ANIMALS. 399 



imaginary than their various systems of improve- 

 ment. 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 

 others, 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 j and the promising pupil is 

 debarred the use of even his own faculties, lest 

 they should conduct him into prejudice and er- 

 ror. In this manner,, some men, whom fashion 

 has celebrated for profound and fine thinkers, 

 have given their hazarded and untried conjec- 

 tures upon one of the most important subjects 

 in the world, and the most interesting to huma- 

 nity. When men speculate at liberty upon in- 

 nate ideas, or the abstracted distinctions between 

 will and power, they may be permitted to enjoy 

 their systems at pleasure, as they are harmless, 

 although they may be wrong ; but when they al- 

 lege, that children are to be every day plunged in 

 cold water, and, whatever be their constitutions, 

 indiscriminately inured to cold and moisture ; 



