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Aristotle On Sterility 261of Generation of Animals would benefit from accepting ‘Hist. an. 10’ asAristotelian, since Aristotle’s silence, in Generation of Animals, on the rival(Platonic) view that the uterus changes its place in the female body wouldbe explained by the fact that he had already refuted this view in ‘Hist. an.10’. 7 According to Balme, the work known as ‘Hist. an. 10’ is by Aristotle butdoes not belong to History of Animals, 8 because it makes use of causal explanationwhereas the rest of History of Animals deliberately refrains from this. 9Thus in Balme’s view the relation of Generation of Animals to ‘Hist. an. 10’is the reverse of that between Generation of Animals and the rest of Historyof Animals, which Balme believes to be not the preliminary data-collectionwhich it was always held to be, and on which the explanatory biologicalworks (Generation of Animals (Gen. an.), Parts of Animals (Part. an.), Movementof Animals (De motu an.), Progression of Animals (IA)) were believedto be based, but a later summary based on these explanatory works. 10 Inthe case of ‘Hist. an. 10’, however, Balme claims that we are dealing with apreliminary study of the role of the female in reproduction which is later‘refined’ – but not contradicted – in the more mature Generation of Animals.Yet the issue is by no means definitively settled. Quite recently, SabineFöllinger, in her monograph on theories of sexual differentiation in ancientthought, once again advocated scepticism with regard to the questionof authenticity. 11 Apart from pointing out a number of serious difficultiesin Balme’s argumentation, her main argument against Aristotelianauthorship is that the author does not speak of the process of reproductionin the characteristically Aristotelian terms of form and matter.It seems to me that many of Föllinger’s objections to Balme’s analysis arejustified and that her cautious attitude to the question of authenticity isprudent, because in the present state of scholarship (i.e. in the absence of aproper commentary on ‘Hist. an. 10’) truly decisive arguments in favour ofor against Aristotelian authorship are very difficult to find, and any judgementis likely to remain, to a considerable extent, subjective. However, thisdoes not necessarily mean that scepticism is the only acceptable position.It is one thing to establish divergences of opinion between two works, butquite another to say that these divergences cannot coexist in the mind of onethinker, or at different stages in the development of his thought. Indeed,there are other, notorious and perhaps much more serious divergences of7 Balme (1985); see also Balme’s introductory remarks in his (1991) 26–30, and his notes to the text andtranslation (476–539).8 For the ancient evidence that it was added later to History of Animals, see below.9 See also Louis (1969) 148. 10 Balme (1991) 21–6. 11 Föllinger (1996) 143–56.