37b JAMAICA. 



accompanied. How far an oran-outang might be brought to give ut- 

 terance to thofe European words (the lignlfication of vvhofe founds, it 

 is plain from BuflTon, and others, he has capacity to underftand, fo as 

 to conform his demeanour and movements to them voluntarily at the 

 immature period of life, when his mental faculties are in their weakeft 

 ftate), remains for experiment. If the trial were to be impartially 

 made, he ought to pafs regularly from his horn-book, through the re* 

 gular fteps of pupilage, to the fchool, and univerfity, till the ufual 

 modes of culture are exhaufted upon him. If he fhould be trained up 

 In this manner from childhood (or that early part of exillence in 

 which alone he has been noticed by the learned in Europe), to the age 

 ■ftf 20 or 25, under fit preceptors, it might then with certainty be de- 

 termined, whether his tonsue is incapable of articulating human lan- 

 Tiiaees. Jjut ir, m that aavai'ceu age, and after a regular procefs of 

 education, he (hould fiill be found to labour under this impediment, 

 the phaenomenon would be truly aitonilhing , for if if be alledged, 

 that he could not produce fuch founds for want of the fentient or 

 thinking principle to excite the organs of fpeech to fuch an eflTetl , fllll 

 we fhould expcft him capable of uttering founds refembling the 

 human, jufl as well as a natural idiot, or a parrot, can produce them 

 without the agency of thought. For my own part, I conceive that 

 probability favours the opinion, that human organs were not given 

 him for nothing : that this race have fome language by which their 

 meaning is communicated; whether it refembles the gabbling of tur- 

 kies like that of the Hottentots, or the biffing of ferpents, is of very 

 little confequence, fo long as it is intelligible among themfelves : nor, 

 for what hitherto appears, do they feem at all inferior in the intellectual 

 faculties to many of the Negroe race ; with fome of whom, it is credi- 

 ble that they have the moft intimate connexion and confanguinity. 

 The amorous intercourfe between them may be frequent ; the Negroes 

 themfelves bear teftimony that fuch intercourfes aftually happen ; and 

 it is certain, that both races agree perfectly well in lafcivioufnefs of 

 difpofition [f\ 



But 



[/] An ingenious inodern niithor has fuggefted many flrong reafons to prove, that the faculty of 

 fpeech is not the gitt ot natiiie to rtian ; that articulation is the work vf art, or at leal! oi a habit ac- 

 quired by culloni and exercife; and that mankind are truly in their natural llate a miitum pecus. He 

 inftances the cafe of Peter the wild youth> caught in the Ibrefts of Hanover, who (he tells us) was 



a man 



