Shews, in the example of Natura, how from our very birth, the
passions, to which the human soul is incident, are discoverable in
us; and how far the organs of sense, or what is called the
constitution, has an effect over us.
The origin of Natura would perhaps require more time to trace than the
benefit of the discovery would attone for: it shall therefore suffice
to say, that his ancestors were neither of the highest rank:--that if
no extraordinary action had signalized the names of any of them, so
none of them had been guilty of crimes to entail infamy on their
posterity: and that a moderate estate in the family had descended from
father to son for many generations, without being either remarkably
improved or embezzled.--His immediate parents were in very easy
circumstances, and he being their first son, was welcomed into the
world with a joy usual on such occasions.--I never heard that any
prodigies preceded or accompanied his nativity; or that the planets,
or his mother's cravings during her pregnancy, had sealed him with any
particular mark or badge of distinction: but have been well assured he
was a fine boy, sucked heartily of his mother's milk, and what they
call a thriving child. His weaning, I am told, was attended by some
little ailments, occasioned by his pining after the food to which he
had been accustomed; but proper means being found to make him lose the
memory of the breast, he soon recovered his flesh, increased in
strength, and could go about the room at a year and some few months
old, without the help of a leading-string.
Hitherto the passions, those powerful abettors, I had almost said sole
authors of all human actions, operated but faintly, and could shew
themselves only in proportion to the vigour of the animal frame. Yet
latent as they are, an observing eye may easily discover them in each
of their different propensities, even from the most early infancy. The
eyes of Natura on any new and pleasing object, would denote by their
sparkling a sensation of joy:--_Fear_ was visible in him by clinging to
his nurse, and endeavouring to bury himself as it were in her bosom, at
the sound of menaces he was not capable of understanding:--That
_sorrow_ has a place among the first emotions of the soul, was
demonstrable by the sighs which frequently would heave his little
heart, long before it was possible for him either to know or to imagine
any motives for them:--That the seeds of _avarice_ are born with us, by
the eagerness with which he catched at money when presented to him,
his clinching it fast in his hand, and the reluctance he expressed on
being deprived of it:--That _anger_, and impatience of controul, are
inherent to our nature, might be seen in his throwing down with
vehemence any favourite toy, rather than yield to resign it; and that
spite and revenge are also but too much so, by his putting in practice
all such tricks as his young invention could furnish, to vex any of the
family who had happened to cross him:--Even those tender inclinations,
which afterwards bear the name of _amorous_, begin to peep out long
before the difference of sex is thought on; as Natura proved by the
preference he gave the girls over the boys who came to play with him,
and his readiness to part with any thing to them.
In a word, there is not one of all the various emotions which agitate
the breast in maturity, that may not be discerned almost from the
birth, _hope_, _jealousy_, and _despair_ excepted, which, tho' they
bear the name in common with those other more natural dispositions of
the mind, I look upon rather as consequentials of the passions, and
arising from them, than properly passions themselves: but however that
be, it is certain, that they are altogether dependant on a fixation of
ideas, reflection, and comparison, and therefore can have no entrance
in the soul, or at least cannot be awakened in it, till some degree of
knowledge is attained.
Thus do the dispositions of the _infant_ indicate the future _man_;
and though we see, in the behaviour of persons when grown up, so vast
a difference, yet as all children at first act alike, I think it may
be reasonably supposed, that were it not for some change in the
constitution, an equal similitude of will, desires, and sentiments,
would continue among us through maturity and old age; at least I am
perfectly perswaded it would do so, among all those who are born in
the same climate, and educated in the same principles: for whatever
may be said of a great genius, and natural endowments, there is
certainly no real distinction between the _soul_ of the man of _wit_
and the _ideot_; and that disproportion, which we are apt to behold
with so much wonder, is only in fact occasioned by some or other of
those innumerable and hidden accidents, which from our first coming
into the world, in a more or less degree, have, an effect upon the
organs of sense; and they being the sole canals through which the
spirit shews itself, according as they happen to be extended,
contracted, or obstructed, the man must infallibly appear.