Page:Father's memoirs of his child.djvu/129

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terms, as a fundamental principle of certain modern philosophers, that all facts are to be stated in the broadest language, that the veil of what has hitherto been called decency, is to be rent asunder as the covering of affectation or hypocrisy, these monstrous consequences flow at least as natural corollaries from the leading propositions of the system. Kept in the rear, and reserved for the heat and confusion of the battle, they take the lover of novelty by surprise: had they been drawn out on the roll of regular forces, the device on their banner would have shocked the public eye, by the open defiance of correct feeling, by the utter subversion of morals and happiness. But there is another extreme, equally fatal to purity of mind, though less hostile to a salutary decorum of manners. It is the vice of almost every nurse, and of no few parents, that those coincidences attending the increase of the species, which must soon attract the curiosity of children in numerous families, are not only to be disguised from