II
вЄїThen, positively, there is nothing in the question that I can see, either good or bad.вБ†вЄЇвБ†Then, let me tell you, Sir, it was a very unseasonable question at least,вБ†вАФbecause it scattered and dispersed the animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand in hand with the Homunculus, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception.
The Homunculus, Sir, in however low and ludicrous a light he may appear, in this age of levity, to the eye of folly or prejudice;вБ†вАФto the eye of reason in scientifick research, he stands confessвАЩdвБ†вАФa¬†Being guarded and circumscribed with rights.вБ†вЄЇвБ†The minutest philosophers, who, by the by, have the most enlarged understandings (their souls being inversely as their enquiries), show us incontestably, that the Homunculus is created by the same hand,вБ†вАФengenderвАЩd in the same course of nature,вБ†вАФendowвАЩd with the same locomotive powers and faculties with us:вБ†вАФThat he consists as we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins, arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartilages, bones, marrow, brains, glands, genitals, humours, and articulations;вБ†вАФis a Being of as much activity,вБ†вАФand, in all senses of the word, as much and as truly our fellow-creature as my Lord Chancellor of England.вБ†вАФHe may be benefited,вБ†вАФhe may be injured,вБ†вАФhe may obtain redress;вБ†вАФin a word, he has all the claims and rights of humanity, which Tully, Puffendorf, or the best ethick writers allow to arise out of that state and relation.
Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way alone!вБ†вАФor that, through terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, my little Gentleman had got to his journeyвАЩs end miserably spent;вБ†вАФhis muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread;вБ†вАФhis own animal spirits ruffled beyond description,вБ†вАФand that in this sad disordered state of nerves, he had lain down a prey to sudden starts, or a series of melancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months together.вБ†вАФI tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for a thousand weaknesses both of body and mind, which no skill of the physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards have set thoroughly to rights.