free will of divine power, which is in no way bound by the laws of nature, as it has occasionally not even spared the Heavens. Licetus, however, dispatches this cause briefly, establishing a twofold purpose: a common one and a proper one. The common purpose is the perpetuity of species, since individuals cannot last forever, and this goal applies to every kind of living creature. Furthermore, he declares the "proper" purpose (provided we first understand that monsters are errors of Nature when its operation is hindered from achieving its intended goal): because Nature cannot achieve what it wishes, it performs what it can, producing a living being as similar to itself as possible in the constitution of its parts. Thus established, the final cause of monsters is a portion or partial fulfillment of the purpose of perfect animals; since Nature cannot reach the complete goal of perfect living beings, it achieves it only in part.