And tho' _Olaus Magnus_ may write some things by
hear-say, yet he cannot be so fabulous as _Ctesias_, who (as _Lucian_
tells us) writes what he neither saw himself, or heard from any Body else.
Not that I think _Olaus Magnus_ his _Greenlanders_ were real _Pygmies_, no
more than _Ctesias_ his _Pygmies_ were real _Men_; tho' he vouches very
notably for them. And if all that have copied this Fable from _Ctesias_,
must be look'd upon as the same Evidence with himself; the number of the
_Testimonies_ produced need not much concern us, since they must all stand
or fall with him.
The _probable Reasons_ that _Bartholine_ gives in the _fifth Chapter_, are
taken from other _Animals_, as Sheep, Oxen, Horses, Dogs, the _Indian
Formica_ and Plants: For observing in the same _Species_ some excessive
large, and others extreamly little, he infers, _Quae certe cum in
Animalibus & Vegetabilibus fiant; cur in Humana specie non sit probabile,
haud video: imprimis cum detur magnitudinis excessus Gigantaeus; cur non
etiam dabitur Defectus? Quia ergo dantur Gigantes, dabuntur & Pygmaei.
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