l8 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



brium neceflary to the empire of Virtue flill fub- 

 fifts, and it is never totally loft, except in perfons 

 with whom it has been deftroyed by the habits of 

 fociety, and more frequently ftill by thofe of edu- 

 cation. In that cafe, the predominant paflTion, 

 having no longer any counterpoife, allumes the 

 command of all our faculties j but this is the fault 

 of fociety, which undergoes the punifhment of it, 

 and not that of Nature. 



I remark, however, that thefe fame feafons exert 

 their influence on the paffions of Man, by acfling 

 only on his moral, and not on his phyfical prin- 

 ciple. Though this refledion has fomething of 

 the air of paradox, I fhall endeavour to fupport it 

 by a very remarkable obfervation. If the heat of 

 Climate could act on the human body, it affuredly 

 would be when one is in his mother's womb : for it 

 then ads on that of all animals, whofe expanfion 

 it accelerates. Father dii "Tertre^ in his excellent 

 Hiftory of the Antilles, fays, that in thofe iflands, 

 the period of geftation of all European animals is 

 fliorter than in temperate Climates ; and that the 

 hen's eggs are not longer in hatching, than the 

 feeds of the orange in burfting their flicll, twenty- 

 three days. Pliny had obferved in Italy, that they 

 hatch in nineteen days in Summer, and in twenty- 

 five in Winter. 



In 



