The precautions now taken are very numerous.  Many by themselves alone would be productive of great good, but when all are carried out, some contemporaneously, others successively, a result is scarcely less certain than the solution of a mathematical problem, based on accurate premises, save of course in the case of inevitable accidents.  My laws provide for the protection of the child from its birth, nay, as I have before stated, prior to its birth; for the protection of the parent precedes that of the child.  I knew that if the mother was sickly, or indulged in injurious habits, the child would suffer.  I enjoined attention to these laws as a portion of the religious duties of the people.  Amongst other things I explained the value of beauty in the human form, and how, when united with other qualities, it tended to the happiness of the individual and the well-being of the world.  This I did at length, and in a manner to secure conviction, because it had been the fashion to decry beauty as a matter of minor importance.

At the risk of repeating myself, I assert that I omitted nothing, however seemingly insignificant, looking as I did upon my system as upon one large continuous volume, in which every page had its value.  The absence of a single leaf would somewhat mar the general effect, but still the remaining pages might retain their worth if pregnant with good.  On the other hand, if every leaf that was torn out had the effect of loosening the rest, and causing them to be lost, till but a few would be left in the cover, the effect would be far more serious.

XXXII.

INFANTS’ EXERCISE-MACHINES.

     “Does a man throw his precious pearls and diamonds into the sea?”

     “Why, then, do ye cast the priceless health and beauty of your
     children to the winds?”

I cannot undertake to relate at present one tithe of the precautions taken in the care of infants.  Did I venture so to do I should have to “descend” to the minutest particulars, such as the dispensing with “pins,” and the making the baby’s dress in one piece, the nursing, and form of the cradle, to the mode in which the baby is to be placed at the side of the mother, to prevent its being overlaid or injured,—­ everything, in fact, which in Montalluyah is thought essential to protect infants and save them from unnecessary suffering, in order that their young strength may be husbanded for the future requirements of the man.

To give you some notion, however, of the minutiae to which our care extended, I will explain to you one series of precautions which has great influence on the child’s health, beauty, and intelligence.