ANIMALS. 259 



our ownj in early imbecility, the impression of their superiority re 

 mains when they no longer exist, and when we cease to be inferior. 

 Thus the men of every age consider the past as wiser than the present; 

 and the reverence seems to accumulate as our imaginations ascend. 

 For this reason, we allow remote antiquity many advantages, without 

 disputing their title : the inhabitants of uncivilized countries represent 

 them as taller and stronger ; and the people of a more polished na- 

 tion, as more healthy and more wise. Nevertheless, these attributes 

 seem to be only the prejudices of ingenuous minds; a kind of grati- 

 tude, which we hope in turn to receive from posterity. The ordinary 

 stature of men, Mr. Derham observes, is, in all probability, the same 

 now as at the beginning. The oldest measure we have of the human 

 figure, is in the monument of Cheops, in the first pyramid of Egypt. 

 This must have subsisted many hundred years before the times of Ho- 

 mer, who is the first that deplores the decay. This monument, how- 

 ever, scarce exceeds the measure of our ordinary coffins : the cavity is 

 no more than six feet long, two feet wide, and deep in about the same 

 proportion. Several mummies also, of a very early age, are found to 

 be only of the ordinary stature ; and shew that, for these three thou- 

 sand years at least, men have not suffered the least diminution. We 

 have many corroborating proofs of this, in the ancient pieces of ar- 

 mour which are dug up in different parts of Europe. The brass hel- 

 met dug up at Medauro, fits one of our men, and yet is allowed to 

 have been left there at the overthrow of Asdrubal. Some of our 

 finest antique statues, which we learn from Pliny and others to be ex- 

 actly as big as life, still continue to this day, remaining monuments of 

 the superior excellence of their workmen indeed, but not of the supe- 

 riority of their stature. We may conclude, therefore, that men have 

 been, in all ages, pretty much of the same size they are at present ; 

 and that the only difference must have been accidental, or perhaps 

 national. 



As to the superior beauty of our ancestors, it is not easy to make 

 the comparison ; beauty seems a very uncertain charm ; and frequently 

 is less in the object, than in the eye of the beholder. Were a modern 

 lady's face formed exactly like the Venus of Medicis, or the Sleeping 

 Vestal, she would scarce be considered beautiful, except by the lovers 

 of antiquity, whom, of all her admirers, perhaps, she would be least 

 desirous of pleasing. It is true, that we have some disorders among 

 us that disfigure the features, and from which the ancients were ex- 

 empt ; but it is equally true, that we want some which were common 

 among them, and which were equally deforming. As for their intel- 

 lectual powers, these also were probably the same as ours : we excel 

 them in the sciences, which may be considered as a history of accu- 

 mulated experience ; and they excel us in the poetic arts, as they had 

 the first rifling of all the striking images of nature. 



