themselves, for not rooting out in their pupils 

 all the faults, vices, all their fatal passions, and 

 their base inclinations? How should satirical 

 authors, moralists, and preachers have had so 

 little success against absurdities and crimes? 

 Why have not the great and the rich purchased 

 the art of giving a great capacity to their chil- 

 dren? Believe then, that such an act is not en* 

 tirely in the power of men. It is nature herself, 

 who, by means of the immutable laws of organ- 

 isation, has reserved to herself not the only, 

 but the first right, over every exercise of the 

 faculties of man and animals. 



Continuation of the Exposition and of the 

 Kefutation of Different Opinions, on the 

 Origin of our Moral Qualities and 

 Intellectual Faculties. 



Influence of Climate and Food on the Moral and 

 Intellectual Forces of Man. 



Some naturalists would derive certain qualities 

 from the influence of climate; from food, drink, 

 and even from the milk furnished to the infant. 



This is to confess, that our qualities and facul- 

 ties are inherent in our organisation; for, the 

 milk of the nurse, food, drink, climate, act only 

 on man's physical system. It is incontestible, 

 that all these circumstances act with marked in- 

 fluence on our physical and moral nature ; but 

 again, do we not confound the power of modi- 

 fying with the power of producing? The varieties 

 of food and drink excite or weaken the action 

 of the organs, but can neither produce them, nor 

 cause their disappearance. The nurse's milk, 

 like any other aliment, may be the cause of a 

 physical constitution more or less healthy, and 

 thus influence the character and the mind ; but it 

 can neither give nor take away determinate incli- 

 nations or qualities. If parents have a right to 

 impute to nurses the malpractices of their chil- 

 dren, why do not we, who feed on beef, pork, 

 mutton, &c , render these animals responsible for 

 our good and bad qualities ? 



It is equally notorious, that climate does not 

 influence the whole constitution and the form of 

 certain parts of the body only ; but likewise the 

 different development of different parts of the 

 brain, and, consequently, the different configura- 

 tion of the head; and, lastly, the modifications of 

 the moral and intellectual character of different 

 nations. But, however different, and however 

 powerful local circumstances may be, they never 

 have changed, and never will change the essence 

 of an animal of any variety of the human species. 



INSECTS,— THEIS WCXOEKFUL STRENGTH. 



The common beetle, Geotrupes stercorarius, 

 can, without injury, support and even raise very 

 great weights, and make its way beneath al- 

 most any amount of pressure. In order to put 

 the strength of this insect-Atlas to the test, 

 experiments have been made which prove that it 

 is able to sustain and escape from beneath a load of 

 from 20 to 30 ounces, a prodigious burden when 

 it is remembered that the insect itself does not 

 weigh as many grains ; in fact, if we take 

 man as a standard of comparison, it is as though 



a person of ordinary size should raise and get 

 from under a weight of between forty and fifty 

 tons. This amount of strength is not, however, 

 confined to the short thick-limbed beetles. Mr. 

 Newport once fastened a small carabus — one of 

 the most active and elegantly-formed of the 

 beetle tribe — which weighed only three grains 

 and a half, by means of a silk thread, to a small 

 piece of paper, upon which the weight to be 

 moved was placed. At a distance of 10 inches 

 from its load, the insect was able to drag after it, 

 up an inclined plane of 25 degrees, very nearly 

 85 grains ; but when placed on a plane of five 

 degrees' inclination, it drew after it 125 grains, 

 exclusive of the friction to be overcome in moving 

 its load — as though a man was to drag up a hill 

 of similar inclination, a wagon weighing two 

 tons and a half, having first taken the wheels 

 off. 



Such being the strength of insects, as tested 

 by their powers of leaping, running, tearing, car- 

 rying, and drawing, let us briefly advert to their 

 capabilities in the way of flying, a mode of lo- 

 comotion in which they likewise are unrivalled 

 in the whole range of animated nature. In or- 

 der to prove this, we need not search far. The 

 common house-fly ("Musca domestica) will an- 

 swer our purpose as well as more striking ex- 

 amples. This familiar inmate of our dwellings 

 has been calculated by a writer in " Nicholson's 

 Journal" to fly, when engaged upon ordinary 

 business, at the rate of 5 feet in a second; but 

 upon an emergency it will clear 30 to 35 feet in 

 the same period. " In this space of time," to 

 use the illustration adopted by Kirby and Spence, 

 " a race-horse could clear only 90 feet, which is 

 at the rate of more than a mile in a minute. 

 Our little fly, in her swiftest flight, will in the 

 same space of time go more than one-third of a 

 mile. Now compare the infinite difference of 

 the size of the two animals (10 millions of the 

 fly ,would hardly counterpoise one racer), and 

 how wonderful will the velocity of this minute 

 creature appear ! Did the fly equal the race-horse 

 in size, and retain its present powers in the 

 ratio of its magnitude, it would traverse the 

 globe with the rapidity of lightning. 



INFIDELITY. 



What is an infidel ? A fool ; an arrant fool. 

 Infidelity gives nothing in return for what it 

 takes away. What then is it worth ? Everything 

 to be valued, has a compensating power. Not a 

 blade of grass that withers, not the ugliest weed 

 that is flung away to rot and to die, but repro- 

 duces something. Nothing in nature is barren. 

 Therefore, everything that is or seems to be op- 

 posed to nature cannot be true. It can only ex- 

 ist in the shape that a diseased mind imparts to 

 one of its coinages. Infidelity is one of those 

 coinages — a mass of base money, that won't pass 

 current with any heart that loves truly, or any 

 head that thinks correctly. And infidels are poor, 

 sad creatures ; they carry about them a load 

 of dejection and desolation, not the less heavy 

 because it is invisible. To look an honest man 

 in the face is, with them, an utter impossibility. 



