OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



197 



This humiliating pifture is partly juft, and partly mifreprefented. 

 Though infants remain longer in a (late of imbecillity than the young 

 of other animals, they are by no means more helplefs. The inftant 

 after birth, they are capable of fucking whatever is prefented to their 

 mouths. When In the fame condition, the young of the opofTum, 

 of hares, rabbits, rats, mice, &c. can do no more. They can neither 

 move nor fupport their bodies. Befides, many quadrupeds are defti- 

 tute of the fenfe of feeing for feveral days after birth. But the fa- 

 culty of vifion is enjoyed by infants the moment after they come 

 into the world. This faculty, in a few hours, becomes a great fource 

 of pleafurc and amufement to them; but it is denied, for feme days, 

 to many other fpecies of animals. The young of moft birds are 

 equally weak and helplefs as human infants. The former have no 

 other powers but thofe of refpiration, opening their mouths to re- 

 ceive food from the parent, and ejeding the excrement, after the 

 food has been properly digefted. If infants really fuffer more pain 

 and mifery than other animals in the fame ftate, Nature feems not 

 to merit that feverity of cenfure which fhe has fometimes received. 

 Man In foclety, like domeftic animals, by luxury, by artificial modes 

 of living, by unnatural and vicious habits, debilitate their bodies, 

 and tranfmit to their progeny the feeds of weaknefs and difeafe, the 

 effeds of which are not felt by thofe who live more agreeably to the 

 general oeconomy and intentions of Nature. The children of fa- 

 vages, for the fame reafon, whether in the hunting or fhepherd ftate, 

 are more robuft, more healthy, and liable to fewer difeafes, than thofe 

 produced by men in the more enlightened and refined ftages of fo- 

 clety. Even under the fame governments, and in the fame ftate of 

 civilization, a fimilar gradation of imbecillity and difeafe is to be ob- 

 ferved. The children of men ot rank and fortune are, in general, 

 more puny, debilitated, and difeafed, than thofe of the peafant or ar- 

 tificer. Still, however, children, in their progrefs from birth to ma- 

 turity, have innumerable fources of pleafure, which alleviate, if they 



do 



