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Article MERMAIDS NOT FABULOUS, ← Page 5 of 7 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Mermaids Not Fabulous,
of Brazil , and brought to Leyden , and there dissected in presence of one whom he names , viz . Johannes de Layda , who made him a present of a hand and rib of the animal . He calls it a Syren , and says it was the form of a woman down to the waist , below which it was nothing but a piece of unformed flesh , without any marks of a tail . He gives us . the figure of the whole animal , both erect and swimming , as also of the hand which he got from de Layda . "
There is also in a collection of certain learned tracts , written b y John Gregory , A . M . and Chaplain of Christ Church in Oxford , published in London in 1650 , an account of a sea-animal of the human form , very much like a bishop in his pontificals . It is said to have been sent to the King of Poland in 1531 , and to have lived for some time in the air : but it took the first opportunity of throwing itself into the sea . This story Gregory says he got from one
Kondeletius , whose words he gives us , page 121 . from which it appears that Rondeletius had the story only at second-hand , from one Gisbert , a German doctor . But the most circumstantial story of all is that which is told by Maillet , in his Teliamede , ( page 241 , of the English translation ) , of a sea-man that was seen by the wholecrew of a French shi p , offthe
coast of Newfoundland , in the year 1720 , for two hours together , and often at the distance of no more than two or three feet . The account was drawn up by the pilot of the vessel , and signed by thecaptain and all those of the crew that could write , and was sent from Brest by Monsieur Hautefort to the Count de Maudrepas , on the 3 th of September , 1725 . The story is told with so many circumstances , that it is impossible there can be any deception or mistake in the case ; . but if it be not true , it is as impudent a forgery as ever was attempted to be imposed on the public .
These and such like facts I believe , as they appear to me sufficl-• ently attested ; and are not , as I think , by the nature of things , impossible ; for there does not appear to me any impossibility or contradiction that there should be a marine animal of the human form , which can live in the water , as we do in the air , or even that this animal should not have two legs , as we have , but should end in a tail like a fish . There arehoweverI know , manywho are
dis-, , , posed to set bounds to the works of God , and who cannot be persuaded that even the land animal man exists with the varieties I have described . But I follow the philosophy of Aristotle , who has said every thing exists which is possible to exist . Nor , indeed , can I well conceive , that a benevolent and omnipotent Being , infinite in production as in every thing else , should not have
produced every sensitive being that is capable of pleasure , and" can enjoy a happiness suitable to its nature , whose existence is possible , that is , implying no contradiction ; for otherwise there would be something wanting in the System of Nature , which would not be perfeet or complete , as , I think , of necessity it must be . That Mermaids , or Sea-men , which existed , as I have shewn , sa late as the year 1730 , are still to be found somewhere in the Great
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Mermaids Not Fabulous,
of Brazil , and brought to Leyden , and there dissected in presence of one whom he names , viz . Johannes de Layda , who made him a present of a hand and rib of the animal . He calls it a Syren , and says it was the form of a woman down to the waist , below which it was nothing but a piece of unformed flesh , without any marks of a tail . He gives us . the figure of the whole animal , both erect and swimming , as also of the hand which he got from de Layda . "
There is also in a collection of certain learned tracts , written b y John Gregory , A . M . and Chaplain of Christ Church in Oxford , published in London in 1650 , an account of a sea-animal of the human form , very much like a bishop in his pontificals . It is said to have been sent to the King of Poland in 1531 , and to have lived for some time in the air : but it took the first opportunity of throwing itself into the sea . This story Gregory says he got from one
Kondeletius , whose words he gives us , page 121 . from which it appears that Rondeletius had the story only at second-hand , from one Gisbert , a German doctor . But the most circumstantial story of all is that which is told by Maillet , in his Teliamede , ( page 241 , of the English translation ) , of a sea-man that was seen by the wholecrew of a French shi p , offthe
coast of Newfoundland , in the year 1720 , for two hours together , and often at the distance of no more than two or three feet . The account was drawn up by the pilot of the vessel , and signed by thecaptain and all those of the crew that could write , and was sent from Brest by Monsieur Hautefort to the Count de Maudrepas , on the 3 th of September , 1725 . The story is told with so many circumstances , that it is impossible there can be any deception or mistake in the case ; . but if it be not true , it is as impudent a forgery as ever was attempted to be imposed on the public .
These and such like facts I believe , as they appear to me sufficl-• ently attested ; and are not , as I think , by the nature of things , impossible ; for there does not appear to me any impossibility or contradiction that there should be a marine animal of the human form , which can live in the water , as we do in the air , or even that this animal should not have two legs , as we have , but should end in a tail like a fish . There arehoweverI know , manywho are
dis-, , , posed to set bounds to the works of God , and who cannot be persuaded that even the land animal man exists with the varieties I have described . But I follow the philosophy of Aristotle , who has said every thing exists which is possible to exist . Nor , indeed , can I well conceive , that a benevolent and omnipotent Being , infinite in production as in every thing else , should not have
produced every sensitive being that is capable of pleasure , and" can enjoy a happiness suitable to its nature , whose existence is possible , that is , implying no contradiction ; for otherwise there would be something wanting in the System of Nature , which would not be perfeet or complete , as , I think , of necessity it must be . That Mermaids , or Sea-men , which existed , as I have shewn , sa late as the year 1730 , are still to be found somewhere in the Great