OF NATURAL HISTORY. 203 



tranquillity ; for infants, when not teazed by officious cares, fleep 

 almofi: continually during feveral weeks after birth. Young animals 

 are naturally fond of being in the open air; but our infants, parti- 

 cularly in large towns, are almoft perpetually fhut up in warm 

 apartments, which both relaxes their bodies and enervates their 

 minds. The great agility, ftrength, and fine proportions of favages, 

 are refults of a hardy education, of living much in the open air, and 

 of an unreftrained ufe of all their organs the moment after they 

 come into the world. 



In young animals, as well as in infants, there is a gradual progref?, 

 both in bodily and mental powers, from birth to maturity. Thefe 

 powers are unfolded fooner or later, according to the nature and 

 exigencies of particular fpecies. This progrefs, in man, is very flow. 

 Man acquires not his full ftature and ftrength of body till feveral 

 years after the age of puberty : And, with regard to his mind, his 

 judgement and other faculties cannot be faid to be perfectly ripe 

 before his thirtieth year. 



In early infancy, though the impreffions received from new ob- 

 jeds muft be ftrong, the memory appears to be weak. Many cau- 

 fes may concur in producing this effedl. In this period of our ex- 

 igence, almoft every objedl is new, and, of courfe, ingroffes the 

 whole attention. Hence the idea of any particular objedl is oblite- 

 rated by the quick fucceffion and novelty of others, joined to the 

 force with which they aO. upon the mind. Haller afcribes this 

 want of recolledion to a weaknefs of memory ; but it feems rather 

 to proceed from a confufion which neceflarily refults from the num- 

 ber and ftrong impreffions of new objeds. The memory ripens not 

 fo much by a gradual increafe In the ftrength of that faculty, as by 

 a diminution in the number and novelty of the objeds which folli- 

 cit attention. In a few years children arc enabled to exprefs all 



C c 2 their 



