226 Defcription of the Orang Outang 



tion, without doubt, would be found in the four-handed 

 race of apes. But as the qualities of the mind are here as 

 much confidered as the form of the body, it is evident that 

 the ape, which does not deferve the fecond rank among the 

 irrational animals, cannot form the link that connects qua- 

 drupeds with man. The external figure, however, of this 

 criimal has fince the earlieft periods engaged the attention 

 of naturalifls ; and by the fimilitude of its body we are led 

 to fufpe£l a fimilitude of mental powers in beings to which 

 the all-wife Creator has given fo much likenefs. But as the 

 difcoveries made by the fearchers into nature are frequent- 

 ly not fo much the truth as fomething fuited to the fyftems 

 which they have adopted, this circumftance has given rife to 

 a great deal of error. The celebrated Linnasus himfelf wa* 

 induced by a figure which Bontius * delineated of an orang 

 outang, or wild man, feen in the ifland of Java, and the ac- 

 counts of fome travellers, to clafs his homo noclarnus or night- 

 man between man and the ape, and thereby to eftablifh 

 the exiftence of a being, the truth of which is as yet very 

 doubtful. 



BufFon proceeded in a much more cautious manner. 

 That celebrated naturalift fufpected, and not without rea- 

 fon, that the accounts given with fo little accuracy of the 

 night-men alluded only to the white negroes or kakerlaks, 

 confidered in a falfe light or under the veil of prejudice ; 

 and, indeed, the defcription given by Bontius of the orang 

 outang differs only in fome very inconfiderable circum- 

 ftances from the figure of the white negro or kakerlak 

 Saudami defcribed by M. van Iperenf. If we take from this 

 defcription of Bontius the ruff under the chin, and the few 

 hairs which cover the head, a more beautiful human form 



* Bontius refided as a phyfician at Batavia in the laft century, and 



wrote Uijl. Nat. et Med. tnd. Orient. Ed It. 



t See the firft part of the tianfaSims of the Baiaviem Society in the 



IJland of Java. 



would 



