Note 22 — Chapter VI · SIR ORAN HAUT-TON

The words in italics are from the Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. pp. 41, 42. Lord Monboddo adds: ‘I hold it to be impossible to convince any philosopher, or any man of common sense, who has bestowed any time to consider the mechanism of speech, that such various actions and configurations of the organs of speech as are necessary for articulation can be natural to man. Whoever thinks this possible, should go and see, as I have done, Mr. Braidwood of Edinburgh, or the Abbé de l’Epée in Paris, teach the dumb to speak; and when he has observed all the different actions of the organs, which those professors are obliged to mark distinctly to their pupils with a great deal of pains and labour, so far from thinking articulation natural to man, he will rather wonder how, by any teaching or imitation, he should attain to the ready performance of such various and complicated operations.’

‘Quoique l’organe de la parole soit naturel à l’homme, la parole elle-même ne lui est pourtant pas naturelle.’—Rousseau, Discours sur l’Inégalité, note 8.

‘The oran outang, so accurately dissected by Tyson, had exactly the same organs of voice that a man has.’—Ancient Metaphysics, vol. iii. p. 44.

‘I have been told that the oran outang who is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever’s collection, had learned before he died to articulate some words.’—Ibid. p. 40.