ith which people are apt to testify their admiration, or abhorrence
of actions, which it very often happens would lose much of their
_eclat_ either way, were the secret springs that give them motion,
seen into with the eyes of philosophy and reflection.

But this will be more clearly understood by a perusal of the facts
herein contained, from which I will no longer detain in the attention
of my reader.

BOOK the First.

CHAP. I.

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