THE STORY OF AUTONOUS. 277 



of outward things. What would have happened to him then? Would 

 he necessarily have perished? Or, if he survived, would he have grown 

 into anything better than a brute? What would the course of his life 

 have been? And can we conceive that, lacking all influence from 

 without, all family and social intercourse, all idea of human traditions 

 as embodied in manners, customs, institutions, books, he would ever, 

 mentally and morally, have reached the full stature of a man? 



I am not going to attempt to discuss these questions from the 

 standpoint of modern science, or in connection with the recent con- 

 troversies of the evolutionists. My purpose is simply to give some 

 account of an extremely crude, but none the less quaint and interesting 

 old book, in which, under the thin guise of a story, an effort is made 

 to answer them. The little volume is exceedingly rare and is probably 

 unknown, even by name, to most readers of these pages. An outline 

 of its contents may, therefore, prove entertaining, if not exactly 

 instructive. 



I must first dismiss some details of a bibliographical character. Re- 

 ferring, in his Memoirs, to his one-time tutor, John Kirkby, the 

 historian Gibbon speaks slightingly enough of a work of his which, 

 aspiring 'to the honors of a philosophical romance,' had brought him a 

 certain measure of fame. Gibbon cites it by a brief title only — 'The His- 

 tory of Automathes'; but its full title, after the fashion of the time, set 

 forth a regular programme, or summary, of the volume — "The Capac- 

 ity and Extent of the Human Understanding, exemplified in the ex- 

 traordinary case of Automathes, a young nobleman, who was accidentally 

 left in his infancy upon a desert island and continued nineteen years 

 in that solitary state, separate from all human society." The book, 

 which bears date 1745, was thought by Gibbon to be a kind of com- 

 pound of 'Robinson Crusoe' and an Arabian story, 'The History of 

 Hai Ebn Yockdan.' On closer examination, however, it turns out to 

 be a barefaced plagiarism from a much smaller work, issued anony- 

 mously nine years before — "The History of Autonous: Containing a 

 Relation how that young Nobleman was accidentally left alone in 

 his Infancy, upon a desolate Island, where he lived nineteen years, 

 remote from all human Society, till taken up by his Father; with an 

 Account of his Life, Reflections and Improvements in Knowledge 

 during his Continuance in that Solitary State. The whole as taken 

 from his own mouth." It is almost incredible that, even in an age 

 when literary frauds were more frequent and less easily detected than 

 at present, Kirkby should have dared to publish his own book as 

 original; but he never appears to have been taken to task for his 

 conduct, nor, indeed, do readers and critics of 'Automathes' seem to 

 have known or cared anything about 'Autonous.' But, from a pretty 

 minute comparison of the two works, in the library of the British 



