of outward things. What would have happened to him then? Would he necessarily have perished? Or, if he survived, would he have grown into anything better than a brute? What would the course of his life have been? And can we conceive that, lacking all influence from without, all family and social intercourse, all idea of human traditions as embodied in manners, customs, institutions, books, he would ever, mentally and morally, have reached the full stature of a man?
I am not going to attempt to discuss these questions from the standpoint of modern science, or in connection with the recent controversies of the evolutionists. My purpose is simply to give some account of an extremely crude, but none the less quaint and interesting old book, in which, under the thin guise of a story, an effort is made to answer them. The little volume is exceedingly rare and is probably unknown, even by name, to most readers of these pages. An outline of its contents may, therefore, prove entertaining, if not exactly instructive.
I must first dismiss some details of a bibliographical character. Referring, in his Memoirs, to his one-time tutor, John Kirkby, the historian Gibbon speaks slightingly enough of a work of his which, aspiring 'to the honors of a philosophical romance,' had brought him a certain measure of fame. Gibbon cites it by a brief title only—'The History of Automathes'; but its full title, after the fashion of the time, set forth a regular programme, or summary, of the volume—"The Capacity and Extent of the Human Understanding, exemplified in the extraordinary case of Automathes, a young nobleman, who was accidentally left in his infancy upon a desert island and continued nineteen years in that solitary state, separate from all human society." The book, which bears date 1745, was thought by Gibbon to be a kind of compound of 'Robinson Crusoe' and an Arabian story, 'The History of Hai Ebn Yockdan.' On closer examination, however, it turns out to be a barefaced plagiarism from a much smaller work, issued anonymously nine years before—"The History of Autonous: Containing a Relation how that young Nobleman was accidentally left alone in his Infancy, upon a desolate Island, where he lived nineteen years, remote from all human Society, till taken up by his Father; with an Account of his Life, Reflections and Improvements in Knowledge during his Continuance in that Solitary State. The whole as taken from his own mouth." It is almost incredible that, even in an age when literary frauds were more frequent and less easily detected than at present, Kirkby should have dared to publish his own book as original; but he never appears to have been taken to task for his conduct, nor, indeed, do readers and critics of 'Automathes' seem to have known or cared anything about 'Autonous.' But, from a pretty minute comparison of the two works, in the library of the British
