Chap. TV. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 51 



aritient hiftory we are well informed. And it appears to me, that in 

 all countries there have been, in very antient times, a race of wild 

 men of extraordinary ftature, the remains of which continued ia 

 fome families down to later times. Of the monuments of fuch men 

 there are many exifting in different parts of the world ; and parti- 

 cularly there are, in the north of Europe, works that it is impo.Tible 

 could be executed by men fuch as we. 



But we are not to imagine, that it is only the civilized life that 

 makes the difference of the feature of men. In the natural ftate 

 there is a great difference ; for of the Ourang Outangs, who are cer- 

 tainly in the natural ftate, there are three kinds, very different in 

 their fize. The firft, which are called Pongos or Impongos, are of 

 very great fize, betwixt feven and nine feet high, and prodigiouily 

 ftrong. The third clafs of the Ourang Outangs, or Chimpenza, as 

 they are called, are only about the height of five or fix feet when 

 "they are ereded. And the middle kind, or Itzena, as they are cal- 

 led, are greater than the Chimpenza, but lefs than the Pongo * : And 

 that there were pigmies to be found in other parts of the world, as 

 ■well as among the Ourang Outangs, I think I have proved very 

 clearly in the third volume of this workf. 



After man had learned all the ufes to which his body could be 

 applied, and had made himfelf a fea animal as well as a land, fo that 

 he was in every refpedl the mod various animal upon this earth, I 

 think it cannot be denied, that he was fuperior to all other animals 

 here below in bodily faculties : And I will only add, that he has 

 from nature a ftrength of conftitution, fuch as no other animal we 

 know has : For, in the firft place, he can fubfifl upon every thing 



G 2 the 



• See vol. Ill of this work, p. 281 289. 



t Ibid. p. 136. ', ' » 



