21. State of a child in the mother's womb.
He that will suffer himself to be informed by observation and
experience, and not make his own hypothesis the rule of nature, will find few signs of a soul accustomed to much
thinking in a new-born child, and much fewer of any reasoning at all. And yet it is hard to imagine that the
rational soul should think so much, and not reason at all. And he that will consider that infants newly come into
the world spend the greatest part of their time in sleep, and are seldom awake but when either hunger calls for the
teat, or some pain (the most importunate of all sensations), or some other violent impression on the body, forces
the mind to perceive and attend to it;--he, I say, who considers this, will perhaps find reason to imagine that a
fœtus in the mother's womb differs not much from the state of a vegetable, but passes the greatest part of its time
without perception or thought; doing very little but sleep in a place where it needs not seek for food, and is
surrounded with liquor, always equally soft, and near of the same temper; where the eyes have no light, and the
ears so shut up are not very susceptible of sounds; and where there is little or no variety, or change of objects, to
move the senses.
