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IN fine, having thus briefly defin’d, and variously described the Powers of IMAGINATION, I come in the next Place, more particularly, to treat of the Reasons of Similitude in Children.
CHAP. VIII. Of the SIMILITUDE of Children.
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WHATEVER may be advanced on this Head, the most probable and solid Reason for the Child’s Likeness or Resemblance, is the IMAGINATION of the Mother in the Act of Copulation; together with the Liberty she gives herself in her Thoughts and Actions, during the Time of Formation, commonly call’d the Time of Breeding.
HENCE it is, that whatever she intentively fixes her Eyes upon, or conceives and impresses in her Mind, the Infant represents the same in its extimous Parts: And particularly whatever Object she directs her Eyes or Thoughts upon, in the Interval between the Embrace and the Charm, its Effigies is afterwards manifest in the Child. As St. Jerom thus relates of a certain Woman, who conceiv’d and brought forth a Black-Child, tho’ both She and her Husband (the real Father) were white; meerly by eying a PICTURE in the Bed-Chamber at that critical Juncture.