vigorous. Their orchards would be doubled in size, and the crops reduced to one half.

The same metamorphosis would take place in the animals of their farm-yards. The hen, which lays eggs much too large in proportion to her size, and for nine months uninterruptedly, contrary to all the laws of incubation among the feathered race, would then fall back into the general order, and would produce at farthest twenty eggs in the course of a year. The hog would in like manner lose his superfluous fat. The cow, which yields in the rich pastures of Normandy up to twenty-four quarts of milk a day, would give no more than a bare sufficiency to suckle her calf.

To this it is replied, that this profusion of eggs, of fat, and of cream from our domestic animals, is the effect of their copious feeding. But neither does the mare give as much milk as the cow, nor does the duck lay as many eggs as the hen, nor does the ass clothe himself with fat like the hog, though these animals all feed as plentifully the one as the other. Besides the mare, the she-goat, the ewe, the she-ass, have only two teats, whereas the cow has four.

The cow in this respect deviates in a very remarkable manner from the general laws of Nature; who has adjusted in every animal species the number of teats in the mother to that of the young; she, however, is furnished with four paps, though she produces but one calf, and very rarely two; because the two supernumeraries were destined to be nurses to the Human Race. The sow, it is granted, has only

twelve

pro

twelve teats, though she is intended to bring up sometimes a litter of fifteen or more. Here the portion seems defective. But if the first has more teats than are requisite to the number of her family, and the second too few for her's, it is because the one is ordained to present Man with the surplus of her milk, and the other with that of her brood. In all countries pork is the poor man's meat, unless religion, as in Turkey, or political considerations, as in the islands of the South Sea, deprive him of the benefit of this gift of Nature. I shall observe with Pliny, that of all flesh it is by far the most savoury. There may be distinguished in it, says he, up to fifty different relishes. It is employed in the kitchens of the rich to give flavour to every species of aliment. In every country, I repeat it, that which is best is always most common.

Is it not passing strange that, when so many plants and animals exhibit proportions so beautiful, adaptations so wonderful to our necessities, and proofs so evident of a Divine Benevolence, we should set about collecting shapeless abortions, pigs with a long proboscis, as if our yards teemed with young clephants, and ceremoniously arrange them in our cabinets, designed to exhibit a display of Nature? Those who preserve them as invaluable curiosities, and deduce from them consequences and doubts respecting the intelligence of their AUTHOR, do they not discover as much want of taste, and act as unfairly, as one who should go into the workshop of a Founder and pick up the figures which had been accidentally mutilated, the bubblings over of the melting-pot, and the mere

métallic

metallic moulds which might lie scattered about, and triumphantly display them as a proof of the Artist's blundering ignorance?

The Ancients burnt monsters, the Moderns preserve them in spirit of wine. They resemble those ungracious children who watch their mother in the hope of surprizing her in a fault, that they may arrogate to themselves a right to do what they please. Oh! if the Earth were indeed abandoned to disor der, and that after an infinity of combinations, there should at last appear amidst the monsters which covered it a single body well proportioned and adapted to the necessities of Man, what a source of satis faction would it be to creatures at once sensible and unhappy, to catch but a glimmering of an INTELLLGENCE Somewhere who took an interest in their destiny?

STUDY

STUDY SEVENTH.

REPLIES TO THE OBJECTIONS AGAINST PROVIDENCE, FOUNDED ON THE CALAMITIES OF THE

RACE.

HUMAN

HE arguments deduced from the varieties of

THE

the Human Race, and from the evils accumulated by the hand of Nature, by Governments, and by Religions, on the head of Man, attempt to demonstrate that men have neither the same origin nor any natural superiority above the beasts; that their virtues are destitute of all prospect of reward, and that no Providence watches over their necessities, to supply them.

We shall inquire into those evils, one after another, beginning with such as are imputed to Nature; the necessity and utility of which we shall endeavour to make appear; and shall afterwards demonstrate that political evils are to be ascribed entirely to deviations from the law of Nature, and that they constitute themselves a proof of the existence of a Providence.

Our discussion of this interesting subject shall commence with a reply to the objections founded on the varieties of the human species. We pretend not to deny that there are men black and white, copper

coloured

coloured and pale. Some have a beard, others little, if any. But these pretended characters are accidents merely, as has been already shewn. Horses, white, bay or black, with frizzled hair, as those of Tartary, or with sleek smooth hair, as those of Naples, are unquestionably animals of the same species. The Albinos, or white negroes, are a species of Lepers; and no more form a particular race of Ne groes, than persons with us who have been marked by the small-pox form a race of spotted Europeans.

Though it does not enter into my plan here to detail all the natural adaptations which may be op posed to the accusations of our wretched systems of Physics, and though I have reserved, in the prosecution of this undertaking, some Studies expressly de voted to this object, as far as my poor ability en. ables me; I shall however by the way observe, that the black colour is a blessing of Providence to the inhabitants of tropical countries. White reflects the rays of the Sun, and black absorbs them. The first accordingly redoubles his heat, and the second weakens it. Experience demonstrates this in a thousand different ways. Nature has employed, among other means, the opposite effects of these colours for multiplying or weakening on the Earth the heat of the orb of day. The farther you advance toward the South, the blacker are men and animals; and the farther you proceed northward, the whiter is the colour of both the one and the other. Nay, when the Sun withdraws from the northern regions, many animals which were there in Summer, of different colours, begin to whiten; such