Kitap 3
3
Here, then, once more, we must observe well the Art [artistic tendency] of Nature — how she has not merely placed in each organ the capabilities of useful activities, but has also fore-ordained the times both of rest and movement. For everything connected with the pregnancy proceeds properly, the eliminative faculty remains quiescent as though it did not exist, but if anything goes wrong in connection either with the chorion or any of the other membranes or with the foetus itself, and its completion is entirely despaired of, then the uterus no longer awaits the nine-months period, but the retentive faculty forthwith ceases and allows the heretofore inoperative faculty to come into action. Now it is that something is done — in fact, useful work effected — by the eliminative or propulsive faculty (for so it, too, has been called, receiving, like the rest,its names from the corresponding activities).
