Chap. V. AN TIE NT METAPHYSICS. 13J 



But, fuppofe all thofe authors to he prejudiced, and to have exaj^- 

 gerated ever fo much, yet Biiffon was certainly himfelf not prejudi- 

 ced, nor did not exaggerate in the accounts he has given of the Oran 

 Outan that he law *. Nov^r, I think it is impoffible, as I have faid t, 

 to believe that an Annnal, who behaved in the way that Buffon has de- 

 fcribed,with fo much underPcanding, docility, gentlenefs of nature, and 

 who, like a dumb man, had the capacity of fpeech, having all the or- 

 gans of pronunciation, though not the adual ufe of it, was not aMan^ 

 but an Animal of a fpecies that never before was heard of, that is, 

 an Animal betv;ixt a Monkey and a Man. It would be but going one 

 ftep further, if we fhould fuppofe, as Linnaeus does, that an animal 

 might think, reafon, form opinions, and fpeak, and yet not be a 

 Man, at leafl not fuch as we are J. 



If the Oran Outan is admitted to be a Man, it will not be denied 

 that he is more the Man of Nature than any that have hitherto 

 been difcovered living together in numbers and in any kind of fo- 

 ciety ; and, therefore, from his fize, we may judge of the fize of 

 Men in the perfed natural flate. Now, the Pongo, or great one, is 

 undoubtedly much above the ftandard which Buffon has fixed for 

 the human fize. Even the leaft of the three kinds of them, called by 

 the Briftol merchant the Ch'wipenza §, is, when ereded, near to that 

 ftature ; and the fecond kind, as defcribed by the merchant, muft be 

 above it. But the great Oran Outan,, by the accounts of all travellers, 



muft 



* Vol. xiv. page 53. 

 t Page 68. 



% Vol. i. of the Origin and Piogrefs of Language, pages 305. 307. 308. of the 

 fecond edition. 



§ Ibid. p. 284. of the fecond edition. 



