The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, vol.I, ch. II

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C H A P. II.

---- Then, positively, there is nothing
in the question, that I can see, either good
or bad. ---- Then let me tell you, Sir,
it was a very unseasonable question at
least, -- because it scattered and dispersed
the animal spirits, whose business it was
to have escorted and gone hand-in-hand
with the HOMUNCULUS, and con-
ducted him safe to the place destined for
his reception.

The HOMUNCULUS, Sir, in how-ever
low and ludicrous a light he may appear,
in this age of levity, to the eye of folly
or prejudice ; -- to the eye of reason in
scientifick research, he stands confess'd --
a BEING guarded and circumscribed with
rights : ---- The minutest philosophers,
who,

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who, by the bye, have the most enlarged
understandings, (their souls being in-
versely as their enquiries) shew us incon-
testably, That the HOMUNCULUS is
created by the same hand, -- engender'd
in the same course of nature,-- endowed
with the same loco-motive powers and
faculties with us : ---- That he consists,
as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins,
arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartileges,
bones, marrow, brains, glands, genitals,
humours, and articulations ; ---- is a Be-
ing of as much activity, ---- and, in all
senses of the word, as much and as truly
our fellow-creature as my Lord Chancel-
lor of England. -- He may be benefited,
he may be injured, -- he may obtain re-
dress ; -- in a word, he has all the claims
and rights of humanity, which Tully,
Puffendorff, or the best ethick writers
            A 3             allow

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allow to arise out of that state and rela-
tion.

  Now, dear Sir, what if any accident
had befallen him in his way alone ? ----
or that, thro' terror of it, natural to so
young a traveller, my little gentleman
had got to his journey's end miserably
spent ; ---- his muscular strength and
virility worn down to a thread ; -- his
own animal spirits ruffled beyond de-
scription, -- and that in this sad disorder'd
state of nerves, he had laid down a prey
to sudden starts, or a series of melan-
choly dreams and fancies for nine long,
long months together . ---- I tremble to
think what a foundation had been laid
for a thousand weaknesses both of body
and mind, which no skill of the physi-
cian or the philosopher could ever after-
wards have set thoroughly to rights.
                         C H A P.