because it is obvious that all theory on the subject must be the result of observation and analysis; and that no general principles can be laid down in the first instance, as the ground work of any hypothesis we might be inclined to frame. The scientific men to whom we are chiefly indebted for the facts accumulated on this subject, are Dr. Blumenbach, of Göttingen, Dr. Pritchard, of Edinburgh, and the eminent surgeon, Mr. Lawrence. It has been a favourite matter of speculation with Lord Monboddo, as well as with Voltaire, Rousseau, and the philosophers of the French school, who have endeavoured to show that men and other animals are endowed with reason or instinct of the same kind, but of different degrees. According to these fanciful writers, the monkey is but another species of the human race, and has been termed by them _Homo Sylvestris_. They made the most diligent researches into all accounts concerning men in a savage state, and were delighted beyond measure with the discovery alleged to have been made in the island of Sumatra, of men with tails regularly protruding from their hinder parts, who, according to Buffon, walked and talked in the woods like other gentlemen:-- And backwards and forwards they switched their long tails, Like a gentleman switching his cane. The appearance of Peter the Wild Boy, who was found in the woods of Hamela, in Hanover, living on the bark of trees, leaves, berries, &c. threw Voltaire into transports of joy. He declared the event to be the most wonderful and important that ages had recorded in the annals of science, as it demonstrated the fact of man living after the fashion of beasts, without the least spark of civilization, and without speech; thereby forming a species of a nature having more in common with monkeys than with men, and presenting the regular degree, or intermediate class, between the _homo civilis_ and the _homo sylvestris_. The circumstance, however, which afterwards transpired, of Peter's having been found with the remains of a shirt-collar about his neck, threw considerable discredit on the whole story; and the young savage, on being brought to England by order of Queen Caroline, lived in Hertfordshire for many years, perfectly harmless and tractable, and behaving pretty much the same as other idiots. The idea, therefore, of a race of men, in a healthy, natural condition, having ever existed without the possession of reason, is now deemed wholly fallacious. It is even maintained by Schlegel, and other authorities of great weight, that the civilized state is the primitive one, and that savage life is a degeneracy from it, rather than civilized society being a graft upon barbarity. By Schlegel's theory, the East, especially India, was the earliest seat of arts and sciences; from the Sanscrit, or Indian language, now extinct, are the Hebrew, the Chaldaic, the Greek, and many others of the most ancient tongues, derived; and from the wisdom and learning of the East