SECT, IL 



Of Infancy, 



NOTHING exhibits fuch a ftriklng pic« 

 ture of vveakiiefs, of pain, and of mifery, 

 as the condition of an infant immediately after 

 birth. Incapable of employing its organs or itr, 

 fenfes, the infant requires every kind of fuccour 

 and afhftance: It is more helplefs than the young 

 of any other animal: Its uncertain life feems e- 

 very moment to vibrate on the borders of death. 

 It can neither move nor fupport its body : It 

 has hardly force enough to exift, and to an- 

 nounce, by groans, the pain which it fafFers ; as 

 if Nature intended to apprife the little innocent, 

 that it is born to mifery, and that it is to be 

 ranked among human creatures only to partake 

 of their infirmities and of their atliictions. 



Let us not dlidain to conlidcr that (late in 

 which our exidence commenced : Let us view 

 liuman nature in the cradle ; and, leaving the 

 difguft that might arife from a detail of the cares 

 which infancy demands, let us inquire by what 

 degrees this delicate and hardly exiting machine 

 acquires motion, confillcncy, and ftrcngth. 



Vol. II. A a An 



