e probable, or account for
this Story with more likelyhood, than what hath hitherto been advanced, I
shall not think my time altogether misspent: But if this will not do, I
shall never trouble my head more about them, nor think my self any ways
concerned to write on this Argument again. And I had not done it now, but
upon the occasion of Dissecting this _Orang-Outang_, or _wild Man_, which
being a Native of _Africa_, and brought from _Angola_, tho' first taken
higher up in the Country, as I was informed by the Relation given me; and
observing so great a Resemblance, both in the outward shape, and, what
surprized me more, in the Structure likewise of the inward Parts, to a
_Man_; this Thought was easily suggested to me, That very probably this
_Animal_, or some other such of the same _Species_, might give the first
rise and occasion to the Stories of the _Pygmies_. What has been the
[Greek: proton pheudos], and rendered this Story so difficult to be
believed, I find hath been the Opinion that has generally obtained, that
these _Pygmies_ were really a Race of _little Men_. And tho' they are only
_Brutes_, yet being at first call'd _wild Men_, no doubt from the
Resemblance they bear to _Men_; there have not been wanting those
especially amongst the Ancients, who have invented a hundred ridiculous
Stories concerning them; and have attributed those things to them, were
they to be believed in what they say, that necessarily conclude them real
_Men_.

To sum up therefore what I have already discoursed, I think I have proved,
that the _Pygmies_ were not an _Humane Species_ or _Men_. And tho'
_Homer_, who first mentioned them, calls them [Greek: andres pygmaioi],
yet we need not understand by this Expression any thing more than _Apes_:
And tho' his _Geranomachia_ hath been look'd upon by most only as a
Poetical Fiction; yet by assigning what might be the true Cause of this
Quarrel between the _Cranes_ and _Pygmies_, and by divesting it of the
many fabulous Relations that the _Indian Historians_, and others, have
loaded it with, I have endeavoured to render it a true, at least a
probable Story. I have instanced in _Ctesias_ and the _Indian Historians_,
as the Authors and Inventors of the many Fables we have had concerning
them: Particularly, I have Examined those Relations, where Speech or
Language is attributed to them; and shewn, that there is no reason to
believe that they ever spake any Language at all. But these _Indian
Hist