The book treats of the weakness of
human kind, and is in little esteem, except among the women and the
vulgar. However, I was curious to see what an author of that country
could say upon such a subject.
[Illustration]
This writer went through all the usual topics of European moralists,
showing how diminutive, contemptible, and helpless an animal was man in
his own nature; how unable to defend himself from inclemencies of the
air, or the fury of wild beasts; how much he was excelled by one
creature in strength, by another in speed, by a third in foresight, by a
fourth in industry. He added, that nature was degenerated in these
latter declining ages of the world, and could now produce only small
births, in comparison to those in ancient times. He said, it was very
reasonable to think, not only that the species of men were originally
much larger, but also, that there must have been giants in former ages;
which as it is asserted by history and tradition, so it hath been
confirmed by huge bones and skulls, casually dug up in several parts of
the kingdom, far exceeding the common dwindled race of man in our days.
He argued, that the very laws of nature absolutely required we should
have been made in the beginning of a size more large and robust, not so
liable to destruction, from every little accident, of a tile falling
from a house, or a stone cast from the hand of a boy, or being drowned
in a little brook.
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