o 



66 APPENDIX. Chap. III. 



I have mentioned *, had learned to articulate a few words, and 

 might no doubt, if he had lived, been taught to fpeak. Buffon's 

 objection, therefore, to the humanity of tlie Orang Outang that he 

 was acquainted with, muft not have been, that he had not learned 

 to fpeak, being a child only of two years of age, but that he was 

 not capable of learning. This certainly was more than BufFon 

 knew, and is in the higheO; degree improbable. But, fupponng 

 he had lived, and had never learned to fpeak, which is the cafe of 

 Peter the Wild Boy, I would have Mr Buflbn confider how difficult 

 an operation articulation is ; or, if he is not learned enough in the 

 mechanifm of fpeech to know this, I would have him try himfelf to 

 pronounce the Greek ^, or the Englifli th. This is what I know 

 he cannot do ; and for what rcaibn ? not for any defeat in his or- 

 gans, but becaufe he has not been accuftomcd from his infancy to 

 do fo. And, if this be fo, .what muft the cafe of the Orang Outang 

 be, who never has been aecuftom.ed to fpeak at all, and who is not 

 of fpeaking parents, but of a mute favage.race f ? 



I w411 only add upon this fubjedl of the Orang Outang, that, if 

 the reader is not convinced of his humanity, by the accounts of fo 

 many credible travellers concerning him, whom I have quoted in 

 the Firft Volume of the Origin and Progrefs of Language, and alfo 

 by the teftimony of antient authors, whom I have alfo quoted in 

 that book, and fome of them in this Volume, it can only proceed 

 from a ridiculous vanity, which makes him fcorn to be of a race who 

 were once Orang Outangs ; and he might as well be alhamed that 



he 



* Page 66. 



f See what I have faid, Vol. i. of the Origin and Progi-efs of Language, (p. 300. 

 of the Second Edition), of the great difference betwixt the children of the favages 

 and of civilized men, in many things, and particularly in a difpofition and aptitude 



to learn. See alfo what M. Buffon himfelf has faid of the great difficulty with 



which a child learns to fpeak ; Ibid. p. 296. 



