^6 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



ture. Nothing lefs than the authority of an oracle 

 could refcue him from this parental tyranny, Sa~ 

 crates acknowledged, in conformity to the decifion 

 of a Phyfiognomift, that he was addifted to women 

 and wine, the vices into which men are ufually 

 thrown by the preffure of calamity : at length, he 

 became reformed, and nothing could be more 

 beautiful than this Philofopher, when hedifcourfed 

 about the Deity, As to the happy Akibiades, 

 born in the very lap of fortune, the leflbns of So- 

 craieSy and the love of his parents and fellow-citi- 

 zens, expanded in him, at once, beauty of perfoti 

 and of foul ; but having been, at laft, betrayed into 

 irregular courfes, through the influence of evil 

 communications, nothing remained but the bare 

 phyfionomy of virtue. Whatever fedu6lion may 

 be apparent in their firft afpeâ:, the uglinefs of vice 

 foon difcovçrs itfelf on the faces of handfome men 

 degraded into wickednefs. You can perceive, 

 even under their fmiles, a certain marked trait of 

 falfehood and perfidy. This diffbnance is commu- 

 nicated even to the voice. Every thing about then:^ 

 is maiked, like their face, 



I beg leave, farther, to obferve, that all the 

 forms of organized beings exprefs intelledual fen- 

 riments, not only to the eyes of Man, who ftudies 

 Nature, but to thofe of animals, which are inftrud:- 

 fd, at once, by their inftinft, in fuch particulars of 



knowledge^ 



