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"et invariables dans leur exécution, cachés à notre foible intelligence, mais toujours admirables."-Nouveau Dictionnaire d'His"toire Naturelle, Tom. XVI. p. 253, et seq. A Paris, 1817.

Note (G.) p. 246.

For the following very curious information, (extracted from Collinson's History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset, published in 1791,) I am indebted to my nephew, Dr. Miller, physi

cian at Exeter.

"In the year 1765, a woman in this parish, (Ditcheat) of the 66 name of Kingston, was delivered of a stout boy without arms or shoulders. He was baptized by the name of William, and, "strange as his birth was, he is still living, a most extraordinary 66 phenomenon of nature! possessing, without the usual appendages "of arms, all the strength, power and dexterity of the ablest and "most regularly made men, and exercising every function of life. "He feeds, dresses and undresses himself, combs his own hair, "shaves his beard with the razor in his toes, cleans his shoes, "lights his fire, writes out his own bills and accounts, and does "almost every other domestic business. Being a farmer by oc"cupation, he performs the usual business of the field, fodders "his cattle, makes his ricks, cuts his hay, catches his horse, and "saddles and bridles him with his feet and toes. He can lift ten "pecks of beans with his teeth; with his feet throws a large "sledge-hammer farther than other men can with their arms; and "he has fought a stout battle, and come off victorious. Add to "this, that he is lately married to a young woman of a reputable "family. The above facts are truly authentic, and notorious to "this place and neighbourhood."

Dr. Miller adds, "on referring to the present rector of Ditcheat, the Rev. William Leir, he informs me, in a letter I have “ just received from him, that the particulars in the above extract "are perfectly correct; that this extraordinary person is still "alive, and in a good state of health; that he has been twice mar"ried, and has ten children, none of whom have any defect in "their persons.

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enumerate. you

Another correspondent of Dr. Miller's, Mr. Spencer of Oakhill, writes thus: "I have known William Kingston personally these "thirty years or upwards, and he is, as you state, without hands or arms, but certainly not capable of performing all the opera❝tions That he writes with his toes a very legi"ble hand is true, and, if I do not greatly mistake, many years ago I saw him do it. He can also lift heavy burdens with his "teeth, which also serve him to hold his bridle in riding; this I "have seen him do. I have heard that he catches and bridles and "saddles his horse-and that although he is not in appearance a very strong man, (I should think not more than five feet five or "six inches high,) yet he has many times had combats with other

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"men, and I have heard generally came off victorious. The me "thod he takes in these combats, I am told, is to run very furi"ously at his adversary with his head, and strike him about the "stomach, tripping up his heels at the same time.”

In a subsequent letter from Mr. Spencer, it is stated, that "Kingston intends very shortly to wind up his little farming con❝cern, and exhibit himself as a natural phenomenon. He has a "little property, but not quite sufficient to maintain him."

I sincerely rejoice at this intelligence, as I think that such anomalous facts in the history of our species cannot be too generally known and witnessed. The case of Mr. Kingston corresponds exactly with that of the Indian compared by Strabo and Dio Cassius to the statue of Hermes. (See p. 81 of this Volume.)

Since writing the above, a friend sent me the 4th Volume of the Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, Part II. in which there is an extremely interesting and valuable paper by Dr. Hibbert, on The Natural Expedients resorted to by Mark Yarwood, a Cheshire boy, to supply the want which he has sustained from birth of his forearms and hands.

As Dr. Hibbert himself had an opportunity of examining the person he describes, he has stated the particulars of the case with all the skill and accuracy of a medical observer. His paper therefore does not admit of an abstract, and I must accordingly content myself with recommending it to the attention of the reader as a document equally curious and instructive.

After perusing these authentic statements (which I have perhaps multiplied more than was necessary,) the reader may form a judgment for himself of the paradox of Helvetius, that "if the

wrist of man had been terminated with the hoof of a horse, the "species would have been still wandering in the forest." I hope he will agree with me, in preferring upon this point the plain good sense of Galen, as expressed in a passage already cited, to the more refined conclusion of modern science; a conclusion which I remember, while the philosophy of Helvetius was in the height of its popularity, to have heard appealed to triumphantly as an indisputable axiom, not only in France but in this island. I subjoin the Latin version of Galen, which does more justice to the conciseness and force of the original than I am able to do in English. "Ut autem sapientissimum animalium est Homo, sic et ma"nus sunt organa sapienti animali convenientia. Non enim quia "manus habuit, propterea, est sapientissimum, ut Anaxagoras di"cebat ; sed quia sapientissimum erat, propter hoc manus habuit, "ut rectissime censuit Aristoteles. Non enim manus ipsæ homi"nem artes docuerunt sed ratio. Manus autem ipsæ sunt artium "organum."

Note (H.) p. 251.

It may be proper here to take some notice of the celebrated story (quoted by Locke from Sir William Temple) of the old par

rot whom Prince Maurice saw and conversed with at Brazil.* That Prince Maurice, from whose mouth Sir William Temple heard it, believed the truth of his own statement, there can be little or no doubt; and that Sir William himself did not consider it as wholly incredible, is inferred by Mr. Locke, on very reasonable grounds, from the manner in which he introduces and relates it. "I have taken care," (says Locke,) "that the reader should have "the story at large in the Author's own words, because he seems "to me not to have thought it incredible; for it cannot be ima"gined, that so able a man as he should take so much pains, in a "place where it had nothing to do, to pin so close not only on a "man whom he mentions as a friend, but on a Prince, in whom "he acknowledges very great honesty and piety, a story, which, "if he himself thought incredible, he could not but also think ri"diculous."

With respect to Mr. Locke's own opinion on the subject we are left entirely in the dark. That he did not, however, give the story much credit, may be presumed from the cautious scepticism with which he expresses himself,-a scepticism greater than might have been expected (when we consider the evidence on which the story rests,) from that credulity in the admission of extraordinary facts, of which this great man has given so many proofs in the first Book of his Essay, and which seems indeed to have been the chief defect in his intellectual character.

I have not thought it necessary to transcribe the details of the relation, as they must necessarily have left a deep impression on the memory of all who have ever read Locke's Essay. Indeed, I have met with more than one of his professed admirers, who seemed to recollect little else which they had learned from that work than this story of the parrot.

After all, perhaps, it would not be found so easy a task as might at first be imagined, to state the arguments which justify us in rejecting, without one moment's hesitation, as altogether incredible and absurd, what plainly appears to have been admitted as certain, or at least not improbable, by such men as Sir William Temple and Prince Maurice. The speculation is not unworthy the attention of those who have a pleasure in tracing the gradual progress of Human Reason, and in investigating the circumstances on which this progress depends.

Another problem, which appears to myself highly curious, is suggested by the fact in question. Suppose for a moment this fact to be confirmed by the testimony of our own senses,-that we actually saw and heard one of the lower animals, a dog for example, conversing with his master in articulate language ;*-it,

* Essay on the Human Understanding, Book II. Chap. xxvii. § 8.

A dog of this description, according to Leibnitz, was actually seen by him self. See what I have said on this subject in the second part of my Dissertation prefixed to the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, p. 225.

cannot, I think, be doubted that the spectacle would be, in an extreme degree, offensive and painful; it is so, in some degree, when it is merely presented to the imagination. Now, to what principle of our nature are we to refer the painful emotion which such a spectacle would excite? I apprehend, in a very great measure, to our sympathy with what we conceive to be a rational mind degraded by a union with the brutal form, and condemned by nature to the brutal condition. It is sometimes difficult to avoid, a slight feeling of this sort, when our eye happens to catch and to fix the seemingly reflecting and serious eye of an elephant. In consequence of that intimate association which is established by early and constant habit between the ideas of speech and of reason, the mere power of uttering articulate sounds would, I apprehend, be in a dog disagreeable at first, even although he should exhibit no marks of intelligence superior to the rest of the species. It is only our experience of the limited and unmeaning vocabulary of parrots, combined with the ludicrous mistakes which they are continually making in its application, which reconciles us to these birds as an artical of amusement. We are told, accordingly, by Sir William Temple, that "one of Prince Maurice's chaplains, who had "witnessed the conversations with the parrot of Brazil, and who "lived long afterwards in Holland, would never from that time "forth, endure a parrot, but said they were all possessed with a "devil."

I have been led to start this problem, chiefly by a passage which I have lately met with in Huyghen's Conjectures concerning the Planetary Worlds, where the truly illustrious writer takes notice of the same fact which I have just remarked, the horror with which we would look at any animal differing in shape very widely from ourselves, but possessing similar powers of reason and of speech. This he explains by our comparing the anomalous and monstrous appearance with our preconceived notions of beauty and deformity,-notions which he resolves (much too precipitately in my opinion) into the effects of custom and habit alone. The true theory, I suspect lies a little deeper in the nature of man. If this imaginary animal should happen to resemble any of the brutes, the horror it would inspire has been already accounted for. If it should differ from man in the dimensions and relative proportions alone of the body, I should ascribe its disagreeable effect to the habitual experience we have had, how admirably the usual frame and size of the human body are fitted for its various functions; and to our sympathy with the sufferings of a being apparently so illadapted to the scene where it is destined to act. The whole passage, however, is an object of some curiosity, as it is the earliest I know, where this theory (ascribed by Mr. Smith to Father Buffier, and afterwards adopted by Sir Joshua Reynolds,) concerning the influence of custom on our ideas of beauty, is pushed to all its extent.

"Etenim omnino cavendum est ab errore vulgi, cum animum

"rationis capacem non alio in corpore, quam nastris simili habi"tare posse sibi persuadet. Ex quo factum est, ut populi penè om "nes atque etiam philosophi quidam, humanam formam diis "adscripserint. Hoc vero non nisi ab hominum imbecillitate et "præjudicata opinione proficisci quis non videt? Uti illud quo"que, quod eximia quædam pulchritudo humani corporis esse puta"tur: cum tamen ab opinione et assuetudine id totum quoque "pendeat, affectuque eo, quem cunctis animalibus natura provi"da ingeneravit ; ut sui similibus maxime caperentur. Illa verò "tantum possunt, ut non sine horrore aliquo animal homini mul"tum dissimile conspectum iri credam, in quo rationis et sermo"nis usus reperiretur. Nam si tale solummodo fingamus aut pin"gamus, quod, cætera homini simile, collum quadruplo longius "habeat, vel oculos rotundos duploque amplius distantes; contin"uo eæ figuræ nascuntur, quas non possimus intuentes non aver"sari, quamvis ratio deformitatis nulla reddi queat.”—Christiani Hugenii Cosmotheoros, lib. i.

Note (I.) p. 257.

·

Having more than once referred to the Baron Cuvier in the course of this chapter, I beg leave to add, before concluding these notes, his candid confession of the very limited knowledge we possess with respect to the functions of the different parts of the

brain.

At a time when so many attempts are daily making to vitiate the Philosophy of the Human Mind by chimerical speculations concerning this organ, it may be useful to contrast with these presumptuous reveries, the modest and hesitating statement of the first comparative anatomist and physiologist of the age.

"Il y a donc dans notre corps une partie dont le bon état est 66 une condition de la pensée ; nous ne pensons qu'avec cet organe, "comme nous ne voyons qu'avec l'œil. Et remarquez que c'est "là un fait de simple histoire naturelle, qui n'a rien de commun "avec le système métaphysique qu'on nomme matérialisme sys"tème d'autant plus foible que nous avons encore bien moins de "notions sur l'essence de la matière, que sur celle de l'être pen"sant, et qu'il n'éclaircit par conséquent aucune des difficultés "de ce profond mystère" (Dict. des Sciences Naturelles, Art. "AME DES BETES.)

"La nature du principe sensitif et intellectuel n'est point du "ressort de l'histoire naturelle; mais c'est une question de pure "anatomie que celle de savoir à quel point du corps il faut qu'ar"rivent les agens physiques qui occasionnent les sensations, et "de quel point il faut que partent ceux que produisent les mouvemens volontaires, pour que ces sensations et ces mouvemens "aient lieu. C'est ce point commun, terme de nos rapports pas"sifs, et source de nos rapports actifs avec les corps extérieurs, que l'on a nommé le siége de l'ame, ou le sensorium commune.”

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