For, as we said above, the male and female
principles may be put down first and foremost as origins of
generation, the former as containing the efficient cause of
generation, the latter the material of it. The most conclusive proof
of this is drawn from considering how and whence comes the semen;
for there is no doubt that it is out of this that those creatures
are formed which are produced in the ordinary course of Nature; but we
must observe carefully the way in which this semen actually comes into
being from the male and female. For it is just because the semen is
secreted from the two sexes, the secretion taking place in them and
from them, that they are first principles of generation. For by a male
animal we mean that which generates in another, and by a female that
which generates in itself; wherefore men apply these terms to the
macrocosm also, naming Earth mother as being female, but addressing
Heaven and the Sun and other like entities as fathers, as causing
generation.
Male and female differ in their essence by each having a separate
ability or faculty, and anatomically by certain parts; essentially the
male is that which is able to generate in another, as said above;
the female is that which is able to generate in itself and out of
which comes into being the offspring previously existing in the
parent. And since they are differentiated by an ability or faculty and
by their function, and since instruments or organs are needed for
all functioning, and since the bodily parts are the instruments or
organs to serve the faculties, it follows that certain parts must
exist for union of parents and production of offspring.
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