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the mother warning of the greater pain she is yet to endure. The continuation of pregnancy, in woman, is usually nine months; but there have been many instances when the child has lived that was born at seven; and some are found to continue pregnant a month above the usual time. When the appointed time approaches, the infant, that has for some months been giving painful proofs of its existence, now begins to increase its efforts for liberty. The head is applied downward, to the aperture of the womb, and by reiterated efforts it endeavours to extend the same: these endeavours produce the pain, which all women, in labour, feel in some degree; those of strong constitutions the least, those most weakly the most severely; since we learn, that the women of Africa always deliver themselves, and are well a few hours after; while those of Europe require assistance, and recover more slowly. Thus the infant, still continuing to push with its head forward, by the repetition of its endeavours, at last succeeds, and issues into life. The blood which had hitherto passed through the heart, now takes a wider circuit; and the foramen ovale closes; the lungs, that had till this time been inactive, now first begin their functions; the air rushes in to distend them; and this produces the first sensation of pain, which the infant expresses by a shriek: so that the beginning of our lives, as well as the end, is marked with anguish.11

From comparing these accounts, we perceive that the most laboured generation is the most perfect; and that the animal, which, in proportion to its bulk, takes the longest time for production, is always the most complete when finished. Of all others, man seems the slowest in coming into life, as he is the slowest in coming to perfection; other animals, of the same bulk, seldom remain in the womb above six months, while he continues nine; and even after his birth, appears more than any other to have his state of imbecility prolonged.

We may observe also, that that generation is the most complete, in which the fewest animals are produced: Nature, by attending to the production of one at a time, seems to exert all her efforts in bringing it to perfection; but, where this attention is divided, the animals so produced come into the world with partial advantages. In this manner twins are never, at least while infants, so large or so strong, as those that come singly into the world; each having, in some measure, robbed the other of its right; as that support, which Nature meant for one, has been prodigally divided.

In this manner, as those animals are the best that are produced singly, so we find that the noblest animals are ever the least fruitful. These are seen usually to bring forth but one at a time, and to place all their attention upon that alone.

11 Bonet Contemplat. de la Nature, vol. i. p. 212. |

On the other hand, all the oviparous kinds produce in amazing plenty; and even the lower tribes of viviparous animals increase in a seeming proportion to their minuteness and imperfection. Nature seems lavish of life in the lower orders of the creation; and, as if she meant them entirely for the use of the nobler races, she appears to have bestowed greater pains in multiplying the number than in completing the kind In this manner, while the elephant and the horse | bring forth but one at a time, the spider and the beetle are seen to produce a thousand and even among the smaller quadrupeds, all the inferior kinds are extremely fertile; any one of these being found, in a very few months, to become the parent of a numerous progeny.

In this manner, therefore, the smallest animals multiply in the greatest proportion; and we have reason to thank Providence that the most formidable animals are the least fruitful. Had the lion and the tiger the same degree of fecundity with the rabbit or the rat, all the arts of man would be unable to oppose these fierce invaders; and we should soon perceive them become the tyrants of those who claim the lordship of the creation. But Heaven, in this respect, has wisely consulted the advantage of all. It has opposed to man only such enemies as he has art and strength to conquer; and as large animals require proportional supplies, nature was unwilling to give new life, where it, in some measure, denied the necessary means of subsistence.

In consequence of this pre-established order. the animals that are endowed with the most perfect methods of generation, and bring forth but one at a time, seldom begin to procreate till they have almost acquired their full growth. On the other hand, those which bring forth many, engender before they have arrived at half their natural size. The horse and the bull come almost to perfection before they begin to generate; the hog and the rabbit scarcely leave the teat before they become parents themselves.12 In whatever light, therefore, we consider this subject, we shall find that all creatures approach most to perfection. whose generation most nearly resembles that of man. The reptile produced from cutting is but one degree above the vegetable. The animal produced from the egg is a step higher in the scale of existence; that class of animals which are brought forth alive, are still more exalted. Of these, such as bring forth one at a time are the most complete and foremost of these stands Man, the great master of all, who seems to have united the perfections of all the rest in his formation.

12 See Note on the periods of reproduction in different animals, chap. xv. of this book.—Ev.

CHAP. III.

THE INFANCY OF MAN.

WHEN we take a survey of the various classes of animals, and examine their strength, their beauty, or their structure, we shall find man to possess most of those advantages united, which the rest enjoy partially. Infinitely superior to all || others in the powers of the understanding, he is also superior to them in the fitness and proportions of his form. He would, indeed, have been one of the most miserable beings upon earth, if with a sentient mind he was so formed as to be incapable of obeying its impulse; but Nature has otherwise provided; as with the most extensive intellects to command, she has furnished him with a body the best fitted for obedience.

In infancy, however, that mind and this body form the most helpless union in all animated nature; and, if anything can give us a picture of complete imbecility, it is a man when just come into the world. The infant just born stands in need of all things without the power of procuring any. The lower races of animals, upon being produced, are active, vigorous, and capable of self-support; but the infant is obliged to wait in helpless expectation; and its cries are its only aid to procure subsistence.

the quantity it receives. But still the infant is incapable of distinguishing objects; the sense of seeing, like the rest of the senses, requires a habit before it becomes any way serviceable. All the senses must be compared with each other, and must be made to correct the defects of one another, before they can give just information. It is probable, therefore, that if the infant could express its own sensations, it would give a very extraordinary description of the illusions which it suffers from them. The sight might, perhaps, be represented as inverting objects, or multiplying them; the hearing, instead of conveying one uniform tone, might be said to bring up an interrupted succession of noises; and the touch apparently would divide one body into as many as there are fingers that grasp it. But all these errors are lost in one confused idea of existence; and it is happy for the infant that it then can make but very little use of its senses, when they could serve only to bring it false information.

If there be any distinct sensations, those of pain seem to be much more frequent and stronger than those of pleasure. The infant's cries are sufficient indications of the uneasiness it must, at every interval, endure; while, in the beginning, it has got no external marks to testify its satisfactions. It is not till after forty days that it is seen to smile; and not till that time also, that tears begin to appear, its former expressions An infant just born may be said to come from of uneasiness being always without them. As to one element into another: for, from the watery any other marks of the passions, the infant being fluid in which it was surrounded, it now im- as yet almost without them, it can express none merges into air; and its first cries seem to im- of them in its visage; which, except in the act ply how greatly it regrets the change. How of crying and laughing, is fixed in a settled serenmuch longer it could have continued in a state ity. All the other parts of the body seem equally of almost total insensibility in the womb, is im- relaxed a feeble: its motions are uncertain possible to tell: but it is very probable that it and its postures without choice; it is unable to could remain there some hours more. In order stand upright; its hams are yet bent, from the to throw some light upon this subject, Mr. Buffon habit which it received from its position in the so placed a pregnant bitch, as that her puppies womb; it has not strength enough in its arms to were brought forth in warm water, in which he stretch them forward, much less to grasp anykept them above half-an-hour at a time. How-thing with its hands; it rests just in the posture ever, he saw no change in the animals, thus new-it is laid; and, if abandoned, must continue in ly brought forth; they continued the whole time the same position. vigorous; and, during the whole time, it is very probable that the blood circulated through the same channels through which it passed while they continued in the womb.

Nevertheless, though this be the description of infancy among mankind in general, there are countries and races among whom infancy does not seem marked with such utter imbecility, but where the children, not long after they are born, appear possessed of a greater share of self-support. The children of Negroes have a surprising degree of this premature industry; they are able to walk

Almost all animals have their eyes closed,2 for some days after being brought into the world. The infant opens them the instant of its birth. However, it seems to keep them fixed and idle; they want that lustre which they acquire by de-at two months; or, at least, to move from one grees; and if they happen to move, it is rather an accidental gaze, than an exertion of the act of seeing. The light alone seems to make the greatest impression upon them. The eyes of infants are sometimes found turned to the place where it is strongest; and the pupil is seen to dilate and diminish, as in grown persons, in proportion to

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place to another: they also hang to the mother's back without assistance, and seize the breast over her shoulder; continuing in this posture till she thinks proper to lay them down. This is very different in the children of our countries, that seldom are able to walk under a twelvemonth.

The skin of children newly brought forth, is always red, proceeding from its transparency, by which the blood beneath appears more conspi

cuous. Some say that this redness is greatest in those children that are afterwards about to have the finest complexions; and it appears reasonable that it should be so, since the thinnest skins are always the fairest. The size of a new-born infant is generally about twenty inches, and its weight about twelve pounds. The head is large, and all the members delicate, soft, and puffy. These appearances alter with its age; as it grows older, the head becomes less in proportion to the rest of the body; the flesh hardens; the bones, that before birth grew very thick in proportion, now lengthen by degrees, and the human figure more and more acquires its due dimensions. In such children, however, as are but feeble or sickly, the head always continues too big for the body; the heads of dwarfs being extremely large in proportion.

Infants, when newly born, pass most of their time in sleeping, and awake with crying; excited either by sensations of pain or of hunger. Man, when come to maturity, but rarely feels the want of food, as eating twice or thrice in the four and twenty hours is known to suffice the most voracious: but the infant may be considered as a little glutton, whose only pleasure consists in its appetite; and this, except when it sleeps, it is never easy without satisfying. Thus nature has adapted different desires to the different periods of life; each as it seems most necessary for human support or succession. While the animal is yet forming, hunger excites it to that supply which is necessary for its growth; when it is completely formed, a different appetite takes place, that incites it to communicate existence. These two desires take up the whole attention of different periods, but are very seldom found to prevail strongly together in the same age; one pleasure ever serving to repress the other: and, if we find a person of full age placing a principal part of his happiness in the nature and quantity of his food, we have strong reasons to suspect, that with respect to his other appetites he still retains a part of the imbecility of his childhood.

It is extraordinary, however, that infants, who are thus more voracious than grown persons, are nevertheless more capable of sustaining hunger. We have several instances, in accidental cases of famine, in which the child has been known to survive the parent, and seen clinging to the breast of its dead mother. Their little bodies also are more patient of cold; and we have similar instances of the mother's perishing in the snow, while the infant has been found alive beside her. However, if we examine the internal structure of infants, we shall find an obvious reason for both these advantages. Their bloodvessels are known to be much larger than in adults; and their nerves much thicker and softer thus being furnished with a more copious quantity of juices, both of the nervous and sanguinary kinds, the infant finds a temporary sus

tenance in this superfluity, and does not expire till both are exhausted. The circulation also being larger and quicker, supplies it with proportionable warmth, so that it is more capable of resisting the accidental rigours of the weather.

The first nourishment of infants is well known to be the mother's milk; and what is remarkable, the infant has milk in its own breasts, which may be squeezed out by compression; this nourishment becomes less grateful as the child gathers strength; and perhaps, also, more unwholesome. However, in cold countries, which are unfavourable to propagation, and where the female has seldom above three or four children at the most, during her life, she continues to suckle the child for four or five years together. In this manner the mothers of Canada and Greenland are often seen suckling two or three children, of different ages, at a time.

The life of infants is very precarious till the age of three or four, from which time it becomes more secure; and when a child arrives at its seventh year it is then considered as a more certain life, as Mr. Buffon asserts, than at any other age whatever. It appears from Simpson's Tables, that of a certain number of children born at the same time, a fourth part are found dead at the end of the first year; more than one-third at the end of the second; and, at least, half at the end of the third: so that those who live to be above three years old, are indulged a longer term than half the rest of their fellow-creatures. Nevertheless, life, at that period, may be considered as mere animal existence; and rather a preparation for, than an enjoyment of, those satisfactions, both of mind and body, that make life of real value: and hence it is more natural for mankind to deplore a fellow-creature, cut off in the bloom of life, than one dying in early infancy. The one, by living up to youth, and thus wading through the disadvantageous parts of existence, seems to have earned a short continuance of its enjoyments: the infant, on the contrary, has served but a short apprenticeship to pain; and when taken away, may be considered as rescued from a long continuance of misery.

There is something very remarkable in the growth of the human body. The embryo in the womb continues to increase still more and more till it is born. On the other hand, the child's growth is less every year till the time of puberty, when it seems to start up of a sudden. Thus, for instance, the embryo, which is an inch long in the first month, grows but one inch and a quarter in the second; it then grows one and a half in the third; two and a half in the fourth; and in this manner it keeps increasing till in the last month of its continuance it is actually found to grow four inches; and in the whole about eighteen inches long. But it is otherwise with the child when born: if we suppose it eighteen inches

3 Buffon, vol. iv. p. 173.

at that time, it grows in the first year six or seven inches; in the second year, it grows but four inches; in the third year about three; and so on, at the rate of about an inch and a half, or two inches each year, till the time of puberty, when nature seems to make one great last effort, to complete her work, and unfold the whole animal machine.

The growth of the mind in children seems to correspond with that of the body. The comparative progress of the understanding is greater in infants than in children of three or four years old. If we only reflect a moment on the amazing acquisitions that an infant makes in the first and second years of life, we shall have much cause for wonder. Being sent into a world where every thing is new and unknown, the first months of life are spent in a kind of torpid amazement; an attention distracted by the multiplicity of objects that press to be known. The first labour, therefore, of the little learner is, to correct the illusions of the senses, to distinguish one object from another, and to exert the memory, so as to know them again. In this manner a child of a year old has already made a thousand experiments; all which it has properly ranged, and distinctly remembers. Light, heat, fire, sweets, and bitters, sounds soft or terrible, are all distinguished at the end of a very few months. Besides this, every person the child knows, every individual object it becomes fond of, its rattles, or its bells, may be all considered as so many new lessons to the young mind, with which it has not become acquainted, without repeated exertions of the understanding. At this period of life, the knowledge of every individual object cannot be acquired without the same effort which, when grown up, is employed upon the most abstract idea; every thing the child hears or sees, all the marks and characters of nature, are as much unknown, and require the same attention to attain, as if the reader were set to understand the characters of an Ethiopic manuscript; and yet we see in how short a time the little student begins to understand them all, and to give evident marks of early industry.

one of the letters; nor without an effort of the memory, that they can retain them. For this reason, we frequently see them attempting a sound which they had learned, but forgot; and when they have failed, I have often seen their attempt attended with apparent confusion. The letters soonest learned, are those which are most easily formed; thus A and B require an obvious disposition of the organs, and their pronunciation is consequently soon attained. Z and R, which require a more complicated position, are learned with greater difficulty. And this may, perhaps, be the reason why the children in some countries speak sooner than in others; for the letters mostly occurring in the language of one country, being such as are of easy pronunciation, that language is of course more easily attained. In this manner the children of the Italians are said to speak sooner than those of the Germans, the language of the one being smooth and open : that of the other, crowded with consonants, and extremely guttural.

But be this as it will, in all countries children are found able to express the greatest part of their wants by the time they arrive at two years old; and from the moment the necessity of learning new words ceases, they relax their industry. It is then that the mind, like the body, seems every year to make slow advances; and, in order to spur up attention, many systems of education have been contrived.

Almost every philosopher, who has written on the education of children, has been willing to point out a method of his own, chiefly professing to advance the health, and improve the intellects at the same time. These are usually found to begin with finding nothing right in the common practice; and by urging a total reformation. In consequence of this, nothing can be more wild or imaginary than their various systems of improvement. Some will have the children every day plunged in cold water, in order to strengthen their bodies; they will have them converse with the servants in nothing but the Latin language, in order to strengthen their minds; every hour of the day must be appointed for its own studies, and the child must learn to make these very studies an amusement; till about the age of ten or eleven it becomes a prodigy of premature improvement. Quite opposite to this, we have others, whom the courtesy of mankind also calls

It is very amusing to pursue the young mind, while employed in its first attainments. At about a year old the same necessities that first engaged its faculties, increase as its acquaintance with nature enlarges. Its studies, therefore, if I may use the expression, are no way relaxed; for hav-philosophers; and they will have the child learn ing experienced what gave pleasure at one time, it desires a repetition of it from the same object; and in order to obtain this, that object must be pointed out; here therefore, a new necessity arises, which, very often, neither its little arts not importunities can remove; so that the child is at last obliged to set about naming the objects it desires to possess or avoid. In beginning to speak, which is usually about a year old, children find a thousand difficulties. It is not without repeated trials that they come to pronounce any

nothing till the age of ten or eleven, at which the former has attained so much perfection; with them the mind is to be kept empty, until it has a proper distinction of some metaphysical ideas about truth; and the promising pupil is debarred the use of even his own faculties, lest they should conduct him into prejudice and error. In this manner, some men, whom fashion has celebrated for profound and fine thinkers, have given their hazarded and untried conjectures, upon one of the most important subjects in the

ten, have not made an adequate progress to twenty. It should seem, that they only began learning manly things before their time; and, while others were busied in picking up that knowledge adapted to their age and curiosity, these were forced upon subjects unsuited to their years; and, upon that account alone, appearing extraordinary. The stock of knowledge in both may be equal; but with this difference, that each is yet to learn what the other knows.

world, and the most interesting to humanity. | who have been such prodigies of literature before When men speculate at liberty upon innate ideas, or the abstracted distinctions between will and power, they may be permitted to enjoy their systems at pleasure, as they are harmless, although they may be wrong; but when they allege that children are to be every day plunged in cold water, and, whatever be their constitution, indiscriminately inured to cold and moisture; that they are to be kept wet in the feet, to prevent their catching cold; and never to be corrected when young, for fear of breaking their spirits when old; these are such noxious errors, that all reasonable men should endeavour to oppose them. Many have been the children whom these opinions, begun in speculation, have injured or destroyed in practice; and I have seen many a little philosophical martyr, whom I wished, but was unable to relieve.

If any system be therefore necessary, it is one that would serve to show a very plain point; that very little system is necessary. The natural and common course of education is in every respect the best; I mean that in which the child is permitted to play among its little equals, from whose similar instructions it often gains the most useful stores of knowledge. A child is not idle because it is playing about the fields, or pursuing a butterfly; it is all this time storing its mind with objects, upon the nature, the properties, and the relations of which, future curiosity may speculate.

But whatever may have been the acquisitions of children at ten or twelve, their greatest, and most rapid progress, is made when they arrive near the age of puberty. It is then that all the powers of nature seem at work in strengthening the mind and completing the body; the youth acquires courage, and the virgin modesty; the mind, with new sensations, assumes new powers; it conceives with greater force, and remembers with greater tenacity. About this time, therefore, which is various in different countries, more is learned in one year than in any two of the preceding; and on this age, in particular, the greatest weight of instruction ought to be thrown.

CHAP. IV.

OF PUBERTY.

It has been often said, that the season of youth is the season of pleasures; but this can only be true in savage countries, where but little preparation is made for the perfection of human nature; and where the mind has but a very small part in the enjoyment. It is otherwise in those places where nature is carried to the highest

I have ever found it a vain task to try to make a child's learning its amusement; nor do I see what good end it would answer, were it actually attained. The child, as was said, ought to have its share of play, and it will be benefited thereby; and for every reason also it ought to have its share of labour. The mind, by early labour, will be thus accustomed to fatigues and subordina-pitch of refinement, in which this season of the tion; and whatever be the person's future em- greatest sensual delight is wisely made subserployment in life, he will be better fitted to endure vient to the succeeding and more rational one of it: he will be thus enabled to support the drud- manhood. Youth with us is but a scene of pregeries of office with content; or to fill up the vacan- paration; a drama, upon the right conduct of cies of life with variety. The child, therefore, which all future happiness is to depend. The should by times be put to its duty; and be taught youth who follows his appetites too soon, seizes to know, that the task is to be done, or the pun- the cup before it has received its best ingreishment to be endured. I do not object against dients; and, by anticipating his pleasures, robs alluring it to duty by reward; but we well know, the remaining parts of life of their share; so that that the mind will be more strongly stimulated his eagerness only produces a manhood of imbeby pain; and both may, upon some occasions,cility, and an age of pain. take their turn to operate. In this manner, a The time of puberty is different in various child, by playing with its equals abroad, and countries, and always more late in men than in labouring with them at school, will acquire more women. In the warm countries of India, the health and knowledge, than by being bred up women are marriageable at nine or ten, and the under the wing of any speculative system-maker; men at twelve or thirteen. It is also different and will be thus qualified for a life of activity in cities where the inhabitants lead a more soft and obedience. It is true, indeed, that when luxurious life, from the country, where they work educated in this manner, the boy may not be so harder, and fare less delicately. Its symptoms seemingly sensible and forward as one bred up are seldom alike in different persons, but it is under solitary instruction; and, perhaps, this usually known by a swelling of the breasts in one early forwardness is more engaging than useful. sex, and a roughness of the voice in the other. It is well known, that many of those children | At this season, also, the women seem to acquire

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