^ ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



natural flate ; for he has not the ufe of clothes, houfes, fire, nor 

 of any ftrong liquor; And though the neceffities of life may oblige 

 him to kill fifh or terreftrial animals, yet he has no art of fifhing or 

 hunting. His chief food was the natural fruits of the earth, fuch as. 

 herbs and roots ; for he did not at firft climb trees in order to eat 

 their fruit. In this way the Arcadians fed, till they were taught, by 

 their leader Pelafgus, to feed on beech mart. This was a tradition 

 among the Pelafgi, the moft antient people of Greece, which Pau- 

 fanias has preierved to us *. It is a ftep in the human progrefs, the 

 memory of which only appears to have been preferved among thofe 

 very anrient people of Greece : And Peter the Wild Boy, while he 

 was a quadruped in the woods of Hanover, fed as the Arcadians did 

 before they were taught to eat beech maft'|"' 



In this ftage of the natural life is the Ourang Outang, who, though 

 he affociates and herds with his fellow creatures, feeds altogether 

 upon the natural fruits of the earth: And though he may have the 

 uic of fire, hemuil have learned it from fome civilifed nation in his 

 neighbourhood. But he has not yet learned the ufe of language. 

 Though his diet, being altogether upon vegetables, we ihould think 

 a very poor diet, yet he appears to enjoy both health and ftrengtii. 

 There is a difference in his fize, as well as among civilifed nations; 

 for fome of them are of very fmall fize, fuch as thofe they call Chim^ 

 penza's, who are only about five or fix feet when they are eredted : 

 Whereas the Pongos, or Impongos, are of ver)^ great fize, betwixt 

 fcven and nine feet high, and prodigioufly ftrong f . 



The 



■* Lib. 8. clmp. I. 



f See what I have further fald upon this fubje^l in the preceding volume, p. ^9' 

 where I have quoted Diodorus Siculus, who gives an account of a people in Ethiopia, 

 who hvcd entirely upon the roots of reeds that grew in the marlhes. And he mentions 

 .^^ipther people, in the fame country, whom he calls 'yA»^;ty,<, that is ivood-caters^ who 

 lived upon the fmall branches of trees, whidi they ate. — Lib. 3. cap. 24, 



t Vol. IV. of this work, p. 51. 



