198 A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I G S. Book II. 



lias food fufficient in the natural ftate, no care or culture, in a ftate 

 of art and civilization, can add one inch to his flature : And ftill 

 lefs can it make him healthier, or longer lived ; for it is true what 

 the Poet fays, 



God never made his ivorks for Man to mend. 



At the fame time, it is true, what I before obferved *, that, in the 

 civilized ftate. Men, by the conftant ufe of violent exercife, elpeci- 

 ally if they are direded by fkilful mafters, fuch as the TraJcToTpt/SMS 

 was in the anticnt Gyuinafimns, will very much improve their natu- 

 ral ftrength and agility, and be able to do things that an Oran Outan 

 could not do, though of greater natural ftrength and agility. But 

 there is one feat of agility, which men in the natural ftate perform 

 much better than any men in the civilized ftate I ever heard of; and 

 that is climbing. The favage girl I faw in France dumb a tree like 

 a fquirrel ; and fo did Peter the Wild Boy, when he firft came to 

 England. And the reafon w^hy they do fo, is, that they pradice that 

 exercife very much, for the purpofe, either of faving thcmfelves 

 from vrild beafts, (which was the cafe of the favage girl, who told 

 me, that, in her travels through the woods, ftie always, for the 

 greater fecurity, flept in the top of a tree), or, of food, which, I 

 believe, was Peter's reafon for climbing, as he fed fo much on the 

 leaves of trees. 



There is one thing further to be obferved, concerning the Body 

 of the Man of Nature, that the animal life, being much ftronger 

 in him than in the civilized Man, he can bear wounds, hurts, 

 and bruifes, much better ; and it is very much more difficult to kill 

 him. We have no experience of this with refpe£t to the Oran 

 Outan, who is more in the natural ftate than any other man, we 



know. 



* Page 75. 



