264 On the Cretins of the Vallais. 



imbecility, they have the mouth very wide, and 

 the tongue and lips uncommonly thick and 

 large. Nature feems alfo to have exhaufted 

 with them all her efforts at a very early hour, 

 and old age treads upon the heels of infancy. 

 They die, regularly, young, and there are not any 

 inftances of their arriving at the advanced period 

 of human life. The propagation of the fpecies 

 is the only appetite numbers of them are 

 ever roufed by, and it rages with more than 

 common violence. The fame lafcivioufnefs is 

 fuppofed to apply to the monkey and baboon. 

 With fome, poffibly, the obfervation may create a 

 fmile, but the naturalift will paufe on the ana- 

 logy, whilll it will not efcape the moralifl, that as 

 man becemes the (lave of his own unruly paf- 

 fions, he defcends into a proximity to the 

 brute creation. In this defcription of the Cre- 

 tin, it ought to be obfcrved, thofe only in the 

 fuUeft fenfe of the word are to be included. In 

 the different gradations, nature has been uni- 

 formly regular. Where llie has lead varied frbm 

 herfelf, the Cretin moft refembles mankind in a 

 ftate of perfeftion, both in countenance and 

 figure, reaches nearer its general ftature, and 

 there is lefs difference in their refpeftive periods 

 of exiftence. The repeated view of fuch multi- 

 tudes of unfortunate beings is, to the laft degree, 

 piteous andaffeding. There is, notwithftanding, 

 fome confolation in rcfledling, that they are not 



themfelves 



