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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 seize'd upon him at the instant 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 difcernment, to the more intelligent of domestic animals;" his voice, mot 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 presents 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 inftitution 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 stay to enquire, allso, 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 first, 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 confiituteëd, 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 some, and lefs active than others; but, takeing all things

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together, the moft advantageously organize'd of any.* I see him fatisfying his thirst at the first brook in his way; finding his bed at the foot of the fame tree, which afforded him a repaft, and, behold! all his wants are fupply'd .. Had Nature," he says, "deftine'd man to be healthy, i could, allmost, venture to declare that a ftate of reflection is a state contrary to Nature, and that a thinking man is a deprave'd animal ... Be the origin," he obferves, " of language and that of fociety [both which he has ablely and fuccefs fully explain'd] as they may, it may be,

at least, infer'd, from the little care which Nature hath takeën to assemble mankind by mutual wants, and to facilitate the use of speech, that fhe has contributeëd few preparations to their fociability, and has lent as little asfistance to the pains they have takeën in the formation of societys. 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 asfistance 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 juft as wel, as it does man in a ftate of nature; if, in fact they be not one and the fame.

would, in fuch a ftate, 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 such a state, this circumstance would onely ferve as the grounds of accufation againft Nature, and not against the being which she had thus unhapyly constituteed. 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 subject, the greater appears the distance between mere sensation 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 fpur of necesfity, could have got over fo 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 ufees of that element? How often muft they not have suffer'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 bestow'd on the first invention of languageës. To these reflections join the precedeing, and then judge how many mitlions of ageës 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 mifery a free agent, whofe heart is at ease, and whose body is in health, can posfiblely fuffer. I would ask, 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 state of nature; and with an improve'd understanding he has but just enough to fupport life in a state of society."*

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

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 moft, animals, he has got his language from the crys or noifees of other fpecies. 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 fays, "that have been adopted in language by different nations for the purpose of expressing objects and conveying ideas in a clear and unequivocal manner, that which has been hit upon by the Hottentots is, certainly the moft 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 prefs'd, according to the fignification of the word about to be utter'd; for the fame found with the dentals wil

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