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The Title of Bartholine's eighth and last Chapter is, Argumenta eorum qui Pygmæorum Historiam fabulosam censent, recitantur & refutantur. Where he tells us, the only Person amongst the Ancients that thought the Story of the Pygmies to be fabulous was Strabo; but amongst the Moderns there are several, as Cardan, Budæus, Aldrovandus, Fullerus and others. The first Objection (he saith) is that of Spigelius and others; that since the whole World is now discovered, how happens it, that these Pygmies are not to be met with? He has seven Answers to this Objection; how satisfactory they are, the Reader may judge, if he pleases, by perusing them amongst the Quotations.[A] Cardan's second Objection (he saith) is, that they live but eight years, whence several Inconveniences would happen, as Cardan shews; he answers that no good Author asserts this; and if there was, yet what Cardan urges would not follow; and instances out of Artemidorus in Pliny,[B] as a Parallel in the Calingæ a Nation in India, where the Women conceive when five years old, and do not live above eight. Gesner speaking of the Pygmies, saith, Vitæ autem longitudo anni arciter octo ut Albertus refert. Cardan perhaps had his Authority from Albertus, or it may be both took it from this passage in Pliny, which I think would better agree to Apes than Men. But Artemidorus being an Indian Historian, and in the same place telling other Romances, the less Credit is to be given to him. The third Objection, he saith, is of Cornelius
Et idem sentit Divus Thomas, supra, solvens argumenta Augustini, quamvis propter reverentiam ejus quasi problematicè semper procedat. Denique idem sentiunt omnes qui in his operibus veram successionem et temporalem distinctionem agnoscant." Secondly, with respect to animals, Suarez is no less decided: De animalium ratione carentium productione quinto et sexto die facta.
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