Then how can the upper and lower, right and left, front and back parts
have been 'sundered'? All these points are unintelligible. Further,
some parts are distinguished by possessing a faculty, others by
being in certain states or conditions; the heterogeneous, as tongue
and hand, by the faculty of doing something, the homogeneous by
hardness and softness and the other similar states. Blood, then,
will not be blood, nor flesh flesh, in any and every state. It is
clear, then, that that which comes from any part, as blood from
blood or flesh from flesh, will not be identical with that part. But
if it is something different from which the blood of the offspring
comes, the coming of the semen from all the parts will not be the
cause of the resemblance, as is held by the supporters of this theory.
For if blood is formed from something which is not blood, it is enough
that the semen come from one part only, for why should not all the
other parts of the offspring as well as blood be formed from one
part of the parent? Indeed, this theory seems to be the same as that
of Anaxagoras, that none of the homogeneous parts come into being,
except that these theorists assume, in the case of the generation of
animals, what he assumed of the universe.
Then, again, how will these parts that came from all the body of the
parent be increased or grow? It is true that Anaxagoras plausibly says
that particles of flesh out of the food are added to the flesh.
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