ANIMALS. 183 



ment of, those satisfactions, both of mind and body, that make life 

 of real value : and hence it is more natural for mankind to de 

 plore a fellow-creature, cut off in the bloom of life, than one dying 

 in early infancy. The one, by living up to youth, and thus wading 

 through the disadvantageous parts of existence, seems to have earned 

 a short continuance of its enjoyments : the infant, on the contrary, 

 has served but a short apprenticeship to pain ; and, when taken away, 

 may be considered as rescued from a long continuance of misery. 



There is something very remarkable in the growth of the human 

 body.* The embryo in the womb continues to increase still more 

 and more till it is born. On the other hand, the child's growth is less 

 every year, till the time of puberty, when it seems to start up of a 

 sudden. Thus, for instance, the embryo, which is an inch long in 

 the first month, grows but one inch and a quarter in the second ; it 

 then grows one and a half in the third ; two and a half in the fourth; 

 and in this manner it keep increa'sing, till in the last month of its 

 continuance it is actually found to grow four inches ; and, in the 

 whole, about eighteen inches long. But it is otherwise with the child 

 when born ; if we suppose it eighteen inches at that time, it grows in 

 the first year six or seven inches ; in the second year, it grows but 

 four inches ; in the third year, about three ; and so on, at the rate of 

 about an inch and a half, or two inches, each year, till the time of 

 puberty, when nature seerns to make one great last effort, to com- 

 plete her work, and unfold the whole animal machine. 



The growth of the mind in children seems to correspond with that 

 of the body. The comparative progress of the understanding is 

 greater in infants than in children of three or four years old. If we 

 only reflect a moment on the amazing acquisitions that an infant 

 makes in the first and second years of life, we shall have much cause 

 for wonder. Being sent into a world where every thing is new and 

 unknown, the first months of life are spent in a kind of torpid amaze- 

 ment ; an attention distracted by the multiplicity of objects that press 

 to be known. The first labour, therefore, of the little learner is, to 

 correct the illusions of the senses, to distinguish one object from 

 another, and to exert the memory, so as to know them again. In 

 this manner a child of a year old has already made a thousand ex- 

 periments ; all which it has properly ranged, and distinctly remem- 

 bers. Light, heat, fire, sweets, and bitters, sounds soft or terrible, 

 are all distinguished at the end of a very few months. Besides this, 

 every person the child knows, every individual object it becomes 

 fond of, its rattles, or its bells, may be all considered as so many 

 new lessons to the young mind, with which it has not become ac- 

 quainted, without repeated exertions of the understanding. At this 

 period of life, the knowledge of every individual object cannot be 

 acquired without the same effort which, when grown up, is employed 

 upon the most abstract idea : every thing the child hears or sees, all 

 the marks and characters of nature, are as much unknown, and re 

 quire the same attention to attain, as if the reader were set to un 

 4erstand the characters of an Ethiopic manuscriot ; and yet we so< 



* Buffon, voi. iv. p. 171 



