For an act that possibly may be

For an act that possibly may be

For an act that possibly may be

It is painful, knowing this, to reflect that on his own species man inflicts the highest punishment, for an act that possibly may be, in the human being as in brutes, the consequence of a mental excitement accompanying the period of parturition. Women, when not in distress and otherwise afflicted, rarely indeed are guilty of infanticide; and I have observed annoyance or ill health proceed or accompany the like act in animals. If the rabbit be looked at, her alarm seems to change her nature; and the bitch that devours her pups will, upon inquiry, be generally found to have suffered some species of persecution. That the brain is affected there can be no doubt. The unnatural propensity is of itself a proof; but the strange appearance, and the altered looks of the creature, sufficiently denote her state. She is not then savage; her ferocity has been gratified; and she seems rather to be afflicted with a remembrance of the act she was unable to resist. She is the picture of shame; she slinks away at our approach, and her eye no longer confidently seeks that of her master; her aspect is dejected, but I think more with sorrow than with crime.