sa
sina qua 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 foremost.

--This requires explanation.

My father, who dipped into all kinds of books, upon looking into
Lithopaedus Senonesis de Portu difficili, (The author is here twice
mistaken; for Lithopaedus should be wrote thus, Lithopaedii Senonensis
Icon. The second mistake is, that this Lithopaedus is not an author,
but a drawing of a petrified child. The account of this, published by
Athosius 1580, may be seen at the end of Cordaeus's works in Spachius.
Mr. Tristram Shandy has been led into this error, either from seeing
Lithopaedus's name of late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr...,
or by mistaking Lithopaedus for Trinecavellius,--from the too great
similitude of the names.) published by Adrianus Smelvgot, 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 the weight of 470 pounds avoirdupois 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 liquid in the world both seculent and
mothery?

But how great was his apprehension, when he farther understood, that
this force acting upon the very vertex of the head, not only injured
the brain itself, or cerebrum,--but that it necessarily squeezed and
propelled 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 tattered 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 within-side.

But when my father r