all, which no parents can pretend to be of their children.

§. 54. But had men fkill and power to make their children, it is not fo flight a piece of workmanship, that it can be imagined, they could make them without defigning it. What father of a thoufand, when he begets a child, thinks farther than the fatisfying his present appetite? God in his infinite wisdom has. put ftrong defires of copulation into the conftitution of men, thereby to continue the race of mankind, which he doth most commonly without the intention, and often against the confent and will of the begetter. And indeed those who defire and defign children, are but the occafions of their being, and when they defign and wish to beget them, do little more towards their making, than Deucalion and his wife in the fable did towards the making of mankind, by throwing pebbles over their heads.

S. 55. But grant that the parents made their children, gave them life and being, and that hence there followed an abfolute power. This would give the father but a joint dominion with the mother over them: for no body can deny but that the woman hath an equal fhare, if not the greater, as nourishing the child a long time in her own body out of her own fubftance: there it is fafhioned, and from her it receives the materials and principles of its conftitution: and

it

it is fo hard to imagine the rational foul fhould presently inhabit the yet unformed embrio, as foon as the father has done his part in the act of generation, that if it must be fuppofed to derive any thing from the parents, it must certainly owe most to the mother. But be that as it will, the mother cannot be denied an equal share in begetting of the child, and fo the abfolute authority of the father will not arife from hence. Our author indeed is of another mind; for he fays, We know that God at the creation gave the fovereignty to the man over the woman, as being the nobler and principal agent in generation, Obfervations, 172. I remember not this in my Bible; and when the place is brought where God at the creation gave the fovereignty to man over the woman, and that for this reafon, because he is the nobler and principal agent in generation, it will be time enough to confider, and anfwer it. But it is no new thing for our author to tell us his own fancies for certain and divine truths, tho' there be often a great deal of difference between his and divine revelations; for God in the fcripture fays, his father and his mother that begot him.

§. 56. They who alledge the practice of mankind, for expofing or feling their children, as a proof of their power over them, are with Sir Robert happy arguers; and cannot but recommend their opinion, by founding

it

it on the most shameful action, and most unnatural murder, human nature is capable of. The dens of lions and nurseries of wolves know no fuch cruelty as this: thefe favage inhabitants of the defert obey God and nature in being tender and careful of their off-fpring: they will hunt, watch, fight, and almost starve for the prefervation of their young; never part with them; never forfake them, till they are able to fhift for themfelves. And is it the privilege of man alone to act more contrary to nature than the wild and most untamed part of the creation? doth God forbid us under the feverest penalty, that of death, to take away the life of any man, a ftranger, and upon provocation? and does he permit us to destroy thofe, he has given us the charge and care of; and by the dictates of nature and reafon, as well as his revealed command, requires us to preferve? He has in all the parts of the creation taken a peculiar care to pro pagate and continue the feveral fpecies of creatures, and makes the individuals act fo ftrongly to this end, that they fometimes neglect their own private good for it, and feem to forget that general rule, which nature teaches all things, of felf-preservation; and the preservation of their young, as the strongest principle in them, over-rules the conftitution of their particular natures. Thus we fee, when their young stand in need of it, the timorous become valiant,

the

the fierce and favage kind, and the ravenous tender and liberal.

§. 57. But if the example of what hath been done, be the rule of what ought to be, history would have furnished our author with inftances of this abfolute fatherly power in its height and perfection, and he might have fhewed us in Peru, people that begot children on purpofe to fatten and eat them. The story is fo remarkable, that I cannot but fet it down in the author's words. "In fome

provinces, fays be, they were fo liquorish "after man's flesh, that they would not have "the patience to ftay till the breath was "out of the body, but would fuck the blood "as it ran from the wounds of the dying

man; they had public fhambles of man's "flefh, and their madness herein was to "that degree, that they spared not their "own children, which they had begot on

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ftrangers taken in war: for they made "their captives their miftreffes, and choicely "nourished the children they had by them, "till about thirteen years old they butchered "and eat them; and they ferved the mo"thers after the fame fashion, when they

grew paft child bearing, and ceafed to

bring them any more roafters," Garcilaffo de la Vega bift. des Yncas de Peru, 1. i. c. 12. §. 58. Thus far can the bufy mind of man carry him to a brutality below the level of beafts, when he quits his reason, which F places

places him almoft equal to angels. Nor can it be otherwise in a creature, whofe thoughts are more than the fands, and wider than the ocean, where fancy and paffion must needs run him into strange courfes, if reason, which is his only ftar and compass, be not that he fteers by. The imagination is always reftless, and fuggefts variety of thoughts, and the will, reafon being laid afide, is ready for every extravagant project; and in this ftate, he that goes fartheft out of the way, is thought fitteft to lead, and is fure of moft followers: and when fashion hath once established what folly or craft began, custom makes it facred, and it will be thought impudence, or madnefs, to contradict or queftion it. He that will impartially furvey the nations of the world, will find fo much of their religions, governments and manners, brought in and continued amongst them by these means, that he will have but little reverence for the practices which are in ufe and credit amongst men; and will have reafon to think, that the woods and forefts, where the irrational untaught inhabitants keep right by following nature, are fitter to give us rules, than cities and palaces, where thofe that call themfelves civil and rational, go out of their way, by the authority of example. If precedents are fufficient to establish a rule in this cafe, our author might have found in holy writ children facrificed by their parents, and this amongst