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Updated: July 15, 2025
However it may be with these conjectures, whether the human race may always have existed upon the earth, whether it may have been a recent production of nature, whether the larger animals we now behold were originally derived from the smallest microscopic ones, who have increased in bulk with the progression of time, or whether, as the Egyptian philosophers thought, mankind were originally hermaphrodites, who like the aphis produced the sexual distinction after some generations, which was also the opinion of Plato, and seems to have been that of Moses, who was educated amongst these Egyptians, as may be gathered from the 27th and 28th verses of the first chapter of GENESIS: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created be him; male and female created he them And GOD blessed them, and GOD said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth:" it is not therefore presuming too much to suppose, as the Egyptians were a nation very fond of explaining their opinions by hieroglyphics, that that part which describes Eve as taken out of Adam's rib, was an hieroglyphic emblem: showing that mankind was in the primitive state of both sexes, united, who was afterwards divided into males and females.
Turning for a brief space to animals: various terrestrial species are hermaphrodites, such as the land-mollusca and earth-worms; but these all pair. As yet I have not found a single terrestrial animal which can fertilise itself.
But when there is not Matter enough to Form the genital Parts of a Boy, the oeconomy of the Intelligence Husbands it and places and disposes all things so well for the perfect forming of the Parts that 'tis not to be express'd, but the situation is inward, as wanting Heat and Strength of Matter to push them out, after this the Intelligence proceeds in the Forming of the privy Parts of those Hermaphrodites who are counted Girls, but are really Boys.
Partaking of the double character of brig and schooner, the sails and spars of the forward-mast being of the former, while those of the after-mast were of the latter construction, seamen have given to this class of shipping the familiar name of Hermaphrodites.
No amount of Greek epigrams by Strato and Meleager, nor all the Hermaphrodites and Priapi of Rome, had power to annul the law of conduct established by the founders of Christianity, and ratified by the higher instincts of the Middle Ages.
ROWE, which I take it will not be improperly inserted in this Place. Intrigues of Hermaphrodites and Masculine Females. The hotter the Climate, the stronger are the Inclinations to Venery.
The Hermaphrodites of Licetus, which conceiv'd and brought forth Children, were real Women taken for Men, by reason of the length and bigness of their Clitoris: And the Fisherman's Wife, mention'd by Antonius de Palma, was only a Male, call'd the third sort of Hermaphrodites undiscover'd, which was afterwards manifested in the coming out of the Parts of a Man, when she had been fourteen Years married.
This wonderful circumstance of many insects being hermaphrodites, and at the same time not having power to impregnate themselves, is attended to by Dr. Lister, in his Exercitationes Anatom. de Limacibus, p. 145; who, amongst many other final causes, which he adduces to account for it, adds, ut tam tristibus et frigidis animalibus majori cum voluptate perficiatur venus.
Of aquatic animals, there are many self-fertilising hermaphrodites; but here currents in the water offer an obvious means for an occasional cross.
Nevertheless with the pulmoniferous gasteropods, or land-snails, the pairing is preceded by courtship; for these animals, though hermaphrodites, are compelled by their structure to pair together.
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