304 



HISTORY OF 



nourishment becomes less grateful as the child gathers strength ; 

 and perhaps, also, more unwholesome. However, in cold coun- 

 tries, which are unfavourable to propagation, and where the fe- 

 male has seldom above three or four children at the most, during 

 her life, she continues to suckle the child for four or five years 

 together. In this manner the mothers of Canada and Greenland 

 are often seen suckling two or three children, of different ages, 

 at a time. 



The life of infants is very precarious till the age of three or 

 four, from which time it becomes more secure ; and when a 

 child arrives at its seventh year, it is then considered as a more 

 certain life, as Mr Buffon asserts, than at any other age what- 

 ever. It appears, from Simpson's Tables, that of a certain num- 

 ber of children born at the same time, a fourth part are found 

 dead at the end of the first year ; more than one-third at the end 

 of the second : and, at least, half at the end of the third ; so that 

 those who live to be above three years old, are indulged a longer 

 term than half the rest of their fellow-creatures. Nevertheless, 

 life, at that period, may be considered as mere animal existence ; 

 and rather a preparation for, than an enjoyment of, those satis- 

 factions, both of mind and body, that make life of real value : 

 and hence it is more natural for mankind to deplore a fellow- 

 creature, cut off in the bloom of life, than one dying in early in- 

 fancy. 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 con- 

 trary, 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 

 numan 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 em- 

 bryo, 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 

 ■n the third ; two and a half in the fourth j and in this manner 

 it keeps increasing till in the last month of its continuance it is 



1 Biiftoii, vol. iv. p. 173. 



