The next question to raise and to answer is this.If, in the case of those animals which emit semen into the female, that which enters makes no part of the resulting embryo, where is the material part of it diverted if (as we have seen) it acts by means of the power residing in it? It is not only necessary to decide whether what is forming in the female receives anything material, or not, from that which has entered her, but also concerning the soul in virtue of which an animal is so called (and this is in virtue of the sensitive part of the soul)- does this exist originally in the semen and in the unfertilized embryo or not, and if it does whence does it come? For nobody would put down the unfertilized embryo as soulless or in every sense bereft of life (since both the semen and the embryo of an animal have every bit as much life as a plant), and it is productive up to a certain point.That then they possess the nutritive soul is plain (and plain is it from the discussions elsewhere about soul why this soul must be acquired first).As they develop they also acquire the sensitive soul in virtue of which an animal is an animal.For e.g.an animal does not become at the same time an animal and a man or a horse or any other particular animal.For the end is developed last, and the peculiar character of the species is the end of the generation in each individual.Hence arises a question of the greatest difficulty, which we must strive to solve to the best of our ability and as far as possible.When and how and whence is a share in reason acquired by those animals that participate in this principle? It is plain that the semen and the unfertilized embryo, while still separate from each other, must be assumed to have the nutritive soul potentially, but not actually, except that (like those unfertilized embryos that are separated from the mother)it absorbs nourishment and performs the function of the nutritive soul.For at first all such embryos seem to live the life of a plant.And it is clear that we must be guided by this in speaking of the sensitive and the rational soul.For all three kinds of soul, not only the nutritive, must be possessed potentially before they are possessed in actuality.And it is necessary either (1) that they should all come into being in the embryo without existing previously outside it, or (2) that they should all exist previously, or (3), that some should so exist and others not.Again, it is necessary that they should either (1) come into being in the material supplied by the female without entering with the semen of the male, or (2) come from the male and be imparted to the material in the female.If the latter, then either all of them, or none, or some must come into being in the male from outside.
Now that it is impossible for them all to preexist is clear from this consideration.Plainly those principles whose activity is bodily cannot exist without a body, e.g.walking cannot exist without feet.For the same reason also they cannot enter from outside.
For neither is it possible for them to enter by themselves, being inseparable from a body, nor yet in a body, for the semen is only a secretion of the nutriment in process of change.It remains, then, for the reason alone so to enter and alone to be divine, for no bodily activity has any connexion with the activity of reason.
