STUDY X. 9 



perceptible in the brute creation, fuch as the 

 prickles of the hedge-hog, the horns of the bull, 

 the tufks of the wild-boar, the fangs of the lion, 

 the marbled fkin of the dog, and the livid and dif- 

 gufting colours of venemous animals. It is the 

 only one of which the firft touch is perceptible, 

 and which you can fee completely ; other animals 

 being difguifed under hair, or feathers, or fcales, 

 which conceal their limbs, their fhape, their fkin. 

 Farther, it is the only form which, in its perpen- 

 dicular attitude, difplays all it's pofitions and di- 

 rections at once ; for you can hardly perceive 

 more of a quadruped, of a bird, of afifh, than one 

 half, in the horizontal pofition which is proper to 

 them, becaufe the upper part of their body con- 

 ceals the under. 



We muft, likewife, remark, that Man's progref- 

 five motion is fubject to neither the fhocks, nor 

 the tardinefs of movement of mod quadrupeds, 

 nor to the rapidity of that of birds ; but is the re- 

 mit of movements the mod harmonic, as his 

 figure is, of forms, and of colours, the mod de- 

 lightful ». 



The 



* It has been maintained by certain celebrated Authors, 

 that the Negros confider their own colour as more beautiful 

 than that of the whites ; but it is a miftake. I have put many 

 a queftion, on this fubjeél, to black people, who were in my 



own 



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