as ’tis said of Epimenides, that he always prophesied backward.

I have just seen a herdsman in Medoc, of about thirty years of age, who has no sign of any genital parts; he has three holes by which he incessantly voids his water; he is bearded, has desire, and seeks contact with women.

Those that we call monsters are not so to God, who sees in the immensity of His work the infinite forms that He has comprehended therein; and it is to be believed that this figure which astonishes us has relation to some other figure of the same kind unknown to man.  From His all wisdom nothing but good, common; and regular proceeds; but we do not discern the disposition and relation: 

          “Quod crebro videt, non miratur, etiamsi,
          cur fiat, nescit.  Quod ante non vidit, id,
          si evenerit, ostentum esse censet.”

     ["What he often sees he does not admire, though he be ignorant how
     it comes to pass.  When a thing happens he never saw before, he
     thinks that it is a portent.”—­Cicero, De Divin., ii. 22.]

Whatever falls out contrary to custom we say is contrary to nature, but nothing, whatever it be, is contrary to her.  Let, therefore, this universal and natural reason expel the error and astonishment that novelty brings along with it.

CHAPTER XXXI

OF ANGER

Plutarch is admirable throughout, but especially where he judges of human actions.  What fine things does he say in the comparison of Lycurgus and Numa upon the subject of our great folly in abandoning children to the care and government of their fathers?  The most of our civil governments, as Aristotle says, “leave, after the manner of the Cyclopes, to every one the ordering of their wives and children, according to their own foolish and indiscreet fancy; and the Lacedaemonian and Cretan are almost the only governments that have committed the education of children to the laws.  Who does not see that in a state all depends upon their nurture and bringing up? and yet they are left to the mercy of parents, let them be as foolish and ill-conditioned as they may, without any manner of discretion.”

Amongst other things, how often have I, as I have passed along our streets, had a good mind to get up a farce, to revenge the poor boys whom I have seen hided, knocked down, and miserably beaten by some father or mother, when in their fury and mad with rage?  You shall see them come out with fire and fury sparkling in their eyes: 

              “Rabie jecur incendente, feruntur,
               Praecipites; ut saxa jugis abrupta, quibus mons
               Subtrahitur, clivoque latus pendente recedit,”

["They are headlong borne with burning fury as great stones torn
from the mountains, by which the steep sides are left naked and
bare.”—­Juvenal, Sat., vi. 647.]