INFANCY. 139 



and undistinguished gratification of their senses, this is the 

 period when it is necessary to stimulate children, by various 

 artifices, to apply their minds steadily to the examination of 

 particular objects, arid to the acquisition of new ideas i'-om 

 more complicated and refined sources of information. The 

 great basis of education is a habit of attention. When this 

 important point is gained, the minds of children may be 

 moulded into any form. But that restlessness and appetite 

 for motion, which Nature, for the wisest purposes, has im- 

 planted in the constitution of all young animals, should not 

 be too severely checked. Health and vigor of body are the 

 surest foundations of strength and improvement of mind. 



The duration of infancy from man to the insect tribes, 

 seems, in general, to be proportioned, not to the extent of 

 life, but to the sagacity or mental powers of the different 

 classes of animated beings. The elephant requires thirty 

 years, and the rhinoceros twenty, before they come to perfect 

 maturity. But these years mark not the period of infancy ; 

 for the animals, in a much shorter time, are capable of pro- 

 curing their own food, and are totally independent of any aid 

 from their parents. The same remark is applicable to the 

 camel, the horse, the larger apes, &c. Their ages of puberty 

 are four, two and a half, and three years. But in these quad- 

 rupeds, the terminations of infancy are much more early. 

 The smaller quadrupeds, as hares, rats, mice, &c., are ma- 

 ture at the end of the first year after birth, and the guinea- 

 pig and rabbit require only five or six months. There is a 

 gradation of mental powers, though not without exceptions, 

 from the larger to the more minute quadrupeds ; for the dog 

 and fox, whose sagacity is very great, come to maturity in 

 one year, and their state of infancy is short. But of all 

 animals, the infancy and helpless condition of man are the 

 most prolonged ; and the superiority and ductility of his mind 

 will not be questioned. 



The infant state of birds is very short. Most of the feath- 

 ered tribes arrive at perfection in less than six months ; and 

 their sagacity is comparatively limited. 



Fishes receive no aid from their parents. They no sooner 

 escape from the eggs of their mother, than they are in a con- 

 dition to procure nourishment, and to provide, in some meas- 

 ure, for their own safety. Of the sagacity of fishes, owing to 

 the element in which they live, we have very little knowledge. 

 But their general character is stupidity, joined to a voracious 

 and indiscriminating appetite for food. In opposition to an 



