Chap. I. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 57 



of defence or fiiftenancc. And I am perfuaded that fome other arts 

 niuft have been invented, before the invention of language. 



There may, however, ftill be fome, and thcfe, too, prel^nding 

 to be learned in Natural Hiftory, who not having ftudied that 

 of their own Species, at tlie fame time alhamed to be ignorant 

 of what it concerns them more to know than any other part of 

 Natural KiRory, will flill doubt, or pretend to doubt, that ever men, 

 either fmgle or in fociety, exifted vv'ithout the ufe offpeech. Such un- 

 believers may have an opportunity, without going out of their own 

 country, and without truPcing to the reports of hifiorians or travellers, 

 antient or modern, foreign or domeftic, of convincing themfelves, by 

 their own eyes and ears, that there may be a human creature that has 

 lived to be an old man without the ufe offpeech. For this purpofe, they 

 have no more to do but to go to a farmer's houfe in Hertfordiliire, 

 within a mile of Berkhamftead, where they will fee Peter, tloe Wild 

 Boy, (as he is fliil called, tho' he be now an old man), and may in- 

 form themfelves concerning'the particulars of his hiftory, by inqui- 

 ring at perfons in the neighbourhood, fome of whom remember to 

 liave feen him foon after his arrival in England. As I think him 

 one oF the greateft curiofitics in the world, greater ftill than the 

 wild girl I faw in France, I will here relate all that I have been able 

 to learn of his hiftory, which I confider as a brief chronicle or ab- 

 ftrad of the hiftory of the progrefs of human nature, from the mere 

 animal to the firft ftage of civilized life. 



Before I relate what I faw myfelf of him, and learned from others 

 with whom I converfed upon the place, I will fet down what is to 

 be found in print concerning him, at leaft all that I have been able 

 to find. 



Vol. III. H The 



