4^ A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



gentle, — and, inftead of killing men and women, as he could eafily 

 do, takes them prifoners, and makes fervants of them ; — ^who has 

 \vhat,l think, eifential to the human kind, a fenfe of honour; — who, 

 when he is brought into the company of civilized men, behaves with 

 dignity and compofure, altogether unlike a monkey, — from whom he 

 differs likewife in this material refped, that he is capable of great 

 attachments to particular perfons*, which the monkey is altogether 

 incapable of, and alfo in this refpedt, that a monkey never can be fo 

 tamed, that we may depend upon his not doing mifchief when 

 left alone, by breaking glalTes or China within his reach ; whereas 

 the Oran Outan is altogether harmlefs ; — who has fo much of 

 the docility of a man, that he learns, not only to do the com- 

 mon offices of a menial fervant, as the Oran Outan did whom I 

 faw fluffed in the French King's cabinet of curiofities, but alfo to 

 play upon the flute ; w^hich fhows that he mufl: have an idea of me- 

 lody and concord of founds, which no brute-animal has t ; — ^^^^i 

 laftly, if joined to all thefe qualities, he has the organs of pronun- 

 ciation, and, confequently, the capacity of fpeech, though not 

 the adual ufe of it ; — If, I fiy, fuch an Animal is not a Man, 

 I fhould defire to know in what the eifence of a man confifts, and 

 what it is that diftinguifhes a Natural Man from the Man of Art ? 

 for I hold it to be impoffible to convince any philofopher, or any 

 man of common fenfe, who has beftowed any time to confider the 

 mechanifm of fpeech, that fuch vailous adions and configurations of 

 the organs of fpeech, as are neceffary for articulation, can be natu- 

 ral to man. Whoever thinks this poffiblc, fliould go and fee, as I 

 have done, Mr Braidwood of Edinburgh, or the Abbe del' Epce in 



Paris, 



* See Vol.1, of the Origin and Progrefs of Language, p. 344. Second Edition j 

 where a ftory is told of an Oran Outan, who fhed tears at parting with a man for 

 whom he had an affe£lion. 



t See all thofe fadls colle£led together, Ibid. Lib. ii. cap. 4. and 5. See alfo the 

 Second Volume of this work, p. 125. 



