ft ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book L 



ed with tlicir manner of living, feeing them and their families com- 

 ing out of a tree, fhould imagine that they were produced by a tree. 

 And this is the meaning of what Homer, fpeaking of men of family, 

 fays, that they were 



—tvK cent ogye; '!tx>\c.i<Pxr*v •vo «5T» ^riTgjjs*. 



There were other antient nations who lived in the natural way, 

 in Ethiopia, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus ; but it is not necef- 

 fary, I think, to fpeak of any more fuch nations. But I will give 

 an inftance of an individual, in our time, who lived in that way. 

 He was of the county of Norfolk, and was very well known by the 

 name of the Norfolk Idiot. The firft information I had of him, was 

 from the late Mr John Hunter, furgeon in London ; and I after- 

 wards learned, from others, many particulars concerning him ; fo 

 that what I here relate of him may be depended on. He had the 

 figure of a man, but not the ufe of fpeech, nor the underftanding of 

 a man : So that he was not governed by intelledl, as men are, but 

 byinftind; and that directed him to wear no clothes, fo that it was 

 only by compulfion that he covered his nudities. As to a houfe, he 

 would never enter one except to feed ; and, in the night time, he 

 always lay without doors, even in the worft nights. In this re- 

 fped, he refembled a herd of horfes which I had one winter run- 

 ning out: They, as I have in a former volume related f, never came 

 into the ftable except to feed ; and always v>^ent out, even in the 

 ftormieft nights, if the door was left open, immediately after feeding. 

 And, in the fame place, I have alfo mentioned fome horfes, which, in 

 the fevereft wind and rain, when a Ihade was before them, would 

 only cover their heads with it, leaving their bodies expofed to the. 

 wind and weather. It is not many years fince the Idiot was alive, 



and 



* See Vol. III. of this work, p. 31. 

 t Ibid. p. 79. 



