68 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



refembles him fo much : And, indeed, according to the account 

 which Buffon gives * of the one wliom he faw, and appears to 

 have examined very particularly, it is impoffible to doubt that he 

 was a human creature, unlefs we are determined to believe that there 

 is no progrefs in our fpecies, and that men have from Nature all 

 ihofe faculties, which they acquire by imitation and inftrudion, in 

 the fociety of civilized men ; for it is evident that BufFon's Oran 

 Outan wanted nothing but thofe arts, and particularly the art of 

 fpeech, which, as I have fhownf , is acquired with fo much difficulty. 



And thus, I think, I have proved, in every way that a fad: of 

 natural hiftory can be proved, that there have been men, and are 

 ftill, who live without Clothes or Houfes, without the ufe of Fire 

 or Speech, or of the Arts depending upon thefe ; and that, therefore, 

 my State of Nature is not an imaginary State, which I am afraid the 

 Stoical State of Nature J is, but a real State, upon which we may 

 fafely found our philofophy of Man. Nor is" this any difcovery of 

 mine ; for, in the Firft Volume of the Origin and Brogrefs of Lan- 

 guage §, I have alledged fuch authorities for it, from anticnt au- 

 thors, both facred and profane, as fhould create, at leaft, fome pre- 

 judice in my favours. 



In this ftate I think every nation in the world muft have been at 

 fome time or another, unlefs w^e fuppofe a revelation, to fome parti- 

 cular nation, of a language, and, at the fame time, of other arts of 

 life, immediately on its exiflence. But,aswe have no warrant to fuppofe 

 that, unlefs it be with refped to one nation, I hold that all other nations 

 have, fome time or other, been in the ftate I call natural, tho' that 

 cannot be proved by any record, except as to very few of them. I 



therefore 



• Vol. xiv. p 53. 



I Pages 40. — 43. of this Vol. 



X Page 26. 



4 Book ii. Chap. 7. 



