412 GENERATION. SECT. XXXIX 6. 6. 



to her cellar to draw fome beer, was frighted by a fervant boy 

 darting up from behind the barrel, where he had concealed 

 himfelf with defign to alarm the maid-fervant, for whom he 

 miftook his midrefs. She came with difficulty up Hairs, began 

 to flood immediately, and mifcarried in a few hours. She has 

 fince borne feveral children, nor ever had any tendency to mif- 

 carryof any of them. 



In refpect to the power of the imagination of the male over 

 the form, colour, and fex of the progeny, the following in- 

 ftances have fallen under my obfervation, and may perhaps be 

 found not very unfrequent, if they were more attended to. I 

 am acquainted with a gentleman, who has one child with dark 

 hair and eyes ; though his lady and himfelf have light hair 

 and eyes ; and their other four children are like their parents. 

 On obferving this diflimilarity of one child to the others he 

 allured me, that he believed it was his own imagination, that 

 produced the difference ; and related to me the following ftory. 

 He faid, that when his lady lay in of her third child, he became 

 attached to a daughter of one of his inferior tenants, and offer- 

 ed her a bribe for her favours in vain ; and afterwards a greater 

 bribe, and was equally unfuccefsful ; that the form of this girl 

 dwelt much in his mind for fome weeks, and that the next child, 

 which was the dark- eyed young lady above mentioned, was ex- 

 ceedingly like, in both features and colour^ to the young woman 

 who refuted his addrefles. 



To this inftance I muft add, that I have known two families, 

 in which, on account of an intailed eftate in expectation, a male 

 heir was moft eagerly defired by the father ; and on the con- 

 trary, girls were produced to the feventh in one, and to the ninth 

 in another ; and then they had each of them a fon. I conclude, 

 that the great defire of a male heir by the father produced rath- 

 er a difagreeable than an agreeable fenfation ; and that his ideas 

 dwelt more on the fear of generating a female, than on the pleaf- 

 urabie fenfations or ideas of his own male form or organs at the 

 time of copulation, or of the fecretion of the femen ; and that 

 hence the idea of the female character was more prefent to his 

 mind than that of the male one , till at length in defpair of gen- 

 erating a male thefe ideas ceafed, and thofe of the male charac- 

 ter prefided at the genial hour. 



6. Hence I conclude, that the acl: of generation cannot ex- 

 ift without being accompanied with ideas, and that a man mull 

 have at that time either a general idea of his own male form, or 

 of the form of his male organs j or an idea of the female form, 

 or of her organs ; and that this marks the fex, and the peculiar 

 refemblances of the child to either parent. From whence it 



would 



