I shall therefore now enquire what sort of Creatures these Pygmies were; and hope so to manage the Matter, as in a great measure, to abate the Passion these Great Men have had against them:  for, no doubt, what has incensed them the most, was, the fabulous Historians making them a part of Mankind, and then inventing a hundred ridiculous Stories about them, which they would impose upon the World as real Truths.  If therefore they have Satisfaction given them in these two Points, I do not see, but that the Business may be accommodated very fairly; and that they may be allowed to be Pygmies, tho’ we do not make them Men.

For I am not of Gesner’s mind, Sed veterum nullus (saith he[A]) aliter de Pygmaeis scripsit, quam Homunciones esse.  Had they been a Race of Men, no doubt but Aristotle would have informed himself farther about them.  Such a Curiosity could not but have excited his Inquisitive Genius, to a stricter Enquiry and Examination; and we might easily have expected from him a larger Account of them.  But finding them, it may be, a sort of Apes, he only tells us, that in such a place these Pygmies live.

[Footnote A:  Gesner.  Histor.  Quadruped. p.m. 885.]

Herodotus[A] plainly makes them Brutes:  For reckoning up the Animals of Libya, he tells us, [Greek:  Kai gar hoi ophies hoi hypermegathees, kai hoi leontes kata toutous eisi, kai hoi elephantes te kai arktoi, kai aspides te kai onoi hoi ta kerata echontes; kai hoi kynokephaloi (akephaloi) hoi en toisi staethesi tous ophthalmous echontes (hos dae legetai ge hypo libyon) kai agrioi andres, kai gynaikes agriai kai alla plaethei polla thaeria akatapseusta;] i.e. That there are here prodigious large Serpents, and Lions, and Elephants, and Bears, and Asps, and Asses that have horns, and Cynocephali, (in the Margin ’tis Acephali) that have Eyes in their Breast, (as is reported by the Libyans) and wild Men, and wild Women, and a great many other wild Beasts that are not fabulous. Tis evident therefore that Herodotus his [Greek:  agrioi andres, kai gynaikes agriai] are only [Greek:  thaeria] or wild Beasts:  and tho’ they are called [Greek:  andres], they are no more Men than our Orang-Outang, or Homo Sylvestris, or wild Man, which has exactly the same Name, and I must confess I can’t but think is the same Animal:  and that the same Name has been continued down to us, from his Time, and it may be from Homer’s.

[Footnote A:  Herodot.  Melpomene seu lib. 4. p.m. 285.]