ANIMALS. S 



tural than this progress of the mind, in looking 

 up to antiquity with reverential wonder. Having 

 been accustomed to compare the wisdom of our 

 fathers with our own in early imbecility, the im- 

 pression of their superiority remains 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 ad- 

 vantages, without disputing their title : the inha- 

 bitants of uncivilized countries represent them as 

 taller and stronger ; and the people of a more 

 polished nation, 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 pos- 

 terity. The ordinary stature of men, Mr Der- 

 ham 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 

 time of Homer, who is the first that deplores the 

 decay. This monument, however, scarcely ex- 

 ceeds 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 

 show that for these three thousand years, at least, 

 men have not suffered the least diminution. We 

 have many corroborating proofs of this, in the 



