g.
Coriscus or Socrates, and it is not only Coriscus but also a man. In
this way some of the characteristics of the father are more near to
him, others more remote from him considered simply as a parent and not
in reference to his accidental qualities (as for instance if the
parent is a scholar or the neighbour of some particular person).
Now the peculiar and individual has always more force in generation
than the more general and wider characteristics. Coriscus is both a
man and an animal, but his manhood is nearer to his individual
existence than is his animalhood. In generation both the individual
and the class are operative, but the individual is the more so of
the two, for this is the only true existence. And the offspring is
produced indeed of a certain quality, but also as an individual, and
this latter is the true existence. Therefore it is from the forces
of all such existences that the efficient movements come which exist
in the semen; potentially from remoter ancestors but in a higher
degree and more nearly from the individual (and by the individual I
mean e.g. Coriscus or Socrates). Now since everything changes not
into anything haphazard but into its opposite, therefore also that
which is not prevailed over in generation must change and become the
opposite, in respect of that particular force in which the paternal
and efficient or moving element has not prevailed. If then it has
not prevailed in so far as it is male, the offspring becomes female;
if in so far as it is Coriscus or Socrates, the offspring does not
resemble the father but the mother.
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