Note 8 — Chapter VI · SIR ORAN HAUT-TON

‘I think I have established his humanity by proof that ought to satisfy every one who gives credit to human testimony.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. p. 40.

‘I have brought myself to a perfect conviction that the oran outang is a human creature as much as any of us.’—Ibid.

‘Nihil humani ei deesse diceres praeter loquelam.’—Bontius.

‘The fact truly is, that the man is easily distinguishable in him; nor are there any differences betwixt him and us, but what may be accounted for in so satisfactory a manner that it would be extraordinary and unnatural if they were not to be found. His body, which is of the same shape as ours, is bigger and stronger than ours, ... according to that general law of nature above observed (that all animals thrive best in their natural state). His mind is such as that of a man must be, uncultivated by arts and sciences, and living wild in the woods.... One thing, at least, is certain: that if ever men were in that state which I call natural, it must have been in such a country and climate as Africa, where they could live without art upon the natural fruits of the earth. “Such countries,” Linnaeus says, “are the native country of man; there he lives naturally; in other countries, non nisi coacte, that is, by force of art.” If this be so, then the short history of man is, that the race, having begun in those fine climates, and having, as is natural, multiplied there so much that the spontaneous productions of the earth could not support them, they migrated into other countries, where they were obliged to invent arts for their subsistence; and with such arts, language, in process of time, would necessarily come.... That my facts and arguments are so convincing as to leave no doubt of the humanity of the oran outang, I will not take upon me to say; but thus much I will venture to affirm, that I have said enough to make the philosopher consider it as problematical, and a subject deserving to be inquired into. For, as to the vulgar, I can never expect that they should acknowledge any relation to those inhabitants of the woods of Angola; but that they should continue, through a false pride, to think highly derogatory from human nature what the philosopher, on the contrary, will think the greatest praise of man, that from the savage state in which the oran outang is, he should, by his own sagacity and industry, have arrived at the state in which we now see him.’—Origin and Progress of Language, book ii. chap. 5.