206. XVIII. THAT THIS COMES TO PASS BECAUSE THE SOUL OF THE OFFSPRING IS FROM THE FATHER, AND ITS CLOTHING FROM THE MOTHER. That the soul is from the father is not called into question by any wise man. Moreover, in the case of posterities descended in a legitimate series from fathers of families, it is clearly seen from their dispositions, and also from their faces, the face being a type of the disposition; for the father returns as in effigy, if not in his sons, yet in his grandsons and great-grand-sons. This is because the soul makes the inmost of a man; and though this may be covered over by the proximate offspring, it yet comes out and reveals itself in a later progeny. That the soul is from the father and its clothing from the mother, can be illustrated by analogous things in the vegetable kingdom. In this kingdom, the earth or ground is the common mother; this receives seeds into itself as into a womb and clothes them, yea, as it were, conceives them, carries them, brings them forth, and educates them, as a mother her offspring from the father.