416 HISTORY OF 



to observe, that evei^ day's experience must have shown us mi- 

 serable instances of this kind produced by nature or affectation ; 

 calamities that no pity can soften, or assiduity relieve. 



Passing over, therefore, every other account, I shall only 

 mention the famous instance quoted by Father Malbranche 

 iipon which he founds his beautiful theory of monstrous pro- 

 ductions. A woman of Paris, the wife of a tradesman, went to 

 see a criminal broke alive upon the wheel, at the place of public 

 execution. She was at that time two months advanced in her 

 pregnancy, and no way subject to any disorders to affect the 

 child in her womb. She was, however, of a tender habit of body ; 

 and, though led by curiosity to this horrid spectacle, very easily 

 moved to pity and compassion. She felt, therefore, all those 

 strong emotions which so terrible a sight must naturally inspire ; 

 shuddered at every blow the criminal received, and almost 

 swooned at his cries. Upon returning from this scene of Wood, 

 she continued for some days pensive, and her imagination still 

 wrought upon the spectacle she had lately seen. After some 

 time, however, she seemed perfectly recovered from her fright, 

 and had almost forgotten her former uneasiness. When the 

 time of her delivery approached, she seemed no ways mindful of 

 Iier former terrors, nor were her pains in labour more than usu- 

 al in such circumstances. But what was the amazement of her 

 friends and assistants when the child came into the world ! It 

 was found that every limb in its body was broken like those of the 

 malefactor, and just in the same place. This poor infant that had 

 suffered the pains of life even before its coming into the world, did 

 not die, but lived in an hospital in Paris, for twenty years after 

 a wretched instance of the supposed powers of imagination in 

 the mother, of altering and distorting the infant in the womb. 

 The manner in which Malbranche reasons upon this fact, is as 

 follows ; the Creator has established such a sympathy between 

 t he several parts of nature, that we are led not only to imitate 

 each other, but also to partake in the same affections and desires. 

 The animal spirits are thus carried to the respective parts of the 

 body, to perform the same actions which we see others perform, 



1676 ; another without any head, Giornale di Roma, anno 1075, p. 26 j a■n^\ 

 ather without any arms, New Memoirs of Literature, vol. iv. p. 446i j^ 

 short, the variety of those accounts is almost infinite; aud perhaps, their 

 UGe is as much circumscribed as their variety is exteusive. 



