Chap. I. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 6s 



2,tio, I think there can be no reafon to doubt of what was written 

 from Hanover, and publifhed in the Newfpapers, that he was found 

 going upon a/l four, as well as other folitary Savages that have 

 been found in Europe *. It Is true, that others have been found 

 ere6l ; which was the cafe of the two found in the Difmal Swamp of 

 Virginia, likewifc of the Man in the Pyrenees, and of him in the 

 Ifland of Diego Garcia. But thefe, I fuppofe, were not expofed till 

 they had learned to walk upright ; whereas Peter appears to have 

 been abandoned by his parents before he had learned that leflbn, but 

 walked as we know children do at firft. 



4/0, I think it is evident that he is not an idiot, not only from his 

 appearance, as I have defcribed it, and from his adions, but from 

 all the accounts that we have of him, both thofe printed, and thofe 

 attelled by perfons yet living : For, as to the printed accounts, there 

 is not the lea-ft infinuation of that kind in any of them, except in 

 one, viz. Wye's Letter, No. 8. wherein it is faid that fome impu- 

 ted his not learning to fpeak to want of underflanding ; which, I 

 fhould think, (howcd rather want of underflanding in thofe who 

 thought fo, when it is confidered that, at this time, he had not been 

 a year out of the woods, and, I fuppofe, but a month or two under 

 the care of Dr Arbuthnot, who had taken the charge of his education. 

 The Dean, indeed, tells us, that fome fufpedled he was a pretender, and 

 no genuine ivihl man; but not a word of his being an idlor. And, as to 

 the perfons living, not one, with whom I have converfed, appeared to 

 have the lead fufpicion of that kind; though it was very natural that 

 men, who w^ere not philofophers, and knew nothing of the progrefs 

 of Man from the mere Animal to the Intelledual Creature, nor of 

 the improvement of our underftanding by focial intercourfe and 

 the arts of life, but believed that Man, when he is come to a certain 

 age, has from Nature all the faculties which we fee him exert, and par- 



VoL. III. I ticuiarly 



Origin and Progrefs of Language, Vol. i. p. 186. fecond edition. 



