For Nature is accustomed to rehearse with certain large, perhaps baser, and all classes of wild (animals), and to place in the imperfect the rudiments of the perfect animals.

This, however, seems to be certain: the ichor, that is, the material I have mentioned that finally becomes red, exists before the heart begins to beat, but the heart exists and even beats before the blood reddens.

In such sad circumstances I but see myself exalted by my own enemies, for in order to defeat some small works of mine they try to make the whole rational medicine and anatomy fall, as if I were myself these noble disciplines.

We are many small puppets moved by fate and fortune through strings unseen by us; therefore, if it is so as I think, one has to prepare oneself with a good heart and indifference to accept things coming towards us, because they cannot be avoided, and to oppose them requires a violence that tears our souls too deeply, and it seems that both fortune and men are always busy in affairs for our dislike because the former is blind and the latter only think of their interest.

The generation of seeds ... is therefore marvelous and analogous to the other productions of living things. For first of all an umbilicus appears. ... Its extremity gradually expands and after gathering a colliquamentous ichor becomes analogous to an amnion. ... In the course of time the seed or fetus begins to become visible.

Observation by means of the microscope will reveal more wonderful things than those viewed in regard to mere structure and connection: for while the heart is still beating the contrary (i.e., in opposite directions in the different vessels) movement of the blood is observed in the vessels-though with difficulty-so that the circulation of the blood is clearly exposed.

The seed is the fetus, in other words, a true plant with its parts (that is, its leaves, of which there are usually two, its stalk or stem, and its bud) completely fashioned.