BUT here it may be _ask’d_, why the _Dutch good Women_, should be more subject to these _Præternatural Conceptions_ than any _others_? To which I _answer_, according to the Sense and Sentiments of most of _their own greatest Men_; FIRST, that all over these _Provinces_, the very _Borders_ of the SEA are inhabited, and a World of People live (as it were) in the very _Jaws_ of the OCEAN; whose bellowing _Waves_ and tumultuous _Surges_, are not only obvious to their _Eyes_ all Day, but obnoxious also to their _Ears_ all Night long; as they continually beat upon their _Coasts_, and sometimes too near their very _Doors_: From whence these _Women_ cannot but be much affected and disturbed, if not also frighted in their very _Embraces_. HOWEVER yet, I do not conceive _This_ to be always the CAUSE, since _MOLAR CONCEPTIONS_ are also very common in their greatest _Cities_; But as _those_ happen there most frequently among the _Sea-faring Men’s Wives_; so, I think, we may rationally account for them after this ensuing manner, _viz._ The _Sailers_ arriving from their _Voyages_, and coming Home merrily with full Sail up to their very Doors, incontinently embrace their WIVES, without having any regard to their _Natural Course_, the SILENT MOON, or any other _Circumstance_; And the honest WIVES, having perhaps long wanted their _Husbands_, make no _Procrastination_, but eagerly fall to enjoying _One Another_; the good _Women_ attracting as greedily the virile Benevolence, as _Nature_ can prompt, or as _Cerberus_ could snap at a _Piece_, or the _Hunger-starved_ a _Bit_ of _Bread_. Upon which, if no _Efluxion_ happens in the Beginning, _NATURE_ being incapable of _elaborating_ such an _unapt confused Matter_, it is converted to a _MOLE_; which (as aforesaid) is frequently cast forth about the _fourth Month_, and call’d by them _een Manekindt_, as we for the same reason call it a MOON-CALF. [Illustration] CHAP. VI. _Of_ MONSTERS. WHEN the _Parts_ destinated to the _Generation of Man_, are in all respects well constituted, NATURE in the Beginning fabricates a fair and comely _Conception_, and at last produces a _Lovely Creature_ of its own kind, absolutely perfected, and compleatly furnished with all its own graceful _Ornaments_: Whereas if any _Deficiency_, _Enormity_, _Fault_ or _Blemish_ be actually in _Those Parts_, then the _conglomerated Principles_ of _GENERATION_ are variously form’d into different Sorts of _prodigious CONCEPTIONS_ and _Monstrous BIRTHS_. However——