^ OF THE HUxMAN RACE. 21^* 



^{i Stray children from some wretched hovel of Lithuanian peasants ; ' ai;- ! 

 one of them a young negress, who during a shipwreck on the Frencli 

 coast, had swam on shore, and at once saved herself from death, and^ 

 what is worse than death, frgm slavery. She is said to have been foui/d 

 in the woods of Champagne, about the middle of the last century, and 

 was at first exhibited under the name of la fille sauvage and Z« belle 

 sauvage ; and had the honour, soon afterwards, of being painted as a 

 sign-post to one of our most celebrated inns in this metropolis, which is 

 still known by the name of the Bell Savage. This young negress was 

 instructed in the French language by the family into v/hose hospitable 

 hands she fell, and was afterwards, from some unaccountable whim, de- 

 nominated Mademoiselle le Blan€.* 



In order, liowever, to settle this question completely, let me mention a 

 few of- the anatomical points in which the orang-otang differs from the 

 human form, and which cannot possibly be the effect of a mere variety, 

 but must necessarily flow from an original and inherent distinction. More 

 might be added, but what I shall offer will be sufficient ; and if I do not 

 touch upon a comparison of the interior faculties, it is merely because I 

 will neither insult your understandings nor degrade my own, by bringing 

 them into any kind of contact. 



Both the orang and pongo, which of all the monkey tribes make the 

 nearest approach to the structure of the human skeleton, have tliree ver- 

 tebrae fewer than man. They have a peculiar membranous pouch con- 

 nected with the larynx or organ of the voice, which belongs to no divi- 

 sion of man whatever, white or black. The larynx itself is, in conse- 

 quence of this, so peculiarly constructed as to render it less capable even 

 of inarticulate sounds than that of almost every other kind of quadruped : 

 and, lastly, they have no proper ff)et ; for what are so called, are, in reality, 

 as directly hands as the terminal organs of the arms : the great toe in man, 

 and that which chiefly enables him to walk in an erect position, being a 

 perfect thumb in the orang otang. Whence this animal is naturally formed 

 for climbing ; audits natural position in walking, and the position which 

 it always assumes excepting when under discipHne, is that of ail-fours ; 

 the body being supported on four hands, instead of on four feet as in quad- 

 rupeds. And it is owing to this wide and essential difference, as, indeed, 

 we had occasion to observe in our last study, that M. Cuvier, and other 

 zoologists of the i)resent day, have thought it expedient to invent a new 

 name by which the monkey and maucauco tribes may be distinguished 

 from all the rest ; and, instead of QUAnRUPEDs, have called them quau- 

 KTJMANA, or auADRUMANUALs ; by which they are at the same time equally 

 distinguished from every tribe Of the human race, which are uniformly, 

 J. and alone, bimanual. 



But throwing the monkey kind cut of the question, as in no respect re- 

 lated to the race of man, it must at least be admitted, contend the second 

 class of philosophers before us, that the wide differences in form, and co- 

 lour, and degree of intellect, which the several divisions of mankind ex- 

 hibit, as you have now arranged them, must necessarily have originated 

 from different sources ; and that even the Mosaic account itself will afford 

 countenance to such an hypothesis. 



This opinion was first stated, in modern times, by the celebrated Isaac 

 ,?€yrere, librarian to the Prince of Conde ; who, about the middle of last 



/ j 

 ' * See Monboddo on theOrigia of Language, &c. vol. j. p. 193. 480, 



