Buffon's Natural History. Volume 04 (of 10) / Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c

Barr’s Buffon.

Buffon’s Natural History.

CONTAINING

A THEORY OF THE EARTH,
A GENERAL
HISTORY OF MAN,
OF THE BRUTE CREATION, AND OF
VEGETABLES, MINERALS,
&c. &c.

FROM THE FRENCH.
WITH NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR.
IN TEN VOLUMES.
VOL. IV.

PRINTED FOR THE PROPRIETOR,
AND SOLD BY H. D. SYMONDS, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1807.
T. Gillet, Printer, Wild-court.

CONTENTS
OF
THE FOURTH VOLUME.

[Directions for placing the Plates.]

[Page 91], Fig. [13], [14], [15], [16], [17].

BUFFON’S
NATURAL HISTORY.

INFANCY CONTINUED.

Infants, when newly born, sleep much, though with frequent interruptions. As they are also in frequent want of nourishment, they ought in the day to receive the breast every time they awake. The greatest part of the first month they pass in sleep, and do not seem to awake, but from a sense of pain or hunger; their sleep, therefore, generally terminates with a fit of crying. As they are compelled to remain in the same position in the cradle, confined by shackles, their situation soon becomes painful. Their excrements, whose acrimony is offensive to their tender and very delicate skin, often render them wet and chilly; and in this distress, by their cries alone can they call for relief. With the utmost assiduity ought this relief to be given them; or rather such inconveniences ought to be prevented by frequently changing part of their cloathing both night and day. The Savages deem this an object so essential, that though their changes of skins cannot possibly be so frequent as ours of linen, yet they supply this deficiency by the use of other substances; of which there is no necessity to be sparing. In North-America, a quantity of dust obtained from wood that has been gnawed by worms is placed at the bottom of the cradle, and which they renew as often as appears requisite. On this powder the infant is laid, and covered with skins; and though a bed of feathers, it is pretended, cannot be more soft and easy, yet it is not used to indulge the delicacy of the child, but to keep it clean; which in effect it does, by drawing off the moisture of every kind. In Virginia, they place the child naked upon a plank covered with cotton, and provided with a hole as a passage for the excrement. Here the cold is often unfavourable to such a practice; but it is almost general in the East of Europe, and especially in Turkey. This custom has this further advantage, it precludes all care, and is the most certain method of preventing the ill effects which too frequently result from the usual negligence of nurses. It is maternal affection alone which is capable of supporting that continual vigilance, that minute attention, which a new-born infant requires. How then can such vigilance, such care, be expected from a mercenary groveling nurse?

Some nurses desert their children for several hours without feeling the smallest anxiety; and others are so cruel as to be unaffected with their cries; then do the helpless innocents seem to be in a kind of despair; then do they exert every effort of which they are capable; and, till their strength actually forsakes them, implore assistance by their cries. If these violent agitations do not create some distemper, they discompose, however, the temperament and constitution of the child, and even influence perhaps its disposition.

There is another abuse which lazy nurses are frequently guilty of: instead of employing effectual methods for pleasing the infant, they rock it furiously in the cradle; this procures a momentary cessation of its cries, by confusing its brain, and if long continued stuns the child into a sleep. But this sort of sleep is merely a palliative, and so far is the agitation by which it was obtained from removing the cause of complaint, that it may disorder the head and stomach, and be the foundation of future disorders of very fatal consequence.

Before children are put into the cradle, we ought to be certain they want nothing, and they should never be rocked with such violence as to confound or stun them. If their sleep is not sound, a slow and equal motion of the cradle is sufficient to render it so; nor ought they to be rocked often, for if accustomed to this motion they will not sleep without it. Though children in good health should sleep long and spontaneously, yet the temperament of the body may be injured by too much. In this case they should be roused by gentle motion; their ears ought to be amused with some soft and agreeable sounds, and their eyes with some brilliant and striking objects. It is at this age they receive their first impressions from the sense, and these are, perhaps, of more future importance than many may imagine.

The eyes of infants are always directed to the strongest light in the room, and if from the child’s situation only one eye can be directed to it, the other, for want of exercise, will remain more weak. To prevent this inconvenience the foot of the cradle ought to be so placed that the light, whether it comes from a window or a candle, may front it. In this position both eyes receive it alike, and thus by exercise acquire equal strength. If one eye becomes stronger than the other, the child will squint; for it is incontestably proved, that the inequality of strength in the eyes is the cause of squinting.

For the first and second months, and even for the third and fourth, the infant, especially when its constitution is weak and delicate, ought to receive no nourishment but milk from the breast. Whatever be its strength, it may receive material injury if any other food is given it during the first month. In Holland, in Italy, in Turkey, and in general over all the Levant, children have nothing but the breast for a whole year. The savages of Canada suckle them till they are four or five, and sometimes six or seven years of age. With us most nurses have not a sufficiency of milk to satisfy the demands of their children; and in order to be frugal of what they have, they feed them, even from the first, with a composition of boiled flour and milk. This nourishment allays their hunger; but as their stomachs and bowels are yet too weak to digest a gross and viscous substance, they suffer by it, and not unoften die by indigestions.

The milk of animals may supply the deficiency of that of the mother in cases of necessity; but then it is highly necessary the child should receive it, by sucking the animal’s teat, in order that it may be of an equal and proper warmth, and that by the action of the muscles in sucking it may mix with the saliva, which facilitates digestion. In the country I have known several peasants who had no other nurses but ewes; and these peasants were as vigorous as any that had been suckled by their mothers.

After two or three months, when the child has acquired strength, they begin to give it food a little more solid, consisting of a kind of bread made of flour and milk, which disposes the stomach to receive the common bread, and such other nutriment as it will afterwards be accustomed to.

As an introduction to the use of solid food, the consistency of liquid food is gradually increased, and therefore, after having habituated the child to flour and milk boiled, they next give it bread diluted in some convenient fluid. During the first year infants are incapable of mastication, their teeth still continuing enveloped in the gums, which are so soft that their feeble resistance can produce no effect on any solid matter. Some nurses, especially among the common people, chew the food first, and then give it to the child, a practice from which, before we reflect upon it, we ought to banish every idea of disgust, which can make no impression upon infants. So far from feeling anything of that kind, they as readily receive food from the mouth of the nurse as from her breasts; nay it seems to proceed, from a natural propensity, by its being introduced in a number of countries widely different from each other. We find it in Italy, in Turkey, in the greatest part of Asia, in America, in Canada, &c. I conceive it to be highly useful, from being the only method by which the stomach of children can be furnished with the saliva that is required for the digestion of solid food. If the nurse chews a bit of bread, her saliva dilutes it, and renders it more nutritious than if it had been moistened in any other liquid, yet this practice is only necessary till they are supplied with teeth to chew their food, and dilute it with their own saliva.

The incisores, or fore teeth, are eight in number, four in the front of each jaw-bone. These generally appear first, though seldom till seven, eight, or ten months. Some few infants have been born with teeth so sharp as to cut their nurse’s nipple. The original substance of the teeth is lodged in sockets, and covered by the gums, to the bottom of which it extends its roots, and pressing forward by little and little, at length forces its way through them. Though this operation is natural, it is not, however, consonant to the general laws of Nature, which constantly operate upon the human body, without exciting any painful sensation. Here Nature makes a violent and an excruciating effort, which is sometimes attended with fatal consequences. In breeding their teeth children lose their sprightliness, and become peevish and restless. The gums are at first red and swelled, and afterwards, when the pressure is ready to intercept the course of the blood in the veins, they appear white. They are constantly applying their fingers to the affected part as if endeavouring to assuage its irritation: they obtain further relief by putting into their mouth a bit of ivory, coral, or any other hard and polished substance they are supplied with, which they rub on that part of the gums that is most affected. This action relaxes the parts, and affords a momentary cessation of the pain; it also helps to attenuate the membrane of the gum, which, from the double pressure it then sustains, must break the more easily; yet this laceration, or rupture of the gums, is frequently attended with no small degree of pain and danger. When the gums are more firm than usual, by the solidity of the fibres of which they are composed, their resistance to the action of the tooth is more obstinate, and occasions an inflammation, with all its deadly symptoms. In order to preclude this, an incision may be successfully made on the gum, by means of which minute operation the inflammation ceases, and the teeth obtain a free passage.

The canine, or dog teeth, which are next to the incisores, are in number four, and commonly appear in the ninth or tenth month. About the end of the first, or in the course of the second year, sixteen other teeth appear, which are called molares, or grinders, four of which are situated on each side of the dog teeth. The periods for the cutting of the teeth vary in different children, and though it is pretended that those of the upper jaw usually appear first, yet it often happens that they are preceded by those of the under.

The incisores, the canine, and the first four of the molares, are generally shed in the fifth, sixth, or seventh year, but they are commonly replaced by others in the seventh year, though sometimes not till the age of puberty. The shedding of these sixteen teeth is occasioned by the expansion in the gums for the new set which are at the bottom of the sockets, and by their growth press out the first. There not being any beneath the other grinders they remain, unless forced out by accident, and when lost they are hardly ever recovered.

There are four other teeth still, which are situated at the extremity of each jaw, but which every person does not have. These seldom appear till the age of puberty, and sometimes later; they are called dentes sapientiæ, or wisdom-teeth, and either appear one after another, or two at a time. The only reason of there being a variety in the number of teeth, which is from 28 to 32, is the irregularity of the wisdom-teeth. Women, it has been observed, have generally fewer teeth than men.

Some authors pretend that the teeth would continue to grow through life, if it were not for their continual attrition, occasioned by the food on which man subsists, and increase in size (as is the case in several animals) in proportion as he advances in age. But this opinion is contradicted by experience; for persons who live wholly on liquid nutriment have not teeth longer than those who live on solid food, and if any thing is capable of wearing the teeth, it is rather their mutual friction one against another than mastication. Besides, they possibly deceive themselves by confounding teeth with tusks, as to the growth of the former in certain animals. The tusks of the wild boar and elephant, for example, continue to grow during life, but it is highly improbable that the teeth of either, when once arrived at their natural size, should afterwards increase. Tusks have a greater affinity, by far, with horns than with teeth; but this is not the proper place to enter into their specific differences, nor shall any thing further be added, than that the first set of teeth in children is of a substance less solid than the subsequent one, and more loosely fixed in the jaws.

It is often asserted, that the first hair of children is always brown, but that it presently falls off, and is succeeded by hair of a different colour. Whether the remark is just or not I cannot determine, but the hair of most children is fair, and, in many instances, almost white. In some it is red, and in others black, yet in those who are to have fair or brown complexions, the hair in the earliest stage of infancy, is fair in a greater or less degree. Those who give a promise of future fairness have generally blue eyes, those likely to be red have a yellowish shade in their eyes, and those who will be brown have a darker yellow; but colours are very imperfectly distinguished in the eyes of new-born infants, because they have almost all the semblance of blue.

When a child is suffered to cry too violently, and too long, it may in consequence be afflicted with a rupture, in which case an early application of bandages is necessary; with this assistance the complaint is removed with ease, without it the disease may last for life.

The limits of my plan admit not a detail of every disease incidental to children. I shall only remark, that worms, and all verminous diseases, very evidently owe their origin to the nature of their food. Milk is a kind of chyle, an unadulterated nutriment; it consists of organic and generative substances, and, therefore, if not digested by the stomach, and made use of in the expansion and growth of the body, it assumes, by its essential activity, other forms, and produces animated beings, particularly worms, in such quantities, that the infant is often in danger of falling a victim to them. A part of the bad effects that accrue from worms, might probably be prevented, by allowing children to drink a little wine, because all fermented liquors counteract the generation of worms, and besides contain but few organic nutritive particles: it is chiefly by its action upon the solids that wine gives strength, and it may be rather said to fortify the body than to strengthen it. Besides, the generality of children are fond of wine, at least easily accustomed to drink it.

However delicate the frame may be in infancy, it is yet less sensible of cold than during any other period of life. As the pulse of infants is more quick than that of adults, it may, from this circumstance alone, be concluded, that the internal heat is proportionally greater. On the same principle it is hardly to be doubted, that of this heat small animals have a greater share than the large; it has invariably been found, that, in the same degree the animal is small, the motion of the heart and arteries is proportionally vigorous and quick; and this is ever the case in the same as well as in different species. The pulse of an infant, or of a man of small stature, is more frequent than that of a grown person, or a man of a large size. The pulse of an ox is slower, and a dog quicker than that of a man; and so precipitate are the motions in the heart of an animal still smaller, as a sparrow, for instance, they can hardly be counted.

Till the age of three years the life of an infant is highly precarious. In the course of the ensuing two or three years, however, it becomes more certain; and at the age of six or seven a child has a greater probability of living than at any other age. By consulting Simpson’s tables of the degrees of mortality, at different ages, as applicable to London, it appears, that, of a certain number of children, born at one time, above a fourth of them died in the first year, above a third in two years, and, at least, one half in the first three years. If this calculation is just a wager might be proposed, that an infant, when born, would not live three years. A man who dies at the age of twenty-five is to be lamented for the short duration of his life; and yet, according to these tables, one half of mankind die before the age of three years, consequently, every individual who has passed his third year, far from repining at his fate, ought to consider himself as treated with superior favour by his Creator. But this mortality in children is by no means so great in every place as in London. M. Dupré de St. Maur has proved, by a number of experiments made in France, that one half of the children born at the same time are not extinct in less than seven or eight years. By these experiments it is also shewn, that at the age of five, six, or seven years, the life of a child is more certain than at any other age, and that an equal bet may be laid for 42 years more, whereas in proportion as a child lives beyond five, six, or seven years, the probable number of years it will live decreases. At twelve years, for instance, the equal chance is only for 39 years; at 20, for 33¹/₂; at 30, for 20; and thus forward, till the age of 85, when there is an equal chance of living three years longer.[A]

[A] In the course of this volume we shall present our readers with a table, at large, of the different probabilities of human life.

There is one thing very remarkable in the growth of the human body. The fœtus in the womb continues to increase more and more in equal periods, till the birth. The infant, on the contrary, increases less and less, that is in the same period of time, till the age of puberty, to which it seems to bound, as it were, at once. The fœtus, for example, is an inch long in the first month, two inches and a quarter in the second; three inches and a half in the third; five inches and upwards in the fourth; six inches and a half, or even seven inches, in the fifth; eight inches and a half, or nine inches, in the sixth; eleven inches, in the seventh; fourteen inches, in the eighth; and eighteen inches, in the ninth. Although this measurement may vary in different children, yet if the child be 18 inches at its birth, it will hot increase more than six or seven inches in the first year after: that is, at the end of the first year, it will be 24 or 25 inches; of the second, 28 or 29 inches; of the third, only 30, or, at most 32 inches; and from this age till that of puberty, it will not advance more than one inch and a half, or two inches, in the course of each year. From these remarks it is evident that the fœtus increases more in a month, towards the close of its residence in the matrix than the infant does in a year, till it arrives at the age of puberty; when Nature seems to make one grand effort to unfold the animal machine, and render her work complete.

So essential is it, that the constitution of the nurse should be sound, and her juices untainted that we have many instances of diseases being imparted from the nurse to the infant, and from the infant to the nurse. Whole villages have been infected with the venereal virus, by nurses suckling the children of other women.

Were mothers to suckle their own offspring it is probable the latter would be more strong and vigorous. The milk of a stranger must be less proper for them than that of the mother, for as the fœtus is nourished in the matrix by a fluid, which bears a strong resemblance to the milk that is formed in the breasts, the infant, therefore, is already, as it were, habituated to the milk of its mother. The milk of any other woman, on the contrary, is a nourishment new to the child, and sometimes so different from the other that it is difficult to make the child take it: and if forced will sicken and languish, from not being able to digest the milk of the nurse; a circumstance which, if the consequences are not seasonably prevented by the substitution of another nurse, soon proves fatal.

I cannot help observing, that the custom of crowding a multitude of children into one place, as in the hospitals of large cities, is highly repugnant to what ought to be the grand object proposed, their preservation. The greatest part of such children fall victims to a kind of scurvy, or to other diseases, from which they might have been exempted, had they been brought up in different houses, or rather in the country. The same expence would be sufficient for their support, and an infinity of lives, in which it is well known consist the real riches of a state, would be saved.

At twelve or fifteen months infants begin to lisp. A is the vowel which they articulate with most ease, as it requires nothing more than the opening of the lips, and forcing out the breath. E requires that the tongue should be raised as the lips are opened; and is therefore pronounced with a degree of more trouble. I is attended with greater difficulty, as in the articulation of the vowel the tongue is elevated still more, and made to approach the teeth of the upper jaw. In the pronunciation of O, the tongue must be lowered, and the lips contracted; and in that of U, the latter must be also contracted, and in some degree extended. The first consonants which children pronounce are those which require the least motion in the organs. Of these the most easy of articulation are B M and P. For that of B and P it is simply requisite that the lips should be closed and then opened with quickness, and for that of M, that they should be first opened and then closed with celerity. The articulation of the other consonants supposes motions more complicated. The pronunciation of C D G L N Q R S and T depend each on a particular action of the tongue, which it would be very difficult to explain; and for the pronunciation of F, a more continued sound is necessary, than for that of any other consonant. A being the most easily articulated of the vowels, as are B P and M, of the consonants, we need not wonder that the first words which children pronounce, in every country, should be composed of, that vowel, and of those consonants; and that, for example, in every language, Baba, Mama, Papa, should be the primitive articulations. They are the most familiar sounds to man, and the most natural to him, because the most easily pronounced, and the letters of which they are composed must exist wherever there is any typical mode for the denotation of sounds.

It is to be observed, however, that as the sounds of several consonants are nearly similar; those, for instance, of E and P, of C and S, of K and Q, in certain cases; of D and T, of F and V, of G and J, of G and K, of L and R, so there may be many languages in which such consonants are not to be found. But in every language, there must be a B or a P, a C or an S, a K or a Q, a D or a T, an F or a V consonant, a G or a J consonant; an L or an R, and in the most contracted of all alphabets, there cannot be less than six or seven consonants, for of that number there are simple sounds, which have all a very sensible difference from each other. Those children who do not readily articulate R, substitute L for it; and in the place of T they articulate D. Indeed L and D require more difficult movements in the organs than either R or T; and it is from this difference, and from the choice of consonants more or less easy of articulation, that the softness or the harshness of a language proceeds. But on this subject it would be superfluous to enlarge.

Some children pronounce distinctly, and repeat whatever is said to them, at two years, though the generality do not speak for the first two years and a half, and often not so early. It has been observed, that those who are most backward, never speak with the same facility as those who begin to articulate more early, and that those who are in that respect the most forward, may learn to read before the expiration of the third year. Some I have myself known, who had begun to read at two years, and who read to admiration at four. After all, it is difficult to determine whether there is any advantage to be derived from such premature education. With so little success indeed, is it generally attended, that we see and hear of numbers, who, though they had been prodigies at the age of four, eight, twelve, and sixteen years, are found, however, at those of twenty-five, or thirty, to be downright block-heads, or men of very inferior abilities. I am convinced, therefore, that education is the best, which does not compel Nature, and which is proportioned to the strength and capacity of the child.

[CHAPTER III.]

OF PUBERTY.

Puberty immediately succeeds childhood and attends us to the end of our days. Till this period arrives the sole object of Nature seems to have been the growth and preservation of her work. She supplies the infant with nothing but what is necessary for its bodily increase. Wrapped up, as it were, within itself, its existence, in some respects, resembles that of a vegetable, and which it has not the power to communicate. Presently, however, the principles of life multiply; and it not only possesses what is necessary for its own being but sufficient to give existence to others. This superabundance of life, this source of strength and vigour, impatient of its internal restraint, vents itself abroad, and the age of puberty is announced by a number of external and internal marks; it is the spring of life and the season of pleasure. Of that age may we be enabled to write the history with such circumspection as to excite in the imagination none but philosophical ideas! Puberty, however, and the circumstances that accompany it, as circumcision, castration, virginity, and impotency, are of too essential consequence in the History of Man to allow a suppression of facts to which they relate. In giving a detail of them we shall endeavour to maintain that modest reserve which constitutes the true decorum of style, that philosophical apathy which may destroy loose ideas, and give it in words confined to their literal import and original signification.

Circumcision is a custom very ancient, and which still subsists in the greatest part of Asia. Among the Hebrews this operation was performed within eight days after the birth. In Turkey they never perform it before the age of seven or eight years, and often not even till that of eleven or twelve. In Persia, the practice is general at the age of five or six. The wound thus occasioned is healed with caustic or astringent powders, or with burned paper, which, according to Chardin, is the most effectual remedy; he adds, that circumcision is attended with infinite pain when performed on grown persons; that they cannot stir abroad after it for three weeks or a month, and that sometimes it proves fatal to them.

In the Maldivia islands they circumcise their children at the age of seven; and previous to this operation they bathe them in the sea for six or seven hours, in order to render their skin more soft. The Israelites made use of a sharpened flint, a custom which the Jews still continue in most of their synagogues. The Mahometans, however, use a common knife, or a razor.

Were it not for their precaution in cutting it in childhood, the Turks, it is alledged, and the inhabitants of many other countries in which circumcision is practised, would naturally have their prepuces too long. Boulaye tells us, that in the deserts of Mesopotamia and Arabia, on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates, he saw a number of Arabian boys, whose prepuces were so long, that, without the aid of circumcision, he imagined they would be unfit for procreation.

The skin of the eye-lids is also longer in the Oriental than in other nations. The skin is a substance similar to that of the prepuce; but what relation, in point of growth, can subsist between two so distant parts?

Girls in several parts of Arabia, towards the Gulph of Persia and the Red Sea, are equally subjected to this operation as boys. But in these countries, as there is no previous overgrowth of the nymphæ, they are not circumcised till they have passed the age of puberty. In other climates this exuberance is indeed far more early; and it is so general among the inhabitants of certain countries, as those near the river Benin, that they circumcise girls as well as boys within eight, or at most fifteen days after their birth. The circumcision of females is of great antiquity in Africa; and even Herodotus mentions it as being a custom of the Ethiopians.

Circumcision may have been founded on necessity, yet infibulation and castration could never have taken place but from jealousy, or from some gloomy and superstitious frenzy, some wretched antipathy to the human race, or from some envious tyrant who enacted laws to make privation a virtue, and mutilation a merit.

Infibulation is performed upon boys by drawing the prepuce forward, making an incision, and putting a coarse thread through it, till the cicatrice is healed; and then, in the room of that, is substituted a kind of ring, which remains as long as the person pleases who gave orders for the operation, and sometimes for life. The Oriental monks, who have made a vow of chastity, wear rings of a large size, in order that they may be compelled to observe this vow inviolate. We shall hereafter speak on the infibulation of girls; on this head nothing can be supposed too fantastic or absurd, which men, borne away by passion, or immersed in superstition, have scrupled to put in practice.

Though in infancy there is sometimes but one testicle in the scrotum, and sometimes not any, yet we must not suppose in either case that this is a real defect. It often happens, that the testicles are retained in the abdomen, from whence they at length extricate themselves, and descend to the natural place. This generally happens at the age of eight or ten years, though sometimes not till that of puberty. They are scarcely ever concealed after this age, when Nature makes violent efforts to bring them forward: the same effect is sometimes produced by some violent motion, as a leap, a fall, &c. Even when the testicles do not manifest themselves, the procreative powers are not the less perfect; and it has been observed, that persons in that situation are often the most vigorous.

There are men who have but one testicle, but this defect is of little consequence, and in that case is much larger than the usual size. Others have three, and such are said to possess a vast superiority of bodily force and vigour. From a view of the animal, creation, we perceive how much these parts contribute to strength and courage; how great, for example, is the difference between a bull and an ox, a wether and a ram, a capon and a cock.

The custom of castrating the human species is of great antiquity. Among the Egyptians it was the established punishment of adultery. Among the Romans eunuchs were very numerous; and to this day in Asia, and a part of Africa, men thus mutilated are employed to attend and act as guards to the chastity of the women. In Italy, the sole object of this infamous and cruel operation is to perfect the voice. The Hottentots cut out one testicle, by the privation of which they imagine they will become more nimble racers. In other countries, the poor people adopt the practice in order to prevent their children from being able to generate, and by that means save them from that distress and anguish which they themselves experience when they cannot procure food for their support.

The different kinds of castration are numerous; those intended for vocal perfection only suffer the extraction of the two testicles; but those who are instigated by the gloomy distrust of jealousy think their females far from being safe if guarded by such eunuchs, nor will they countenance any but what have had the external parts of generation utterly exterminated.

Amputation is not the only method used for this purpose. Formerly some people prevented the growth of the testicles, and rendered them useless by bathing their children in warm water, or in decoctions of plants, and then pressing and rubbing the testicles till the organization was destroyed. Others compressed them with an instrument, and it is pretended, that from this mode of castration the life is not exposed to the smallest danger.

The amputation of the testicles is not very hazardous; it may be performed at any age, yet that of infancy is esteemed the most favourable. The amputation of the whole external parts of generation, however, is more often mortal than otherwise, especially if performed after the age of fifteen; and even at the most favourable age, which is from, seven to ten, it is still attended with danger. The difficulty of preserving them renders the eunuchs of this species by far the most valuable. Tavernier says, that in Turkey and Persia they cost five of six times more than any others. Chardin observes, that the entire amputation is always accompanied with the most agonizing pain; that it is performed with tolerable safety on children, but with great danger after the age of fifteen; that more than a fourth fall victims to it; and that it takes at least six weeks to heal the wound. Pietro della Valle, on the other hand, asserts that those who undergo this operation in Persia, as a punishment for rapes, or other crimes of that nature, recover from it with ease, even when they are advanced in years, and that they apply to the wound nothing but a few ashes. Whether those who suffered the same punishment formerly in Egypt, as related by Diodorus Siculus, found the consequences of it equally mild, we know not; but, according to Thevenot, numbers of the children of negroes perish, whom the Turks force to undergo this operation, although performed at the early age of between eight to ten.

Besides negro eunuchs, there are others in Turkey, Persia, &c. who chiefly come from the kingdom of Golconda, the Peninsula on this side the Ganges, the kingdoms of Assan, Pegu, and Malabar, where their complexion is grey, and from the Gulph of Bengal, where it is of an olive colour. There are also white eunuchs from Georgia and Circassia, tho’ not in great numbers. Tavernier says, that during his residence in Golconda, in 1657, there were not less than 22,000 eunuchs made. The black ones come from Africa, and chiefly from Ethiopia. Those are the most prized whose appearance is the most ugly and horrible; a flat nose, a countenance ghastly, thick large lips and protuberant, and black straggling teeth are the esteemed qualities. These people have commonly very fine teeth; but such would be a very great defect in a black eunuch, who must be a hideous monster.

Eunuchs who have been deprived of only their testicles, still feel an irritation in the parts that are left, and have the external mark of desire even more frequently than other men. Those parts, however, remain, as to size, nearly in the same state as before the operation; and if this is performed at the age of seven years, an eunuch of twenty is, in this respect, as a child of seven. If it is not, on the contrary, performed till the time of puberty, or a little after, the size is nearly the same as that in other men.

Between the parts of generation and the throat there are particular connections, altho’ we know not the cause. Eunuchs have no beard, their voice, though shrill and powerful, is never of a deep tone; and not unoften does the throat become the seat of the secret distemper. The correspondence which certain parts of the body have with others, widely remote and of a different nature, ought to be more generally observed; but we pay too little attention to effects, when we do not surmise their causes. Thus it is, that though in effect the action of the animal machine in a great measure depends upon them, these different affinities remain unexamined with that care they deserve. In women, there is a great correspondence between the matrix, the breasts and the head: and how many beneficial facts of this kind might, be found if a few able physicians would direct their studies to such discoveries! These muscles, veins, arteries,, and nerves, which they describe with so much accuracy, and with so much fidelity, are not the springs which give life to our organization. There resides in organized bodies certain internal powers, which are by no means guided by the laws of gross mechanism; instead of attempting to know the nature of those powers by their effects, the very ideas of them have been treated as ideal, and endeavours have been made to discard and banish them from philosophical researches. These very powers, nevertheless, have maintained their importance in gravitation, in the phenomena of electricity, &c. But, however evident and universal they may be, as their action is wholly internal, and they are solely objects of reason, it is with a kind of unwillingness that they are admitted; inclination still leads us to judge from external appearances; we form a notion, that in those appearances every thing consists, and that we are not allowed to penetrate farther; and thus we effectually turn our hacks upon that which might lead to refined information.

The ancients, whose genius was less limited, and whose philosophy was more extended, were not embarrassed at meeting with things they were at a loss to explain. More intimately acquainted with Nature; with them, a sympathy, a particular correspondence, was only a phenomenon; but with us, if we cannot reduce it to our pretended laws of motion, it is a paradox. They knew that most of the effects of Nature were produced by means beyond human foresight, they knew it was impossible to reduce them to any particular principles of action, and modes of operation; and therefore with them it was sufficient to have remarked a certain number of relative effects, in order to constitute a cause.

Whether, with the ancients, we call sympathy this peculiar correspondence of the different parts of the body, or, with the moderns, we consider it as an unknown relation in the action of the nerves, it exists through the whole animal economy; and, were the perfection of the theory of physic our object, too much attention could not be paid to its effects. But this is not a place to enlarge on a subject of so much importance. I shall only observe, that this correspondence between the voice and the organs of generation is discovered not only in eunuchs but in other men, and even in women. In men, the voice changes at the age of puberty; and in women, a strong voice is suspected to indicate a superior propensity to love.

The first sign of puberty is a kind of stiffness in the groin, which becomes more sensible in walking, or in bending the body forward. This stiffness is frequently accompanied with pungent pains in the joints, and also with a new sensation in the parts which characterize the sexes. The voice is, for some time, harsh and unequal, and afterwards it becomes more full, strong, and articulate. This change is very perceptible in boys, but less so in girls, because the sound of their voices is naturally more acute.

These signs of puberty are common to both the sexes, but there are others peculiar to each; as in females, the menstrual discharge and the expansion of the breasts; and in males, the beard, and power of generating. These signs, it is true, are not alike certain. The beard, for example, does not always appear precisely at the age of puberty; and there even exist whole nations where the men have hardly any beard. There is no nation, however, in which the puberty of the female sex is not indicated by the enlargement of the breasts.

Universally through the human species women arrive at puberty sooner than men. But that age is different in different countries, and seems to depend on the temperature of the climate and the quality of the food. Among people who live at their ease, and feed plentifully, children arrive at this state two or three years sooner than those in the country, and among the poorer classes of people, whose food is less nourishing and more scanty. In the southern parts of Europe, and in cities, the majority of girls attain puberty at about twelve years, and boys at fourteen; but in the regions of the north, and in country places, the former are hardly so at fourteen, or the latter at sixteen.

Should it be asked why females in every climate are capable of engendering more early than men? It might be satisfactorily replied, that men are much larger and stronger, their bones more hard, their muscles more firm and compact, and therefore a longer time is required for their growth. And as it is not till after the growth is completed that the superfluity of the organic particles is dispersed into the parts of generation, females must of course arrive at maturity sooner than the males.

In the hot climates of Asia, Africa, and America, girls are generally mature at ten years of age, and often at nine; and though the menstrual discharge is less copious in warm countries it is yet more early. The intervals between are nearly the same in every country, and in this respect there seems to be a greater difference between individuals than between nations. In the same climate and nation some women are subject to the menstrua at the end of every fifteenth day, while others are free from them for six weeks; but a month, however, two or three days over or under, is the usual period.

The quantity of the discharge seems to depend on the quantity of nourishment, and of insensible perspiration. Women who eat much, and exercise little, have the most copious discharge? in warm countries it is always least, because the perspiration is great. As to its duration, it is generally from three to four or five days, though sometimes to six, seven, and even eight days.

The material causes of it are supposed to be a superfluity of blood and nutritive particles. The symptoms which precede are certain indications of repletion; as heat, tension, swelling, and the pains which women feel, not only in the parts themselves, and the adjoining ones, but also in the breasts, which swell and discover a surplus of blood by the areolæ, or the circle about the nipple, becoming of a deeper colour. The eyes are oppressed, and underneath their orbits the skin assumes a blue or violet tint; the cheeks are flushed; the head is heavy and full of pain; and the whole body in general is in a state of oppression from the surcharge of blood.

At the age of puberty the body usually attains its full growth in length. Just before, young people sometimes increase several inches, but the quickness of growth is most sudden and perceptible in the genitals of both sexes. This growth in males is an expansion merely, but in females it is often attended with a contraction, to which different appellations have been given in explaining the signs of virginity.

Mankind, jealous of every kind of pre-eminence, have always put a superior value on what they could first possess, and that to the exclusion of others. This species of folly has given a positive entity to the virginity of women. Virginity, which is nothing but a moral, being a virtue that solely consists in the purity of the heart, men have, as with one consent, converted into a physical object, and in which they also fancy themselves much interested. From these absurd opinions, usages, ceremonies, superstitions, and even awards and punishments, have been established: abuses the most illicit, and customs the most shocking and disgraceful, have been authorized. To ignorant matrons, and to prejudiced physicians, have young women been obliged to submit the most secret parts of Nature for examination, without their reflecting that such acts of indecency is a downright attack upon chastity, and that every immodest, every indelicate situation, which caused an internal blush, was little less than prostitution.

The prejudices that have been formed on this head I despair of removing. Things which mankind take a pleasure in believing, however nugatory and unreasonable they may be, they will always believe; yet, as it is the province of history to relate not only the accession of events, and the circumstances of facts, but also the origin of predominant opinions and errors, I think it my indispensable duty, in the History of Man, to examine this favourite idol to which he sacrifices; to consider what the reasons are by which he is prompted to pay that adoration, and to enquire whether virginity, as he understands it, is a real or merely a fabulous divinity.

Fallopius, Vesalus, Bartholin, Heister, Ruysch and many other anatomists, pretend, that the membrane of the hymen is a substance which actually exists, and which ought to be numbered among the parts of generation peculiar to women. They maintain further, that this membrane is fleshy, very thin in children, but more thick in grown girls; that it is situated under the orifice of the urethra, and that it partly closes the passage of the vagina; that there is a hole pierced through it, sometimes round, sometimes long, so small that a pea can hardly be passed through in infancy, or a bean at puberty. The hymen, according to Winflow, is a membranous kind of wrinkle, more or less circular, and sometimes semi-lunar, with an aperture, in some very small, and in others more large. Dulaurent, Graaf, Pineus, Mauricea, and other anatomists, of at least equal reputation and authority with those first quoted, insist, on the other hand, that the membrane of the hymen is nothing but a chimera, a part by no means natural to girls, and express their astonishment that it should have ever been mentioned as a thing which has an actual and real existence. In confirmation of this doctrine they adduce a multitude of observations made on girls of different ages, whom they had dissected, in none of whom this membrane was to be found. They confess that they have seen, though very rarely, a membrane that united certain fleshy protuberances, which they call carunculæ myrtiformes; but this membrane they insist is by no means consonant to the natural state of the parts. Anatomists are not more united as to the quality and number of these carunculæ. Are they merely wrinkles of the vagina? Are they distinct and separate parts? Do they belong to the membrane of the hymen? Is their number certain? Is there only one, or are there many, in the state of virginity? Each of these questions has been asked, and to each a different answer has been given.

This contrariety of opinion, as to a fact which depends upon a simple inspection, is a proof of the eagerness of mankind to discover in Nature things which alone exist in their own imaginations. Several anatomists frankly declare they never found either the hymen or carunculæ, even before the age of puberty, while others, in maintaining that this membrane, and these carunculæ do exist, confess, that they are substances which vary in form, size, and consistency, in different subjects; that sometimes in the place of the hymen there is only a single caruncula; that at other times there are two or more united by a membrane, and that the shape of the aperture is of different forms. From all these observations what conclusions are to be drawn, but that the causes of the pretended contraction in the passage of the vagina are not certain, and that when they do exist their effect is transient and susceptible of different modifications? Anatomy leaves no entire certainty as to the existence of this membrane of the hymen and these carunculæ, of course it authorizes us to reject such tokens of virginity, not only as uncertain but as imaginary. The effusion of blood, though a more common sign, is not less equivocal. In every age this has been deemed a certain proof of virginity; and yet all such proof is nothing, where the entrance of the vagina is naturally relaxed or dilated. Neither is it confined to virgins, as many women who pretend not to that denomination, frequently experience an effusion off blood. From some it flows copiously, and repeatedly; from others in a very small quantity, and only once; and from some it never flows at all. This diversity depends on the age, the health, the conformation of the parts, and a number of other circumstances. A few of these we shall enumerate, and at the same time endeavour to investigate the causes of those physical tokens which have been laid down as certain proofs of virginity.

At the age of puberty, the parts of both sexes undergo a considerable change. Those of man advance so quickly, that in two or three years they attain their full growth, those of women also increase at this period, especially the nymphæ, which though before almost imperceptible, become now large and evident. The menstrual discharge happens at the same time; and all the parts being still in a state of growth, swell by an increase of blood, and mutually compress each other. The orifice of the vagina contracts, though the vagina itself has considerably increased. The form of this contraction must be very different in different subjects, for from the information of anatomists, it appears, there are sometimes four, at others only three or two carunculæ, and that sometimes there is found a circular, or semi-lunar series of folds and wrinkles. But one thing anatomists have never told us; namely, that whatever form this contraction may assume, it never appears before the age of puberty.

In the young girls whom I have had occasion to see dissected, nothing of that kind was to be found; and having collected several facts on this subject, I can with confidence maintain, that when a girl has conversed with a man before puberty, there is no effusion of blood, provided the disproportion of the parts had not been too great, or the efforts had not been too violent. At full puberty, on the other hand, that effusion often happens, even from trifling causes; especially if she is of a full habit, and regular. This sign of virginity is rarely observed in such as are meagre or subject to the fluor albus; and, what evidently proves it to be fallacious, is the frequency of its repetition. In some women four, and even five times, has this pretended virginity been renewed in the space of two or three years; and often been successfully practised by some on their deluded husbands upon being suspected of incontinency, and that purely by abstinence. This renovation, however, only happens from the fourteenth to about the eighteenth year. When the growth of the body is finished the parts remain in the state they then are; and when they assume a different appearance, it is only by such expedients and artifices as, to mention here, would be alike unnecessary and improper.

As nothing, therefore, can be more chimerical than the prejudices of men, with respect to virginity, so nothing can be more uncertain than the pretended signs of it. A young woman may have commerce with a man, before the years of puberty, and yet discover no signs of virginity; yet afterwards, the period of puberty being arrived, this same woman shall exhibit all these pretended signs, while a real virgin may not have the smallest effusion whatever. Men, therefore, ought to make themselves very easy as to this point, and not give a loose, as they often do, to unjust and idle suspicions.

Were we desirous to obtain an evident and undoubted sign of virginity, we should search for it among those barbarous nations who, incapable of instilling, by education, the sentiments of virtue and honour into their children, secure the chastity of their daughters by expedient which nothing could have suggested but the rudeness of their manners. The people of Ethiopia, and other parts of Africa, of Pegu, Arabia Petræa and other nations of Asia, draw together by a kind of needle-work, the part which Nature has separated, leaving only a space sufficient for the necessary evacuations. As the child grows, the parts gradually adhere; insomuch that, when the time of marriage arrives, they must unavoidably be disunited by incision. For this infibulation of girls, as it is a substance not subject to corruption, they use the fibres of the asbestos. Some tribes only use a kind of ring; to this practice, wives as well as girls are subjected, with this single difference, that the ring alloted to the latter cannot be removed, and in that alloted to the former there is a lock of which the husband alone possesses the key. But why quote barbarous nations, when we have similar examples so much nearer home? What is the delicacy on which some of our neighbours pique themselves, with respect to the chastity of their wives, but a jealousy, equally barbarous and criminal?

How various are the dispositions, manners, and opinions of different nations? After what has been here related of the high estimation in which virginity is held by the bulk of mankind, and of the precautions and ignomious methods they employ, in order to secure it, could it be imagined there were other nations who despise it, and who consider the trouble of removing it as a servile office?

Prompted by superstition, the inhabitants of certain countries resign the first fruits of virginity to their priests, and sometimes to their very idols. This privilege is enjoyed by the priests of Cochin and Calicut; and in Goa, virgins are prostituted, either voluntarily or forcibly, by their nearest relations to an idol of iron. Of these vile excesses, gross superstition and a blind sense of the duties of religion, have been the sources, while motives more earthly have induced people of other countries eagerly to devote their daughters to their chiefs. In this manner, without any dishonour, do they prostitute their daughters in the kingdom of Congo. Nearly the same is the custom in Turkey, in Persia, and in several other countries, both of Asia and Africa, where the most eminent nobles deem themselves, in the highest degree, honoured by receiving from their sovereign, women with whom he is himself already disgusted.

In the kingdom of Arracan, and in the Philippine islands, a man would think himself much disgraced were he to espouse a female who had not been defloured; and it is only by dint of money that a person can be prevailed with to precede the husband. In the province of Thibet, a mother will search for a stranger, and earnestly beg of him to put her daughter in a situation for obtaining a husband. The Laplanders also prefer such women as have already had a commerce with strangers, from an idea that they must be possessed of more merit than others, otherwise they could not have pleased men whom they consider as better judges of beauty than themselves. In Madagascar, and in several other countries, women the most dissolute and debauched are those who are married the soonest. Many more instances might be produced of this peculiar fancy, which could never have subsisted but from a gross and utter depravation of manners.

Marriage is the natural state of man after puberty. A man ought to have but one wife, and a woman but one husband; This is the law of Nature, the number of females being nearly equal with that of males, and ignorance and tyranny must have been the leading features where men have established laws in opposition to it. Reason, humanity, and justice, complain aloud of those odious seraglios, in which the liberty and the affections of many women are sacrificed to the brutal passion of one individual. Are these tyrants of mankind the more happy by this pre-eminence?—No; surrounded with eunuchs, and with women, useless to themselves and to other men, the misery they have created is a constant source of torment and perplexity.

Marriage, therefore, as it is established among us, and among every other people who are guided by the light of reason and revelation, is a state which is suited to man, and in which he ought to employ the additional faculties he has acquired by puberty: by obstinately persisting in celibacy they will become troublesome, and even fatal. From a too long continence in either sex diseases may arise, or at least create irritations so violent, that reason and religion would not be sufficient to counteract the impetuosity of the passions which they excite, and thus man may be reduced to a level with the brutes, which, under the impression of such sensations, become furious and ungovernable.

The most violent effect of this irritation in women is the furor uterinus, a kind of mania, which disorders their reason and bereaves them of all sense of shame. With words the most lascivious, and with actions the most indecent, is this melancholy distemper accompanied and its origin revealed. I have seen a girl at the age of twelve years, of a brown but lively and florid complexion, small in size, yet strong and plump, commit the most indecent actions at the very sight of a man, from which nothing could divert her, neither the presence of her mother, expostulation, nor punishment. Her reason, however, forsook her not, and the paroxysms, which were so violent as to excite horror, ceased the minute she was left with her own sex. Aristotle says, it is at this age the irritation is greatest, and girls ought then to be most attentively watched. The remark may be applicable to the climate in which he lived, but in countries more cold, the female constitution does not become warm so early.

When the furor uterinus increases to a certain degree marriage is no remedy for it and instances there are of its being fatal. Happily the force of Nature is rarely of itself the cause of such dreadful passions, even when the temperament inclines to them; and before they arrive at this extremity many causes must concur, of which the principal is, an imagination inflamed by licentious conversation and obscene representations. The contrary temperament is infinitely more common among women, the generality of whom are, with respect to this passion, exceedingly cool or indifferent. Of men too, there are many in whose chastity there is little merit; and some I have known, who, at the age of twenty-five and thirty, enjoyed a good state of health without having ever experienced this passion so urgent as to render a gratification necessary.

From continence there is less to be feared than from excess, as is strikingly evinced in a number of men, some of whom, by the effects of the latter, lose their memory; some are deprived of sight; some become bald, and many have dwindled into a consumption and died.

Of the irreparable injury done to their health by venereal indulgences, young persons can never be sufficiently warned. How many cease to be men, or who at least cease to enjoy the faculty of manhood, before the age of thirty? And how many at fifteen, or eighteen, have received the infection of a disease, which is not only in itself disgraceful, but often incurable.

It has already been observed, that at the age of puberty, the growth usually ceases. It often happens, however, that in the course of a tedious illness, the body increases more in length, than would have been the case in a state of perfect health. This is probably occasioned by the external organs of generation remaining without action during that period. The organic nutriment, having no irritation to determine it to those parts, does not reach them; and the want of this irritation is owing to an imbecility and lassitude of the parts, which prevent the secretion of the seminal fluid. As the organic particles, therefore, remain in the mass of blood, the extremities of the bones are necessarily enlarged, nearly in the same manner as those of eunuchs. Thus young people, on their recovery from along course of sickness, are frequently taller, but worst shaped, than formerly. Some, for instance, become crooked-backed, others crook-legged; and this, because the still ductile extremities of the bones have been necessarily extended by the superfluity of the organic particles, whose only office, in a state of health, would have been the formation of the seminal fluid.

To produce children is the object of marriage, though this object is sometimes frustrated. Among the different causes of sterility there are some alike common to men and women; but as in men they are more apparent, to men they are more commonly attributed. In both sexes, sterility is occasioned either by an inherent defect in the conformation of the organs, or by accidental injuries to the organs themselves. Among men, the most essential imperfections in the conformation are those which affect the testicles, or those parts called the erectores penis. The false direction of the urethra, which is sometimes not only oblique, but badly perforated, is another obstacle to generation; as is the adherence of the prepuce to the bridle, which may, however, be corrected. In women, the conformation of the matrix may likewise be imperfect; and the perpetual closure or expansion of the orifice of the matrix, are defects which are alike repugnant to generation. But the most frequent cause of sterility, both in men and women, is the corruption of the seminal liquid in the testes; for if the secretion, by which the semen be formed, is vitiated, the fluid must be incapable of impregnation; in which case, though the organs may have every appearance of being properly qualified for it, there will be no procreation; but these causes have no external appearance.

In cases of sterility, different means have been employed to discover whether the defect was to be imputed to the man or the woman. Of these, inspection is the chief; and indeed, if the sterility be occasioned by an external fault in the conformation, this is sufficient. But if the defect is in the internal organs, it is almost impossible to discover or remove it. There are men, to all appearance well formed, who want the genuine sign of a proper conformation; and others who have it in so slight a degree as to make the mark of virility extremely equivocal. This is the most animal part of the human frame, and is constantly under the influence of instinct, and not governed by that of the mind. Many young persons of the purest ideas have been subjected to the liveliest sensations, though ignorant of pleasure, or the cause, and others remain cold and languid notwithstanding the efforts of imagination.

When sterility does not arise from any defect in external conformation, it more frequently proceeds from the women than the men; for, besides the injurious effects of the fluor albus, I conceive there is another material cause. In the course of my experiments, as related in the preceding volume, I observed there were small protuberances in the female testicles which I called glandular bodies; they originate under the membrane of the testicle, in a short time begin to swell, and then opening, a fluid issues therefrom; from this time they begin to decay, and having disappeared, they are immediately succeeded by others, from which the testicles are constantly undergoing a kind of alteration; and I am inclined to think, that if any circumstance takes place to interrupt the necessary exercise of the vessels, the seminal liquor will become corrupt, and sterility also will follow.

Sometimes conception precedes puberty. Numbers of women have become mothers before the smallest appearance of the menstrua: and some to whom this evacuation was never known have brought forth children. Instances of this occur in our own climate, without travelling for them to Brazil; where whole nations, we are told, are perpetuated without any woman being subject to the menstrual discharge; an evident proof, that it is not the substance of this discharge, but the seminal liquid of male and female which are essentially necessary to generation. It is also known that the cessation of the menses, which generally happens about the age of forty or fifty, does not always disqualify women from conceiving, and that some women have really become pregnant at the age of sixty or seventy. These examples, however frequent, may be considered as exceptions to the general rule; but they are sufficient to convince us that the menstrual blood is by no means the constituent principle of generation.

In the ordinary course of Nature women do not conceive before the menses appear, nor after they have ceased. The age at which men first acquire the powers of procreation is less distinctly marked. His body must obtain a certain degree of growth, before the seminal fluid can be produced; and before it can be formed and perfected, that growth must become still greater. This usually happens between the age of twelve and eighteen; but the period at which the procreative faculty of man ceases, Nature seems to have left undetermined. At sixty or seventy, when age begins to enfeeble the body, the seminal fluid is less copious, and often unprolific; yet there are many instances of men still continuing to procreate at the age of eighty or ninety.

There also are examples of boys who have propagated at eight, nine, and ten years; and of girls who have conceived at seven, eight, and nine. But such facts are exceedingly rare, and ought to be classed as singular phenomena. The external sign of virility appears in infancy, but that is not sufficient; in order to accomplish the act of generation, there must be a previous production of semen; and this is never effected till the growth of the body is nearly finished. At first the quantity is very small, and for the most part unfruitful.

Some authors have mentioned two signs of conception. The one is, a kind of tremor which they say begins at the time of conception, and continues for several days after; the other is taken from the orifice of the matrix, which they assure us is entirely closed after conception. These signs are, however, in my opinion, very equivocal, if not altogether imaginary.

This tremor is mentioned by Hippocrates, and, according to him, it is so violent as to make the teeth chatter. Galen, on the authority of some women, imputes this symptom to a contraction of the matrix; others explain it by a vague sensation of cold over the whole body, and almost all establish the fact, like Galen, from the testimony of different women.

Opinions, however, vary as to the changes which happen in the matrix after conception, some maintaining, that the edges of the orifice are drawn together so closely that there is not the smallest vacancy left between them; and others, that these edges are not exactly close till after the two first months of pregnancy. They nevertheless agree, that immediately after conception the orifice is closed by a glutinous humour; that the matrix, which, but for the pregnancy, might receive through its orifice a substance of the size of a pea, has no longer any perceptible aperture, and that the difference is so evident that a skilful midwife may distinguish it. If these assertions were true, even in the first days of pregnancy, its certainty or uncertainty might be ascertained.

The advocates on the other side urge, that if after conception the orifice of the matrix were closed, there could be no superfœtation. To this it may be replied, that the seminal liquor may penetrate through the membranes of the matrix; that even the matrix itself may open to admit the superfœtation; and that at any rate superfœtations happen so rarely, that they make a very trifling exception to the general rule. Other authors have maintained, that this change never appears but in women who have conceived before, and borne children. In first conceptions, indeed, the difference must be less sensible; but be it as conspicuous as it may, ought we thence to conclude that it is a certain and positive sign? No; it is unaccompanied with sufficient evidence.

Neither from the study of anatomy, nor from experiments, can we, as to this point, acquire more than general conclusions, which on a particular examination are often found to be highly erroneous. It is the same also with respect to the tremor or convulsive cold, which some women have said they felt at the time of conception. As most women do not experience this sensation; as others assure us, on the contrary, that they have felt a burning heat; and, as others still confess, that they are utter strangers to all such feelings; the natural conclusion is, that such signs are highly dubious, and that when they do happen, it is less perhaps in consequence of conception, than of other consequences.

On this subject I shall add but one fact, from “Parson’s Lectures on Muscular Motion,” which proves that the orifice of the matrix does not close immediately after conception; or that at least the seminal fluid may even then find a passage into it. A woman of Charles-Town, in South-Carolina, was delivered, in 1714, of two children, one immediately after the other. To the utter astonishment of all present, one child was black and the other white. From this evident testimony of her infidelity to her husband, the woman acknowledged that a negro had one day entered her chamber, where her husband had just left her in bed, and by threats of immediate death compelled her to gratify his desires. This fact proves that the conception of two or more children does not always happen at one time, and gives great weight to my opinion, that the semen penetrates through the texture of the matrix.

Many other equivocal symptoms of pregnancy are said to distinguish it in the first months; as a slight pain in the region of the matrix and loins; a numbness over the whole body; a continual drowsiness; a melancholy and capricious disposition; the tooth-ach, head-ach, and vertigo; yellow eyes, with the pupils contracted, and lids oppressed; paleness of countenance, with spots upon it; a depraved appetite, with loathing, vomiting, and spitting; hysteric symptoms; the fluor albus; stoppage of the menstrual discharge, or instead of it hæmorrhage; the secretion of milk in the breasts, &c. Many other symptoms might be adduced, which are supposed to be the signs of pregnancy, but which are frequently nothing more than the effects of particular maladies.

Of these we shall leave the discussion to physicians. Were we to consider each of them in particular, we should deviate too far from our subject; nor could we do it with advantage, without entering into a lengthened series of profound investigation. It is with this as with a number of other subjects that relate to physiology and animal economy, the authors, very few excepted, who have written on these subjects, have treated them in a manner so vague, and explained them by affinities so remote, and hypotheses so false, that it is not surprising their remarks should have been attended with as little information as utility.

[CHAPTER IV.]

A DESCRIPTION OF MAN.

The body attains its full height at the age of puberty, or at least a few years after. Some young people cease growing at fourteen or fifteen; while others continue their growth till two or three and twenty. During this period most men are of slender make; their thighs and legs small, and the muscular parts are as yet unfilled; but by degrees the fleshy fibres augment, the muscles swell, the limbs assume their figure, and become more proportioned, and before the age of thirty the body, in men, has acquired its most perfect symmetry.

In women, the body sooner attains this symmetry; their muscles and other parts being less strong, compact, and solid than those of men; and being also less in size, they require less time in coming to maturity. Hence it is that a woman is as completely formed at twenty, as a man at thirty.

The body of a well-shaped man ought to be square, the muscles expressed with boldness, and the lines in the face distinctly marked. In woman superior elegance prevails; her form is more soft, and her features more delicate. Strength and majesty belong to the former, grace and softness are the peculiar embellishments of the latter.

In both, their external forms declare their sovereignty over every living creature. Man supports his body erect; his attitude is that of command; and his face, which is turned towards the heavens, displays a superior dignity. The image of his soul is painted in his countenance; the excellence of his nature penetrates through the material form in which it is enclosed, and gives to his features a lively animation. His majestic port, his firm and resolute step, announce the superiority of his rank. He touches the earth only with his extremity, and beholds it as if at a disdainful distance. His arms are not given to him for pillars of support; nor does he render his hands callous by their treading on the ground, and losing that delicacy of feeling for which they were originally designed. His arms and hands are formed for very different purposes; they are formed to second every intention of his will; to defend himself, and to enable him to seize and enjoy the gifts of Nature.

When the mind is at rest, all the features of the visage are in a state of profound tranquillity. Their proportion, their union, their harmony, seem to mark the sweet serenity, and to give a true information of what passes within. When the soul, however, is agitated, the human visage becomes a living picture, where the passions are expressed with as much delicacy as energy; where every motion is expressed by some corresponding feature; where every impression anticipates the will, and betrays those hidden agitations, that he would often wish to conceal.

It is particularly in the eyes that the passions are painted, and most readily discovered. The eye seems to belong to the soul more than any other organ; it seems to participate of all its emotions; the softest and most tender as well as the most violent and tumultous. These if not only receives, but transmits by sympathy into the soul of the observer all that secret fire with which its mind is agitated; and thus does passion often become general. In short the eye is the lively index of the mind, and forcibly speaks the language of intelligence.

Those who are short-sighted labour under a particular disadvantage in this respect, being in a manner deprived of the intelligent expression of the eye; and which frequently gives an air of stupidity to the finest face. It is strong and violent passions alone that we ever see marked on such countenances, and which often produce very unfavourable prepossessions. However intelligent we may afterwards find such persons, it is with difficulty we renounce our former prejudices. We are so habituated to judge by external appearances that we too often decide on men’s talents by their physiognomy; and having perhaps at first, caught up our judgments prematurely, they mechanically influence us all our lives after; nay the colour, or cut of the clothes will sometimes influence conclusions as to their abilities; and that not always without reason: therefore since strangers may decide upon understanding by so trifling an article as dress, we ought not to be totally inattentive to it, trifling as it may appear.

The vivacity, or the languid motion of the eyes, gives the strongest marks to the countenance; and their colour contributes still more to enforce the expression. The different colours of the eyes are dark-hazle, light-hazle, green, blue, grey, and whitish grey. These different colours arise from the different colours of the little muscles, that serve to contract the pupil, and they very often change colour with disorder, and with age.

Those most frequent are, the hazle and the blue, and very often both these colours are found in the same eye. Those eyes which are called black are only dark-hazle, which may be easily seen upon close inspection, and only appear black from the contrast with the white of the eye; in all those which have a blue shade that colour becomes the most predominant. Those eyes are reckoned the most beautiful where the shade is the deepest; and either in the black or the blue, the fire, which gives to the eye its finest expression, is most distinguishable. For this reason, the black eyes, as they are called, have the greatest force and vivacity; but the blue are the most delicate, and have the most powerful effect in beauty, as they reflect a greater variety of rays from the tints of which they are composed.

This variety in the colour of the eyes, is peculiar to man, and one or two of the brute-creation; in other animals, the colour in any one individual is the same in all the rest. The eyes of the ox are brown; those of sheep of a watery colour; those of goats are grey, &c. and it may also be remarked, that the eyes of most white animals are red; as the rabbit, ferret, &c. “According to Aristotle, in the human species grey eyes are the strongest; blues eyes are weak; full eyes are near sighted, and brown ones require a good light.”

Though the eye, when put in motion, seems to be drawn towards either side, yet it only moves round its centre; by which its coloured part moves nearer, or farther from the angle of the eye-lids, and is thus elevated or depressed. The distance between the eye is less in man than in any other animal; in some it is so great that it is almost impossible that they should ever view the same object with both eyes at once.

Next to the eyes, that which gives most character to the face are the eye-brows, which being, in some measure, totally different from the other features, their effect is most readily distinguished. The eye-lashes have an effect in giving expression to the eye, particularly when long and close, they soften its glances, and improve its sweetness. Man and apes are the only animals that have eye-lashes both upon the upper and lower lids, all other animals want them on the lid below, and even man has less on the under than on the upper.

The eye-lids serve to guard the ball of the eye, and to furnish it with a proper moisture. The upper lid rises and falls; the lower has scarce any motion; and though their being moved depends on the will, yet the will is unable to keep them open when sleep, or fatigue, oppresses the mind. In birds and amphibious quadrupeds the lower lid alone has motion; and fishes and insects have no eye-lids whatsoever.

The forehead makes a large part of the face, and chiefly contributes to its beauty. It ought to be justly proportioned, neither too round nor too flat, neither too narrow nor too low, and it should be regularly surrounded with the hair. The hair tends greatly to improve the face, and baldness takes away from beauty. Borrowed locks, however, do not justly supply the place of real ones, as the true character cannot be so well traced in the countenance when the one is substituted for the other. The highest part of the head, and that immediately above the temples, first becomes bald; the hair under the temples, and at the back of the head, is seldom known to fail.

It has been observed by some authors that baldness was peculiar to man, and that it never happens to women in the most advanced periods of life. The hair is, in general, thickest where the constitution is strongest, and more glossy and beautiful where the health is most permanent. The ancients supposed the hair to be produced like the nails, the part next the root pushing out that immediately contiguous. But the moderns have found that every hair may be truly said to live and to receive nutriment like other parts of the body. The roots do not turn grey sooner than the extremities, but the whole hair changes colour nearly at the same time, and we have many instances of persons who have grown grey in one night’s time. When turned white it gradually loses its strength and falls off. Aristotle asserts, that no man ever became bald previous to his intercourse with women.

The nose is the most prominent feature in the face, but as it has scarce any motion, even in the strongest passions, it rather adds to the beauty, than to the expression of the countenance. The form of this feature, and its advanced position, are peculiar to the human visage alone. Other animals, for the most part, have nostrils with a partition between them, but none of them have an elevated nose. Apes themselves have scarce any thing else of this feature but the nostrils, the rest of the feature lying flat upon the visage, and scarce higher than the cheek-bones. This organ serves man and most animals not only to breathe but to enjoy odoriferous scents. Birds have merely two holes for these purposes.

The mouth and lips, next to the eyes, are found to have the greatest expression. The passions have great power over this part of the face, and the mouth marks its different degrees by its different forms. The organ of speech still more animates this part, and gives it more life than any other feature in the face. The ruby colour of the lips, and the white enamel of the teeth, have such a superiority over every other feature that they seem to form the principal object of our regard. In fact, the whole attention is fixed upon the lips of the speaker; however rapid his discourse, and however various the subject, the mouth takes correspondent situations, and deaf men have been often found to see the force of those reasonings, which they could not hear, by attending to the motions of the lips.

Notwithstanding the opinion of Aristotle, with regard to the crocodile, I am convinced, that in that, as well as in man, and other animals, the under jaw alone has the power of motion. In the human embrio, and in monkeys, the under jaw is very much advanced before the upper. In instances of the most violent passion this jaw has often an involuntary quivering motion; and often also pain and pleasure, as well, as languor produces another, which is that of yawning.

When the mind is affected with ardent desire, or reflects with regret upon some good unattained or lost, it feels an internal emotion, which acting upon the diaphragm, elevates the lungs, and produces a sigh; when the mind perceives no prospect of relief the sighs are repeated, sorrow succeeds, and tears often follow; the air rushes into the lungs, and gives rise to an inspiration stronger than sighs, termed sobbing, in which the voice becomes more evident; from this it proceeds to groans, which are a species of sobs continued to some length, and are longer or shorter according to the degree of anxiety the mind is labouring under. The plaintive shriek is a groan expressed with a sharp tone of voice; which when violently excited, generally continues the same tone throughout, but when moderate, usually falls at the end.

Laughter is a sound of the voice, interrupted and pursued for some continuance. The muscles of the belly, and the diaphragm, are employed in its weaker exertions; but those of the ribs are violently agitated in the stronger; the head and breast are sometimes thrown forward, in order to raise them with the greater ease. The chest remains undisturbed, the cheeks swell, the mouth naturally opens, and the belly becoming depressed, the air issues out with a noise, and which in violent fits continues for some time, and is often repeated; but in more tranquil emotions, although the cheeks swell, the lips remain close, and in some persons dimples are formed near the corners of the mouth. This smile is often an indication of kindness and good-will; it is also often used as a mark of contempt and ridicule.

The cheeks are features without any particular motion, and rather seem as an ornament to the face than for the purpose of expression, as may also be said of the chin and temples. The former indeed may be considered in some measure a picture of the mind, from the involuntary paleness and redness with which they are at limes overspread. Blushing proceeds from different passions; being produced from shame, anger, pride, Or joy, while paleness is ever an attendant on fright, fear, and sorrow. These alterations in the colour are entirely involuntary; all the other expressions of the passions are, in some small degree, under control; but blushing and paleness betray our secret thoughts, and we might as well attempt to stop the circulation of our blood, by which they are caused, as to prevent their appearance.

The whole head, as well as the features of the face, takes peculiar attitudes from different passions; it bends forward to express humility, shame, or sorrow; it is turned to one side, in languor, or in pity; it is thrown with the chin forward, in arrogance and pride; erect in self-conceit and obstinacy; it is thrown backwards in surprize or astonishment; and combines its motions to the one side and the other, to express contempt, ridicule, anger, and resentment.

The parts of the head which give least expression to the face are the ears. These which are immoveable, and make so small an appearance in man, are very distinguishing features in quadrupeds: they serve in them as the principal marks of the passions, and discover their joys or their terrors with tolerable precision. The smallest ears in men are said to be most beautiful; but the largest are found the best for hearing. Some savage nations bore their ears, and so draw down the tips to rest upon their shoulders.

The different customs of men appear still more extravagant in their manner of wearing their beards. Some, and among others the Turks, cut the hair off their heads, and let their beards grow. The Europeans, on the contrary, shave their beards and wear their hair. The American savages pluck the hairs off their beards, but are proud of those on the head; the Negroes shave their heads in figures at one time, in stars at another, and still more commonly in alternate stripes. The Talapoins of Siam shave the heads and the eye-brows of such children as are committed to their care. Every nation seems to have entertained different prejudices, at different times, in favour of one part or another of the beard. Some have preferred the hair upon the upper lip to that on the chin; some like the hair hanging down; some chuse it curled; and others like it straight.

Though fashions have arisen in different countries from fancy and caprice, yet when they have become general they deserve examination. Mankind have always considered it as a matter of moment, and they will ever continue desirous of drawing the attention of each other, by such ornaments as mark the riches, the power, or the courage of the wearer. The value of shining stones is entirely founded upon their scarceness or their brilliancy. It is the same with respect to shining metals, of which the weight is so little regarded when spread over our cloaths. These ornaments are designed to draw the attention of others, and to excite the idea of wealth and grandeur; and few there are who, undazzled by the glitter of an outside, can coolly distinguish between the metal and the man.

All things rare and brilliant will, therefore, continue to be fashionable, while men derive greater advantage from riches than virtue, and while the means of appearing considerable are more easily acquired than the title to merit. The first impression we make on strangers arises from our dress; and this varies in conformity to the character we are ambitious to obtain. The modest man, or he who would wish to be thought so, endeavours to shew the simplicity of his mind by the plainness of his dress; the vain man, on the contrary, takes a pleasure in displaying his superiority in finery and external appearance.

Another object of dress is, to encrease the size of our figure, and to take up more room in the world than Nature seems to have allotted us. We desire to enlarge our dimensions by swelling out our cloaths and raising our heels; but how bulky soever our dress may be, our vanities still exceed them. The largeness of the doctor’s wig arises from the same pride as the smallness of the beau’s queue. Both want to have the size of their understanding measured by the external dimensions of their heads.

There are some fashions that seem to have a more reasonable origin, which is to hide or to lessen the defects of Nature. To take men altogether, there are many more ordinary faces and deformed bodies, than beautiful countenances and handsome figures. The former, as being the most numerous, give laws to fashion, and their laws are generally such as are made in their favour. Women begin to colour their checks with red when the natural roses are faded, and the younger are obliged to follow the example, though not compelled by the same necessity. In all parts of the world this custom prevails more or less, and powdering and frizzing the hair, though not so general, seems to have arisen from a similar desire of displaying the features to most advantage.

But, leaving the draperies of the human picture, let us return to the figure unadorned by art.

The head of man, whether considered externally or internally, is differently formed from that of all other animals. The head of the monkey has some similitude, but in that there are differences, which we shall take notice of in another place. The bodies of almost all quadrupeds are covered with hair, but the head of man alone has this ornament before puberty, and that more abundantly than any other animal.

There is a great variety in the teeth of all animals, some have them above and below, others have them in the under jaw only: in some they stand separate from each other, while in others they are close and united. The palate of some fishes is nothing but a bony substance studded with points, which perform the office of teeth. All these substances, that is, the teeth of men, quadrupeds, and fishes, the saws, &c. of insects, like the nails, horns, and hoofs, derive their origin from the nerves. We before remarked that the nerves harden by being exposed to the air; and as the mouth gives free access to it, the nerves that terminate therein, being thus exposed, acquire a solidity. In this manner the teeth and nails are formed in man, and the beaks, hoofs, horns, and talons of other animals are produced.

The neck supports the head, and unites it to the body. This part is more considerable in the generality of quadrupeds, than in man. Fishes and other animals that have not lungs similar to ours, have no neck. Birds in general have the neck longer than any other kind of animal; those of them which have short claws have also short necks, and so on the contrary.

The human breast is larger in proportion than that of other animals; and none but man, and those animals which make use of their fore feet as hands, such as monkeys, squirrels, &c. have collar-bones. The breasts, in women are larger than in men; they however seem formed in the same, manner; and sometimes milk is found in the breasts of the latter. Of this there have been many instances about the age of puberty, and I have seen a young man press a considerable quantity out of one of his breasts. Among animals there, is a great variety in this part of the body. Some, as the ape and the elephant, have but two teats, which are placed on each side of the breast, Bears have four. Sheep have but two, placed between the hinder legs. Other animals, such as the bitch and sow, have them all along the belly. Birds and other oviparous animals have no teats; but viviparous fishes, as the whale and the dolphin, have both teats and milk. The form also of the teats varies in different animals, and in the same animal at different ages. Those women whose breasts are shaped like a pear, are said to make the best nurses. In the belly of the human race the naval makes a conspicuous figure, but which is scarcely perceptible in other animals.

The arms of men but very little resemble the fore legs of quadrupeds, and much less the wings of birds. The ape is the only animal that is possessed of hands and arms; and they are fashioned more rudely, and with less exact proportion, than in men. The shoulders are also much larger in man than in any other animal, and of a form widely distinct.

The form of the back differs not much from that of many quadrupeds, only that the reins are more muscular and strong. The buttock, however, in man is different from that of all animals whatsoever. What goes by that name in other creatures is only the upper part of the thigh, and by no means similar: man being the only animal that can support himself perfectly erect, the peculiar hardness of this part enables him to sustain that position.

The human feet are also different from those of all animals, even apes not excepted. The foot of the ape is rather a kind of aukward hand; its toes, or rather fingers, are long, and that in the middle longest of all; the foot also wants the heel. In man the sole of the foot is broader and more adapted to maintain the equilibrium of the body in walking, dancing, or running.

The nails are smaller in man than those of any animal. If they were much longer than the extremities of the fingers, they would obstruct the management of the hand. Such savages as suffer them to grow long, make use of them in flaying and tearing animals, but though their nails are considerably larger than ours, they are yet by no means to be compared to the hoofs or the claws of other animals.

There is little known exactly with regard to the proportion of the human figure, for the same parts do not bear similar proportions in any two individuals; nor even in the same, for seldom is it that the right leg or arm is of equal dimensions with the left. It is not by taking an exact resemblance that we can determine on the best proportion of the human figure; we must seek for it in taste and sentiment, which have exceeded the laws of mechanism in the imitation of Nature; and in which imitation we recognize her perfections more conspicuously than in her own productions; and by the same rule the beauty of the best statues is much better conceived by observation than by measurement. The ancients executed statues in so high a degree of perfection, that they have ever been considered as exact representations of the most perfect human figures. These statues, which were at first copied after the human form, are now considered as the most perfect models of it; and for this plain reason, that they were not formed after any one individual, but from a diligent observation of the perfect symmetry that was to be collected, as it were, from the whole species. In doing this, these artists also considered each part of the human frame should be of certain dimensions to become the standard of perfection; for instance, that the body should be ten times the length of the face; and that the face should also be divisible into three equal parts, the first form the hair on the forehead to the nose, the second the nose, and the third from the nose to the end of the chin. In measuring the body they use the term nose as the third of the face, one of which they reckon in height, from the top of the forehead to the crown of the head, therefore from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is a face and one third, and from the chin to the upper part of the breasts two thirds more, which of course makes two tenths of the whole body; to the bottom of the paps another, to the navel a fourth, and from thence to the division of the lower extremities a fifth, or half the body; two more faces are assigned to the thighs, half a one to the knee, two from the knee to the top of the foot, and the other half from thence to the sole, which completes the ten. This division does not hold good in men of a more than ordinary size, in whom about half a face is allowed between the paps and the commencement of the thighs, which in them is not the middle of the body. The arms being stretched out, measure from the ends of the middle fingers ten faces, or exactly the length of the body. The hand is the length of the face, the thumb that of the nose, as is also the longest toe, and the bottom of the foot, is one sixth part of the length of the body. The space between the eyes is the breadth of the eye: the breadth of the thickest part of the thigh is double that of the thickest part of the leg, and treble the smallest. Were any individual measured by these rules, those we consider as the most perfect would be found highly deficient.

These correspondences are, however, extremely arbitrary. In infants the upper parts of the body are larger than the lower; the legs and thighs do not constitute any thing like half the length of the body; as the child increases in age the inferior parts increase more than in proportion, so that the body is not equally divided till it has acquired its full growth. In women the anterior part of the chest is more prominent than in men; but as in the former the chest is more thick, so in the latter it is more broad. In women too the hips are considerably more bulky, and so different is the conformation of those two parts, that it is sufficient to distinguish the skeleton of a woman from that of a man.

The total height of the human figure varies considerably. Men are said to be tall who are from five feet eight or nine inches to six feet. The middle stature is from five feet two to five feet seven inches; and such as fall under these measures are said to be of small stature. Women in general are two or three inches shorter than men. As for giants and dwarfs, of them we shall have occasion to speak in another place.

Though the body of a man is more externally delicate than that of any animal, it is exceedingly muscular, and for its size perhaps more strong. Were we to compare the strength of a lion with that of a man, we ought to consider that the former is armed with teeth and talons, which give a false idea of its power. The arms which man has received from Nature are not offensive; and happy were it if Art had never furnished him with weapons more terrible than those which arm the paws of the lion.

But there is another, and perhaps a more just manner of comparing the strength of man with that of animals, namely by the weights which either can carry. We are assured that the porters of Constantinople carry burthens 900 pounds weight; and M. Desaguliers tells us of a man in an upright posture, who, by distributing a certain number of weights, in such a manner that every part of his body bore its share, was able to support a weight of 2000 pounds. By the same expedient a horse, which is at least six or seven times our bulk, ought to be enabled to carry a load, of 12 or 14,000 pounds; an enormous weight in comparison of what that animal can support, even when the weight is distributed with every possible advantage.

The strength of a man may be still further estimated by agility and the continuance of his labour. Men accustomed to running outstrip horses, or at least continue their speed for a greater length of time. A man will walk down a horse if they continue together, and perform a long journey much sooner, and with less fatigue. The royal messengers of Ispahan, who are runners by profession, go 36 leagues in 14 or 15 hours. Travellers assure us, that the Hottentots out-run lions in the chace, and that the savages, who live by hunting, pursue the elk and other animals with such speed as to take them. Many other surprising things are told of the nimbleness of savages, and of the long journeys they accomplish on foot, over the most craggy mountains, and the most unfavourable roads, where there is no path to direct, and every obstacle to oppose. A thousand leagues are these people said to travel in less than six weeks, or two months. Birds excepted, whose muscles are indeed stronger in proportion than those of any other animal, no other creature could support such a continuance of fatigue. The civilized man is ignorant of his own strength; nor is he sensible how much he loses of it by effeminacy, and how he might add to it by the habit of vigorous exercise.

Sometimes we find men of extraordinary strength; but this gift of Nature, which would be valuable to them in a primitive state, is of very trifling service with the polished part of mankind, among whom mental perfections are held in higher estimation than bodily, and manual exertions are confined to persons of the lowest classes.

Men are much stronger than women; and this superiority they have too often employed, by tyrannically enslaving a sex, which was formed to partake with them the pleasures as well as the pains of life. Savage nations subject their women to a continued series of labour. On them is imposed every office of drudgery, while the husband indolently reclines in his hammock. From this inactive situation he is seldom roused but by the calls of hunger, when he is obliged to seek food by fishing or hunting. A savage has no idea of taking pleasure in exercise; and nothing surprises him more than to see an European walk backwards and forward, merely for his amusement or recreation. All men have a tendency to laziness; but the savages of hot countries are not only lazy to an extreme, but tyrannical to their women, beyond any other classes of men. In civilized countries men dictate laws to women, which are the more severe, as their manners are rough and untaught, and it is only among nations highly polished that women are raised to that equality of condition which is naturally their due, and so necessary to the true enjoyment of society. These refinements flow from themselves; and to strength they oppose arms more sure to conquer, when by modesty they teach us to pay homage to the empire of beauty; a natural advantage, superior to strength. But much skill is requisite to manage and increase its influence, as is evident from the different ideas which different nations entertain of beauty. These indeed are so widely opposite, so palpably contradictory, that there is every reason to suppose the sex have gained more by rendering themselves amiable, than even by this gift of Nature, about which men are so much divided. As from the difficulty of obtaining it, the value of a thing still increases, so beauty has always had its admirers, and its votaries, respect necessarily encreased as soon as the possessors of it maintained a becoming dignity, and turned a deaf ear to every address of which virtue was not the positive basis; this naturally introduced a delicacy of sentiment, and polished manners followed of course.

So widely did the ancients disagree with us in respect of beauty, that, with them, a small forehead, and eye-brows joined, were accounted ornaments in the female countenance; and even to this day, in Persia, the union of the eye-brows is held in high estimation. In several parts of the Indies, it is necessary that the teeth should be black, and the hair white, to form a beauty; and, in the Marian islands, it is a principal occupation of the women, to blacken the teeth with herbs, and to whiten the hair by certain lotions. In China and Japan, the essential ingredients of beauty are, a large visage, small eyes, and almost concealed, a nose flat and bulky, little feet, and a belly enormously big. Some of the Indians of America and Asia, in order to enlarge the countenance, compress the heads of their children between two planks, others flatten them from the crown only, and others exert every effort to render them round. Every nation, and every individual, has a peculiar prejudice, or taste, with respect to beauty, which probably originates from some pleasing impression received in infancy, and therefore depends more, perhaps, on habit and chance than on the disposition of our organs.

When we come to treat of the different senses, we shall perhaps be able to determine what stress is to be laid on the ideas of beauty which we receive from the eyes. In the mean time let us examine the human countenance as it appears when agitated by the passions. In grief, joy, love, shame, and compassion, the eyes swell, and overflow with tears. The effusion of these is always accompanied with a tension of the muscles of the face, which opens the month. The natural moisture in the nose becomes increased by the tears flowing through the lachrymal ducts; they do not, however, flow uniformly, but burst out by intervals.

In sorrow the corners of the mouth are lowered, the under lip raised, the eye-lids nearly closed, the pupil elevated, and almost covered with the eye-lid; the other muscles of the face are relaxed, so that the space between the mouth and the eyes is larger than ordinary, and of consequence the .countenance appears lengthened. [See [fig. 13].]

In fear, terror, or horror, the forehead is wrinkled, the eye-brow raised, the eye-lids are extended as much as possible, and discover a part of the white over the pupil, which is lowered, and somewhat concealed by the lower eye-lid: the mouth, at the same time, is widely opened, and the lips separating, both the upper and under teeth are seen. [See [fig. 14].]

In contempt and derision the upper lip is raised on one side, and on the other there is a little motion, resembling a supercilious smile; the nose is shrivelled on the same side that the lip is raised, and the corner, of the mouth is extended; the eye on the same side is almost shut, while the other is open as usual, but the pupils of both are lowered as when looking from a height. [See [fig. 15].]

In jealousy, envy, and malice, the eye-brows fall down, and are wrinkled; the eye-lid is raised and the pupil lowered; the upper lip is raised on each side, while the corners of the mouth are rather lowered; and the middle of the under lip is raised, in order to join the middle of the upper lip. [See [fig. 16].]

In laughter the two corners of the mouth are drawn back and somewhat raised; the upper part of the cheeks is raised; and the eyes are more or less closed; the upper lip is raised, while the under one is lowered; and in immoderate laughter the mouth is opened, and the skin of the nose is shrivelled. [See [fig. 17].]

The arms, the hands, and the body in general, likewise assist the countenance by different gestures, in the expression of the emotions of the soul. In joy, for example, the eyes, the head, the arms, and the whole body, are agitated by quick and varied movements. In languor and melancholy the eyes are sunk, the head is reclined, and the whole body is motionless. In admiration, surprize, and astonishment, all motion is suspended, and we remain in one and the same attitude. These expressions of the passions are independent on the will; but there is another sort of expression, which seems to be produced by a reflection of the mind, by a command of the will, and by which the eyes, the head, the arms, and the whole body, are put in action. They appear to be so many efforts of the mind to defend the body, or at least so many secondary signs sufficient to express particular passions. In love, desire, and hope, we raise the head and eyes towards heaven, as if to implore the good we wish for; we bend the head forward, as if to hasten, by this approach, the possession of the desired object; and we extend the arms, and open the hands, in order to embrace and seize it. On the contrary, in fear, hatred, and horror, we advance the arms with precipitation, as if to repel the object of our aversion; and in order to shun it we turn aside the eyes and head, and shrink back. These movements are so quick that they appear involuntary: but it is by habit we are deceived, for they are motions which depend on reflection, and which mark the perfection of the springs of the human body, by the readiness with which each member obeys the dictates of the will.

As the passions are agitations of the mind, and as most of them have an affinity to the impressions of the senses, they may be expressed by the movements of the body, and especially by those of the visage. Of what passes within we may form a judgment from the external motions of the body, and can know the actual situation of the soul by inspecting the changes of the countenance. But as the soul has no form which can have any relation to that of matter we cannot judge of it by the figure of the body, or by the features of the countenance. An ill-formed body may contain an amiable mind; nor is the good or bad disposition of a person to be determined by the features of the face, these features having no analogy with the nature of the soul on which any reasonable conjectures may be founded.

To this kind of prejudice, nevertheless, the ancients were strongly attached; and in all ages there have been men who have attempted to form into a science of divination their pretended skill in physiognomy; but it is evident that this divination can only extend to the situation of the mind when expressed by the motion of the eyes, visage, and other parts of the body, and that the form of the nose, the mouth, and other features, are no more connected with the natural disposition of the person, than is the largeness or the thickness of the limbs to that of thought. Shall a man have more genius because he has a better-shaped nose? Shall he have less wisdom because his eyes are little, and his mouth is large? It must be acknowledged, therefore, that the divination of physiognomists is without foundation, and that nothing can be more chimerical than their pretended observations.

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[CHAPTER V.]

OF OLD AGE AND DEATH.

Every object in Nature has its improvement and its decay. No sooner does the human form arrive at its limited perfection, than it begins to decline. The alteration is at first insensible, and even several years elapse before it becomes perceptible. Yet we ought to feel the weight of our years better than other people can estimate the number of them; and, as those are rarely deceived who judge of our age from external appearances, we would be still less so, as to the internal effect, if we did but observe ourselves more, and flatter ourselves less with false and idle hopes.

When the body has attained its full length, by the final expansion of all its parts, it begins to receive an additional bulk, which rather incommodes than assists it, and may be considered as the first step towards decay. This is formed from a superfluous substance termed fat, and generally appears about the age of thirty-five, or forty, and by which, in proportion to its encrease, the body becomes less nimble, active, and unconstrained in its motions.

The bones also, and the other solid parts of the body, encrease in solidity. The membranes become cartilaginous, or gristly, the cartilages become bony, the fibres become more hard, the skin dries up, wrinkles are gradually formed in it, the hair grows grey, the teeth fall out, the visage becomes haggard, and the body stoops. The first approach of these alterations is perceived before the age of forty; by slow degrees they advance till that of sixty, and by rapid ones till that of seventy: after which period, decrepitude soon follows, and continues to augment to the age of ninety, or a hundred, when the life of man is generally terminated.

Having already traced the causes of the formation, growth, and expansion of the human frame, we shall now proceed to consider those of its decay.

At first the bones of the fœtus are only small threads, of a ductile matter, and of little more substance than the flesh; by degrees they acquire solidity, and may be considered as a kind of small tubes, lined both within and without by a thin membrane which supplies the osseous matter. A pretty exact idea might be formed of the growth of bones, by comparing them with the manner in which the wood and solid parts of vegetables are produced. These bones, or, as we have said, tubes, are covered at both ends by a soft substance, and in proportion as they receive nutritious juices, the extremities extend from the middle point which always preserves its original station. The ossification begins at the middle and gradually follows the extension until the whole is converted into bone. Having acquired their full growth, and the nutritious juices no longer being necessary for their augmentation, they serve the purpose of increasing their solidity; in time the bones become so solid as not to admit the circulation of these juices which are highly essential to their nourishment; and this being stopped, they undergo a change like that perceived in old trees; and this change is the first cause that renders the decay of the human body inevitable.

The cartilages, which may be considered as soft and imperfect bones, grow also more rigid as we increase in years; and as they are generally placed near the joints, the motion of these must of consequence become more difficult. Thus, in old age, every action of the body is performed with labour; and the cartilages, which in youth were elastic, and in manhood pliant, will now sooner break than bend, and may be considered as the second cause of our dissolution.

The membranes become likewise as we grow old more dense and more dry. Those, for example, which surround the bones cease to be ductile, and are incapable of extension so early as the age of 18 or 20. It is also the same with the muscular fibres, and though to the external touch the body seems, as we advance in years, to grow more soft, yet in reality it is increasing in hardness. On such occasions it is the skin, and not the flesh, that communicates this perception. The fat which increases when the body is arrived at maturity, being interspersed between the skin and muscles, gives an appearance of softness which the flesh is far from possessing in reality; an undeniable proof of which is to be found in comparing the flesh of young and old animals; the former is tender and delicate; the latter hard, dry, and unfit for eating.

While the body increases, the skin will stretch to any degree of tension; but when the former diminishes, the latter never contracts; and hence the source of wrinkles, which cannot be prevented. Those of the face proceed from this cause, though as to shape they depend in a greater measure on its form, features, and habitual movements. By examining the countenance of a man at the age of 25 or 30, we may discover in it the origin of all the wrinkles it will have in old age; particularly when the features are in a state of agitation by laughing, weepings or any strong grimace. All the little furrows formed by these agitations will one day become wrinkles, which no art shall be able to remove.

In proportion then as we advance in years, the bones, the cartilages, the membranes, the flesh, the skin, and all the fibres of the body grow more solid, hard, and dry. Every part shrinks, and every motion becomes more slow; the circulation of the fluids is performed with less freedom, the perspiration diminishes, the secretions alter, the digestion becomes slow and laborious, the nutritive juices become less plentiful, and no longer serving to convey their accustomed nourishment, are wholly useless, as if they did not exist. Thus the body dies by little and little, all its functions diminish by degrees, and death only at last seizes upon that little which is left.

As the bones, the cartilages, the muscles, and all the other parts of the body, are naturally softer in women than in men, they do not acquire so soon that hardness which hastens death. Women, therefore, ought to live longer than men. This is actually the case; for by consulting the tables which have been formed respecting the duration of human life, we shall find that, after a certain age, women have a greater chance for long life than men of the same number of years. From this it may also be inferred, that such men as are weak in appearance, and whose constitution rather resembles that of women, have a probability of living longer than those who seem to be more strong and robust; as likewise, that in either sex such persons as have been slow in their advances to maturity, will be slow in their advances to the infirmities of old age, because in both cases, the bones, the cartilages, and all the fibres, require a longer time to arrive at that degree of solidity, which must be the foundation of their destruction. This natural cause of death is common to all animals, and even to vegetables. An oak only perishes because its more ancient parts, which are in the centre, become so hard and so compact, that they can no longer receive any nourishment; and the moisture they contain, being deprived of circulation, becomes corrupted, and gradually alters the fibres of the wood, which become red, and at length crumble into dust.

The duration of life may be determined, in some measure, by the time that was employed in the attainment of maturity. A tree, or an animal, which takes but a short time to finish its growth, perishes much sooner than those which are longer in coming to maturity. Neither animals nor plants begin to spread in bulk till they have acquired their summit of height. Man grows in stature till the age of 17 or 18; but his body is not completely unfolded in all its parts till that of 30; while a dog is at its full length in one year, and at its full thickness in another. The man whose growth is so tedious, lives for 90 or an 100 years; whereas the dog seldom survives its 10 or 12th year. To the generality of other animals this observation is equally applicable. Fishes, whose growth continues for a number of years, live for centuries; and this from no other known certain cause, but the particular constitution of their bones, which do not admit of the same solidity as the bones of terrestrial animals.

Whether there are any exceptions to this kind of rule, which Nature seems to have adopted in proportioning the duration of life to that of the bodily growth, we shall enquire when we come to the particular history of animals, as also whether crows and stags live for such a number of years as is commonly pretended. In the mean while, as a general truth, let it be remarked, that large animals live longer than small ones, and this because they require a longer time to come to maturity.

The causes of our decay then are inevitable; nor can we avoid the fatal arrow of death, or even avert it, without changing the laws of Nature. The ideas which a few visionaries have formed of perpetuating life by some particular panacea, as that of the transfusion of the blood of one living creature into the body of another, must have died with themselves, did not self-love constantly cherish our credulity, even to the persuasion of some things which are in themselves impossible, and to the doubt of others, of which every day there are demonstrative proofs.

When the constitution of the body is sound, it is perhaps possible, by moderation in the passions, by temperance and sobriety, to lengthen life for a few years. But even of this there seems to be an uncertainty, for if it is necessary that the body should employ its whole strength, that it should consume all its powers by labour and exercise, whence could any benefit accrue from regimen and abstinence? Men no doubt there are who have surpassed the usual period of human existence, and not to mention Par, who lived to the age of 144, and Jenkins to that of 165, as recorded in the Philosophical Transactions, we have many instances of the prolongation of life to 110, and even to 120 years; yet this longevity was occasioned by no peculiar art or management; on the contrary, it appears that the generality of them were peasants, huntsmen, or labourers, men who had employed their whole bodily strength, and even abused it, if to abuse it is possible, otherwise than by continual idleness and debauchery.

Besides, if we reflect that the European, the Negro, the Chinese, and the American, the civilized man and the savage, the rich and the poor, the inhabitant of the city, and the inhabitant of the country, however different in other respects, are yet entirely similar as to the period allotted for their existence; if we reflect that the difference of race, of climate, of nourishment of accommodation, makes no difference in the term of life; that men who feed on raw flesh, or on dried fish, on sago, or on rice, on cassava, or on roots, live as long as those who feed on bread and prepared meats, we must be still more strongly convinced that the duration of life depends not either on habits, customs, or on the qualities of particular food, and that nothing can change the laws of that mechanism, by which the number of our years are regulated, but excesses of luxury or intemperance.

If in the duration of life there is any difference, it ought seemingly to be ascribed to the quality of the air. In elevated countries there are commonly found more old people than in low. The mountains in Scotland and Wales, of Auvergne and Switzerland, have furnished more instances of extreme longevity than the plains of Holland, Flanders, Germany, or Poland. In general, however, the period of human existence may be said to be the same in every country. If not cut off by accidental diseases man is found to live to the years of 90 or an 100. Beyond that date our ancestors did not live, nor has it, in any degree varied since the time of David.

Should it be asked, why, in the early ages, men lived to 900, 930, and even 960 years? it may, with great probability of reason, be answered, that the productions of the earth might then be of a different nature; as, at the creation, the surface of the globe must have been far less solid and compact than it afterwards became, so it is possible that the productions of Nature, and even the human body itself, being more ductile and more susceptible of extension, their growth was not so soon accomplished as at present. Every kind of nourishment being in itself more soft and more ductile, the bones, the muscles, &c. necessarily retained their primitive softness and ductility longer. As the body, therefore, did not attain its complete expansion, nor its generative powers, for 120 or 130 years, the duration of life would be proportioned to that time, required for the growth, as it is to this day. In the supposition, for example, that the age of puberty was originally at the years of 130, as it is now at the age of 14, it will appear, that the period of human existence has always been proportionally the same as it is at present, since by multiplying those two numbers by seven, for instance, we shall find that the age of the present race will be 98 years, as those in the first age 910. It is probable, then, that the duration of human life decreased in proportion as the solidity of the surface of the earth increased, and that the ages from the creation, to the time of David, having been sufficient to communicate to terrestrial substances all the consistency which they are capable of acquiring by the pression of gravity, the surface of the earth has ever since remained in the same condition, and the limits of the growth of its different productions have been fixed, as well as those of the duration of life.

Independent of accidental maladies which happen at every age, but become more dangerous and more frequent at the latter periods of life, all men are subject to natural infirmities, that originate solely from a decay of the different parts of the body. The muscular powers lose their firmness, the head shakes, the hands tremble, the legs totter, and the sensibility of the nerves decreasing, every sense becomes blunted. But the most striking infirmity is, that men very aged, are unequal to the office of generation. Of this inability two causes may be assigned, a defect of tension in the external organs, and a decay of the seminal fluid.[B] The latter defect, however, may be supplied by a young woman; and thus it is that we sometimes see men at an advanced period of life become fathers, but then they have a much less share in their children than young ones; and thence it happens, that young persons, when married to old men, decrepid and deformed, often bring forth monsters, and children more defective still than their fathers.

[B] Our author here enters into a repetition of the nature of the organic animalcules, and to account for the defect of tension in the external organs, but which we have passed over, not doubting our readers would feel the propriety of his concluding remark, that this was an improper place for such discussions.

The scurvy, dropsy, and such diseases as proceed from a vitiated state of the blood and other fluids, are the most fatal to mankind; but these fluids depend upon the solids, which are the real organic parts. As we become advanced in life the vessels contract, the muscles lose their strength, and the secretory organs are obstructed; from which causes the blood, and other fluids, become viscid, and occasion those diseases which are generally supposed to arise from vitiated humours. The natural decay of the solids are, therefore, the original causes of those disorders; nevertheless, if the fluids become stagnated, or are obstructed in their circulation, by a contraction of the vessels, they produce alarming symptoms, and soon corrupt and corrode the weakest parts of the solids. Thus do the causes of dissolution continually multiply until they put a period to our existence.

All these causes of decay act continually upon our material existence, and contribute to its dissolution. Nature, however, approaches to this much-dreaded period by slow and imperceptible degrees. Day after day is life consuming, and every hour is some one or other of our faculties, or vital principles, perishing before the rest. Death, therefore, is only the last shade in the picture; and it is probable that man suffers a greater change in passing from youth to age, than from age into the grave. In the instant of the formation of the fœtus life is as yet nothing, or next to nothing. It extends and acquires consistence and force as the body increases, and as soon as the latter begins to decrease the former decreases also, till its final extinction. As our life begins by degrees, so by degrees it is terminated.

Why, then, be afraid of death, if our lives have been such as not to make us apprehend the consequences of futurity? Why be afraid of that moment which is preceded by an infinity of others of the same kind? Death is as natural as life, and both happen to us in the same manner, without our having the smallest sense or perception of them. If we enquire of those whose office it is to attend the sick and the dying, we shall find, that, except in a very few acute cases, attended with convulsions, people expire quietly, and without the smallest indication of pain. Even when dreadful agonies seem so attend the afflicted, the spectators are rather terrified than the patients tormented; who, having recovered, after the most violent convulsions, possess not the smallest idea of what had passed, or even what they had suffered.

The greatest number of mankind die, therefore, without feeling the fatal stroke; and of the few who retain their senses to the last, there is hardly one, perhaps, who does not entertain the hope of recovery. Nature, for the happiness of man, has rendered this principle more powerful than reason. A person dying of a disorder which he already knows to be incurable, by repeated instances in others, and is now assured that it is so by the tears of his friends, and by the countenance or departure of the physician, is still buoyed up with the idea of getting over it; the opinion of others he considers as a groundless alarm; the hour of dissolution comes; and while every thing else is, as it were dead, hope is still alive and vigorous.

A sick man will say that he feels himself dying; that he is convinced he cannot recover; but if any person, from zeal, or indiscretion, shall tell him that his end is actually at hand, his countenance instantly changes, and betrays all the marks of surprize and uneasiness. He now seems not to believe, what he had been endeavouring to impress upon others; he had only some doubt, some uneasiness, about his situation; but his hopes were far greater than his fears; and but for the gloomy assiduity, the parade of woe, which generally surrounds a death-bed, and too often embitters the last moments, he would be insensible of his approaching dissolution.

By no means is death so dreadful, therefore, as we suppose it to be. It is a spectre which terrifies us at a distance, but disappears when we approach it more closely. Our conceptions of it are formed by prejudice, and dressed up by fancy. We consider it not only as a misfortune greater than any other, but as one accompanied by the most excruciating anguish. Death, it is said, must be terrible, since it is sufficient to separate the soul from the body; the pain must also be of considerable duration, since time is measured by the succession of our ideas; one minute of pain, in which these ideas succeed each other with a rapidity proportioned to the agony we suffer, must appear longer than a whole age, in which they flow in their usual gentleness and tranquillity. In such philosophy, what an abuse of reason! But for the consequences of it, hardly would it deserve to have its futility exposed. As by such arguments, however, weak minds are deceived, and the aspect of death rendered a thousand times more hideous than it possibly can be; to point out the erroneous principles may be of advantage.

When the soul is originally united to our body, do we experience any extraordinary joy, which delights and transports us? Most certainly not. What reason then can we have to suppose that the separation of the soul from that body may not be effected without pain? From what cause should such pain arise? Shall we fix its residence in the soul, or in the body? Pain of the mind can only be produced by thought, and that of the body is proportioned to its strength or weakness. In the instant of death, the body must be in its weakest state, and therefore if it does experience pain, it must be in a very trifling degree.

Let us now suppose a violent death; that for example, of a man whose head is carried off by a cannon-ball. Can the pain he suffers last longer than a moment? Has he, in the interval of that moment, a succession of ideas so rapid, that he can imagine the pangs he feels are equal to an hour, a day, an age? These points we shall endeavour to discuss.

I own the succession of our ideas is, in reality, the only natural measure of time; and that, in proportion as they flow with more or less uniformity, they appear of longer or shorter duration. But in this measure there is an unit, or fixed point, which is neither arbitrary nor indefinite, but determined by Nature, and correspondent to our organization. Between two ideas which succeed each other, there must be an interval that separates them; however quick one thought may be, a little time is required before it can be followed by another, no succession being possible in an indivisible instant. The same observation holds with respect to the sensations of the body. A transition from pain to pleasure, or even from one pain to another, requires a certain interval. This interval, by which our thoughts and sensations are necessarily separated, is the unit I mention; and it can neither be extremely long, nor extremely short; it must even be nearly upon an equality in its duration, as it depends upon the nature of the mind, and the organization of the body, whose movements can have but one certain degree of celerity. In the same individual, therefore, there can be no succession of ideas so rapid, or so slow, as to produce that enormous difference of duration, by which the pain of a minute is converted into that of an hour, a day, or a century.

A very acute pain, of however short continuance, tends to produce either a swoon, or death. As our organs have only a certain degree of strength, they cannot resist above a certain degree of pain. If that becomes excessive, it ceases, because the body being incapable of supporting it, is still less capable to transmit it to the mind, with which it can hold no correspondence, but by the action of these organs. Here this action ceases, and therefore, all internal sensation must necessarily cease also.

What has already been advanced, is perhaps amply sufficient to evince, that, at the instant of death, the pain is neither excessive nor of long duration; but in order to dispel all fear from the bosom of timidity itself, we shall add a few words more upon the subject. Though excessive pains admit of no reflection, yet signs, at least, of it have been observed in the very moment of a violent death. When Charles XII. received, at Frederickshall, the blow which terminated his exploits and existence, he clapped his hand upon his sword. Since it excluded not reflection, this mortal pang could not, therefore, be excessive. The brave warrior found himself attacked; he reflected that he ought to defend himself; and thence, it is evident, he felt no more than what he might have suffered from an ordinary blow. That this action was nothing more than the result of a mechanical impulse it would be absurd to assert, as it has been evidently shewn, in our description of man, that the most precipitate movements of the passions depend upon reflection, and are nothing more than effects of an habitual exertion of the mind.

If I have rather enlarged on this topic it is only that I might destroy a prejudice so repugnant to the happiness of man. To this prejudice many have fallen victims; and I have myself known several, of the female sex in particular, who, from the very dread of death, have died in reality. Such terrible alarms seem, indeed, to be particular to those whom Nature or education have endowed with superior sensibility, as the gross of mankind look forward to death, if not with indifference at least without terror.

In viewing things as they are consists the spirit of true philosophy. With this philosophy our internal sensations would always correspond, were they not perverted by the illusions of imagination, and by the unfortunate habit of fabricating phantoms of excessive pains and of pleasure. Nothing appears terrible nor charming but what is at distance. To obtain a certain knowledge of either we must have the resolution, or the wisdom, to take a close and particular view of them, and all their extraordinary circumstances will disappear.

If there be any thing necessary to confirm what has been said concerning the gradual cessation of life, we might find it in the uncertainty of the signs of death. By consulting the writers on this subject, and particularly Winslow and Bruhier, we shall be convinced, that between life and death the shade is often so undistinguishable that all the powers of medical art are insufficient to determine upon it. According to them, “the colour of the face, the warmth of the body, the suppleness of the joints, are but equivocal signs of life; and that the paleness of the complexion, the coldness of the body, the stiffness of the extremities, the cessation of all motion, and the total insensibility of the parts, are signs to the full as equivocal of death.” It is also the same with regard to the cessation of the pulse, and of respiration, which are sometimes so effectually kept under, that it is impossible to obtain the smallest perception of either. By carrying a mirror, or candle, to the mouth of a person supposed to be dead, people expect to find whether he breathes or not; but in this experiment there is little certainty; the mirror is often sullied after death has taken place, and remains unclouded while the person is still alive. Neither do burning nor scarifying, noises in the ears, nor pungent spirits applied to the nostrils, give indubitable proofs of the discontinuance of life; many are the instances of persons who have undergone all such trials without shewing any signs of life, and yet, to the astonishment of the spectators, recovered afterwards, without the smallest assistance.

Nothing can be more evident than that life, in some cases, has a near resemblance to death, and therefore that we ought to be extremely cautious of renouncing, and committing too hastily to the grave, the bodies of our fellow-creatures. Neither ten, twenty, nor twenty-four hours are sufficient to distinguish real from apparent death; and there are instances of persons who have been alive in the grave at the end of the second, and even the third day. Why suffer to be interred with precipitation those persons whose lives we ardently wished to prolong? Why, though all men are equally interested in the abolition of it, does the practice still subsist? On the authority of the most able physicians, it incontestably appears, “that the body, though living, is sometimes so far deprived of all vital function, as to have every external appearance of death; that, if in the space of three days, or seventy two hours, no sign of life appears, and on the contrary the body exhales a cadaverous smell, there is an infallible proof of actual death; and that then, though on no account till then, the interment can with safety take place.”

Hereafter we shall have occasion to speak of the usages of different nations with respect to obsequies, interments, and embalments. The greatest part, even of the most savage people, pay more attention than we to their deceased friends. What with us is nothing more than a ceremony, they consider as an essential duty. Far superior is the respect which they pay to their dead: they clothe them, they speak to them, they recite their exploits, they extol their virtues; while we, who pique ourselves on our sensibility, with hardly an appearance of humanity, forsake and fly from them, we neither desire to see, nor have courage nor inclination to speak to them, and even avoid every place which may recall their idea to our minds. Than savages themselves, then, do we, in this respect, discover either more indifference or more weakness.

Having thus given a history of life, and of death, as they relate to the individual, let us now consider them both, as they affect the whole species. Man dies at every age; and though in general the duration of his life is longer than that of most animals, yet it is more uncertain and more variable.

Of late years attempts have been made to ascertain the degrees of such variations, and to establish, by different observations, some certainty as to the mortality of men at different ages. Were such observations sufficiently exact and numerous they would be admirably calculated to give a knowledge of the number of people, their increase, the consumption of provisions, and of a number of other important objects. Many writers of distinguished abilities, and, among others, Halley and Simpson, have given tables of the mortality of the human species; but as their labours have been confined to an examination of the bills of mortality in a few parishes of London, and other large cities, their researches, however accurate, seem, in my opinion, to give a very imperfect idea of the mortality of mankind in general.

In order to give a complete table of this nature it is necessary to scrutinise not only the parish-registers of such towns as London and Paris, where there is a perpetual ingress of strangers and egress of natives, but also those of different country places; that, by comparing the deaths which happen in the one with the deaths which happen in the other, a general conclusion may be formed. M. Dupré, of St. Maur, a member of the French academy, executed this project upon twelve different parishes in the country of France, and, three in Paris. Having obtained his permission to publish the tables he has drawn up on this occasion, I do it with the greater pleasure, as they are the only ones from which the probabilities of human life in general can with any certainty be established.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

From these tables many useful conclusions might be drawn. But I shall only consider those which respect the probabilities of the duration of life. It is observable, that in the columns opposite the years 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and other round numbers as 25, 35, &c. the deaths in the country parishes are more numerous than in in the preceding or subsequent columns. The cause of this seeming inconsistency arises from the generality of country people being ignorant of their exact age, and therefore if they die at 58 or 59 in the parish register it is entered 60; and so of other round numbers. From this irregularity the inconvenience is not great, as it may easily be corrected by the manner in which the numbers succeed each other in the Tables.

By the tables in the country parishes it appears, that almost one half of the children die before the age of four years, and by the Paris table not before 16; which great difference; certainly arises from the children being sent into the country to nurse, and consequently increases the number of deaths there in infancy. As likely to come at the truth, I have blended the two tables, and from thence calculated the probabilities of the duration of life as follows:

TABLE of the PROBABILITIES of the
DURATION of HUMAN LIFE.

By this table it appears, that an infant newly born has an equal chance of living eight years; that an infant of one will live 33 years longer; that a child of two will live 38 years longer; that a man of 20 will live 33 years and five months longer; that a man of 30 will live 28 years longer; and so proportionally of every other age.

It is also to be observed, first, that seven years is the age at which the longest duration of life is to be expected, since there is then an equal chance of living 42 years and three months longer; secondly that at the age of 12 one fourth of our existence is gone, as we cannot in reason expect above 38 or 39 years more; thirdly, that we have enjoyed one half of our existence at the age of 28, as we can reckon upon only 28 years more; and lastly, that by the age of 50 three fourths of life are passed, the remaining probability being only for 16 or 17 years.

But these physical truths, however mortifying, may be compensated by moral considerations. A man ought to consider as nothing the first fifteen years of his life. Every thing that happens in that long interval of time is effaced from the memory, or has at least so little connection with the views and objects Which afterwards occupy our thoughts that it gives us no concern. Neither, indeed, have we the game succession of ideas, nor, it maybe said, the same existence. In a moral sense we do not begin to live till we have begun to regulate our thoughts, to direct them towards futurity, and to assume to ourselves a kind of consistency of character conformable to that state which has some relation to what we shall afterwards become. By considering the duration of life in this, the only real point of view, we shall find, that at the age of 25 we have passed but one fourth part of our life; at the age of 38 one half; and that, at the age of 56, there is one fourth of life still remains.

[CHAPTER VI.]

OF THE SENSE OF SEEING.

Having described the parts of which the human body consists, let us now proceed to examine its principal organs; the expansion of the senses, and their several functions; and at the same time, point out the errors to which, through them, we are in some measure subjected by Nature.

The eyes seem to be formed very early in the human embryo. In the chicken also, of all the double organs they are the soonest produced. I have observed in the eggs of several sorts of birds, and in those of lizards, that the eyes were more large, and early in their expansion, than any other parts of a two-fold growth. Though, in viviparous animals, and particularly in man, they are, at first, by no means so large in proportion as in the oviparous, yet they obtain their due formation sooner than any other parts of the body. It is the same with the organ of hearing; the small bones of the ear are entirely formed before any of the other bones have acquired any part of their growth or solidity. Hence it is evident, that the parts of the body, which are furnished with the greatest quantity of nerves, as the ears and eyes, are those which first appear, and which are the soonest brought to perfection.

If we examine the eyes of an infant, a few hours after its birth, we shall discern that it cannot make the smallest use of them; the organ not having acquired a sufficient consistency, the rays of light strike but confusedly upon the retina. Before the sixth week, children turn their eyes indiscriminately upon every object, without appearing to be affected by any, but at about this time they begin to fix them upon the most brilliant colours, and seem peculiarly desirous of turning them towards the light; this exercise does not give any exact notion of objects, but strengthens the eye, and qualifies it for future vision.

The first great error in the sense of seeing, is the inverted representation of objects upon the retina, and, till the sense of feeling has served to undeceive it, the child actually beholds every thing upside down. The second error in early vision is, that every object appears double; from the same object being formed distinctly upon each eye. This illusion like the other, can only be corrected by children from their being in the practice of handling different objects, and from which practice alone it is that they learn things are neither inverted nor double, and custom induces them to believe they see objects in the position the touch represents them to the mind; and therefore, were we denied the sense of feeling, that of seeing would not only deceive us as to the situation, but as to the number of every object around us.

We may easily be convinced that objects appear inverted, (which arises from the structure of the eye) by admitting the light to pass into a darkened room through a small aperture, when the images of the objects without will be represented upon the wall in an inverted position; for, as all the rays which issue from their different points cannot enter the hole in the same extent and position which they had in leaving the object, unless the aperture was as large as the object itself; as every part of the object sends forth its image on all sides; as the rays which from those images flow from all points of the object, as from so many centres, those only can pass through the small aperture which come in opposite directions. Thus the hole becomes a centre for the entire object, through which the rays from the upper, as well as from the lower parts of it, pass in converging directions; and, of consequence, they must cross each other at this centre, and thus represent the objects upon the wall, in an inverted position.

That we, in reality, see all objects double, is also evident; for example, if we hold up a finger, and look with the right eye at an object, it will appear against one particular part of the room, shutting that and looking with the left, it will seem to be on a different part, and if we open both eyes, the object will appear to be placed between the two extremes. But the truth is, the image of the object is formed in both eyes, one of which appears to the right, and the other to the left; and it is from the habit of touching that we suppose we see but one image placed between them both. From which it is clear that we see all objects double, although our imagination forms them single; and that, in fact, we see things where they are not, notwithstanding we have a pretty exact idea of their situation and position; and thus it is that till the sense of feeling has corrected the errors of sight, if instead of two eyes, we had an hundred, we should still fancy the objects single, although they were multiplied an hundred times.

In each eye, therefore, is formed a separate image of every object; and when the two images strike the correspondent parts of the retina, that is, the parts which are always affected at the same time, the object appears single: but, when the images strike the parts of the retina, which are not usually affected together, then it appears double, because we are not habitual to this unusual sensation, and are then somewhat in the situation of infants just beginning to exert the faculty of vision.

M. Chesselden relates the case of a man, who, in consequence of a blow on the head, became squint-eyed, and saw objects double for a long time: but who was at length enabled, by slow and gradual steps, to see them singly as he had formerly done, notwithstanding the squinting remained. Is not this a proof, still more evident, that in reality we see things double, and that it is by habit alone we conceive them to be single? Should it be asked why children require less time, in order to see things single, than persons more advanced in years, whose eyes may have been affected by accident? it might be answered, that the sensations of children, being unopposed by any contradictory habit, these errors are rectified with ease; but that persons who have for many years seen objects single, because they affected the two correspondent parts of the retina, and who now see them double, labour under the disadvantage of having a contrary habit to oppose, and must therefore be a considerable time before it is entirely obliterated.

By the sense of seeing we can form no idea of distances; without aided by the touch, every object would appear to be within our eyes; and an infant, that is as yet a stranger to the sense of feeling, must conceive that every thing it sees exists within itself. The objects only appear to be more or less bulky as they approach to, or recede from the eye; insomuch, that a a fly near the eye will appear larger than an ox at a distance. It is experience alone that can rectify this mistake; and it is by constantly measuring with the hand, and removing from one place to another, that children obtain ideas of distance and magnitude. They have no conception of size but from the extreme rays reflected from the object, of course every thing near appears large, and those at a distance small. The last man in a file of soldiers appears much more diminutive than the one who is nearest to us. We do not, however, perceive this difference, but continue to think him of equal stature; for the number of objects we have seen thus lessened by distance, and found by repeated experience to be of the natural size when we come closer, instantly correct the sense, and therefore we perceive every object nearly in its natural proportion, unless when we observe them in such situations as have not allowed us sufficient experience to correct the illusions of the eye. If, for example, we view men upon the ground, from a lofty tower, or look up to any object upon the top of a steeple, as we have not been in the habit of correcting the sense in that position, they appear to us exceedingly diminished, much more so than if we saw them at the same distance in an horizontal direction.

Though a small degree of reflection may serve to convince us of the truth of these positions, yet it may not be amiss to corroborate them by facts which cannot be disputed. M. Chesselden, having couched for a cataract a lad of thirteen years of age, who had from his birth been blind, and thus communicated to him the sense of seeing, was at great pains to mark the progress of his visual powers; his observations were afterwards published in the Philosophical Transactions. This youth was not absolutely and entirely blind: Like every other person, whose vision is obstructed by a cataract, he could distinguish day from night and even black from white, but of the figure of bodies he had no idea. At first the operation was performed only upon one of his eyes, and when he saw for the first time, so far was he from judging of distances, that he supposed (as he himself expressed it) every thing he saw touched his eyes, in the same manner as every thing he felt touched his skin. The objects that pleased him most were those whose surfaces were plain and the figures regular, though he could in no degree judge of their different forms, or assign why some were more agreeable to him than others. His ideas of colours during his former dark state were so imperfect, that when he saw them in reality he could hardly be persuaded they were the same. When such objects were shewn him as he had been formerly familiar with by the touch, he beheld them with earnestness, in order to know them again, but as he had too many to retain at once the greatest number were forgotten, and for one thing which he knew, after seeing it, there were a thousand, according to his own declaration, of which he no longer possessed the smallest remembrance. He was very much surprised to find that those persons, and those things, which he had loved best, were not the most pleasing to his sight; nor could he help testifying his disappointment in finding his parents less handsome than he had conceived them to be. Before he could distinguish that pictures resembled solid bodies above two months elapsed; till then he only considered them as surfaces diversified by a variety of colours; but when he began to perceive that these shadings actually represented human beings, he expected also to find their inequalities; and great was his surprise to find smooth and even what he had supposed a very unequal surface; and he inquired whether the deception existed in feeling or seeing. He was then shewn a miniature portrait of his father, which was contained in his mother’s watch-case, and though he readily perceived the resemblance, yet he expressed his amazement how so large a face could be comprised in so small a compass; to him it appeared as strange as that a pint vessel should contain a bushel. At first he could bear but a very small quantity of light, and every object appeared larger than the life; but in proportion as he observed objects that were in reality large, he conceived the others to be equally diminished. Beyond the limits of what he saw he had no conception of any thing. He knew that the apartment he occupied was only a part of the house, and yet he could not imagine how the latter should be larger than the former. Before the operation he formed no great expectations of the pleasure he should receive from the new sense he was promised, excepting that thereby he might be enabled to read and write. He said among other things, that he could enjoy no greater delight from walking in the garden, because there he already walked at his ease, and was acquainted with every part of it. He also remarked that his blindness gave him one advantage over the rest of mankind, namely, that of being able to walk in the night with more confidence and security. No sooner, however, had he began to enjoy his new sense than he was transported beyond measure; he declared that every new object was a new source of delight, and that his pleasure was so great he had not language to express it. About a year after, he was carried to Epsom, where there is a beautiful and extensive prospect; with this he seemed greatly charmed; and the landscape before him he called a new method of seeing. He was couched in the other eye a year after the former, and the success was equally great. Every object appeared larger when he looked at it with the second eye to what it did with the other; and when he looked at any thing with both eyes it appeared twice as large as when he saw but with one, though he did not see double, or at least he shewed no marks from which any such conclusion might be drawn.

Mr. Chesselden instances several other persons who were in the same situation with this lad, and on whom he performed the same operation; and he assures us, that on first obtaining the use of their eyes they expressed their perceptions in the same manner, though less minutely; and that he particularly observed of them all, that as they had never had any occasion to move their eyes while deprived of sight, they were exceedingly embarrassed in learning how to direct them to the objects they wished to observe.

As from particular circumstances we cannot from a just idea of distance, and as we cannot judge of the magnitude of objects but by the largeness of the angle, or rather the image, which they form in our eyes, we are necessarily deceived as to the size of such objects. Every man knows how liable we are, in travelling by night, to mistake a bush which is at hand for a tree at a distance, or a tree at a distance for a bush which is at hand. In like manner, if we cannot distinguish objects by their figure we cannot judge of distance or size. In this case a fly, passing with rapidity before our eyes, will appear to be a bird at a considerable distance; and an horse standing in the middle of a plain will appear no bigger than a sheep till we have discovered that it is a horse, and then we shall recognize it to be as large as life.

Whenever, therefore, we find ourselves benighted in an unknown place, where upon account of the darkness no judgment is to be formed of distance, or figures of the objects that may present themselves, we are every moment in danger of being misled with respect to our ideas of such objects. Hence proceeds that internal fear and dread which most men experience from the obscurity of night, and of those strange and hideous spectres and gigantic figures which so many persons tell us they have seen. Though such figures, it is commonly asserted, exist solely in the imagination, yet they may appear literally to the eye, and be in every respect seen as described to us; for when we reflect that whenever we cannot judge of an unknown object but by the angle which it forms in the eye, this object is magnified in proportion to its propinquity; and that if it appears at the distance of twenty or thirty paces to be only a few feet high, when advanced within a short space of it, it will seem to be of considerable magnitude. At this the spectator must naturally be astonished and terrified, till he approaches and knows it by feeling; for in the very instant that he has an actual perception of what it is, the tremendous form it assumed to the eye will diminish, and it will appear in no other than its real and absolute form. If, on the other hand, he is afraid to approach it, and flies from the spot with precipitation, the only idea he can have of it will be that of the image which had been formed in his eye; the image of a figure he had seen, gigantic in its size, and horrible in its form. The prejudice with respect to spectres, therefore, originates from Nature, and depend not, as some philosophers have supposed, solely upon the imagination.

When we cannot form an idea of distance, by the knowledge of the intermediate space between us and any particular object, we endeavour to distinguish the form of that object, in order to judge of its size; but when we cannot perfectly distinguish the figures, and at the same time behold a number of objects, whose forms are correspondent, we conceive those which are most brilliant are most proximate, and those most obscure are most remote; a notion which is not unoften the source of very singular mistakes. In a multitude of objects disposed in a right line, as the lamps upon the road from Versailles to Paris, of which, as we cannot judge of the proximity or remoteness but by the quantity of light they transmit to the eye, it often happens that when examined at the distance of the eighth of a league, we see all the lamps situated on the right hand instead of the left, on which they are in reality situated. This fallacious appearance is produced from the above-mentioned cause, for as the spectator has no evidence of the distance he is from the lamps, but by the quantity of light they emit, so he conceives that the most brilliant lamps are those which are the first and the nearest to him. Now if some of the first lamps happen to be dull and obscure, and any one of the others particularly bright, that one would appear to be first and the rest behind, whatever was their real situation; and this seeming transposition would be solely owing to the supposed change of their situation from the left hand to the right; for to conceive to be before what is actually behind in a long file, is to see on the right what is situated on the left, or on the left what is situated on the right.

We may fairly consider sight as a species of touching, though very different from what we commonly understand by that sense; for in order to exercise the latter we must be near the object, whereas we can touch with the eye as far as the light the object contains will make an impression, or its figure form an angle therein. This angle, when the object is viewed at the greatest distance, is about the 3436th part of its diameter, therefore an object of a foot square is not visible beyond 3436 feet, or a man of five feet high at a greater distance than 17180 feet. But the extent of vision is in some measure influenced by the light which surrounds us, and we should be enabled to see any object in the night at 100 times greater distance than in the day, provided it was equally illuminated; thus, for instance, we can perceive a lighted candle at full two leagues in the night, supposing the diameter of the luminary to be one inch, whereas in the day we should not be able to discern it beyond the proportion of the above ratio; and as this is a circumstance which attends all objects when viewed at those different periods, we may conclude that one principal reason for our not being able to discern things at a greater distance, is the brilliancy of the light which fills up the intermediate space, and so destroys the reflected rays from those still more distant objects. When we are surrounded with strength of light the objects near make a forcible impression on the retina of the eye, and obliterate those far off, which are weak and faint; and, on the contrary, if we view a luminous body in the night, even at a considerable distance, that becomes perfectly visible, while those which are near are scarcely discernible. From these reasons it is, that a man at the bottom of a deep pit can see the stars, or, by employing a long tube in a dark room, may obtain some effects from the telescope in the middle of the day. From this it is evident, that if bodies were furnished with more strength of light they would be visible at greater distances, although the angle was not increased, for a small candle, which burns bright, is seen much farther off than a flambeau that is dim. Of these facts, relative to the influence of light, we have a still stronger proof in the variation between a microscope and telescope, both of them instruments of the same kind, increasing the visible angles of objects, whether they be really minute or rendered so by distance, and yet the latter does not magnify beyond a thousand times, whereas the former will exceed a million, and this difference plainly arises solely from the degree of light, for could the distant object be additionally illuminated, telescopes would have the same effect upon distant objects as microscopes have upon small bodies. But it is only by comparing the size of the angle formed in the retina of the eye, the degree of light which illuminates the adjacent and intermediate objects, and the strength of light which proceeds from, or is reflected by the object itself, that we can conclude upon the distance at which any particular body will be visible.

The power of seeing objects at a distance is very rarely equal in both eyes. When this inequality is great, the person so circumstanced generally shuts that eye with which he sees the least, and employs the other with all its power, and which is one cause of squinting. The object does not appear doubly distinct, by both eyes being placed upon it although they are equally strong, but has frequently been proved not to exceed a 13th part more than if beheld with one; and this is supposed to arise from the two optic nerves uniting near the place they came out of the skull and then separating by an obtuse angle before they enter the eyes; but as the motion made by the impression of objects cannot pass to the brain without passing this united part, the two motions must therefore be combined, and, consequently, cannot act with that force as though they were distinct; but from repeated experiments seem to bear the proportion above stated.

There are many reasons to suppose that short-sighted persons see objects larger than others; and it is a certain truth that they see them less. I am myself short-sighted, and my left-eye is stronger than my right. A thousand times have I experienced, upon looking at any object, as the letters of a book, that they appear least to the weakest eye; and that, when I place the book so that the letters appear double, the images of the left-eye, are greater than those of the right. Several others, I have examined, who were in similar circumstances, and I have always found, that the eye which saw every object best, saw it also largest. This may be ascribed to particular habits; for near-sighted people being accustomed to approach close to the object, and to view but a small part of it at a time, they acquire a small standard for magnitude, and when the whole of the object is seen, it necessarily appears smaller to them than to others, whose vision is more enlarged.

There have been many instances of persons becoming short-sighted on a sudden, therefore attributing it to the roundness or prominence of the eye is by no means certain. Mr. Smith, in his Optics, speaks of a young man that became short-sighted as he quitted a cold bath, and who was under the necessity of using a concave glass all his life after; and it cannot be supposed that the vitreous humours were instantly inflated so as to cause this difference in vision. Short-sightedness may arise from the position of the various parts of the eye, especially the retina, from a less degree of sensibility in the retina, or the smallness of the pupil. In the two first cases a concave glass may be used to advantage, but yet objects will not be seen so far, or so distinct, through these glasses as others will perceive with the eye alone, for as short-sighted persons see objects in a diminished form, the concave glass diminishes them still farther.

Infants having their eyes smaller than those of adults, must of consequence, see objects smaller also. For as the image formed on the back of the eye must be large, as the eye is capacious, so infants, having it not so great, cannot have so large a picture of the object. This may likewise be a reason, why they are unable to see so distinctly, or at such distances, as persons who have attained the years of maturity, for as objects appear less they must sooner become invisible.

Old people see bodies close to them very indistinctly, but bodies at a great distance from them with more precision, than young ones. This may happen from an alteration in the coats, or perhaps the humours of the eye; and not, as is supposed, entirely from their diminution. The cornea, for instance, may become too rigid to adapt itself, and take a proper convexity for seeing near objects, as a flatness must be occasioned by drying that will be sufficient of itself to render their eyes more calculated for distant vision. Although clear and distinct are frequently confounded by writers on optics, yet they are very different; for we may be said, for instance, to clearly see a tower, as soon as we get a view of it, but we must approach near enough to distinguish its component parts before we see it distinctly. Men in years see clearly, but not distinctly; they can discern large bodies at a distance, but cannot distinguish small objects, as the characters in a book, without the help of magnifying glasses. On the contrary, short-sighted people see small objects distinctly, but need the aid of concave glasses to reduce large ones. Much light is also necessary for clear sight, while a small quantity is sufficient for distinct vision.

When an object is extremely brilliant, or we fix our eyes too long upon the same object, the organ is hurt and fatigued, vision becomes indistinct, and the image of the object, having made too violent an impression, appears painted on every thing we look at, and mixes with every object that occurs. How dangerous the looking upon bright and luminous objects is to the sight, is evident from the effect it has on the inhabitants of countries which are covered for the greatest part of the year with snow; and travellers, who cross those countries, are obliged to cover their eyes with crape. In the sandy plains of Africa, the reflection of the light is so strong, that it is impossible for the eye to sustain the effects of it. Such persons therefore, as write, or read for any continuance, should chase a moderate light, for though it may seem insufficient at first, yet the eye will gradually become accustomed to the shade; and at any rate, it will be less injured by too little light than by too much.