Note 53 — Chapter XIX · THE EXCURSION

‘But though we should give no credit to those ancient authors, there are monuments still extant, one particularly to be seen in our own island, which I think ought to convince every man that the men of ancient times were much superior to us, at least in the powers of the body. The monument I mean is well known by the name of Stonehenge, and there are several of the same kind to be seen in Denmark and Germany. I desire to know where are the arms now, that, with so little help of machinery as they must have had, could have raised and set up on end such a number of prodigious stones, and put others on the top of them, likewise of very great size? Such works are said by the peasants in Germany to be the works of giants, and I think they must have been giants compared with us. And, indeed, the men who erected Stonehenge could not, I imagine, be of size inferior to that man whose body was found in a quarry near to Salisbury, within a mile of which Stonehenge stands. The body of that man was fourteen feet ten inches. The fact is attested by an eye-witness, one Elyote, who writes, I believe, the first English-Latin Dictionary that ever was published. It is printed in London in 1542, in folio, and has, under the word Gigas, the following passage: “About thirty years past and somewhat more, I myself beynge with my father Syr Rycharde Elyote at a monastery of regular canons, called Juy Churche, two myles from the citie of Sarisburye, beholde the bones of a deade man founde deep in the grounde, where they dygged stone, which being joined togyther, was in length xiiii feet and ten ynches, there beynge mette; whereof one of the teethe my father hadde, whych was of the quantytie of a great walnutte. This have I wrytten, because some menne wylle believe nothynge that is out of the compasse of theyre owne knowledge, and yet some of them presume to have knowledge, above any other, contempnynge all men but themselfes or suche as they favour.” It is for the reason mentioned by this author that I have given so many examples of the greater size of men than is to be seen in our day, to which I could add several others concerning bodies that have been found in this our island, particularly one mentioned by Hector Boece in his Description of Scotland, prefixed to his Scotch History, where he tells us that in a certain church which he names in the shire of Murray, the bones of a man of much the same size as those of the man mentioned by Elyote, viz. fourteen feet, were preserved. One of these bones Boece himself saw, and has particularly described.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. p. 156.

‘But without having recourse to bones or monuments of any kind, if a man has looked upon the world as long as I have done with any observation he must be convinced that the size of man is diminishing. I have seen such bodies of men as are not now to be seen: I have observed in families, of which I have known three generations, a gradual decline in that, and I am afraid in other respects. Others may think otherwise; but for my part I have so great a veneration for our ancestors, that I have much indulgence for that ancient superstition among the Etrurians, and from them derived to the Romans, of worshipping the manes of their ancestors under the names of Lares or domestic gods, which undoubtedly proceeded upon the supposition that they were men superior to themselves, and their departed souls such genii as Hesiod has described,

ἐσθλοι, ἀλεξικακοι, φυλακες θνητων ἀνθρωπων.

And if antiquity and the universal consent of nations can give a sanction to any opinion, it is to this, that our forefathers were better men than we. Even as far back as the Trojan war, the best age of men of which we have any particular account, Homer has said that few men were better than their fathers, and the greater part worse:

οἱ πλεονες κακιους, παυροι δε τε πατρος ἀρειους.

And this he puts into the mouth of the Goddess of Wisdom.... But when I speak of the universal consent of nations, I ought to except the men, and particularly the young men, of this age, who generally believe themselves to be better men than their fathers, or than any of their predecessors.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. p. 161.