Page:A discourse upon the origin and foundation of the inequality among mankind (IA discourseuponori00rous).pdf/255

himſelf properly upon his Feet. It was the ſame thing with the Child, who was found in 1694 in the Foreſts of Lithuania and lived among Bears. He did not ſhew, ſays Monſieur de Condillac, the leaſt Mark of Reaſon, walked upon Hands and Feet, had no Language but ſome uncouth Sounds, which had nothing common with thoſe of other Men. The little Hanoverian Savage, which was brought ſeveral Years ago to the Court of England, had all the Difficulty in the World to bring himſelf to walk upon his Legs: And in 1719 two other Savages were found in the Pyrenean Mountains running about them in the Manner of Quadrupeds. As to the Objection, that by walking upon our Hands we ſhould loſe the Uſe of them in many other Reſpects in which they prove ſo ſerviceable to us; not to inſiſt on the Practice of Monkeys, by which it is evident that the Hand may be very well employed both ways, this Argument could only prove, that Man may give his Members a more uſeful Deſtination than that aſſigned them by Nature, and not that Nature has deſtined Man to walk otherwiſe than ſhe herſelf teaches him to walk.