- Our Author, being apprehenfive that his arguments may be evaded, and that many persons who cannot account for this fuppofed operation of the imagination, will still maintain it to be the effect of fome kind of fympathy, he endeavours to give us an explanation of that term.

Sympathy between mankind must be confidered either in the object which excites the fympathy, or in the person who experiences its power: in the object it is a difpofition of the parts capable of exciting in the mind a lively agreeable sensation. In the perfon affected by it, it confifts in a rapid movement which inclines us towards the object which has excited in us this agreeable impreffion, and which is become the fole end of our defires, and affection. I have endeavoured, madam, to give you an idea of the fource of this fympathy, by comparing the impreffion made by external objects on the mind, to the concords formed by an harpfichord. The fhape, the features, the looks of a person ftrike us agreeably at firft fight, whatever effect it has produced in us, we cannot have feen the perfon by any other mechanifm than that by which we perceive other objects, that is by the impreffions begun at the bottom of the eye, and terminated by the motion of the fibres of the brain. This motion has infpired us with the combined idea of many good qualities in which we hope to find advantage and pleasure, powerful motives to animate our love, and make us eagerly pursue this object. Confult those who have experienced what they call fympathy, afk them by what power they have been fo violently. hurried away, they have perceived in one perfon at first fight an air of sweetness, of goodnature, of complaisance in another marks of spirit, jollity and vivacity; thus they give you an account of what they perceived inftantaneously, and tell you what tones the harmony is formed of.

It is evident that the force of imagination cannot act upon the infant by this kind of fympathy, and its effect, if it had any, muft terminate in infpiring either love or hatred in the infant. I can perceive no operation which could mark objects on the infant's body.

But as terms may be abufed, and fympathy between diffe. rent inanimate bodies, be called a kind of conformity and af finity in the difpofition of their parts, in confequence of which they attract one another and eafily unite; if the force of imagination is attributed to this kind of fympathy, fome parts of the infant's body must be supposed to be disposed in such a manner as to attract the animal fpirits which excited the idea, without their lofing the movement which external objects caused in them. This fuppofition is abfurd, but if the fame movement of the animal fpirits, could fubfift after their paffage through the whole mafs of blood, this would be no other than a movement in a

ftrait,

ftrait line, deftined for the vibration of a nervous fibre only. It delineates no image in the brain, and if it could delineate an image in the brain, ftill it could not produce the fame effect on the skin, on account of the difference between the substance of the brain and the skin. And lastly, though all these effects were poffible, to decide them, we must suppose in fome one of the parts of the child a difpofition independant of the mother's imagination. The marks then which appear on the skin of the child, cannot be attributed to the force of imagination.'

Our philofopher proceeds next to confider the cause of those ftrange accidents which are attributed to the force of imagination; afferting the analogy that fubfifts between the animal and vegetable creation, and that both spring from a feed which contains all their parts in miniature. We are apprehensive that he hath here waded a little out of his depth, and would for various reasons advise his fair readers by no means to follow him.

We have seen every thing which vegetates, every thing which breathes inclofed without life, without action, in a very small space, in a feed, every thing exifts there, though nothing appears diftinguishable. Let us animate these beings, impregnate these feeds and eggs, cover the fields with plants and trees, people the air, the earth and the water. We can easily do this, the bufinefs is only to make a liquid pass into the feed which taifing lightly the partitions of it, facilitates the entrance of a thicker juice, which encreasing every day the first dilatation, nourishes and caufes all thefe beings to grow.

'Tis in this alone, madam, that the whole mechanifm of the impregnation of feeds confifts, they contain the entire plant or animal, but the parts of thefe different bodies are fo closely preffed together that they cannot in this ftate afford entrance to a fufficient quantity of liquid, or to a fluid active enough to Bretch them and unfold them entirely, they must be previously difpofed thereto. It is neceflary (to ufe the expreffion) to give a little light between the partitions, and in the canals of thefe minute veffels, it is neceflary that a very small wedge should facilitate the entrance of a larger wedge. This first effort is what is meant by fecundation, a very thin fluid infinuates itself, penetrates the veffels destined to form the woody fibres, the leaves, the flowers, and in short the whole tree. Then the feed, difpofed by this first dilatation to receive thicker juices, and capable of a greater effort, unfolds itfelf by degrees, and at last arrives at the proper growth of its fpecies.

I have purfued this account in plants only, it is easy for you to apply what has been faid to the eggs of animals, they contain in miniature the whole animal, in like manner as the feed contains the plant; in the one and the other, you meet with the fame minuteness, the fame affemblage, the fame preffure of the

the parts together, confequently the fame obftacles to the entrance of the nutritious juice. In fuch an exact resemblance, the method must be the fame. The impregnation of the egg then, like that of the feed, muft be effected by a very fubtle fluid, which feparates the compreft tubes, and affords entrance for a thicker and more copious juice, on which depends the nourishment and growth of the animal; thus nature which, preferving an exact fimplicity, employs one fame means only to maintain the different characteristics of plants, trees and animals, employs alfo but one fame mechanism for the rendering fruitful the feeds of both.'

We find our Author here makes a mighty eafy business of a fubject, that has puzzled the philofophers for ages, and is ftill accounted one of the principal arcana of nature. The act of fecundation, it seems, is nothing more than making a little liquid pafs into the feed, juft as you would put a little falt or butter into an egg, or as the Indian devil ferved the egg of Oromafes, when he impregnated it with fin. But pray, most learned doctor, how is this fluid to be forced in? and when it is in, why does it not lie quiet there? whence doth it derive its activity and how doth it act? By partial motion, or universal dilatation?

It is with equal certainty and fagacity we are informed, that the egg which before impregnation is inclofed in the mother's belly, has certainly no foul,' fo that it appears, the impregnation of the male is abfolutely neceffary to give it a foul. We are aftonished our learned Author did not fee, what a vile inference might hence be deduced, in degradation of the fair fex. For is it not directly infinuating, that men only are poffeffed of fouls, and that the women have none? we hope and believe, however, that he is not fuch a Turk as to maintain this horrid doctrine. Indeed it is by no means for his perfonal fafety that he fhould; for with all his philofophy, he may find, from the effects of female refentment, that though a woman may want a foul, the feldom wants for fpirit. But to return to the writer's argument; the body inclofed in the egg must be unfolded and take a determinate fhape before a foul can be united to it. Its deftination [meaning the egg] cannot change the means neceffary for its impregnation; it must be previously disposed to receive a nourishment capable of making it grow. The preffure of this minute body oppofes the entrance of this nourishment. It muft then first of all be lightly raised up, which is effected by a more fubtle fluid than the nutritious juice, a liquid, fluid enough to infinuate itself into the veffels which are fo clofely preffed together, and active enough to unfold them by degrees. This is a neceffary mechanifm, feeds and eggs are exactly in the fame condition, and have occafion for the fame affiftance? Would REV. July, 1765.

D

not

not one be apt to imagine, by this circumftantiality and exactitude, that our Author must be well acquainted with the precife time, at which the body is fufficiently opened to receive the foul, or modelled of the proper determinate fhape to admit of its union? A tract on this fubject, by a philofopher poffeffed of fuch rare and uncommon knowledge, would be a curious tract indeed! But, to be ferious, the received doctrine of generation, fuppofing it to be effected only by the dilatation of minute bodies already formed, by means of an active fluid, acting nobody knows how, is attended with numerous difficulties not cafily removed. Thus our Author, in order to account for a child's being born mutilated, diftorted or imperfect, fuppofes that fome parts of the coum may make too great a resistance to impregnation, and therefore, being deprived of nourishment, wi!! wafte away; while others may make too little oppofition, and become bigger by exceffive growth.' Now it is notorious that, in cafes of mixt copulation, the fœtus takes its very form not only from the female, but alfo from the male; fo that on this hypothefis, the impregnating fluid must have a wonderful kind of activity, not only to dilate the parts of the egg, but to difpose them in a particular manner for growth.

With respect to what are vulgarly called claret-ftains on the fkin, imputed to the mother's longing for red wine, the letterwriter obferves, that all cutaneous marks must either be brown or red. Now, if the imagination could produce colour, it is ftrange, fays he, that we never fee children marked with green currants or goofeberries, of which pregnant women are frequently fo fond. If it be truc, continues he, that the imagination of the mother, when ftruck to a certain degree, will mark the child, it is alfo true that the child will always be marked when the imagination is fo ftruck. But experience fhews that the child is not always marked by that caufe, and therefore it follows, that the child is never marked from it, for there muft be a never-failing proportion between caufe and effect." With due fubmifiion to this great philofopher, however, all this is very bad logic. That the effect always follows the caufe is very certain; but natural caufes fo feldom operate fingly, that it is not cafy to judge, from apparent effects and caufes, of the connection of thote which are real. Some intervening caúfe, which we fee and know nothing of, frequently prevents the fuccefs of the most common philofophical experiments; in which cafe we fhould conclude, according to this Author's reasoning, that there was a caufe without an effect. It is very unfair to conclude, that if the imagination does fometimes, or even generally, mark the child, it must therefore always do so: or, that becaufe a child is not always marked by that cause, it thence

follows

기

follows that it never is. This method of arguing is inconclufive, and unworthy a philofopher.

As it is not, after all, to be denied that marks do frequently appear on the bodies of children, after the mother has undergone fome violent affection, or agitation, our Author endea vours to account for them thus:

Objects affect the foul, and in confequence thereof the foul acts upon the body: we are ignorant of the means, but it is not the lefs true that our paffions make very strong impreffions on us. Hence our blood is agitated, circulates with violence, puffs up the veffels, and we feel the effort of its impulfe in every part of the body. This violent impulfe in the blood is fometimes fuperior to the refiftance of the veffels deftined to contain it, and experience has frequently fhewn us, that a fpitting of blood, or an apoplexy, has been the confequence, according as the veffels (which were too weak to refift this effort) were fituated in the breaft or head. We are fubject to paffions through which the circulation of the blocd is fufpended, this we experience in fome moments of furprize and terror: when the heart is convulfed, it contracts itself with greater violence, and for a much longer fpace of time, than in it's natural ftate; hence the blood is thrown with greater rapidity towards the external parts, and cannot be freely returned, because this convulfive contraction of the heart oppofes the dilatation of thofe cavities of the heart, into which the veins fhould return it, and an exceffive and unexpected joy may produce the fame effects; the courfe of the blood might even be entirely ftopped, and death be the confequence.

"In these two extreams that the paffions throw us, I mean either as to the exceffive rapidity of the circulation of the blood, or as to the fufpenfion of it's courfe; it's effort acts generally on all the veffels, and on every particular part; if any of them are overpowered by this effort, it is not because it acted more violently on that part than another, but because that part was weaker; it is not the motion in general of the blood that fixes the place of the rupture or dilatation of the veffels, but it is the difpofition of the veflel that determines the effect.

The blood of the mother paffes from her to the child, and returns from the child to the mother; if it's course is precipitate, or fufpended in the body of the mother, the child muft partake of these different fenfations, and by a neceffary confequence the blood of the child muft make a greater effort upon all the veffels of its body, and thofe which form the umbilical chord, by which it is joined to the belly of it's mother. The effects are fometimes fatal, the child dies, or the hemorrhage causes a miscarriage.

The effects of this general effort of the blood, fo great on certain occafions, in fome is confined to the dilatation of the

Da

veffels