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 Historians having related so many extravagant Romances of the Pygmies, as to render their whole History suspected, nay to be utterly denied, that there were ever any such Creatures as Pygmies in Nature, both by Strabo of old, and most of our learned men of late, I have endeavoured to assert the Truth of their being, from a Text in Aristotle; which being so positive in affirming their Existence, creates a difficulty, that can no ways be got over by such as are of the contrary Opinion.  This Text I have vindicated from the false Interpretations and Glosses of several Great Men, who had their Minds so prepossessed and prejudiced with the Notion of Men Pygmies, that they often would quote it, and misapply it, tho’ it contain’d nothing that any ways favoured their Opinion; but the contrary rather, that they were Brutes, and not Men.

And that the Pygmies were really Brutes, I think I have plainly proved out of Herodotus and Philostratus, who reckon them amongst the wild Beasts that breed in those Countries:  For tho’ by Herodotus they are call’d [Greek:  andres agrioi], and Philostratus calls them [Greek:  anthropous melanas], yet both make them [Greek:  theria] or wild Beasts.  And I might here add what Pausanias[A] relates from Euphemus Car, who by contrary Winds was driven upon some Islands, where he tells us, [Greek:  en de tautais oikein andras agrious], but when he comes to describe them, tells us that they had no Speech; that they had Tails on their Rumps; and were very lascivious toward the Women in the Ship.  But of these more, when we come to discourse of Satyrs.

[Footnote A:  Pausanias in Atticis, p.m. 21.]