them still more until the thirty-first day, when the rabbit brought forth her young completely fitted for the purposes of their humble happiness.

Having thus seen the stages of generation in the meaner animals, let us take a view of its progress in MAN, and trace the feeble beginnings of our own exist ence. An account of the lowliness of our own origin, if it cannot amuse, will at least serve to humble us; and it may take from our pride though it fail to gratify our curiosity. We cannot here trace the variations of the beginning animal as in the former instances, for the opportunities of inspection are but few and accidental; for this reason we must be content often to fill up the blanks of our history with conjecture. And, first, we are entirely ignorant of the state of the infant in the womb immediately after conception; but we have good reason to believe that it proceeds, as in most other animals, from the egg. Anatomists inform us, that four days after conception there is found in the womb an oval substance about the size of a small pea, but longer one way than the other; this little body is formed by an extremely fine membrane enclosing a liquor a good deal resembling the white of an egg; in this may, even then, be perceived several small fibres united together, which form the first rudiments of the embryo. Besides these, another set of fibres are seen, which soon after become the placenta, or that body by which the animal is supplied with nourishment.

Seven days after conception, we can readily distinguish by the eye the first lineaments of the child in the womb. However, they are as yet without form-showing at the end of seven days pretty much such an appearance as that of the chicken after twenty-four hours, being a small jelly-like mass, yet exhibiting the rudiments of the head; the trunk is barely visible; there is likewise to be discerned a small assemblage of fibres issuing from the body of the infant, which afterwards become the blood-vessels that convey nourishment from the placenta to the child while enclosed in the womb. Fifteen days after conception the head becomes distinctly visible, and even the most prominent features of the visage begin to appear. The nose is a little elevated; there are two black specks in the place of eyes; and two little holes where the ears are afterwards seen. The body of the embryo is also grown larger; and both above and I elow are seen two little protuberances, which mark the places from whence the arms and thighs are to proceed. The length of the whole body at this time is less than half an inch.

At the end of three weeks the body has received very little increase; but the legs and feet, with the hands and arms, are become apparent. The growth of the arms is more speedy than that of the legs; and the fingers are sooner separated than the toes. About this time, the internal parts are found upon dissection to become distinguishable. The places of the bones are marked by small thread like substances, that are yet more fluid even then a jelly. Among them the ribs are perceptible, like threads also, disposed on each side of the spine; and even the fingers and toes exceed hairs in thickness.

In a month the embryo is an inch long; the body is bent forward-a situation which it almost always assumes in the womb, either because a posture of this kind is the most easy, or because it takes up the least room. The human figure is now no longer doubtful; every part of the face is distinguishable; the body is sketched out; the bowels are to be distinguished as threads; the bones are still quite soft, but in some places beginning to assume a greater rigidity; the blood-vessels that go to the placenta (which, as was said, contribute to the child's nourishment) are plainly seen issuing from the navel (being therefore called the "umbilical vessels") and going to spread themselves upon the placenta. According to Hippocrates. the male embryo develops sooner

than the female: he adds, that at the end of thirty days the parts of the body of the male are distinguishable; while those of the female are not equally so till ten days after.

In six weeks the embryo is grown two inches long; the human figure begins to grow every day more perfectthe head being still much larger in proportion to the rest of the body; and the motion of the heart is perceived almost by the eye. It has been seen to beat in an embryo of fifty days old a long time after it had been taken out of the womb.

In two months the embryo is more than two inches in length. The ossification is perceivable in the arms and thighs and in the point of the chin, the under jaw being greatly advanced before the upper. These parts, however, may as yet be considered as bony points rather than as bones. The umbilical vessels, which before went side by side, are now bugun to be twisted like a rope one over the other, and go to join with the placenta, which as yet is but small.

In three months the embryo is above three inches long, and weighs about three ounces. Hippocrates observes, that not till then the mother perceives the child's motion; and he adds, that in female children the motion is not observable till the end of four months. However, this is no general rule, as there are women who assert that they perceived themselves to be quick with child, as their expression is, at the end of two months; so that this quickness seems rather to arise from the proportion between the child's strength and the mother's sensibility than from any determinate period of time. At all times, however, the child is equally alive; and consequently those juries of matrons that are to deter mine upon the pregnancy of criminals should not inquire whether the woman be quick, but whether she be with child; if the latter be perceivable, the former follows of course.

Four months and a half after conception the embryo is from six to seven inches long. All the parts are so augmented, that even their proportions are now distin guishable. The very nails begin to appear upon the fingers and toes; and the stomach and intestines already begin to perform their functions of receiving and digesting. In the stomach is found a liquor similar to that in which the embryo floats-in one part of the intestines a milky substance, and in the other an excrementitious one There is also found a small quantity of bile in the gall-bladder, and some urine in its own proper receptacle. By this time, also, the posture of the embryo seems to be determined. The head is bent forward, so that the chin seems to rest upon its breast; the knees are raised up towards the head, and the legs bent backward, somewhat resembling the posture of those who sit upon their haunches. Sometimes the knees are raised so high as to touch the cheeks, and the feet are crossed over each other; the arms are laid upon the breast, while one of the hands, and often both, touch the visage; sometimes the hands are shut, and sometimes, also, the arms are found hanging down by the body. These are the most usual postures which the embryo assumes; but these it is frequently known to change; and it is owing to these alterations that the mother so frequently feels those twitches which are usually attended with pain.

The embryo thus situated is furnished by Nature with all things proper for its support; and as it increases in size its nourishment also is found to increase with it. As soon as it first begins to grow in the womb, that receptacle, from being very small, grows larger and (what is more surprising) thicker every day. The sides of a bladder, as we know, the more they are distended the more they become thin; but here, the larger the womb grows the more it appears to thicken. Within this the embryo is still farther involved, in two membranes called the "chorion" and "amnios," and

floats in a thin transparent fluid, upon which it seems in some measure to subsist. However, the great storehouse from whence its chief nourishment is supplied is called the "placenta"- -a red substance somewhat resembling a sponge, that adheres to the inside of the womb, and communicates to the umbilical vessels with the embryo. These umbilical vessels, which consist of a vein and two arteries, issue from the navel of the child, and are branched out upon the placenta, where they, in fact, seem to form its substance, and, if I may so express it, seem to suck up their nourishment from the womb and the fluids contained therein. The blood thus received from the womb by the placenta, and communicated by the umbilical vein to the body of the embryo, is couveyed to the heart; where, without ever passing into the lungs as in the born infant, it takes a shorter course; for, entering the right auricle of the heart, instead of passing up into the pulmonary artery, it seems to break this partition, and goes directly through the body of the heart by an opening called the "foramen ovale," and from thence to the aorta, or great artery; by which it is driven into all parts of the body. Thus we see the placenta in some measure supplying the place of lungs; for as the little animal can receive no air by inspiration, the lungs are therefore useless. But we see the placenta converting the fluid of the womb into blood, and sending it by the umbilical vein to the heart, from whence it is despatched by a quicker and shorter circulation through the whole frame.

In this manner the embryo reposes in the womb, supplied with that nourishment which is fitted to its necessities, and furnished with those organs that are adapted to its situation. As its sensations are but few, its wants are in the same proportion; and it is probable that a sleep, with scarce any intervals, marks the earliest period of animal life. As the little creature, however, gathers strength and size, it seems to become more wakeful and uneasy; even in the womb it begins to feel the want of something it does not possess a sensation that seems coeval with man's nature, and never leaves him till he dies. The embryo even then begins to struggle for a state more marked by pleasure and pain, and, from about the sixth month, begins to give the mother warning of the greater pain she is yet to endure. The continuation of pregnancy in woman is usually nine months; but there have been many instances when the child has lived that was born at seven; and some are found to continue pregnant a month above the usual time. When the appointed time approaches, the infant, which has for some months been giving painful proofs of its existence, now begins to increase its efforts for liberty. The head is applied downward to the aperture of the womb, and by reiterated efforts it endeavours to extend the same: these endeavours produce the pain which all women in labour feel in some degree-those of strong constitutions the least, those most weakly the most saverely; since we learn that the women of Africa always deliver themselves, and are well a few hours after; while those of Europe require assistance, and recover more slowly. Thus the infant, still continuing to push with its head forward, by the repetition of its endeavours at last succeeds, and thus issues into life. The blood, which has hitherto passed through the heart, now takes a wider circuit; and the foramen ovale closes; the lungs, which had till this time been inactive, now first begin their functions; the air rushes in to distend them; and this produces the first sensation of pain, which the infant expresses by a shriek-so that the beginning of our lives as well as the end is marked with anguish.

From comparing these accounts, we perceive that the most laboured generation is the most perfect; and that the animal which, in proportion to its bulk, takes the longest time for production is always the most complete when finished. Of all others man sec as the slowest in coming into life, as he is the slowest in coming to per

fection; other animals of the same bulk seldom remain in the womb above six months, while he continues nine; and even after his birth appears more than any other to have his state of imbecility prolonged.

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

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

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

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

CHAP. III.

THE INFANCY OF MAN.

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

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

An infant just born may be said to come from one element into another; for, from the watery fluid in which it was surrounded, it now immerges into air; and its first cries seem to imply how greatly it regrets the change. How much longer it could have continued in a state of almost total insensibility in the womb is impossible to tell; but it is very probable that it could remain there some hours more. In order to throw some light upon this subject, Mr. Buffon so placed a pregnant bitch as that her puppies were brought forth in warm water, in which he kept them above half an hour at a time. However, he saw no change in the animals thus newly brought forth; they continued the whole time vigorous; and, during the whole time, it is very probable that the blood circulated through the same channels through which it passed while they continued in the womb.

Almost all animals have their eyes closed for some days after being brought into the world. The infant opens them the instant of its birth. However, it seems to keep them fixed and idle; they want that lustre which they acquire by degrees; and if they happen to move, it is rather an accidental gaze than an exertion of the act of seeing. The light alone seems to make the greatest impression upon them. The eyes of infants are sometimes found turned to the place where it is strongest; and the pupil is seen to dilate and diminish, as in grown persons, in proportion to the quantity it receives. But still the infant is incapable of distinguishing objects; the sense of seeing, like the rest of the senses, requires habit before it becomes any way serviceable All the senses must be compared with each other, and must be made to correct the defects of one another, before they can give just information. It is probable, therefore, that if the infant could express its own sensations, it would give a very extraordinary description of the illusions which it suffers from them. The sight might, perhaps, be represented as inverting objects or multiplying them; the hearing, instead of conveying one uniform tone, might be said to bring up an interrupted succession of noises; and the touch apparently would divide one body into as many as there are fingers that grasped it. But all these errors are lost in one confused idea of existence; and it is happy for the infant that it then can make but very little use of its senses, when they could serve only to bring it false information.

If there be any distinct sensations, those of pain seem to be much more frequent and stronger than those of ⚫ pleasure. The infant's cries are sufficient indications of

the uneasinesses it must at every interval endure; while, in the beginning, it has got no external marks to testify its satisfactions. It is not till after forty days that it is seen to smile; and not till that time also that the tears begin to appear, its former expressions of uneasiness being always without them. As to any other marks of the passions, the infant being as yet almost without them, it can express none of them in its visage which, except in the act of crying and laughing, is fixed in a settled serenity. All the other parts of the body seem equally relaxed and feeble; its motions are uncertain, and its postures without choice; it is unable to stand upright; its hams are yet bent, from the habit which it received from its position in the womb; it has not strength enough in its arms to stretch them forward, much less to grasp anything with its hands; it rests just in the posture it is laid; and, if abandoned, must continue in the same position.

Nevertheless, though this be the description of infancy among mankind in general, there are countries and races among whom infancy does not seem marked with such utter imbecility, but where the children, not long after they are born, appear possessed of a greater share of self-support. The children of Negroes have a surprising degree of this premature industry; they are able to walk at two months or, at least, to move from one place to another, they also hang to the mother's back without any assistance, and seize the breast over the shoulder-continuing in this posture till she thinks proper to lay them down. This is very different in the children of our counties, who are seldom able to walk under a twelvemonth.

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

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

It is extraordinary, however, that infants, who are thus more voracious than own persons, are neverthe

less more capable of sustaining hunger. We have several instances, in accidental cases of famine, in which the child has been known to survive the parent, and been seen clinging to the breast of its dead mother. Their little bodies, also, are more patient of cold; and we have similar instances of the mother's perishing in the snow, while the infant has been found alive beside her. How ever, if we examine the internal structure of infants, we shall find an obvious reason for both these advantages. Their blood-vessels are known to be much larger than in adults, and their nerves much thicker and softer; thus, being furnished with a more copious quantity of juices, both of the nervous and sanguinary kinds, the infant finds a temporary sustenance in this superfluity, and does not expire till both are exhausted. The circulation, also, being larger and quicker, supplies it with proportionable warmth, so that it is more capable of resisting the accidental rigours of the weather.

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

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

There is something very remarkable in the growth of the human body. The embryo in the womb continues to increase still more and more till it is born, On the other hand, the child's growth is less every year till the time of puberty, when it seems to start up of a sudden. Thus, for instance, the embryo, which is an inch long in the first month, grows but one inch and a quarter in the second; it then grows one and a half in the third, two and a half in the fourth; and in this manner it keeps in creasing, till in the last month of its continuance it is actually found to grow four inches, and, in the whole, about eighteen inches long. But it is otherwise with the child when born; if we suppose it eighteen inches at that time, it grows in the first year six or seven inches; in the second year it grows but four inches; in the third year about three; and so on, at the rate of about an inch and a half or two inches each year till the time of puberty, when Nature seems to make one last effort to complete her work, and unfold the whole animal machine. The growth of the mind in children seems to correupond with that of the body. The comparative progress

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

It is very amusing to pursue the young mind while employed in its first attainments. At about a year old the same necessities that first engaged its faculties increase as its acquaintance with Nature enlarges. Its studies, therefore, if I may use the expression, are no way relaxed; for having experienced what gave pleasure at one time, it desires a repetition of it from the same object; and, in order to obtain this, that object must be pointed out; here, therefore, a new necessity arises, which very often neither its little arts nor importunities can remove-so that the child is at last obliged to set about naming the objects it desires to possess or avoid. In beginning to speak, which is usually about a year old, children find a thousand difficulties. It is not without repeated trials that they come to pronounce any one of the letters, nor without an effort of the memory that they can retain them. For this reason, we frequently see them attempting a sound which they had learned, but forgot; and when they have failed, I have often seen their attempt attended with apparent confusion. The letters soonest learned are those which are most easily formed; thus A and B require an obvious disposition of the organs, and their pronunciation is consequently soon attained. Z and R, which require a more complicated position, are learned with greater difficulty. And this may, perhaps, be the reason why the children in some countries speak sooner than in others; for the letters mostly occurring in the language of one country being such as are of easy pronunciation, that language is of course more easily attained, In this manner the children of the Italians are said to speak sooner than those of the Germans-the language of the one being smooth and open, that of the other crowded with consonants, and extremely guttural.

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

Almost every philosopher who has written on the edncation of children has been willing to point out a method

of his own, chiefly professing to advance the health and improve the intellects at the same time. These are usually found to begin with finding nothing right in the common practice, and by urging a total reformation. In consequence of this nothing can be more wild or imaginary than their various systems of improvement. Some will have the children every day plunged in cold water, in order to strengthen their bodies; they will have them converse with the servants in nothing but the Latin language, in order to strengthen their minds; every hour of the day must be appointed for its own studies, and the child must learn to make these very studies an amusement; till about the age of ten or eleven it becomes a prodigy of premature improvement. Quite opposite to this, we have orders whom the courtesy of mankind also calls "philosophers:" and they will have the child learn nothing till the age of ten or eleven, at which the former has attained so much perfection; with them the mind is to be kept empty, until it has a proper distinction of some metaphysical ideas about truth; and the promising pupil is debarred the use of even his own faculties, lest they should conduct him into prejudice and error. In this manner, some men, whom fashion has celebrated for profound and fine thinkers, have given their hazarded and untried conjectures upon one of the most important subjects in the world, and the most interest ing to humanity. When men speculate at liberty upon innate ideas, or the abstracted distinctions between will and power, they may be permitted to enjoy their systems at pleasure: they are harmless, although they may be wrong; but when they allege that children are to be every day plunged in cold water, and, whatever be their constitution, indiscriminately inured to cold and moisture that they are to be kept wet in the feet to prevent their catching cold, and never to be corrected when young for fear of breaking their spirits when old; these are such noxious errors, that all reasonable men should endeavour to oppose them. Many have been the children whom these opinions, begun in speculation, have injured or destroyed in practice; and I have seen many a little philosophical martyr whom I wished, but was

unable, to relieve.

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

I have ever found it a vain task to try to make a child's learning its amusement; nor do I see what good end it would answer were it actually attained. The child, as was said, ought to have its share of play, and it will be benefited thereby; and for every reason, also, it ought to have its share of labour. The mind by early labour will be thus accustomed to fatigues and subordi nation; and whatever the person's future employment in life he will be better fitted to endure it: he will be thus enabled to support the drudgeries of office with content, or to fill up the vacancies of life with variety. The child, therefore, sho'd by times be put to its duty, and be taught to know hat the task is to be done or the punishment to be endured. I do not object against alluring it to duty by reward; but we well know that the mind will be more strongly stimulated by pain-and both may, upon some occasions, take their turn to operate. In this manner a child, by playing with its equals abroad and labouring with them at school, will acquire more health and knowledge than by being bred up under the wing of any speculative system-maker, and will be thus qualified for a life of activity and obedience. It

is true, indeed, that when educated in this manner the boy may not be so seemingly sensible and forward as one bred up under solitary instruction; and, perhaps, this early forwardness is more engaging than useful. It is well known that many of those children who have been such prodigies of literature before ten have not made an adequate progress to twenty. It would seem that they only began learning manly things before their time; and while others were busied in picking up that knowledge adapted to their age and curiosity, these were forced upon subjects unsuited to their years, and, upon that account alone, appearing extraordinary. The stock of knowledge in both may be equal; but with this difference that each is yet to learn what the other knows.

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

It has been often said that the season of youth is the season of pleasures; but this can only be true in savage countries, where but little preparation is made for the perfection of human nature, and where the mind has but a very small part in the enjoyment. It is otherwise in those places where Nature is carried to the highest pitch of refinement, in which this season of the greatest sensual delight is wisely made subservient to the succeeding and more rational one of manhood. Youth with us is but a scene of preparation-a drama, upon the right conduct of which all future happiness is to depend. The youth who follows his appetites too soon seizes the cup before it has received its best ingredients, and, by anticipating his pleasures, robs the remaining parts of life of their share; so that his eagerness only produces a manhood of imbecility and an age of pain.

The time of puberty is different in various countries, and always more late in men than in women. In the warm countries of India the women are marriageable at nine or ten, and the men at twelve or thirteen. It is also different in cities (where the inhabitants lead a more soft, luxurious life) from the country, where they work harder and fare less delicately. Its symptoms are seldom alike in different persons; but it is usually known by a swelling of the breasts in one sex, and a roughness of the voice in the other. At this season, also, the women seem to acquire new beauty; while the men lose all that delicate effeminaey of countenance which they had when boys.

All countries, in proportion as they are civilised or barbarous, improve or degrade the nuptial satisfaction. In those miserable regions where strength makes the only law the stronger sex exerts its power, and becomes the tyrant over the weaker: while the inhabitant of Negroland is indolently taking his pleasure in the fields, his wife is obliged to till the grounds that serve for their mutual support. It is thus in all barbarous countries, where the men throw all the laborious duties upon the women, and, regardless of beauty, put the softer sex to those employments that must effectually destroy it.

K