38 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book!, 



From the fa£ls related in this Spanifli work, joined with what I 

 have publilhed concerning mermaids *, it appears, that the human 

 body is wonderfully adapted for every ufe, to which we can con- 

 ceive it applicable : For he is not a land animal only, but likewife a 

 fea animal; at leaft he may make himfelf fo. And when he is fo 

 made he is more truly amphibious than any other animal we 

 know, as he can live wholly either on the land or in the water, 

 which no other animal, we call amphibious, can do. 



Man, therefore, is fuperior in body to all other animals, as well 

 as in mind : But he is fo much a creature of art, that without art 

 he has not the perfed ufe even of his own body. Till he had ac- 

 quired that, he could not provide properly for his own nourifhment, 

 of which he required a great deal, being, in his original ftate, a 

 large animal, without difeafe, long lived, and all employed in the 

 great work of nature, the propagation of the fpecies. At firft, I 



am 



*' He likewife fays, that a man, to whom they gave the name of Jofeph Urfino, 

 was caught in tiie woods of Lithuania, but could never be taught to Ipeak. He was 

 •found with bears. 



<« Finally he tells us, that about the year 1723, one of the inhabitants of Navar- 

 rens, a town of Bearne in the fouth of France, when hunting in the Pireneaa 

 mountains, caught a wild man, and endeavoured to taoie him. He (laid in a place 

 called Ornes, and although they brought him to eat of whatever others eat ; yet, 

 when he came to the fields where they were, he devoured ears of wheat, as if they 

 had been cherries ; but they could not teach him to fpeak. It was intended to carry 

 him to the Regent, Duke of Orleans ; but when thofe that kept him heard of the 

 regent's death, they became fomething more carelefs in watching him, fo that he 

 efcaped, nor could they ever again find him. He was in every refpe<S like to other 

 men in his body, and it was thought that he was the fon of a miller of a place cal- 

 led Cor.ipagna, who was dead, and who had a fon that had dlfappeared fome years 

 .before. 



: • Vol. III. of this work, p. 254. 



