96 



A NEW HISTORY OF 



But, examine the hands of a weather-beaten 

 mason. You will find them as hard as the 

 Marpesian rock. He has been working all his 

 life, with the pick and the crow-bar. 



Pressure then, according to its intensity, will 

 never fail to render both our feet and our hands, 

 extremely hard and rigid ; whilst, on the contrary, 

 absence of pressure, will allow them to retain their 

 pristine delicacy of texture. 



If the reader should ever chance to dip into my 

 autobiography, which he will find in the " Essays 

 on Natural History," he will there learn the vast 

 difference there is, betwixt a tender toe and a tough 

 one. He will see how severely I got punished, by 

 rash J y presuming, that, my feet (after I had now 

 worn shoes for twenty years,) were in the same 

 hardened state, as they formerly had been; when, 

 by going barefoot, they had become callous, and 

 could support me with impunity, as I wandered 

 through the asperities of a tropical forest. I 

 have no doubt but that if a soft and tender-footed 

 orang-outang from Borneo, had accompanied me 

 that morning to Rome, he would have been 

 equally disabled and footsore. 



Custom, they say, is second nature, still custom, 

 when I contemplate the singular formation of all 

 the four limbs of a monkey will never adapt them, 



