ferotum roundish, lax, and wrinkled, being divided in the middle by a longitudinal ridge or smooth line, which extends along the whole perineum: The female parts are comprimessed and protuberant, having labia, nymphæ, clitoris, and hymen; and, in adults, secreting the catamenia. There is no external tail.

"The Limbs consist of arms and hands instead of fore-legs; and of thighs, legs, and feet. The Arms are placed at a distance from each other; they are round, and about a foot in length from the joint of the shoulder to the elbow; the fore-arm, or cubit, contains two bones, and is obtusely prominent; the ulna, which forms the principal thickness of the member, is round, and somewhat flattened on the inside. The Hands are broad, flat, and rounded; convex on the outside or back of the hand, and concave on the inside or palm. Each hand has five fingers, one of which, named the thumb, is shorter and thicker than the rest, and is placed at some distance from them; the others are near each other, and placed parallel, the outer or little-finger being the smallest; the second, named index or fore-finger, and the fourth, called the ring-finger, are next in length and in size; and the third, or middle-finger, is the longest; the point of this last, when the arm and hand hang down, reaches to the middle of the thigh. The nails are rounded and oval, being flatly arched, or convex upwards, and each has a familiar whitish mark at the root or lower extremity.

"The lower limbs are placed close together, having brawny muscular haunches and swelling fleety hips; the knees are obtuse, bend forwards, and have hollow hams behind. The Legs, which are nearly of the same length with the thighs, are of a muscular make behind, where they swell out into what is called the calf; they are lean, and free of flesh on the flims or fore-parts, and taper downwards to the ankle, which have hard hemispherical projections on each side, named the ankle-bones or malleoli. The heel is thick, prominent, and gibbous, being longer and broader than in other animals, for giving a firm support to the body; it joins immediately with the sole of the foot. The Feet are oblong, convex above, and flattened on the soles, which have a transverse hollow about the middle. Each foot has five toes, somewhat bent downwards, and gibbous or swelled underneath at their extremities; they are all placed close together, the inner or great-toe being thicker and somewhat shorter than the rest; the second and third are nearly of equal length; and the fourth and fifth are shorter than the others, the last mentioned or little toe being the shortest and smallest. The toe nails resemble those on the fingers, which are already described.

"Thus man differs from the other animals in his erect posture and naked skin, having a hairy scalp, being furnished with hair on the eye-brows and eyelashes, and having, when arrived at puberty, the pubes, breast, arm-pits, and the chin of the males, covered with hair. His brain is larger than that of any other animal, even the most enormous; he is provided with an acula, and has organs of speech. His face is placed in the same parallel line with his body; he has a projecting comprimessed nose, and a prominent chin. His feet in walking rest on the heel. He has no tail; and, lastly, the species is distinguished from other animals by some peculiarities of the female constitution, which have been already mentioned."

"Noce Teipsum," "Know thyself," is a precept worthy of the lawgiver of Athens: it has been called the first step to wisdom, and was formerly written on letters of gold in the temple of Diana. In the pursuit of this important branch of knowledge, Man may be contemplated in the seven following respects:

1. Physiologically.—As a frail machine, chiefly composed of nerves and fibres interwoven with each other. His most perfect state is during youth; and he is endowed with faculties more numerous, and in higher perfection, than those of all other animals.

2. Dietetically.—Gura wadudinum. Bodily health and tranquillity of mind are more to be desired than all the riches, pomp, or glory, of a Cæsars, a Solomon, or an Alexander. Health is to be preferred by moderation, it is destroyed by abstinence, injured by variety of delicacies, weakened by unusual things, and strengthened by the use of proper and accustomed fare. Man, learned in the pernicious art of cookery, is fond of many dishes, rendered palatable by the injurious effects of fire, and by the baneful addition of wine. "Hunger is satisfied with a small quantity of food, luxury demands overabundance. Imagination requires vast supplies; while nature is contented with a moderate quantity of ordinary food, and is burdened by superfluity." Seneca.—According as thou livest, so shall thy life be enjoyed.

3. Pathologically.—Memento mori! The life of man resembles a bubble ready to burst; his fate is suspended by a hair, and is dependent on the uncertain lapse of time. "The earth contains nothing more frail than man?" Homer.—Nothing is weaker than human life: To what dangers, and to how many difficulties, is it not exposed? Hence the whole period of a man's life is but a span: Half of it is necessarily spent in a state resembling death; without including the years of infancy, wherein there is no judgment; or the period of old age, fertile in sufferings, during which the senses are blunted, the limbs become stiff, and the faculties of sight and hearing, the powers of walking, and the teeth, the instruments of nourishment, fail before the rest of the body:" Pliny.—"Thus a considerable part of death is suffered during life; and death possesses all that belonged to the times which are past. Finally, nature will speedily recall and destroy all the beings which thou seest, and all that thy imagination can suppose to exist hereafter; for death calls equally upon all, whether they be good or whether they be evil?" Seneca, ii. 59.

4. Naturally.—Innocui vivite, Numen adeo! Man, the prince of animated beings, who is a miracle of nature, Man, and for whom all things on this earth were created, is a mimic animal, weeping, laughing, fingering, speaking; tractable, judicious, inquisitive, and most wise; he is weak and naked, unprovided with natural weapons, exposed to all the injuries of fortune, needful of assistance from others, of an anxious mind, solicitous of protection, continually complaining, changeable in temper, obstinate in hope, and slow in the acquisition of wisdom. He despites the time which is past, abuses that which is present, and sets his affections on the uncertain future; thus continually neglecting winged time, which, though infinitely precious, can never be recalled: For thus the best and readiest time, in every age, flies on with miserable mortals; some it summons to attend their daily and burdensome labours; some it confines to luxurious inaction, pampered even to suffocation with superfluities; some it solicits in the ever restless paths of ambition; some it renders anxious for the acquisition of wealth, and distresses by the possession of the thing desired; some it condemns to solitude, and others to have their doors continually crowded with visitors; here one bewails the conduct of his children, there one grieves their loss. Tears will sooner fail us than their causes, which only oblivion can remove. "On every hand our evils overbalance our advantages; we are surrounded with dangers; we rush forwards into untried situations; we are enraged without having received provocation; like wild beasts, we destroy those we do not hate; we wish for favourable gales, which lead us only to destruction; the earth yawns wide, ready for our death:" Seneca.

5. Politically — Effo antiqua virtute et fide! Man, instead of following that which is right, is subjected to the guidance of manifest error; this envelopes all his faculties under the thick veil of custom, as soon as he is born; according to its dictates he is fed, educated, brought up, and directed, in all things; and by its arbitrary rules his honesty, fortitude, wisdom, morality, and religion, are judged of; thus, governed by opinion, he lives conformably to custom, instead of being guided by reason. Though sent into the world a perishable being, for all are evidently born to suffer, instead of endeavouring to secure those things which are most advantageous and truly beneficial, he, infatuated by the fineries of fortune, anxiously collects her gaudy trifles for future enjoyment, and neglects her real benefits; he is driven to madness by envious flatterers; he persecutes with hatred the truly religious for differing from himself in speculative opinions; he excites numberless broils, not that he may do good, but for a purpose that even himself is ignorant of. He wastes his precious and irrecoverable time in trifles; he thinks lightly of immortal and eternal concerns, while regulating the succession of his posterity; and perpetually entering on new projects, forgetful of his real condition, he builds palaces instead of preparing his grave; till at length, in the midst of his schemes, death seizes him; and then, first opening his eyes, he perceives, O man! that all is delusion. "Thus we live as if immortal, and first learn in death that we have to die:" Seneca.

6. Morally.—Benefac et latere! Man is composed of an animated medullary substance, which prompts him to that which is right; and of a bodily frame liable to impressions, which instigates him to the enjoyment of pleasure. In his natural state he is foolish, wanton, an inconsiderate follower of example, ambitious, profuse, dissatisfied, cunning, peevish, invidious, malicious, and covetous; by the influence of just morals he is transformed to be attentive, chaste, considerate, modest, temperate, quiet, sincere, mild, benevolent, grateful, and contented. "Sorrow, luxury, ambition, avarice, the desire of life, and anxiety for the future, are common to all animals:" Pliny.

7. Theologically.—Memento Creatoris tui! Man, the ultimate purpose of creation, and masterpiece of the works of Omnipotence, was placed on earth that he might contemplate its perfections; he was endowed with sapient reason, and made capable of forming conclusions from the impressions of his senses, that, from a consideration of created objects, he might know their Creator as the Almighty, the Infinite, the Omniscient, the Eternal God. That we may live morally under his governing care, it is requisite that we have a thorough conviction of its existence, and must have it ever in remembrance. Other revealed matters on this subject are left to be explained by the theologians.

"There are two things which lead to a knowledge of God; creation and revelation;" Augustine. "God, therefore, may be found out by the light of nature, but is only to be known by the assistance of doctrine;" Tertullian. "Man alone has the ineffable privilege of contemplating the perfections of God, who is the author both of nature and of revelation;" Ibid. "Learn that God has both ordered you to exist, and that you should study to act that part properly which is allotted for you in life;" Pers. Sat. iii. 71.

The whole of this Encyclopædia may in some respect be accounted an analysis of Man; as comprehending his knowledge of God, of himself, and of natural and artificial objects. In the sequel of this article we shall collect into one view the most important particulars relating to himself individually, considered as a physical being, and as forming a subject of natural history.

Anatomists have employed much pains in the study of the material part of man, and of that organization which determines his place in the animal creation. From tracing and combining his different external parts; from observing that his body is in some places covered with hair; that he can walk upon his hands and his feet at the same time, in the manner of quadrupeds; that, like certain animals which hold their food in their paws, he has two clavicles; that the female brings forth her young alive, and that her breasts are supplied with milk: from these circumstances we might be led to assign man a place in the class of viviparous quadrupeds. But, in our opinion, such an arrangement would be defective, arbitrary, and absurd. Man is not a quadruped: Of all the animals, he alone can support himself, continually and without restraint, in an erect posture (that is, with his head and body in a vertical line upon his legs). In this majestic and dignified attitude, he can change his place, survey this earth which he inhabits, and turn his eyes towards the vault of heaven. By a noble and easy gait, he preserves... preserves an equilibrium in the several parts of his body, and transports himself from one place to another with different degrees of celerity (c). To man alone nature has denied a covering; but still he is her masterpiece, the last work which came from the hands of the Almighty Artist, the sovereign and the chief of animals.

(c) M. Daubenton, after a careful examination of those characters in the form of man by which he is distinguished from other animals, has reduced them to two heads. The first is the strength of the muscles of the legs, by which the body is supported in a vertical position above them; the second consists in the articulation of the head with the neck by the middle of its base.

We stand upright, bend our body, and walk, without thinking on the power by which we are supported in these several positions. This power, says M. Daubenton, resides chiefly in the muscles, which constitute the principal part of the calf of the leg. Their exertion is felt, and their motion is visible externally when we stand upright and bend our body backwards and forwards. This power is not less great when we walk even on a horizontal plane. In ascending a height, the weight of the body is more sensibly felt than in descending. All these motions are natural to man. Other animals, on the contrary, when placed on their hind legs, are either incapable of performing them at all, or do it partially, with great difficulty, and for a very short time. The gibbon, and the jocko or orang-outang, are the animals most resembling man in their construction: they can stand upright with much less difficulty than other brutes; but the restraint they are under in this attitude plainly shows that it is not natural to them. The reason is, that the muscles in the back part of the leg in the gibbon and the jocko are not, as in man, sufficiently large to form a calf, and consequently not sufficiently strong to support the thighs and body in a vertical line, and to preserve them in that posture.

M. Daubenton has discovered, that the attitudes proper to man and to the animals are pointed out by the different manners in which the head is articulated with the neck. The two points, by which the oblique part of the head is connected with the first vertebra of the neck, and on which every movement of the head is made with the greatest facility, are placed at the edge of the great foramen of the occipital bone, which in man is situated near the centre of the base of the cranium, affords a passage for the medullary substance into the vertebrae, and determines the place of the articulation of the head with the neck. The body and neck being, according to the natural attitude, in a vertical direction, the head must be placed in equilibrium upon the vertebrae as upon a pivot or point of support. The face is on a vertical line, almost parallel to that of the body and neck. The jaws, which are very short compared with those of most other animals, extend very little farther forwards than the forehead.

No animal has, like man, its hind legs as long as the body, neck, and head, taken together, measuring from the top of the head to the os pubis.

In the frame of the human body the principal parts are nearly the same with those of other animals; but in the connection and form of the bones, says M. Daubenton, there is as great a difference as in the attitudes proper to each. Were a man to assume the natural posture of quadrupeds, and try to walk by the help of his hands and feet, he would find himself in a very unnatural situation; he could not move his feet and head but with the greatest difficulty and pain; and let him make what exertions he pleased, he would find it impossible to attain a steady and continued pace. The principal obstacles he would meet with would arise from the structure of the pelvis, the hands, the feet, and the head.

The plane of the great occipital foramen, which in man is almost horizontal, puts the head in a kind of equilibrium upon the neck when we stand erect in our natural attitude: but when we are in the attitude of quadrupeds, it prevents us from raising our head so as to look forwards, because the movement of the head is stopped by the protuberance of the occiput, which then approaches too near the vertebrae of the neck.

In most animals, the foramen magnum of the occipital bone is situated at the back part of the head; the jaws are very long; the occiput has no protuberance beyond the aperture, the plane of which is in a vertical direction, or inclined a little forwards or backwards; so that the head is pendant, and joined to the neck by its posterior part. This position of the head enables quadrupeds, though their bodies are in a horizontal direction, to present their muzzle forwards, and to raise it so as to reach above them, or to touch the earth with the extremity of their jaws when they bring their neck and head down to their feet. In the attitude of quadrupeds, man could touch the earth only with the fore part or the top of the head.

To these differences of structure, M. Daubenton adds, that when man is standing, his heel rests upon the earth as well as the other parts of his foot; when he walks it is the first part which touches the ground; man can stand on one foot: there are peculiarities in structure and in the manner of moving which are not to be found in other animals. We may therefore conclude that man cannot be ranked in the class of quadrupeds. We may add, that in man the brain is much larger, and the jaws much shorter, than in any other animal. The brain, by its great extent, forms the protuberance of the occipital bone, the forehead, and all that part of the head which is above the ears. In animals, the brain is so small, that most of them have no occiput, or the front is either wanting or little raised. In animals which have large foreheads, such as the horse, the ox, the elephant, &c., they are placed as low, and even lower, than the ears. These animals likewise want the occiput, and the top of the head is of very small extent. The jaws, which form the greatest portion of the muzzle, are large in proportion to the smallness of the brain. The length of the muzzle varies in different animals: in foliiped animals it is very long; it is short in the orang-outang; and in man it does not exist at all. No beard grows on the muzzle; this part is wanting in every animal. Man, a world in miniature, the centre which connects the universe together. The form of his body, the organs whereof are constructed in such a manner as to produce a much greater effect than those of other animals, announces his power. Everything demonstrates the excellence of his nature, and the immense distance placed by the bounty of the Creator between man and beast. Man is a reasonable being; brute animals are deprived of that noble faculty. The weakest and most stupid of the human race is able to manage the most sagacious quadruped; he commands it, and makes it subservient to his use. The operations of brutes are purely the effect of mechanical impulse, and continue always the same; human works are varied without end, and infinitely diversified in the manner of execution. The soul of man is free, independent, and immortal. He is fitted for the study of science, and the cultivation of art; he has the exclusive privilege of examining every thing which has existence, and of holding communication with his fellow-creatures by language, by particular motions of the body, and by marks and characters mutually agreed upon. Hence arises that physical pre-eminence which he enjoys over all animals; and hence that power which he possesses over the elements, and (so to speak) over nature itself. Man, therefore, is unequalled in his kind; but the individuals thereof differ greatly from one another in figure, stature, colour, manners, and dispositions. The globe which man inhabits is covered with the productions of his industry and the works of his hands: it is his labour, in short, which gives a value to the whole terrestrial mass.

The history of man is an object of attention highly interesting, whether we consider him in the different periods of his life, or take a view of the varieties of the species, or examine the wonderful organization of his frame. We shall, therefore, attempt to give a short sketch of him in these different points of view; referring occasionally to other parts of the work for more particular details.

"Nothing (says M. Buffon) exhibits such a striking picture of our weakness, as the condition of an infant immediately after birth. Incapable of employing its organs, it needs assistance of every kind. In the first moments of our existence, we present an image of pain and misery, and are more weak and helpless than the young of any other animal. At birth, the infant passes from one element to another; when it leaves the gentle warmth of the tranquil fluid by which it was completely surrounded in the womb of the mother, it becomes exposed to the impressions of the air, and instantly feels the effects of that active element. The air acting upon the olfactory nerves, and upon the organs of respiration, produces a shock something like sneezing, by which the breath is expanded, and the air admitted into the lungs. In the mean time, the agitation of the diaphragm presses upon the viscera of the abdomen, and the excretions are thus for the first time discharged from the intestines, and the urine from the bladder. The air dilates the vessels of the lungs, and after being rarefied to a certain degree, is expelled by the firing of the dilated fibres reacting upon this rarefied fluid. The infant now respites; and articulates sounds, or cries. [For the condition of the fetus in utero, where it lives without respiration, see Anatomy, No. 118; and for the nature and importance of respiration, see No. 118.]

Most animals are blind for some days after birth. Infants open their eyes to the light the moment they come into the world; but they are dull, fixed, and commonly blue. The new-born child cannot distinguish objects, because he is incapable of fixing his eyes upon them. The organ of vision is yet imperfect; the cornea is wrinkled; and perhaps the retina is too soft for receiving the images of external objects, and for communicating the sensation of distinct vision. At the end of forty days, the infant begins to hear and to smile. About the same time it begins to look at bright objects, and frequently to turn its eyes toward the window, a candle, or any light. Now likewise it of infancy begins to weep; for its former cries and groans were not accompanied with tears. Smiles and tears are the effect of two internal sensations, both of which depend on the action of the mind. Thus they are peculiar to the human race, and serve to express mental pain or pleasure; while the cries, motions, and other marks of bodily pain and pleasure, are common to man and most of the other animals. Considering the subject as metaphysicians, we will find that pain and pleasure are the universal power which sets all our passions in motion.

The size of an infant born at the full time is commonly twenty-one inches; and that fetus, which nine months before was an imperceptible bubble, now weighs ten or twelve pounds, and sometimes more. The head is large in proportion to the body; and this disproportion, which is still greater in the first stage of the fetus, continues during the period of infancy. The skin of a new-born child is of a reddish colour, because it is so fine and transparent as to allow a slight tint of the colour of the blood to shine through. The form of the body and members is by no means perfect in a child soon after birth; all the parts appear to be swollen. At the end of three days, a kind of jaundice generally comes on, and at the same time milk is to be found in the breasts of the infant, which may be squeezed out by the fingers. The swelling decreases as the child grows up.

The liquor contained in the amnios leaves a viscid whitish matter upon the body of the child. In this country we have the precaution to wash the new-born infant only with warm water; but it is the custom with whole nations inhabiting the coldest climates, to plunge their infants into cold water as soon as they are born without their receiving the least injury. It is even said that the Laplanders leave their children in the snow till the cold has almost stopped their respiration, and then plunge them into a warm bath. Among these people, the children are also washed thrice a day during the first year of their life. The inhabitants of northern countries are persuaded that the cold bath tends to make men stronger and more robust, and on that account accustom their children to the use of it from their infancy. The truth is, that we are totally ignorant of the power of habit, or how far it can make our bodies capable of suffering, of acquiring, or of losing.

The child is not allowed to suck as soon as it is born; but time is given for discharging the liquor and slime slime from the stomach, and the meconium or excrement, which is of a black colour, from the intestines. As these substances might sour the milk, a little diluted wine mixed with sugar is first given to the infant, and the breast is not presented to it before ten or twelve hours have elapsed.

The young of quadrupeds can of themselves find the way to the teat of the mother; it is not so with man. The mother, in order to fuckle her child, must raise it to her breasts; and, at this feeble period of life, the infant can express its wants only by its cries.

New-born children have need of frequent nourishment. During the day, the breast ought to be given them every two hours, and during the night as often as they awake. At first they sleep almost continually; and they seem never to awake but when pressed by hunger or pain. Sleep is useful and refreshing to them; and it sometimes becomes necessary to employ narcotic doses, proportioned to the age and constitution of the child, for the purpose of procuring them repose. The common way of appeasing the cries of children is by rocking them in the cradle; but this agitation must be very gentle, otherwise a great risk is run of confusing the infant's brain, and of producing a total derangement. It is necessary to their being in good health, that their sleep be long and natural. It is possible, however, that they may sleep too much, and thereby endanger their constitution. In that case, it would be proper to take them out of the cradle, and awaken them by a gentle motion, or by presenting some bright object to their eyes. At this age we receive the first impressions from the senses, which, without doubt, are more important during the rest of life than is generally imagined. Great care ought to be taken to place the cradle in such a manner that the child shall be directly opposite to the light; for the eyes are always directed towards that part of the room where the light is strongest; and, if the cradle be placed sideways, one of them, by turning towards the light, will acquire greater strength than the other, and the child will squint. For the two first months, no other food should be given to the child but the milk of the nurse; and, when it is of a weak and delicate constitution, this nourishment alone should be continued during the third or fourth month. A child, however robust and healthful, may be exposed to great danger and inconvenience, if any other aliment is administered before the end of the first month.

In Holland, Italy, Turkey, and the whole Levant, the food of children is limited to the milk of the nurse for a whole year. The savages of Canada give their children suck for four, five, and sometimes even seven years. In this country, as nurses generally have not a sufficient quantity of milk to satisfy the appetite of their children, they commonly supply the want of it by panada, or other light preparations.

The teeth usually begin to appear about the age of seven months. The cutting of these, although a natural operation, does not follow the common laws of nature, which acts continually on the human body without occasioning the smallest pain or even producing any sensation. Here a violent and painful effort is made, accompanied with cries and tears. Children at first lose their sprightliness and gaiety; they become sad, restless, and fretful. The gums are red, and swollen; but they afterwards become white, when the pressure of the teeth is so great as to stop the circulation of the blood. Children apply their fingers to their mouth, that they may remove the irritation which they feel there. Some relief is given, by putting into their hands a bit of ivory or of coral, or of some other hard and smooth body, with which they rub the gums at the affected part. This prelude, being opposed to that of the teeth, calms the pain for a moment, contributes to make the membrane of the gum thinner, and facilitates its rupture. Nature here acts in opposition to herself; and an incision of the gum must sometimes take place, to allow a passage to the tooth. For the period of dentition, number of teeth, &c. see Anatomy, p. 27.

When children are allowed to cry too long and too often, ruptures are sometimes occasioned by the efforts they make. These may easily be cured by the speedy application of bandages; but if this remedy has been too long delayed, the disease may continue through life. Children are very much subject to worms. Some of the bad effects occasioned by these animals might be prevented by giving them a little wine now and then, for fermented liquors have a tendency to prevent their generation.

Though the body is very delicate in the state of infancy, it is then less sensible of cold than at any other part of life. The internal heat appears to be greater: the pulse in children is much quicker than in adults; from which we are certainly intitled to infer, that the internal heat is greater in the same proportion. For the same reason, it is evident that small animals have more heat than large ones; for the beating of the heart and of the arteries is always quicker in proportion to the smallness of the animal. The strokes of the heart in a sparrow succeed one another so rapidly that they can scarcely be counted.

Till three years of age, the life of a child is very precarious. In the two or three following years, its mortality becomes more certain; and at six or seven years of age, a child has a better chance of living than at any other period of life. From the bills of mortality published at London, it appears, that of a certain number of children born at the same time, one half of them die the three first years: according to which, one half of the human race are cut off before they are three years of age. But the mortality among children is not nearly so great everywhere as in London. M. Dupre de Saint-Maur, from a great number of observations made in France, has shown that half of the children born at the same time are not extinct till seven or eight years have elapsed.

Among the causes which have occasioned so great a mortality among children, and even among adults, the small-pox may be ranked as the chief. But luckily the means of alleviating by inoculation the fatal effects of this terrible scourge are now universally known. See Inoculation, and Medicine-Index.

Children begin learning to speak about the age of Speech, twelve or fifteen months. In all languages, and among every people, the first syllables they utter are ba, ba; ma, ma, pa, pa, taba, ababa; nor ought this to excite any surprize, when we consider that these syllables are the sounds most natural to man, because they consist of that vowel, and those consonants, the pronunciation of which require the smallest exertion in the organs of speech. Some children at two years of age articulate articulate distinctly, and repeat whatever is said to them; but most children do not speak till the age of two years and a half, or three years, and often later.

The life of man and of other animals is measured only from the moment of birth: they enjoy existence, however, previous to that period, and begin to live in the state of a fetus. This state is described and explained under the article Anatomy, no 110. The period of infancy, which extends from the moment of birth to about twelve years of age, has just now been considered.

The period of infancy is followed by that of adolescence. This begins, together with puberty, at the age of twelve or fourteen, and commonly ends in girls at fifteen, and in boys at eighteen, but sometimes not till twenty-one, twenty-three, and twenty-five years of age. According to its etymology (being derived from the Latin word adolescentia), it is completed when the body has attained its full height. Thus, puberty accompanies adolescence, and precedes youth. This is the spring of life; this is the season of pleasures, of loves, and of graces: but alas! this smiling season is of short duration. Hitherto nature seems to have had nothing in view but the preservation and increase of her work: she has made no provision for the infant except what is necessary to its life and growth. It has lived, or rather enjoyed a kind of vegetable existence, which was shut up within itself, and which it was incapable of communicating. In this first stage of life, reason is still asleep: but the principles of life soon multiply, and man has not only what is necessary to his own existence, but what enables him to give existence to others. This redundancy of life, this source of health and vigour, can no longer be confined, but endeavours to diffuse and expand itself.

The age of puberty is announced by several marks. The first symptom is a kind of numbness and stiffness in the groins, accompanied with a new and peculiar sensation in those parts which distinguish the sexes. There, as well as in the arm-pits, small protuberances of a whitish colour appear, which are the germs of a new production of a kind of hair, by which these parts are afterwards to be veiled. The voice, for a considerable time, is rough and unequal; after which it becomes fuller, stronger, and graver, than it was before. This change may easily be distinguished in boys; but less so in girls, because their voices are naturally sharper. These marks of puberty are common to both sexes; but there are marks peculiar to each, such as the discharge of the menses, and the growth of the breasts, in girls; the beard, and the emission of semen, in boys; in short, the feeling of venereal desire, and the appetite which unites the sexes. Among all races of mankind, the females arrive at puberty sooner than the males; but the age of puberty is different in different nations, and seems partly to depend on the temperature of the climate and the quality of the food. In all the southern countries of Europe, and in cities, the greatest part of girls arrive at puberty about twelve, and boys about fourteen years of age. But in the northern parts, and in the country, girls scarcely arrive at puberty till they are fourteen or fifteen, and boys not till they are sixteen or seventeen. In our climate, girls, for the greatest part, have attained complete maturity at eighteen, and boys at twenty years of age.

At the age of adolescence, and of puberty, the body commonly attains its full height. About that time, young people shoot out several inches almost at once. But there is no part of the human body which increases more quickly and more perceptibly than the organs of generation in both sexes. In males, this growth is nothing but an unfolding of the parts, an augmentation in size; but in females, it often occasions a shrinking and contraction, which have received different names from those who have treated of the signs of virginity. See Virginity.

Marriage is a state suitable to man, wherein he must make use of those new faculties which he has acquired by puberty. At this period of life, the desire of producing a being like himself is strongly felt. The external form and the correspondence of the organs of sex, occasion without doubt that irresistible attraction which unites the sexes and perpetuates the race. By connecting pleasure with the propagation of the species, nature has provided most effectually for the continuance of her work. Increase and multiply, is the express command of the Creator, and one of the natural functions of life. We may add, that at the age of puberty a thousand impressions act upon the nervous system, and reduce man to such a situation that he feels his existence only in that voluptuous sense, which then appears to become the seat of his soul, which engrosses the whole sensibility of which he is susceptible, and which at length proceeds to such a height, that its attacks cannot long be supported without a general derangement of the whole machine. The continuance of such a feeling may sometimes indeed prove fatal to those who indulge in excessive enjoyment; but it is equally dangerous to those who obligately persist in celibacy, especially when strongly solicited by nature. The semen, being too long confined in the seminal vesicles, may, by its stimulant property, occasion diseases in both sexes, and excite irritations so violent as to reduce man to a level with the brutes, which, when acted upon by such impressions, are perfectly furious and ungovernable. When this irritation proceeds to extremity, it produces what is called the furor uterinus in women. The opposite habit, however, is infinitely more common, especially in the temperate, and above all in the frozen zones. After all, excess is much more to be dreaded than constant agency. The number of dissolute and intemperate men affords us plenty of examples. Some have lost their memory, some have been deprived of sight, some have become bald, and some have died through mere weakness. In such a case, bleeding is well known to be fatal. Young men cannot be too often warned of the irreparable injury they may do to their health; and parents, to whose care they are entrusted, ought to employ all the means in their power to turn them from such dangerous excesses. But at the age of puberty, young men know not of how great importance it is to prolong this smiling season of their days, of life, whereon the happiness or misery of their future life so much depends. Then they look not forwards to futurity, nor reflect on what is past, nor enjoy present pleasures with moderation. How many cease to be men, or at least to have the faculties of men, before the age of thirty? Nature must not be forced: like a true mother, her object is the sober and discreet union of the sexes. It is sufficient to obey when she commands, and to answer when she calls. Neither must we we forget here to mention and condemn an outrage committed against nature, the shameful practice of which endangers the loss of health, and the total ruin of the constitution; we mean that foliary libertinism (mafurbaio), by which a man or woman, deceiving nature as it were, endeavours to procure those enjoyments which religion has forbidden except when connected with the happiness of being a parent. Such then is the physical order which the Author of nature, the great preserver of the species as well as of the individual, has appointed to induce man, by the attraction of pleasure, to propagate and continue his race.

The procreation of children is the object of marriage; but sometimes this object fails to be accomplished. See Impotence and Sterility.

According to the ordinary course of nature, women are not fit for conception till after the first appearance of the menses. When these stop, which generally happens about forty or fifty years of age, they are barren ever after. Their breasts then shrink and decay, and the voice becomes feeble. Some, however, have become mothers before they have experienced any menstrual discharge; and others have conceived at the age of sixty, and sometimes at a more advanced age. Such examples, though not unfrequent, must be considered as exceptions to the general rule; but they are sufficient to show that the menstrual discharge is not essential to generation. The age at which man acquires the faculty of procreating is not so distinctly marked. In order to the production of semen, the body must have attained a certain growth, which generally happens between twelve and eighteen years of age. At sixty or seventy, when the body begins to be enervated by old age, the voice becomes weaker, the semen is secreted in smaller quantities, and it is often unproductive. There are instances, however, of old men who have procreated at the age of eighty or ninety. Boys have been found who had the faculty of generating at nine, ten, or eleven years of age; and young girls who have become pregnant at the age of seven, eight, or nine. But such facts, which are very rare, ought to be considered as extraordinary phenomena in the course of nature.

Pregnancy is the time during which a woman carries in her womb the fruit of conception. It begins from the moment the prolific faculty has been reduced into act, and all the conditions requisite in both sexes have concurred to form the rudiments of a male or female fetus; and it ends with delivery. As soon as a woman is declared pregnant, says the author of the essay Sur la manière de perfectionner l'espèce humaine, she ought to direct her attention wholly to herself, and make the wants of her offspring the standard of her actions. She is now become the depositary of a new creature similar to herself, and differing only in the proportion and successive unfolding of its parts. She must be highly careful not to lace herself tight, to avoid excessive stretchings, and, in short, to disturb in no respect the natural state of the womb. She must likewise beware of indulging certain passions, for we shall afterwards see what great changes are produced in the animal economy by strong and violent passions.

An explanation, then, of what takes place during pregnancy, is nothing but a history of the formation of the fetus; of its expansion; of the extraordinary manner in which it lives, is nourished, and grows in its mother's womb; and of the way in which all these operations are performed with regard to both: for which see Anatomy, n° 109, 110. It has been proved by many observations, that the fetus changes its position in the womb, according to the different attitudes of the mother. It is commonly situated with its feet downwards, the breech resting upon the heels, the head bent towards the knees, the hands bent towards the mouth, the feet turned inwards; and in this position it swims like a kind of vessel in the watery fluid contained in the membranes by which it is surrounded, without occasioning any inconvenience to the mother, except what arises from its motions, sometimes to the one side, and sometimes to the other. At times, it even kicks with such violence as to frighten the mother. But when once the head becomes sufficiently large to destroy the equilibrium, it tumbles over and falls downwards; the face is turned towards the os sacrum, and the crown of the head towards the orifice of the uterus. This happens six weeks or two months before delivery. When the time of delivery arrives, the fetus, finding itself too much confined in the womb, makes an effort to escape with its head first. At length, at the moment of delivery, it unites its own strength with that of the mother, and opens the orifice of the uterus wide enough to allow a passage for itself. It happens sometimes that the fetus escapes from the uterus without bursting its covering, as is the case with animals. But, in general, the human fetus pierces the membranes by its efforts; and sometimes a very thin part of them remains upon the head like a cap. The ancients considered this membranous covering as a sign of good fortune; and the same idea is still prevalent among the vulgar. The liquor which escapes during delivery is called the waters of the mother. These waters serve to guard the fetus from external injuries, by excluding the violence of the blows which the mother may receive upon the belly; and, in the same manner, they defend the womb from the shocks occasioned by the motions of the fetus. In short, by rendering the passages soft and pliable, they facilitate the escape of the child in the time of delivery. (See Midwifery.)—In the womb, the fetus does not respire, as has been already mentioned; consequently what has been said of the cries of children in the womb, must be considered as altogether fabulous.—Women have generally only one child at a birth. When they bear two, three, or more, the fetuses are seldom found under the same covering; and their placentas, though adhering, are almost always distinct. Twins are not uncommon, but there are seldom more. It is supposed, that among women with child, there is only one in 2500 who brings forth three children at a birth, one in 20,000 who brings forth four, and one in a million who brings forth five. When the number amounts to five, or even when there are but three or four, they are generally of a weakly constitution; most of them die in the womb, or soon after delivery. See the article Prolific.

At the age of puberty, or a few years after, the body attains its full stature. Some young men grow no taller after 15 or 16, and others continue to grow till the age of 20 or 23. At this period they are very slender; but by degrees the members swell and begin to assume their proper shape; and before the age of 30, the body in men has attained its greatest perfection with regard to strength, confidence, and symmetry. Adolescence ends at the age of 20 or 25; and at this period youth (according to the division which has been made of the years of man's life into different ages) begins. It continues till the age of 30 or 35.

The common stature of men is about five feet and three, four, five, six, or seven inches; and of women about five feet and two, three, or four inches. Men below five feet are of a small stature. The Laplanders do not exceed four feet and a half; and the natives of some other countries are still smaller. Women attain their full height sooner than men. Haller computes, that in the temperate climates of Europe, the medium stature of men is about five feet and five or six inches. It is observed by the same author, that in Switzerland the inhabitants of the plains are taller than those of the mountains. It is difficult to ascertain with precision the actual limits of the human stature. In surveying the inhabited earth, we find greater differences in the statures of individuals than in those of nations. In the same climate, among the same people, and sometimes in the same family, there are men whose stature is either too tall or too diminutive. See the articles Giant and Dwarf.

The body having acquired its full height during the period of adolescence, and its full dimensions in youth, remains for some years in the same state before it begins to decay. This is the period of manhood, which extends from the age of 30 or 35 to that of 40 or 45 years. During this stage, the powers of the body continue in full vigour, and the principal change which takes place in the human figure arises from the formation of fat in different parts. Excessive fatness disfigures the body, and becomes a very cumbersome and inconvenient load.

The body of a well-shaped man ought to be square, the muscles ought to be strongly marked, the contour of the members boldly delineated, and the features of the face well defined. In women, all the parts are more rounded and softer, the features are more delicate, and the complexion brighter. To man belong strength and majesty; graceful beauty and gracefulness are the portion of the other sex. The structure essential to each will be found in the description of the human skeleton, under the article Anatomy.

Every thing in both sexes points them out as the sovereigns of the earth; even the external appearance of man declares his superiority to other living creatures. His body is erect; his attitude is that of command; his august countenance, which is turned towards heaven, bears the impressions of his dignity. The image of his soul is painted in his face; the excellence of his nature pierces through the material organs, and gives a fire and animation to the features of his countenance. His majestic deportment, his firm and emboldened gait, announce the nobleness of his rank. He touches the earth only at a distance, and seems to despise it. It has been justly observed, that the countenance of man is the mirror of his mind. In the looks of no animal are the expressions of passion painted with such energy and rapidity, and with such gentle gradations and shades, as in those of man. We know, that in certain emotions of the mind, the blood rises to the face, and produces blushing; and that in others, the countenance turns pale. These two symptoms, the appearance of which depends on the structure and the transparency of the reticulum, especially redness, constitute a peculiar beauty. In our climates, the natural colour of the face of a man in good health is white, with a lively red suffused upon the cheeks. Paleness of the countenance is always a suspicious symptom. That colour which is shaded with black is a sign of melancholy and of vitiated bile; and constant and universal redness is a proof that the blood is carried with too great impetuosity to the brain. A livid colour is a morbid and dangerous symptom; and that which has a tint of yellow is a sign of jaundice or repletion of bile. The colour of the skin is frequently altered by want of sleep or of nourishment, or by looseness and diarrhoea.

Notwithstanding the general similitude of countenance in nations and families, there is a wonderful diversity of features. No one, however, is at a loss to recollect the person to whom he intends to speak, provided he has once fully seen him. One man has liveliness and gaiety painted in his countenance, and announces before-hand, by the cheerfulness of his appearance, the character which he is to support in society. The tears which bedew the cheeks of another man would excite compassion in the most unfeeling heart. Thus the face of man is the rendezvous of the symptoms both of his moral and physical affections: tranquillity, anger, threatening, joy, smiles, laughter, malice, love, envy, jealousy, pride, contempt, disdain or indignation, irony, arrogance, tears, terror, astonishment, horror, fear, shame or humiliation, sorrow and affliction, compassion, meditation, particular convulsions, sleep, death, &c. &c. The difference of these characters appears to us of sufficient importance to form a principal article in the natural history of man.

When the mind is at ease, all the features of the Analysis of face are in a state of profound tranquillity. Their proportion, harmony, and union, point out the ferocity of the thoughts. But when the soul is agitated, the human face becomes a living canvas, wherein the passions are represented with equal delicacy and energy, where every emotion of the soul is expressed by some feature, and every action by some mark; the lively impression of which anticipates the will, and reveals by pathetic signs our secret agitation, and those intentions which we are anxious to conceal. It is particularly in the eyes that the soul is painted in the strongest colours and with the most delicate shades.

The different colours of the eyes are, dark hazel, light hazel, green, blue, gray, and whitish-gray. The most common of these colours are hazel and blue, both of which are often found in the same eye. Eyes which are commonly called black, are only dark hazel; they appear black in consequence of being contrasted with the white of the eye. Wherever there is a tint of blue, however slight, it becomes the prevailing colour, and outlines outshines the hazel, with which it is intermixed, to such a degree, that the mixture cannot be perceived without a very narrow examination. The most beautiful eyes are those which appear black or blue. In the former, there is more expression and vivacity; in the latter, more sweetness and perhaps delicacy.

Next to the eyes, the parts of the face by which the physiognomy is most strongly marked, are the eyebrows. Being of a different nature from the other parts, their effect is increased by contrast. They are like a shade in a picture, which gives relief to the other colours and forms.

The forehead is one of the largest parts of the face, and contributes most to its beauty. Every body knows of how great importance the hair is in the physiognomy, and that baldness is a very great defect. When old age begins to make its approaches, the hair which first falls off is that which covers the crown of the head and the parts above the temples. We seldom see the hair of the lower part of the temples, or of the back of the head, completely fall off. Baldness is peculiar to men; women do not naturally lose their hair, tho' it becomes white as well as that of the men at the approach of old age.

The nose is the most prominent feature of the face. But as it has very little motion, and that only in the most violent passions, it contributes less to the expression than to the beauty of the countenance. The nose is seldom perpendicular to the middle of the face, but for the most part is turned to one side or the other. The cause of this irregularity, which, according to the painters, is perfectly consistent with beauty, and of which even the want would be a deformity, appears to be frequent pressure on one side of the cartilage of the child's nose against the breast of the mother when it receives suck. At this early period of life, the cartilages and bones have acquired very little solidity, and are easily bent, as may be observed in the legs and thighs of some individuals, who have been injured by the bandages of the swaddling clothes.

Next to the eyes, the mouth and lips have the greatest motion and expression. These motions are under the influence of the passions. The mouth, which is set off by the vermilion of the lips and the enamel of the teeth, marks, by the various forms which it assumes, their different characters. The organ of the voice likewise gives animation to this feature, and communicates to it more life and expression than is possessed by any of the rest. The cheeks are uniform features, and have no motion or expression excepting from that involuntary redness or paleness with which they are covered in different passions, such as shame, anger, pride, and joy, on the one hand; and fear, terror, and sorrow, on the other.

In different passions, the whole head assumes different positions, and is affected with different motions. It hangs forward during shame, humility, and sorrow; it inclines to one side in languor and compassion; it is elevated in pride, erect and fixed in obstinacy and self-conceit: In astonishment it is thrown backwards; and it moves from side to side in contempt, ridicule, anger, and indignation.

In grief, joy, love, shame, and compassion, the eyes swell, and the tears flow. The effusion of tears is always accompanied with an extension of the muscles of the face, which opens the mouth.

In sorrow, the corners of the mouth are depressed, the under-lip rises, the eye-lids fall down, the pupil of the eye is raised and half concealed by the eye-lid. The other muscles of the face are relaxed, so that the distance between the eyes and the mouth is greater than ordinary; and consequently the countenance appears to be lengthened.

In fear, terror, consternation, and horror, the forehead is wrinkled, the eye-brows are raised, the eyelids are opened as wide as possible, the upper lid uncovers a part of the white above the pupil, which is depressed and partly concealed by the under lip. At the same time, the mouth opens wide, the lips recede from each other, and discover the teeth both above and below.

In contempt and derision, the upper lip is raised at one side and exposes the teeth, while the other side of the lip moves a little and wears the appearance of a smile. The nostril on the elevated side of the lip shrivels up, and the corner of the mouth falls down. The eye on the same side is almost shut, while the other is open as usual; but the pupils of both are depressed, as when one looks down from a height.

In jealousy, envy, and malice, the eye-brows fall down and are wrinkled; the eye-lids are elevated, and the pupils are depressed. The upper lip is elevated on both sides, while the corners of the mouth are a little depressed, and the under lip rises to join the middle of the upper.

In laughter, the corners of the mouth are drawn back and a little elevated; the upper parts of the cheeks rise; the eyes are more or less closed; the upper lip rises, and the under one falls down; the mouth opens; and in cases of immoderate laughter, the skin of the nose wrinkles. That gentler and more gracious kind of laughter which is called smiling, is felt wholly in the parts of the mouth. The under lip rises; the angles of the mouth are drawn back; the cheeks are puffed up; the eye-lids approach one another; and a small twinkling is observed in the eyes. It is very extraordinary, that laughter may be excited either by a moral cause without the immediate action of external objects, or by a particular irritation of the nerves without any feeling of joy. Thus an involuntary laugh is excited by a slight tickling of the lips, of the palm of the hand, of the sole of the foot, of the arm-pits, and, in short, below the middle of the ribs. We laugh when two dissimilar ideas, the union of which was unexpected, are presented to the mind at the same time, and when one or both of these ideas, or their union, includes some absurdity which excites an emotion of disdain mingled with joy. In general, striking contrasts never fail to produce laughter.

A change is produced in the features of the countenance by weeping as well as by laughing. When we weep, the under lip is separated from the teeth, the forehead is wrinkled, the eye-brows are depressed; the dimple, which gives a gracefulness to laughter, forfakes the cheek; the eyes are more compressed, and almost constantly bathed in tears, which in laughter flow more seldom and less copiously. The arms, hands, and every part of the body, contribute to the expression of the passions. In joy, for instance, all the members of the body are agitated with quick and various motions. In languor and sorrow, the arms hang down, and the whole body remains fixed and immovable. In admiration and surprize, this total suspension of motion is likewise observed. In love, desire, and hope, the head and eyes are raised to heaven, and seem to solicit the wished-for good; the body leans forward as if to approach it; the arms are stretched out, and seem to seize before-hand the beloved object. On the contrary, in fear, hatred, and horror, the arms seem to push backward and repel the object of our aversion; we turn away our head and eyes as if to avoid the sight of it; we recoil in order to shun it.

Although the human body is externally much more delicate than that of any other animal, yet it is very nervous, and perhaps stronger in proportion to its size than that of the strongest animals. We are assured that the porters at Constantinople carry burdens of 900 pounds weight. A thousand wonderful stories are related of the Hottentots and other savages concerning their agility in running. Civilized man knows not the full extent of his powers, nor how much he loses by that effeminacy and inactivity by which they are weakened and destroyed. He is contented even to be ignorant of the strength and vigour which his members are capable of acquiring by motion, and by being accustomed to severe exercises, as is observed in runners, tumblers, and rope-dancers. The conclusion is, therefore, founded on the most just and indubitable induction and analogy.—The attitude of walking is less fatiguing to man than that in which he is placed when he is stopped in running. Every time he sets his foot upon the ground, he passes over a more considerable space; the body leans forwards, and the arms follow the same direction; the respiration increases, and breathing becomes difficult. Leaping begins with great inflexions of the members; the body is then much shortened, but immediately stretches itself out with a great effort. The motions which accompany leaping make it very fatiguing.

It is observed by M. Daubenton (Nouvelle Encyclopédie), that a cessation from exercise is not alone sufficient to restore the powers of the body when they are exhausted by fatigue. The springs, though not in action, are still wound up while we are awake, even when every movement is suspended. In sleep nature finds that repose which is suited to her wants, and the different organs enjoy a salutary relaxation. This is that wonderful state in which man, unconscious of his own existence, and sunk in apparent death, repairs the loss which his faculties has sustained, and seems to assume a new existence. In this state of drowsiness and repose, the senses cease to act, the functions of the soul are suspended, and the body seems abandoned to itself. The external symptoms of sleep, which alone are the object of our attention, are easily distinguished. At the approach of sleep, the eyes begin to wink, the eye-lids fall down, the head nods and hangs down; its fall astonishes the sleeper; he starts up, and makes an effort to drive away sleep, but in vain; a new inclination, stronger than the former, deprives him of the power of raising his head; his chin rests upon his breast, and in this position he enjoys a tranquil sleep. See the article Sleep.

Physiologists give the name of old age to that period of life which commences immediately after the age of manhood and ends at death; and they distinguish green old age from the age of decrepitude. But in our opinion, such an extensive signification of the word ought not to be admitted. We are not old men at the age of forty or forty-five; and though the body then gives signs of decay, it has not yet arrived at the period of old age. M. Daubenton observes, that it would be more proper to call it the declining age, because nature then becomes retrograde, the fatness and good plight of the body diminishes, and certain parts of it do not perform their functions with equal vigour.

The age of decline extends from forty or forty-five to sixty or sixty-five years of age. At this time of life, the diminution of the fat is the cause of those wrinkles which begin to appear in the face and some other parts of the body. The skin, not being supported by the same quantity of fat, and being incapable, from want of elasticity, of contracting, sinks down and forms folds. In the decline of life, a remarkable change takes place also in vision. In the vigour of our days, the crystalline lens, being thicker and more diaphanous than the humours of the eye, enables us to read letters of a very small character at the distance of eight or ten inches. But when the age of decline comes on, the quantity of the humours of the eye diminishes, they lose their clearness, and the transparent cornea becomes less convex. To remedy this inconvenience, we place what we wish to read at a greater distance from the eye; but vision is thereby very little improved, because the image of the object becomes smaller and more obscure. Another mark of the decline of life is a weakness of the stomach, and indigestion, in most people who do not take sufficient exercise in proportion to the quantity and the quality of their food.

At sixty, sixty-three, or sixty-five years of age, the signs of decline become more and more visible, and indicate old age. This period commonly extends to the age of seventy, sometimes to seventy-five, but seldom to eighty. When the body is exhausted and bent by old age, man then becomes crazy. Craziness therefore is nothing but an infirm old age. The eyes and stomach then become weaker and weaker; leanness increases the number of the wrinkles; the beard and the hair become white; the strength and the memory begin to fail.

After seventy, or at most eighty years of age, the life of man is nothing but labour and sorrow: Such was the language of David near three thousand years ago. Some men of strong constitutions, and in good health, enjoy old age for a long time without decrepitude; but such instances are not very common. The infirmities of decrepitude continually increase, and at length death concludes the whole. This fatal term is uncertain. The only conclusions which we can form concerning the duration of life, must be derived from observations made on a great number of men who were born at the same time, and who died at different ages. These we shall mention in the sequel.

The signs of decrepitude form a striking picture of weakness, and announce the approaching dissolution of of the body. The memory totally fails; the nerves become hard and blunted; deafness and blindness take place; the senses of smell, of touch, and of taste, are destroyed; the appetite fails; the necessity of eating, and more frequently that of drinking, are alone felt; after the teeth fall out, mastication is imperfectly performed, and digestion is very bad; the lips fall inwards; the edges of the jaws can no longer approach one another; the muscles of the lower jaw become so weak, that they are unable to raise and support it; the body sinks down; the spine is bent outward; and the vertebrae grow together at the anterior part; the body becomes extremely lean; the strength fails; the decrepit wretch is unable to support himself; he is obliged to remain on a seat, or stretched in his bed; the bladder becomes paralytic; the intestines lose their spring; the circulation of the blood becomes slower; the strokes of the pulse no longer amount to the number of eighty in a minute as in the vigour of life, but are reduced to twenty-four and sometimes fewer; respiration is slower; the body loses its heat; the circulation of the blood ceases; death follows; and the duration of life is no more.

Man, says Haller in his Physiology, has no right to complain of the shortness of life. Throughout the whole of living beings, there are few who unite in a greater degree all the internal causes which tend to prolong its different periods. The term of gestation is very considerable; the rudiments of the teeth are very late in unfolding; his growth is slow, and is not completed before about twenty years have elapsed. —The age of puberty, also, is much later in man than in any other animal. In short, the parts of his body being composed of a softer and more flexible substance, are not so soon hardened as those of inferior animals. Man, therefore, seems to receive at his birth the seeds of a long life: if he reaches not the dilated period which nature seemed to promise him, it must be owing to accidental causes foreign to himself. Instead of saying that he has finished his life, we ought rather to say that he has not completed it.

The natural and total duration of life is in some measure proportioned to the period of growth. A tree or an animal which soon acquires its full size, decays much sooner than another which continues to grow for a longer time. If it is true that the life of animals is eight times longer than the period of their growth, we might conclude that the boundaries of human life may be extended to a century and a half.

It does not appear that the life of man becomes shorter in proportion to the length of time the world of life has existed. In the days of the Psalmist, the ordinary limits of human life did not exceed seventy or eighty years. No king of Judah lived beyond that period. When the Romans, however, were numbered by Vespasian, there were found in the empire, in that age of effeminacy, ten men aged an hundred and twenty and upwards. Among the princes of modern times, the late Frederick the Great of Prussia lived to the age of 74. George II. of Britain lived to that of 77. Louis XIV. lived to the same age. Stanislaus king of Poland and duke of Lorraine exceeded that age. Pope Clement XII. lived to the age of 80. George I. of Britain attained the age of 83. M. Bomare has collected divers instances of persons who lived to the age of 110 and upwards, of which we shall in a note (n) specify a few in supplement to those already given under the article Longevity.

Before

(d) William Lecomte, a shepherd, died suddenly in 1776, in the county of Caux in Normandy, at the age of 110. Cramers, physician to the emperor, saw at Teneifwar two brothers, the one aged 110 and the other 112, both of whom were fathers at that age. Saint Paul the hermit was 113 at his death. The Sieur Iwan-Horwaths, knight of the order of St Louis, died at Sar-Albe in Lorrain in 1775, aged almost 111. He was a great hunter. He undertook a long journey a short time before his death, and performed it on horseback. Rosine Iwiwarouska died at Minsk in Lithuania at the age of 113. Fockel Johannes died at Olde-Renmark-born in Friesland, aged 113 years and 16 days. Marik Jonas died in the year 1775 at Vilejoe in Hungary, aged 119. John Niethen of Bakler in Zeland lived to the age of 120. Eleonora Spicer died in 1773, at the age of 120. John Argus was born in the village of Laftua in Turkey, and died the 6th of March 1779, at the age of 123; having six sons and three daughters, by whom he had posterity to the fifth generation. They amounted to the number of 160 souls, and all lived in the same village. His father died at the age of 120. In December 1777, there lived in Devonshire a farmer named John Brookes, who was 134 years of age, and had been fifteen times married. The Philosophical Transactions mention an Englishman of the name of Eccleston, who lived to the age of 143. Another Englishman of the name of Effingham, died in 1757 at the age of 144. Niels Jukens of Hamerfet in Denmark died in 1764, aged 146. Christian Jacob Drakemberg died in 1770 at Archfen, in the 146th year of his age. This old man of the north was born at Stavanger in Norway in 1624, and at the age of 130 married a widow of 60. In Norway some men have lived to the age of 150. John Rovin, who was born at Szatlova-Caratitz-Betcher, in the banat of Temeswar, lived to the age of 172, and his wife to that of 164, having been married to him during the space of 147 years. When Rovin died, their youngest son was 99 years of age. In the Gazette de France, Jan. 18: 1780, we are informed that there lived at that time at Cordova de Tucuman, in Spanish America, a negro woman called Louisa Trezo, who, by the judicial testimony of several persons 100 years old, and of a negro woman of 125, was aged between 174 and 175 years. Peter Zoten, a peasant, and a countryman of John Rovin, died in 1724 at the age of 185. His youngest son was then 97 years of age. The history and whole length pictures of John Rovin, Henry Jenkins, and Peter Zorten, are to be seen in the library of S. A. R. prince Charles at Brussels. Hanovius, professor at Dantzick, mentions in his nomenclature an old man who died at the age of 184; and another still alive in Wallachia, whose age, according to this author, amounts to 186. Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle voce Homme. Before we proceed to assign the common causes of longevity, it is proper to inquire into the manner of life and the situation of those by whom it has been enjoyed. We find, then, that those who have lived to the greatest age have been such as did not attain their full growth till a very advanced period of life, and who have kept their appetites and passions under the most complete subjection. In a word, those who have exceeded 100 years, have in general been robust, laborious, sober, and careful to observe the strictest regimen. Enjoying a good constitution from nature, they have seldom or never been subject to disease. They have even enjoyed the greatest health and vigour, and retained the use of their senses to the last moment of their lives.

Among those who have led a life of contemplation and study, many have reached a very advanced age. Longevity is frequent among the different orders of religious, who by their statutes are confined to a moderate diet, and obliged to abstain from wine and the use of meat. Some celebrated anchorites have lived to a great age while they fed upon nothing but the wild roots and fruits which they found in the desert whither they had retired. The philosopher Xenophon, who lived to the age of 106, was of the Pythagorean sect. It is well known, that those philosophers who held the transmigration of souls, denied themselves the use of meat, because they imagined that killing an animal would be to affront another self. A country life has produced many found and vigorous old men. It is supposed that a happy old age is attained with greater difficulty in towns than in the country. Sir Hans Sloane, Duverney, and Fontenelle, however, are instances of men whose lives have been spent in cities, and yet extended to a very great length. It has been observed, that men deprived of reason live very long; and this Dr Haller imputes to their being exempted from those inquietudes which he considers as the most deadly poison. Persons possessing a sufficiently good understanding, but destitute of ambition, have been found to enjoy very long life. Men who are devoid of pretensions, who are free from those cares which a desire of shining by a display of talents, or of acquiring dignity and power, necessarily brings in its train, who feel no regret for the past nor anxiety about the future, are strangers to those torments of the mind which waste and consume the body. To that tranquillity of soul, which is so excellent a prerogative of infancy, they add that of being long young by physical constitution on which the moral has a striking and powerful influence.

Premature wisdom, and early talents, are often fitter to excite astonishment than expectation. The rapid unfolding of the moral faculties, by shortening the period of youth, seems to diminish in proportion the total duration of life. We have known a young lady of seventeen, who could speak very correctly seven languages: she translated and wrote Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, German, English, and French; but she died at the age of eighteen. The young man by whom she was asked in marriage, having been informed that he could not obtain her hand till he had made himself worthy of her by the same degree of talents and information, died the same year, and at the same age. But in some families, the web of life, to use an expression of Haller, seems to be better warped than in others: of this kind were the families of Thomas Parr, mentioned under Longevity; and John Argus, mentioned in the foregoing note.

From the preceding observations, Dr Haller has attempted to deduce the causes why a few men are longer exempted than others from the common fate.

The circumstances which oppose their influence are independent of our will; such as the ravages of epidemic distempers, trouble, and anxiety of mind, which create diseases in the body, or the torments of ambition. It is necessary to live in a salubrious climate, to enjoy a fortune sufficiently easy to exclude those uneasy desires which create a feeling of want and privation, to be descended from healthy parents, to avoid drinking wine in youth, to drink water, and to eat little meat and a great deal of vegetables. It is necessary also to be temperate in meals; moderate in pleasures, study, and exercise; to be naturally inclined to cheerfulness; and to allot a due time to sleep and repose.

Long life is certainly very rare; but, as has been already observed, we must distinguish between what is natural to the constitution of man, and that which is the consequence of his condition. By the former he is long life is made to be long lived; but nature is arrested in her course by local and accidental causes, which it is not in our power to avoid.

Let us take a retrospective view of man's life from his infancy, and enumerate the chief of these different causes. Of a thousand infants, an account of which Dr Haller has extracted from the London bills of mortality, twenty-three died almost as soon as they came into the world: teething carried off fifty, and convulsions two hundred and seventy-seven: eighty died of the smallpox, and seven of the measles. Among the adult females, eight at least died in child-bed: consumption and asthma, diseases more frequent in England than in France, carried off an hundred and ninety-one of the same sex, and almost a fifth part of the full grown men. An hundred and fifty died of fevers. At a more advanced age, twelve died of apoplexy, and forty-one of dropsy, without mentioning those to whom diseases of little importance in themselves became mortal. There only remained seventy-eight whose death could be ascribed to old age; and of these twenty-seven lived to the age of eighty and upwards.

Among the different diseases of which we have just now seen the fatal effects, and which carry off more than nine-tenths of mankind, not one, it must be allowed, is natural to the constitution. The inhabitants of this island are in general but little subject to diseases, excepting the small-pox and the measles; and many of them enjoy uninterrupted health to old age.

What are the most prevalent diseases in other countries, which prove equally fatal to the duration of human life? In northern climates, fever, the colic of the Laplanders, and diseases of the lungs, most frequently occasion death. In temperate climates, dropsy carries off a great many at the beginning of old age, which is the boundary of life in the greatest part of both sexes, when they have escaped the acute diseases, such as putrid fever, &c. Acute diseases are most common in warm countries. In some places, the rays of the sun kill in a few hours those who are exposed to its burning heat. The air of Egypt and of Asia Minor engenders the plague, by which one half of their inhabitants are carried off. Between the tropics men are subject to dysenteries and violent fevers. The cold of the night, in warm climates, occasions sometimes violent diseases, such as palsy, quinsy, and a swelling of the head. Damp and marshy places give rise to fevers of a different kind, but also very dangerous. The life of sailors has a great tendency to produce scurvy. How many professions prove fatal to the health, and in most men hasten that period which nature would have brought on by slow degrees! Miners, stone-cutters, gilders, persons employed in emptying privies, &c. are subject to diseases of the lungs, and become paralytic. Other professions of life bring on other accidents, of which it would carry us too far to give a particular account. What has been said is sufficient to show, that it is the dangers with which we are surrounded that shorten the period of human life.

By examining the list of those who have attained a great age, it will be found that mankind are longer lived in northern than in southern countries. It has been observed, that there are more old men in mountains and elevated situations than in plains and low countries. We repeat it, if the duration of life among the inhabitants of southern climates be compared with the duration of life in northern nations, it will be allowed, that the latter enjoy both longer life and better health than the former. Their growth being retarded by the rigour of the climate, their decay must also be slower, because of the proportion which exists between the growth of animals and the length of their lives. Among ten persons who have lived to the age of an hundred, eight or nine will be found to have lived in the north.

It appears from the bills of mortality, that in the country more boys are born than girls; in cities, on the contrary, the number of females is commonly greatest. Observations made with great care prove, that in most countries there are fewer men alive than women, and that more males die, chiefly at the first and last periods of life. In Sweden, the whole number of females in 1763, was to that of males in the proportion of ten to nine. The number of old women who exceeded 80 years of age, was to that of old men of the same age in the proportion of 33 to 19; and there were more women than men who had attained the age of 86, in the proportion of almost two to one.

The late Dr Price made observations, after Dr Percival, on the difference of longevity, and the duration of human life, in towns, country-parishes, and villages; of which the following is the result. A greater number in proportion die in great towns than in small ones, and a greater number in the latter than in villages. The cause of this difference, which is found to be very great, must be, in the first place, the luxury and dilapidation which prevail in towns; and, secondly, the badness of the air. In the town of Manchester, according to observation, ⅓ of the inhabitants die annually; whereas, in the neighbouring country, the number of deaths does not exceed ⅔ of the whole inhabitants. It may be laid down as a general principle, that in

Vol. X. Part II.

great towns, the number of deaths annually is from 1 in 19 to 1 in 22 or 23; in middling towns, from 1 in 24 to 1 in 28; and in country parishes and villages seldom more than 1 in 40 or 50. In 1763, the number of inhabitants in Stockholm amounted to 72,979. The average number of deaths for the five years preceding had been 3802, which makes 1 in 19 annually; while throughout all Sweden, including the towns and the country, not more than 1 in 35 die annually. At Rome the inhabitants are numbered every year. In 1771 they were found to amount to 159,675; the average number of deaths for ten years was 7367; which makes 1 in 23 annually. In London not less than 1 in 20½ of the inhabitants die every year.

M. Daubenton has given in the Encyclopédie Métho-Probabil-que, a table of the probabilities of the duration of life, constructed from that which is to be found in the seventh volume of the Suppléments à l'Histoire Naturelle de M. de Buffon.

The following is an abridgment of it:

| Duration | Probability | |----------|-------------| | One year | 7998 | | Eight years | 11997 | | Thirty-eight years | 15996 | | Fifty years | 17994 | | Sixty-one years | 19995 | | Seventy years | 21995 | | Eighty years | 22395 | | Ninety years | 23914 | | One hundred years | 23992 |

It thus appears, that a very small number of men indeed pass through all the periods of life, and arrive at the gaol marked out by nature. Innumerable causes accelerate our dissolution. The life of man, we have observed, consists in the activity and exercise of his organs, which grow up and acquire strength during infancy, adolescence, and youth. No sooner has the body attained its utmost perfection, than it begins to decline. Its decay is at first imperceptible; but in the progress of time the membranes become cartilaginous, the cartilages acquire the consistence of bone; the bones become more solid, and all the fibres are hardened. Almost all the fat wastes away; the skin becomes withered and fleshy; wrinkles are gradually formed; the hair grows white; the teeth fall out; the face loses its shape; the body is bent; and the colour and consistence of the crystalline humour become more perceptible. The first traces of this decay begin to be perceived at the age of forty, and sometimes sooner; this is the age of decline. They increase by slow degrees till sixty, which is the period of old age. They increase more rapidly till the age of seventy or seventy-five. At this period craziness begins, and continues always to increase. Next succeeds decrepitude, when the memory is gone, the use of the senses lost, the strength totally annihilated, the organs worn out, and the functions of the body almost destroyed. Little now remains to be lost; and before the age of ninety or an hundred, death terminates at once decrepitude and life.

The body then dies by little and little: its motion gradually diminishes; life is extinguished by successive gradations, and death is only the last term in the succession. When the motion of the heart, which continues longest, ceases, man has then breathed his last; he has passed from the state of life to the state of death; and as at his birth a breath opened to him the career of life, so with a breath he finishes his course.

This natural cause of death is common to all animals and even to vegetables. We may observe that the centre of an oak first perishes and falls into dust, because these parts having become harder and more compact can receive no further nourishment. The causes of our dissolution, therefore, are as necessary as death is inevitable; and it is no more in our power to retard this fatal term than to alter the established laws of the universe. Hence the following maxim has been universally adopted, *Contra vim mortis, nullum medicamentum in hortis.* In whatever manner death happens, the time and circumstances thereof are unknown. It is considered, however, as at all times terrible, and the very thoughts of it fill the mind with fear and trouble. It is notwithstanding our duty frequently to direct our thoughts to that event, which must inevitably happen, and by a life of virtue and innocence to prepare against those consequences which we so much dread.

As in women the bones, the cartilages, the muscles, and every other part of the body, are softer and less solid than those of men, they must require more time in hardening to that degree which occasions death.—Women of course ought to live longer than men. This reasoning is confirmed by experience; for by consulting the bills of mortality, it appears, that after women have passed a certain age they live much longer than men who have arrived at the same age.—In like manner, it is found by experience, that in women the age of youth is shorter and happier than in men, but that the period of old age is longer, and attended with more trouble. *Citius pulset, citius senescunt.*

After death, the organization of the body begins to be dissolved, and all the parts relax, corrupt, and separate. This is produced by an intestine fermentation, which occasions putrefaction, and reduces the body to volatile alkali, fetid oil, and earth.

The other particulars that were proposed to be noticed in this article are, The several senses with which man is endowed; his constitution, and animal functions; and that variety of colour, form, and character, which he assumes in different quarters of the globe. But there is no occasion to enlarge upon those topics here, as they have been already explained in other parts of the work. For the two first, see Anatomy, p. 47. The last has been partly discussed under the word Complexion, and will be resumed afterwards under the article Varieties of the Human Species. For what regards man, considered as a rational, social, moral, and religious being, see Metaphysics, Moral Philosophy, Religion, and Theology; also Society, Law, Language, and Logic.

Isle of Man, an island in the Irish sea, lying about seven leagues north from Anglesey, about the same distance west from Lancashire, nearly the like distance south-east from Galloway, and nine leagues east from Ireland.* Its form is long and narrow, stretching from the north-east of Ayre-point to the Calf of Man, which lies south-west, at least 30 English miles. Its breadth in some places is more than nine miles, in most places eight, and in some not above five, and contains about 165 square miles.

The first author who mentions this island is Caesar; for there can be as little doubt, that, by the Mona, of which he speaks in his Commentaries, placing it in the midst between Britain and Ireland, we are to understand Man; as that the Mona of Tacitus, which he acquaints us had a fordable strait between it and the continent, can be applied only to Anglesey. Pliny has set down both islands; Mona, by which he intends Anglesey, and Monabia, which is Man. In Ptolemy we find Monazda, or Monaida, that is, the farther or more remote Môn. Orofius styles it Menavia; tells us, that it was not extremely fertile; and that this, as well as Ireland, was then peopled by the Scots. Beda, who distinguishes clearly two Menavian islands, names this the northern Menavia, bestowing the epithet of southern upon Anglesey. In some copies of Nennius, this isle is denominated Eubona; in others, Menaria; but both are explained to mean Man. Alured of Beverley also speaks of it as one of the Menavian islands. The Britons, in their own language, called it Manaw, more properly Main aw, i.e., "a little isle," which seems to be Latinized in the word Menavia. All which clearly proves, that this small isle was early inhabited, and as well known to the rest of the world as either Britain or Ireland.

In the close of the first century, the Druids, who were the priests, prophets, and philosophers of the old Britons, were finally expelled by Julius Agricola from the southern Mona; and we are told, that they took shelter in the northern. This island they found well planted with firs; so that they had, in some measure, what they delighted in most, the shelter of trees; but, however, not the shelter of those trees in which they most delighted, viz. the oaks; and therefore these they introduced. No histories tell us this; but we learn it from more certain authority, great woods of fir having been discovered interred in the bowels of the earth, and here and there small groves of oaks; but as these trees are never met with intermixed, so it is plain they never grew together; and as the former are by far the most numerous, we may presume them the natural produce of the country, and that the latter were planted and preserved by the Druids. They gave the people, with whom they lived, and over whom they ruled, a gentle government, wise laws, but without a very superstitious religion. It is also very likely that they hindered them, as much as they could, from having any correspondence with their neighbours; which is the reason... that, though the island is mentioned by so many writers, not one of them, before Orosius, says a word about the inhabitants. A little before his time, that is, in the beginning of the fifth century, the Scots had transported themselves thither, it is said, from Ireland. The tradition of the natives of Man (for they have a traditionary history) begins at this period. They style this first discoverer Mannan Mac Lear; and they say that he was a magician, who kept this country covered with mist, so that the inhabitants of other places could never find it. But the ancient chronicles of Ireland inform us, that the true name of this adventurer was Orffinianus, the son of Alladius, a prince in their island; and that he was surnamed Mannanan, from his having first entered the island of Man, and Mac Lir, i.e. "the offspring of the sea," from his great skill in navigation. He promoted commerce; and is said to have given a good reception to St Patrick, by whom the natives were converted to Christianity.

The princes who ruled after him seem to have been of the same line with the kings of Scotland, with which country they had a great intercourse, afflicting its monarchs in their wars, and having the education of their princes confided to them in time of peace.

In the beginning of the seventh century, Edwin king of Northumberland invaded the Menavian islands, ravaged Man, and kept it for some time, when, Beda assures us, there were in it about 300 families; which was less than a third part of the people in Anglesey, though Man wants but a third of the size of that island.

The second line of their princes they derive from Orri, who, they say, was the son of the king of Norway; and that there were 12 princes of this house who governed Man. The old constitution, settled by the Druids, while they swayed the sceptre, was perfectly restored; the country was well cultivated and well peopled; their subjects were equally versed in the exercise of arms and in the knowledge of the arts of peace; in a word, they had a considerable naval force, an extensive commerce, and were a great nation, tho' inhabiting only a little isle. Guttred the son of Orri built the castle of Ruflyn, A.D. 960, which is a strong place, a large palace, and has subsisted now above 800 years. Macao was the ninth of these kings, and maintained an unsuccessful struggle against Edgar, who reduced all the little sovereigns of the different parts of Britain to own him for their lord; and who, upon the submission of Macao, made him his high-admiral, by which title (archipirata, in the Latin of those times) he subscribes that monarch's charter to the abbey of Glastonbury.

After the death of Edward the Confessor, when Harold, who possessed the crown of England, had defeated the Norwegians at the battle of Stamford, there was amongst the fugitives one Goddard Crownan, the son of Harold the Black, of Iceland, who took shelter in the isle of Man. This isle was then governed by another Goddard, who was a descendant from Macao, and he gave him a very kind and friendly reception. Goddard Crownan, during the short stay he made in the island, perceived that his name-fake was universally hated by his subjects; which inspired him with hopes that he might expel the king, and become master of the island. This he at last accomplished, after having defeated and killed Fingal the son of Goddard, who had succeeded his father. Upon this he assigned the north part of the island to the natives, and gave the south to his own people; becoming, in virtue of his conquest, the founder of their third race of princes. However he might acquire his kingdom, he governed it with spirit and prudence; made war with success in Ireland; gained several victories over the Scots in the Isles; and, making a tour through his new-obtained dominions, deceased in the isle of Ilay. He left behind him three sons. A civil war breaking out between the two eldest, and both of them deceasing in a few years, Magnus king of Norway coming with a powerful fleet, possessed himself of Man and the isles, and held them as long as he lived; but, being slain in Ireland, the people invited home Olave, the youngest son of Goddard Crownan, who had fled to the court of England, and been very honourably treated by Henry the Second. There were in the whole nine princes of this race, who were all of them feudatories to the kings of England; and often resorted to their court, were very kindly received, and had pensions bestowed upon them. Henry III. in particular, charged Olavo, king of Man, with the defence of the coasts of England and Ireland; and granted him annually for that service 40 marks, 100 measures of wheat, and five pieces of wine. Upon the demise of Magnus, the last king of this isle, without heirs male, Alexander III. king of Scots, who had conquered the other isles, seized likewise upon this; which, as parcel of that kingdom, came into the hands of Edward I. who directed William Huntercumbe, guardian or warden of that isle for him, to restore it to John Baliol, who had done homage to him for the kingdom of Scotland.

But it seems there was still remaining a lady named Aultrica, who claimed this sovereignty, as cousin and nearest of kin to the deceased Magnus. This claimant being able to obtain nothing from John Baliol, applied herself next to king Edward, as the superior lord. He, upon this application, by his writ, which is yet extant, commanded both parties, in order to determine their right, to appear in the king's-bench. The progress of this suit does not appear; but we know farther, that this lady, by a deed of gift, conveyed her claim to Sir Simon de Montacute; and, after many disputes, invasions by the Scots, and other accidents, the title was examined in parliament, in the seventh of Edward III. and solemnly adjudged to William de Montacute; to whom, by letters-patent, dated the same year, that monarch released all claim whatsoever.

In the succeeding reign, William Montacute, earl of Salisbury, sold it to Sir William Scroop, afterwards earl of Wiltshire; and, upon his losing his head, it was granted by Henry IV. to Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland; who, being attainted, had, by the grace of that king, all his lands restored, except the isle of Man, which the same monarch granted to Sir John Stanley, to be held by him of the kings heirs. heirs and successors, by homage, and a cast of falcons to be presented at every coronation. Thus it was possessed by this noble family, who were created earls of Derby, till the reign of queen Elizabeth; when, upon the demise of earl Ferdinand, who left three daughters, it was, as lord Coke tells us, adjudged to those ladies, and from them purchased by William earl of Derby, the brother of Ferdinand, from whom it was claimed by descent, and adjudged to its present possessor, his grace the duke of Athol.

This island, from its situation directly in the mouth of the channel, is very beneficial to Britain, by lessening the force of the tides, which would otherwise break with far greater violence than they do at present. It is frequently exposed to very high winds; and at other times to mists, which, however, are not at all unwholesome. The soil towards the north is dry and sandy, of consequence unfertile, but not uninprovable; the mountains, which may include near two-thirds of the island, are bleak and barren; yet afford excellent peat, and contain several kinds of metals. They maintain also a kind of small swine, called purrs, which are esteemed excellent pork. In the valleys there is as good pasture, hay, and corn, as in any of the northern counties; and the southern part of the island is as fine soil as can be wished. They have marl and lime-stone sufficient to render even their poorest lands fertile; excellent slate, rag-stone, black marble, and some other kinds for building. They have vegetables of all sorts, and in the utmost perfection; potatoes in immense quantities; and, where proper pains have been taken, they have tolerable fruit. They have also hemp, flax, large crops of oats and barley, and some wheat. Hogs, sheep, goats, black cattle, and horses, they have in plenty; and, though small in size, yet if the country was thoroughly and skilfully cultivated, they might improve the breed of all animals, as experience has shown. They have rabbits and hares very fat and fine; tame and wild fowl in great plenty; and in their high mountains they have one airy of eagles and two of excellent hawks. Their rivulets furnish them with salmon, trout, eels, and other kinds of fresh-water fish; on their coasts are caught cod, turbot, ling, halibut, all sorts of shell-fish (oysters only are scarce, but large and good), and herrings, of which they made anciently a great profit, though this fishery is of late much declined.

The inhabitants of Man, though far from being unmixed, were, perhaps, till within the course of the present century, more so than any other under the dominion of the crown of Great Britain; to which they are very proud of being subjects, though, like the inhabitants of Jersey and Guernsey, they have a constitution of their own, and a peculiarity of manners naturally resulting from a long enjoyment of it.—The Manks tongue is the only one spoken by the common people. It is the old British, mingled with Norse, or the Norwegian language, and the modern language. The clergy preach and read the common prayer in it. In ancient times they were distinguished by their stature, courage, and great skill in maritime affairs. They are at this day a brisk, lively, hardy, industrious, and well-meaning people. Their frugality defends them from want; and though there are few that abound, there are as few in distress; and those that are, meet with a cheerful unconstrained relief. On the other hand, they are choleric, loquacious, and, as the law till lately was cheap, and unencumbered with solicitors and attorneys, not a little litigious. The revenue, in the earl of Derby's time, amounted to about £2000, a-year; from which, deducting his civil list, which was about £700, the clear income amounted to £1800. At the same time, the number of his subjects was computed at 20,000.—The sovereign of Man, though he has long ago waved the title of king, was still invested with regal rights and prerogatives; but the distinct jurisdiction of this little subordinate royalty, being found inconvenient for the purposes of public justice, and for the revenue (it affording a commodious asylum for debtors, outlaws, and smugglers), authority was given to the treasury, by flat. 12 Geo. I. c. 28. to purchase the interest of the then proprietors for the use of the crown: which purchase was at length completed in the year 1765, and confirmed by flat. 5 Geo. III. c. 26. and 39.; whereby the whole island and all its dependencies (except the landed property of the Athol family), their manorial rights and emoluments, and the patronage of the bishopric and other ecclesiastical benefices, are unalienably vested in the crown, and subjected to the regulation of the British excise and customs. The duke, however, is procuring an act of parliament to revive the former one.

The most general division of this island is into north and south; and it contains 17 parishes, of which five are market-towns, the rest villages. Its division with regard to its civil government, is into six stewartries, every one having its proper coroner, who is in the nature of a sheriff, is intrusted with the peace of his district, secures criminals, brings them to justice, &c. The lord chief-justice Coke says, "their laws were such as scarce to be found anywhere else." In July 1786, a copper coinage for the use of the island was issued from the Tower of London.—There is a ridge of mountains runs almost the length of the isle, from whence they have abundance of good water from the rivulets and springs; and Snafield, the highest, rises about 580 yards. The air is sharp and cold in winter, the frosts short, and the snow, especially near the sea, lies not long on the ground. Here are quarries of good stone, rocks of lime-stone, and red freestone, and good slate, with some mines of lead, copper, and iron. The trade of this island was very great before the year 1726; but the late lord Derby farming out his customs to foreigners, the insolence of those farmers drew on them the resentment of the government of England, who, by an act of parliament, deprived the inhabitants of an open trade with this kingdom. This naturally introduced a clandestine commerce, which they carried on with England and Ireland with prodigious successe, and an immense quantity of foreign goods was run into both kingdoms, till the government in 1765 thought proper to put an entire stop to it, by purchasing the island of the duke of Athol, as already mentioned, and permitting a free trade with England. On the little isle of Peele, on the west side of Man, is a town of the same name, with a fortified castle. Before the south promontory of Man, is a little island called the Calf of Man: it is about three miles in circuit, and separated from Man by a channel about two furlongs broad. At one time of the year it abounds with puffins, and also with a species of ducks and drakes, by the English called barnacles, and by the Scots clakes and Soland geese.

The inhabitants of this isle are of the church of England; and the bishop is styled Bishop of Sodor and Man. This bishopric was first erected by Pope Gregory IV. and for its diocese had this isle and all the Hebrides, or Western islands of Scotland; but which were called Sodoros by the Danes, who went to them by the north, from the Swedish Sodor, Siall or Oar islands, from which the title of the bishop of Sodor is supposed to originate. The bishop's seat was at Rushin, or Caffletown, in the isle of Man, and in Latin is entitled Sodorense. But when this island became dependent upon the kingdom of England, the Western islands withdrew themselves from the obedience of their bishop, and had a bishop of their own, whom they entitled also Sodorense, but commonly Bishop of the Isles. The patronage of the bishopric was given, together with the island, to the Stanleys by king Edward IV. and came by an heir-female to the family of Athole; and, on a vacancy thereof, they nominated their designed bishop to the king, who dismissed him to the archbishop of York for consecration.—By an act of parliament, the 3rd of king Henry VIII., this bishopric is declared in the province of York.

**Man-of-war Bird.** See Pelicanus.

**Manage.** See Manege.

**Manasseh** (in Scripture hist.), the eldest son of Joseph, and grandson of the patriarch Jacob (Gen. xlii. 50, 51.) was born in the year of the world 2297, before Jesus Christ 1747.

The tribe descended from him came out of Egypt, in number 32,200 men, fit for battle, upwards of 20 years old, under the conduct of Gamaliel son of Pedahzur (Numb. ii. 27, 21.) This tribe was divided at their entrance into the land of Promise. One half had its portion beyond the river Jordan, and the other half on this side the river. The half tribe of Manasseh which settled beyond the river possessed the country of Bashan, from the river Jabbok to mount Lebanon, (Numb. xxii. 33, 34, &c.) and the other half tribe of Manasseh on this side Jordan, obtained for its inheritance the country between the tribe of Ephraim to the south, and the tribe of Issachar to the north, having the river Jordan to the east and the Mediterranean sea to the west, (Josh. xvi. xvii.)

**Manasseh**, the 15th king of Judah, being the son and successor of Hezekiah. His acts are recorded in 2 Kings xx. xxii. and 2 Chr. xxxiii.

**Manati,** in zoology. See Trichecus.

**Manca,** was a square piece of gold coin, commonly valued at 30 pence; and mancus was as much as a mark of silver, having its name from manu-cusa, being coined with the hand: (Leg. Canut.) But the manca and mancus were not always of that value; for sometimes the former was valued at six shillings, and the latter, as used by the English Saxons, was equal in value to our half-crown. Manca sex solidis affluitur, (Leg. H. i. c. 69.) Thorn, in his chronicle, tells us, that mancusa est pondus duorum solidorum et sex denarii; and with him agrees Du Cange, who says, that 20 mancae make 50 shillings. Manca and mancus are promiscuously used in the old books for the same money.

**Mancha,** a territory of Spain in the province of New Castile, lying between the river Guadiana and Andalusia. It is a mountainous country; and it was here that the famous Don Quixote was supposed to perform his exploits.

**Manchester,** a town of Lancashire in England, situated in W. Long. 2. 42. N Lat. 53. 27.—Mr Whitaker conjectures, that the station was first occupied by the Britons about 700 B.C. but that it first received any thing like the form of a town 450 years after, or 50 B.C. when the Britons of Cheshire made an irruption into the territories of their southern neighbours, and of consequence alarmed the Setuntii, or inhabitants of Lancashire, so much, that they began to build fortresses in order to defend their country. Its British name was Mancennion; which was changed by the Romans, who conquered it under Agricola, A.D. 79, into Mancennium; from whence comes the present name of Manchester.—It is 182 miles from London; and stands near the conflux of the Irk and the Irwell, three miles from the Mersey. It is large, populous, and adorned with many fine buildings and streets. It has a spacious market-place, a college; and an exchange. The sultan manufactury, called Manchester-cutting, for which it has been famous for near 200 years, has been much improved of late by some inventions of dyeing and printing, which, with the great variety of other manufactures, called Manchester goods (of which they export vast quantities abroad, especially to the West Indies), such as ticking, tapes, filleting, and linen-cloth, enrich the town, and employ men, women, and children. It has two churches, viz. St Mary's and St Anne's. The latter was begun by contribution of the inhabitants, in the reign of Queen Anne, and finished in 1723. The collegiate church, which was built in 1422, is a fine large edifice, with a beautiful choir, and a clock that shows the age of the moon. The three most eminent foundations here are, its college, hospital, and public school. The college was founded in 1421. The king, by act of parliament in 1729, is impowered to be visitor of this college. The hospital was founded by Humphry Chesterman, Esq.; and incorporated by Charles II. for the maintenance of 42 poor boys of this town and the neighbouring parishes; but the governors have enlarged the number to 60, to be taken in between six and ten years of age, and maintained, lodged, and clothed, till the age of 14, when they are to be bound apprentices at the charge of the said hospital. The founder also erected a library in it, and settled 1161. a-year on it for ever, to buy books, and to support a librarian. There is a large school for the hospital boys, where they are taught to read, write, &c. The public school was founded anno 1513. Here are three masters, with handsome salaries; and the foundation boys have certain exhibitions for their maintenance at the university. Besides these, there are three charity schools. It stands on a stony hill, where are noble quarries. Kerstal-moor is noted for horse. This place, in fine, is deservedly reckoned the greatest village or market-town in England; for though its chief magistrate is only a constable or headborough, yet it is more populous than York, Norwich, or most cities in England, and as big as two or three of the lesser ones put together; for of the people, including those in the suburbs, there were reckoned not less than 20,000 communicants above 100 years ago, and now the inhabitants are not less than 50,000. Here is a firm old stone-bridge over the Irwell, which is built exceedingly high; because, as the river comes from the mountainous parts of the country, it rises sometimes four or five yards in one night, but falls next day as suddenly. There are for three miles above the town no less than 60 mills upon it. By the late inland navigation, it has communication with the rivers Mersey, Dee, Ribble, Ouse, Trent, Darwent, Severn, Humber, Thames, Avon, &c. which navigation, including its windings, extends above 500 miles, in the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, York, Westmorland, Chester, Stafford, Warwick, Leicestershire, Oxford, Worcestershire, &c. The weavers here have looms that work 24 laces at a time, an invention for which they are obliged to the Dutch. The market here is on Saturday; and the fairs are on Whit-Monday, September 21, and November 6.—It is a manor with courts leet and baron. What is now called Knock-Castle, was the seat of the Roman Castrum; and the foundation of the castle wall and ditch still remain in Castle-Field, as it is sometimes called.

The market-place, surrounded with old dirty buildings, is called the Old Town; and rents run very high. Manchester sends no members to parliament, but has the title of a duchy.

**MANCHESTER.** See Hippomane.

**MANCIPATIO,** was a term made use of in the Roman law, and may be thus explained: every father had such a regal authority over his son, that before the son could be released from his subjection and made free, he must be three times over sold and bought, his natural father being the vender. The vendee was called *pater fiduciarium.* After this fictitious bargain, the *pater fiduciarium* sold him again to the natural father, who could then, but not till then, manumit or make him free. The imaginary sale was called *mancipatio,* and the act of giving liberty or setting him free after this was called *emancipatio.*

*Mancipatio* also signifies the selling or alienating of certain lands by the balance, or money paid by weight, and five witnesses. This mode of alienation took place only amongst Roman citizens, and that only in respect to certain estates situated in Italy, which were called *mancipia.*