James Burnett

“The rise of every man he loved to trace, Up to the very pod O!And, in baboons, our parent race Was found by old Monboddo.Their A, B, C, he made them speak, And learn their qui, quæ, quod, O!Till Hebrew, Latin, Welsh, and Greek They knew as well's Monboddo!”

“It may be safely asserted, and yet without implying any direct participation in the Monboddo doctrine touching the probability of the human race having once been monkeys, that men do play very strange and extraordinary tricks.”

“My lord and Dr Johnson disputed a little, whether the savage or the London shopkeeper had the best existence; his lordship, as usual, preferring the savage.”

“Though I think that man has from nature the capacity of living, either by prey, or upon the fruits of the earth; it appears to me, that by nature, and in his original state, he is a frugivorous animal, and that he only becomes an animal of prey by acquired habit.”