fome time before in the woods of Caune, in France, looking after acorns and roots, upon which he fubfifted, was met, in the fame place, toward the close of the year 1798, by three sportsmen, who feize'd upon him at the inftant he was climbing a tree to evade their purfuit. He was brought to Paris, his fenfees being in such a state of inertia, as render'd him "vaftly inferior, with regard to discernment, to the more intelligent of domestic animals;" his voice, most of all imperfect, uttering onely a guttural and uniform found. The onely monofyllables he is able to utter, and to which he annexes no idea or meaning are lait, la, li or lli, ob die! (the repetition, of a parrot, of ob dieu !) Whatever wants or ideas he has are exprefs'd by things or figns; as, for instance, if he wish to drink, he points to a pitcher; if, to dine, he lays the cloth on the table, and prefents to madame Guerin, his governess, the plates, that she may go into the kitchen to fil them: but, in fhort, every one fhould read, with attention, the interefting accounts of citizen P. J. Bonnaterre, and E. M. Itard, phyfician to the national institution of the medical fociety of Paris: the latter of which is intitle'd (in the Engleish translation)“ An [A] historical account of the discovery and education of a favage man, or of the first develope

ments, phyfical and moral, of the young favage caught in the woods near Aveyron, in the year 1798: London, printed for R. Phillips, No. 71, St. Pauls church-yard. 1802. 8vo.

Important as it may be," fays the fenfible and eloquent Rousseau, "to judge rightly of the natural state of man, to take a view of his origin; and to examine him, as it were, in the embryo ftate of his species; i fhal not presume to trace the fuccesfive improvements of his organization. I fhal not ftay to enquire, allfo, of the animal fystem, what he might have been in the begining, in order to become at length what he actually is; whether his long nails were, at firft, as Aristotle fuppofeës, onely crooked talons; his whole body, like that of bears, cover'd with hair; or whether he walk'd upon all-fours, with his looks directed toward the earth, and confine'd to a horizon of a few paceës extent, at once pointing out the nature and limits of his ideas. . . . To ftrip this being, now, thus confiituteed, of all the fupernatural gifts which he may have receive'd, and of all the artificial facultys which he must have by flow degrees acquire'd, to confider him, in a word, fuch as he must have come from the hands of Nature, i behold in him an animal weaker than fome, and lefs active than others; but, takeing all things

together, the moft advantageously organize'd of any.* I fee him fatisfying his thirft at the first brook in his way; finding his bed at the foot of the fame tree, which afforded him a repast, and,

behold all his wants are fupply'd . . . . Had

Nature," he fays, "deftine'd man to be healthy, i could, allmoft, venture to declare that a fiate of reflection is a state contrary to Nature, and that a thinking man is a deprave'd animal Be the origin," he observes, " of language and that of fociety [both which he has ablely and

...

fuccessfully explain'd] as they may, it may be, at least, infer'd, from the little care which Nature hath takeën to asfemble mankind by mutual wants, and to facilitate the use of speech, that she has contributeëd few preparations to their fociability, and has lent as little asfistance to the pains they have takeën in the formation of focietys. It is imposfible, in fact, to conceive why, in a state of nature, one man should stand more in need of the asfistance of another, than a monkey or a wolf of the assistance of another animal of the fame kind. . . . I know," he proceeds, "it is incesfantly repeated, that man

* His organization feems to differ very little, if at all, from that of the ourang-outang, which all he here fays fuits just as wel, as it does man in a state of nature; if, in fact they be not one and the fame.

would, in fuch a state, have been a most miserable creature; and, indeed, if it be true, as i think i have prove'd, that he must have live'd many ageës, without haveing either defire or opportunity of emergeing from fuch a state, this circumftance would onely ferve as the grounds of accufation against Nature, and not against the being which she had thus unhapyly constituteëd. But if i rightly comprehend the use of the term miferable, it is a word which either has no mean

* "The more we reflect," he has fay'd, "on this fubject, the greater appears the distance between mere fenfation and the moft fimple science: it is, indeed, impossible to conceive how man, by his own powers alone, without the aid of communication, and the spur of necessity, could have got over so great an interval. It is not improbable that many ageës elapfe'd before mankind beheld any other fire than that of the heavens. What a multiplicity of accidents must have concur'd to bring them acquainted with the most common useës of that element? How often must they not have fuffer'd it to expire or be extinguish'd, without knowing the art or means of reproducing it? and how often may not such secrets have dye'd with the difcoverer?... Let it be confider'd," he ads, "how many ideas we owe to the ufe and practice of fpeech; how far grammar exercisees the understanding, and facilitates its operations. Let us reflect on the inconceiveable pains and infinite space of time beftow'd on the first invention of languageës. To these reflections join the precedeing, and then judge how many mil lions of agees muft elapfe in the fuccesfive developement of thofe intellectual operations of which the human mind is capable." (P. 183, &c.)

ing at all, or fignifys onely a painful privation of fomething, or a state of suffering either in body or foul. Now i fhould be glad to have it explain'd to me what kind of misery a free agent, whofe heart is at ease, and whofe body is in health, can posfiblely fuffer. I would afk, allfo, which is most likely, a focial or a natural life, to become infupportable to the perfons who enjoy it? . . . . In instinct alone, the favage man posfefs'd every thing requifite for him to live in a ftate of nature; and with an improve'd underftanding he has but juft enough to fupport life in a state of fociety."*

*On the inequality of mankind; an admirable treatise, worthy of repeated perufal.

It is highly probable, that, if man, in a state of nature, has had no instinctive or inarticulate found, which is posfefs'd, at any rate by many, if not most, animals, he has got his language from the crys or noifees of other species. The great point, in which, according to mister Barrow, the invention of the Hottentots appears to have been exercise'd, is in the conftruction of their language. "Of all the methods," he says, "that have been adopted in language by different nations for the purpose of exprefsing objects and conveying ideas in a clear and unequivocal manner, that which has been hit upon by the Hottentots is, certainly the most extraordinary. Allmost all their monofyllables, and the leading fyllable of compound words, are thrown out of the mouth with a fudden retraction of the tongue from the teeth on the palate against one of which it had been press'd, according to the fignification of the word about to be utter'd; for the fame found with the dentals wil