[Footnote A: Bocharti Hierozoic. S. de Animalib. S. Script. part.
Posterior. lib. 1. cap. 11. p.m. 76.]
[Footnote B: Scaliger. Comment. in Arist. Hist. Animal. lib. 8. p.m. 914.]
[Footnote C: Sir Thomas Brown's Pseudodoxia, or, Enquiries into
Vulgar Errors, lib. 4. cap. 11.]
I do not here find Aristotle asserting or confirming any thing of the fabulous Narrations that had been made about the Pygmies. He does not say that they were [Greek: andres], or [Greek: anthropoi mikroi], or [Greek: melanes]; he only calls them [Greek: pygmaioi]. And discoursing of the Pygmies in a place, where he is only treating about Brutes, 'tis reasonable to think, that he looked upon them only as such. This is the place where the Pygmies are; this is no fable, saith Aristotle, as 'tis that they are a Dwarfish Race of Men; that they speak the Indian Language; that they are excellent Archers; that they are very Just; and abundance of other Things that are fabulously reported of them; and because he thought them Fables, he does not take the least notice of them, but only saith, This is no Fable, but a Truth, that about the Lakes of Nile such Animals, as are called Pygmies, do live. And, as if he had foreseen, that the abundance of Fables that Ctesias (whom he saith is not to be believed) and the Indian Historians had invented about them, would make the whole Story to appear as a Figment, and render it doubtful, whether there were ever such Creatures as Pygmies in Nature; he more zealously asserts the Being of them, and assures us, That this is no Fable, but a Truth.
I shall therefore now enquire what sort of Creatures these Pygmies were; and hope so to manage the Matter, as in a great measure, to abate the Passion these Great Men have had against them: for, no doubt, what has incensed them the most, was, the fabulous Historians making them a part of Mankind, and then inventing a hundred ridiculous Stories about them, which they would impose upon the World as real Truths. If therefore they have Satisfaction given them in these two Points, I do not see, but that the Business may be accommodated very fairly; and that they may be allowed to be Pygmies, tho' we do not make them Men.
For I am not of Gesner's mind, Sed veterum nullus (saith he[A]) aliter de Pygmæis scripsit, quàm Homunciones esse. Had they been a Race of Men, no doubt but Aristotle would have informed himself farther about them. Such a Curiosity could not but have excited his Inquisitive Genius, to a stricter Enquiry and Examination; and we might easily have expected from him a larger Account of them. But finding them, it may be, a sort of Apes, he only tells us, that in such a place these Pygmies live.
[Footnote A: Gesner. Histor. Quadruped. p.m. 885.]
Herodotus[A] plainly makes them Brutes: For reckoning up the Animals of Libya, he tells us, [Greek: Kai gar hoi ophies hoi hypermegathees, kai hoi leontes kata toutous eisi, kai hoi elephantes te kai arktoi, kai aspides te kai onoi hoi ta kerata echontes; kai hoi kynokephaloi (akephaloi) hoi en toisi staethesi tous ophthalmous echontes (hos dae legetai ge hypo libyon) kai agrioi andres, kai gynaikes agriai kai alla plaethei polla thaeria akatapseusta;] i.e. That there are here prodigious large Serpents, and Lions, and Elephants, and Bears, and Asps, and Asses that have horns, and Cynocephali, (in the Margin 'tis Acephali) that have Eyes in their Breast, (as is reported by the Libyans) and wild Men, and wild Women, and a great many other wild Beasts that are not fabulous. Tis evident therefore that Herodotus his [Greek: agrioi andres, kai gynaikes agriai] are only [Greek: thaeria] or wild Beasts: and tho' they are called [Greek: andres], they are no more Men than our Orang-Outang, or Homo Sylvestris, or wild Man, which has exactly the same Name, and I must confess I can't but think is the same Animal: and that the same Name has been continued down to us, from his Time, and it may be from Homer's.
[Footnote A: Herodot. Melpomene seu lib. 4. p.m. 285.]
So Philostratus speaking of Æthiopia and Ægypt, tells us,[A] [Greek: Boskousi de kai thaeria hoia ouch heterothi; kai anthropous melanas, ho mae allai aepeiroi. Pygmaion te en autais ethnae kai hylaktounton allo allaei.] i.e. Here are bred wild Beasts that are not in other places; and black Men, which no other Country affords: and amongst them is the Nation of the Pygmies, and the BARKERS, that is, the Cynocephali. For tho' Philostratus is pleased here only to call them Barkers, and to reckon them, as he does the Black Men and the Pygmies amongst the wild Beasts of those Countreys; yet Ctesias, from whom Philostratus has borrowed a great deal of his Natural History, stiles them Men, and makes them speak, and to perform most notable Feats in Merchandising. But not being in a merry Humour it may be now, before he was aware, he speaks Truth: For Cælius Rhodiginus's[B] Character of him is, Philostratus omnium qui unquam Historiam conscripserunt, mendacissimus.