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But to forfeit for our Posterity, to entail Diseases upon the Blood of our Successors, to send them into the World with aching Heads, rheumatick Joints, entailed Diseases, inflamed Blood, and affected Nerves, and cause them, as we may say, to come Weeping into the World, and go Groaning out of it; this would give a considering Mind a Pang of Remorse, and make us anticipate our Children's Sorrows a little, by sighing for them sometimes before they are born.
Life at best brings Sorrows enough with it, and we need not seem to be concerned lest our Children should not have their share of them; they will bring Evils of that kind enough (and fast enough too) upon themselves; we have no need to send them into time with an Inheritance of crippled Joints, and aching Bones, and take care to give them cause to curse their Fathers and Mothers, as many do every Day.
I make no doubt but the Intemperance and Excesses I have spoken of in this Chapter, have sometimes descended from Line to Line to the third and fourth Generation; and that many of the Miseries of Life are owing to the infected Blood of those that went before them: And let such People reflect seriously upon the Number of Children born into the World in this luxurious, intemperate vitious Age, and in this City in particular, who die in the very Infancy of their Life, who coming into the World loaded with Distempers, the effect of their Parents Intemperance and unnatural Excesses, struggle a few Days with the unequal Burthen of Life, and expire under the Weight of it.
It
