but what is most apparently fabulous; for what has been the greatest difficulty to be solved or satisfied, was their being Men; for as Gesner remarks (as I have already quoted him) Sed veterum nullus aliter de Pygmaeis scripsit, quam Homunciones esse.  And the Moderns too, being byassed and misguided by this Notion, have either wholly denied them, or contented themselves in offering their Conjectures what might give the first rise to the inventing this Fable.  And tho’ Albertus, as I find him frequently quoted, thought that the Pygmies might be only a sort of Apes, and he is placed in the Head of those that espoused this Opinion, yet he spoils all, by his way of reasoning, and by making them speak; which was more than he needed to do.

I cannot see therefore any thing that will so fairly solve this doubt, that will reconcile all, that will so easily and plainly make out this Story, as by making the Orang-Outang to be the Pygmie of the Ancients; for ’tis the same Name that Antiquity gave them.  For Herodotus’s [Greek:  andres agrioi], what can they be else, than Homines Sylvestres, or wild Men? as they are now called.  And Homer’s [Greek:  andres pygmaioi], are no more an Humane Kind, or Men, then Herodotus’s [Greek:  andres agrioi], which he makes to be [Greek:  theria], or wild Beasts:  And the [Greek:  andres mikroi] or [Greek:  melanes] (as they are often called) were just the same.  Because this sort of Apes had so great a resemblance to Men, more than other Apes or Monkeys; and they going naturally erect, and being designed by Nature to go so, (as I have shewn in the Anatomy) the Ancients had a very plausible ground for giving them this denomination of [Greek:  andres] or [Greek:  anthropoi], but commonly they added an Epithet; as [Greek:  agrioi, mikroi, pygmaioi, melanes], or some such like.  Now the Ancient Greek and Indian Historians, tho’ they might know these Pygmies to be only Apes like Men, and not to be real Men, yet being so extremely addicted to Mythology, or making Fables, and finding this so fit a Subject to engraft upon, and invent Stories about, they have not been wanting in furnishing us with a great many very Romantick ones on this occasion.  And the Moderns being imposed upon by them, and misguided by the Name of [Greek:  andres] or [Greek:  anthropoi], as if thereby must be always understood an Humane Kind, or real Men, they have altogether mistaken the Truth of the Story, and have either wholly denied it, or rendered it as improbable by their own Conjectures.