History of Monsters. 399

proclaimed that monsters derive their origin from Fate, and Domitius Ulpianus likewise published his view that Fate is the cause of monsters. However, this is not accepted on all counts, since causes other than celestial ones would be superfluous in producing these effects, for, as Aristotle testifies, it is pointless to do through many things what can be done through fewer. Therefore, the Heavens alone do not concur in this generation.

Others have assigned the cause of these monsters to the powerful imagination of the parents. On this subject, Ludovicus Vives relates the following: "The books of the natural philosophers are full of the idea that things seen during conception possess great power over the offspring; hence, spouses are advised to have elegant images around the marriage bed." In the city of 's-Hertogenbosch in Brabant, as in other cities of that land, on the appointed day when they celebrate the dedication of the city’s great cathedral, there is a public procession and plays are performed in honor of various saints. Some people dress as saints, while others dress as demons. One of these men is said to have rushed into bed with his wife, telling her he wanted to father a demon with her. The woman conceived, and the infant was born with the very form in which demons are usually depicted. The Lady Margaret, daughter of Emperor Maximilian, told this story to Juan de Lamuza, a man of incredible prudence who was then the legate of King Ferdinand. Thus far Vives.

Ambroise Paré records that in the year 1517, in the parish of Reégi, a live frog was tied to the palm of the hand of a common woman suffering from a fever. That night, she lay with her husband and became pregnant; she later gave birth to a fetus with the face of a frog. It is also told that there was a citizen of Wittenberg with a corpse-like face who explained that while he was being carried in the womb, his mother had been terrified by the sight of a corpse, and as a result, the fetus was made to resemble it. We might add the case of a certain woman who unexpectedly saw her husband with a wound in his chest; in the very place where the wound had been, her child later had a visible gash in its chest. We also recall reading that a modest matron was so terrified by the sudden appearance and sight of a dormouse that the fetus in her womb degenerated into the shape of that little beast.

There have been some, however, who dared to resist the authorities of Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, and Saint Thomas to challenge the power of imagination in the generation of monsters. To establish their own opinion, they reasoned in this manner: a wonderful variety in color, shape, and taste is observed in the fruits of plants, yet imagination does not exist in plants; therefore, it contributes nothing to generation. Furthermore, they dismiss the various imaginations of parents during intercourse as superfluous, since the seed is discharged into the womb without a fixed form. They also deny imagination a role in generation because the fetus is produced neither by the soul of the father nor the mother, but by a third something existing within the seed. Moreover, they assert that during intercourse, such a great pleasure arises that the powers of the soul are hindered by a kind of swoon, leaving no room for imagination. Finally, they point out that a dog is sometimes said to have been born from a human womb, yet it is in no way believable that a desire to produce a dog was excited in the human mind.

To destroy their first argument, we should assert that the power of imagination should not be granted such status as to be the adequate principle of generation itself, for then plants, lacking sensation, would not propagate offspring. While variety is observed in the fruits of plants even though they lack imagination, it must be understood that this can arise from the nourishment supplied by the vegetative soul, or from the air, the location, or other causes of this kind. Therefore, the imaginative faculty does not always produce the variety of parts in an animal fetus, as this can also flow from other causes. And although the power of imagination is manifest in the Holy Scriptures regarding the rods of Jacob—by the sight of which the flocks brought forth lambs that were partly white and partly black—Aristotle nevertheless attributed this effect to the drinking of waters. He left it written that through the use of different waters, some animals change their colors, being made white in one place and black in another. Indeed, there are waters in many places which, when sheep drink them and soon after mate, they produce black lambs. In the land of Assirithis in the Chalcidian territory of Thrace, this is achieved by a river which they call *Psychros* (the Cold One) because of its extreme chill. Moreover, in Atandria there are two rivers, one of which imparts whiteness and the other blackness to the livestock that drink from them, and so on through many other places where rivers run