Chap. II. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 



73 



whole, to that of all other Annuals, though, in fome particular 

 bodily faculties they may excel him. 



As Nature does nothing in vain, fhe has not beflovved upon Man 

 fome Faculties of Body that fhe has given to other Animals, but has 

 left him to acquire them by his peculiar fagacity, and the fuperiority 

 which his inventive and imitative genius gives him over thofe other 

 Animals. The faculty of fwimming, for example, fhe has given, I 

 believe, to every other land-animal of any fize : But, though Men, in 

 fome countries, have taught themfelves fo to fwim, as to be amphi- 

 bious as much as the Otter, yet I do not think that Man, by Na- 

 ture, fwims, as we fee dogs and other animals do ; and my reafon 

 for thinking fo is, that the moft barbarous nations, and who are the 

 neareft to the natural ftate, are at great pains to accuftom their chil- 

 dren to the water, and to teach them to fwim. The wild girl I faw 

 in France told me, that, when fhe was taken up by the French fhip, 

 Ihe was at fea in a round canoe like a tub, with feveral other chil- 

 dren, who were placed there that the fea might break over them ; 

 and the mothers, fhe faid, trained their children to fwim, by carry- 

 ing them out a little way into the fea, then leaving them to them- 

 felves, and making them follow their mothers to land, with fome 

 little help they gave them. By fuch an education, this wild girl 

 was fo taught to fwim, that fhe could not only dive, and keep under 

 water like an otter, but could catch fifh with her hands, as an otter 

 does with his teeth. And the firfl appearance fhe made in France, 

 was coming out of a river near to the village of Songe in Champagne, 

 (whither I went to inquire about her), with a fifh in her hand : And 

 the inhabitants of the Marianne or Ladronc Iflands catch fifli in the 

 fame way *. 

 . Vol. III. K But 



* Churchill's Collection of Voyages, Vol. iv. p. 459. Vol. v. p. 702. There 

 was a man in Sicily, that died not many years ago, who was in ufe to fwim betwixt 

 Sicily and Italy, and to catch fifli with his hands in the bottom of the Sea. This 

 information I had from two gentlemen lately come from Italy, one of whom had 

 likewife been in Sicily, and told me the ftory was well known in both countries- 



