Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/307

Rh I have said, that there is one branch of religious enthusiasm, which is purely an effect of nature; whereas, the part I mean to handle, is wholly an effect of art, which, however, is inclined to work upon certain natures and constitutions, more than others. Besides, there is many an operation, which, in its original, was purely an artifice, but through a long succession of ages, has grown to be natural. Hippocrates tells us, that among our ancestors, the Scythians, there was a nation called Long-heads; which at first began, by a custom among midwives and nurses, of moulding, and squeezing, and bracing up the heads of infants; by which means, nature, shut out at one passage, was forced to seek another, and, finding room above, shot upwards in the form of a sugar-loaf: and being diverted that way for some generations, at last found it out of herself, needing no assistance from the nurse's hand. This was the original of the Scythian long-heads, and thus did custom, from being a second nature, proceed to be a first. To all which, there is something very analogous among us of this nation, who are the undoubted posterity of that refined people. For, in the age of our fathers, there arose a generation of men in this island, called round-heads ; whose race