118 
plint's ?^attjeal histoey. 
[Book VII. 
his birth cast naked upon the naked earth, ^ does she abandon 
to cries, to lamentations, and, a thing that is the case with no 
other animal whatever, to tears : this, too, from the very mo- 
ment that he enters upon existence.^ But as for laughter, 
why, by Hercules ! — to laugh, if but for an instant only, has 
never been granted to man before the fortieth day"^ from his 
birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity. 
Introduced thus to the light, man has fetters and sw^hings 
instantly put upon all his limbs, ^ a thing that falls to the lot 
of none of the brutes even that are born among us. Born to 
such singular good fortune,^ there lies the animal, which is 
destined to command all the others, lies, fast bound hand and 
foot, and weeping aloud ! such being the penalty which he 
has to pay on beginning life, and that for the sole fault of 
having been born. Alas ! for the folly of those who can think 
after such a beginning as this, that they have been born for the 
display of vanity ! 
The earliest presage of future strength, the earliest bounty 
of time, confers upon him nought but the resemblance to a 
quadruped.^^ How soon does man gain the power of walking ? 
How soon does he gain the faculty of speech ? How soon is his 
mouth fitted for mastication ? How long are the pulsations of 
the crown of his head to proclaim him the weakest of all ani- 
^ It seems to have been the custom among the ancients to place the new- 
born child upon the ground immediately after its birth. 
^ Pliny appears to have followed Lucretius in this gloomy view of the 
commencement of human existence. See B. v. 1. 223, et seq. 
This term of forty days is mentioned by Aristotle, in his Natural 
History, as also by some modern physiologists. — B. 
^ We may hence conclude, that the practice of swathing young infants 
in tight bandages prevailed at Borne, in the time of Pliny, as it still does 
in France, and many parts of the continent ; although it has, for some 
years, been generally discontinued in this country. Buffon warmly con- 
demned this injurious system, eighty years ago, but without effect. — B. 
^ " Feliciter natus ;" this appears so inconsistent with what is stated in 
the text, that it has been proposed to alter it into infeliciter, although 
against the authority of all the 1^1 SS. ; but it may be supposed, that 
Pliny, as is not unusual with him, employs the term ironically. — B. 
10 This reminds us of the terms of the riddle proposed to (Edipus by 
the Sphinx : " What being is that, which, with four feet, has two feet and 
three feet, and only one voice ; but its feet vary, and where it has most it is 
weakest to which he answered, That it is man, who is a quadruped 
(going on feet and hands) in childhood, two-footed in manhood, and 
moving with the aid of a staff in old age. 
