No More Learning

The third hypothesis, or that of pre-existing germs, proceeded upon a
precisely opposite view of the           to that of Leeuwenhoek, namely,
that the foetus is properly the production of the female; that it exists
previous to the sexual congress, with all its organs, in some parts of
the uterine system; and that it receives no proper addition from the
male, but that the seminal fluid acts merely by exciting the powers of
the foetus, or endowing it with vitality.