 be taken in the act of
propagation of each individual, which required all the thought in the world, as
it laid the foundation of this incomprehensible contexture in which wit, memory,
fancy, eloquence, and what is usually meant by the name of good natural parts,
do consist; - that next to this and his Christian-name, which were the two
original and most efficacious causes of all; - that the third cause, or rather
what logicians call the Causa sine quâ non, and without which all that was done
was of no manner of significance, - was the preservation of this delicate and
fine-spun web, from the havock which was generally made in it by the violent
compression and crush which the head was made to undergo, by the nonsensical
method of bringing us into the world by that part foremost.
    -- This requires explanation.
    My father, who dipp'd into all kinds of books, upon looking into Lithopædus
Senonesis de Partu difficili4, published by Adrianus Smelvogt, had found out,
That the lax and pliable state of a child's head in parturition, the bones of
the cranium having no sutures at that time, was such, -- that by force of the
woman's efforts, which, in strong labour-pains, was equal, upon an average, to a
weight of 470 pounds averdupois acting perpendicularly upon it; -- it so
happened that, in 49 instances out of 50, the said head was compressed and
moulded into the shape of an oblong conical piece of dough, such as a
pastry-cook generally rolls up in order to make a pye of. -- Good God! cried my
father, what havock and destruction must this make in the infinitely fine and
tender texture of the cerebellum! -- Or if there is such a juice as Borri
pretends, -- is it not enough to make the clearest liquor in the world both
feculent and mothery?
    But how great was his apprehension, when he further understood, that this
force, acting upon the very vertex of the head, not only injured the brain
itself or cerebrum, - but that it necessarily squeez'd and propell'd the
cerebrum towards the cerebellum, which was the immediate seat of the
understanding. -- Angels and Ministers of grace defend us! cried my father, -
can any soul withstand this shock? - No wonder the intellectual web is so rent
and tatter'd as we see it; and that so many of our best heads are no better than
a puzzled skein of silk, - all perplexity, - all confusion
