The Idiot: His Place in Creation, and His Claims on Society

The above views of Sir J.C. Browne have not remained unchallenged, and the eminent psychologist has found uncompromising opponents in Mrs. Garrett Anderson and others, who stoutly refuse to recognise the position of the "Tacens et placens uxor" of old-time dreams. Mrs. Anderson, who, I need scarcely add, writes most temperately upon this matter, in alluding to Sir J.C. Browne's assumption of the intellectual difference between men and women, remarks, "All I would venture to say is that, if it could be proved that an average man differs from an average woman as much as Newton differed from a cretin, it would still be well to give the cretin all the training which he was capable of receiving… When we hear it said that women will cease to be womanly if they enter professions or occasionally vote in parliamentary elections, we think that those who conjure up these terrors should try to understand women better, and should rid themselves of the habit of being frightened about nothing."14

The limits of this essay will not permit me to dwell at any great length on the important question under consideration. There cannot be a doubt that the tendency of the present age is to encourage women to choose careers and to accept burdens unfitted for them. In thus expressing myself, I distinctly deprecate any hostility to the woman's movement of the present day, which rests on the claim for women for an open career; and I should be glad to see our universities ignore the ancient and exploded prejudices, which led to the long subjection of women to hardship and inequality. They ask for the same facilities as are enjoyed by men, and they have amply shown that they can compete with men in intellectual pursuits, and all they ask is to be allowed to compete on equal terms. I therefore cordially welcome the gradual emancipation of women from comparative subjection to comparative freedom; but the multifarious fields of energy and usefulness open to modern women, have brought with them disadvantages as well as gains.

Whilst, therefore, unreservedly admitting the claims of the fin de siècle woman to freedom of action and to intellectual equality, I must think there are certain branches of study, described by a modern writer as belonging to the "gynagogue" class, which are less suited to women than some others; and amongst these, I would name the abstruse study of mathematics, for although success in this branch of knowledge may lead to a brilliant career as a high wrangler, I think that a female mathematical athlete is not suited for the duties and responsibilities of maternity, and that the mental endowments of her children are likely to be below the average.

I am quite aware that I am treading on dangerous and delicate ground, but although I would not discourage the highest aspirations of women, whether of an intellectual, social, or æsthetic character, I must think that a word of caution is necessary against the overpressure of the present day in the direction above indicated.15 With every desire to treat this question from a liberal point of view, I desire to emphasise the fact that men and women have different parts to play on the stage of life, and should be trained differently; but provided mental overpressure is guarded against, I have no fear of women engaging in certain occupations which custom has not hitherto recognised as feminine, and experience has shown us that they may be safely left to follow the promptings of their own powers and instincts.

Amongst the various other predispositions to idiocy, I would mention scrofula, which, according to Dr. Ireland, is the remote cause of two-thirds of all cases; phthisis and epilepsy in the parents are also potent factors in the development of idiocy in their offspring.

Before quitting the question of the cause of idiocy, I should like to say a word or two about what is technically called its histology and its pathological anatomy. What is there in the brain that makes one man a senior wrangler and another an idiot? What is it that unfits one person for the discharge of the ordinary duties of domestic and social life, and endows another with capacities adapted for a statesman, a mathematician, or a philosopher? Is it a defect in the quantity or in the quality of the nervous matter of the brain? Does it depend on a malformation of the cranium, on the size or shape of the head? does the form of a cranium illustrate the quality of the mind whose cerebral substratum it encloses, or can genius of a high order enshrine itself in a comparatively narrow and malconstructed tenement?16 Does mental capacity depend on the size or weight of the brain, or on the degree of complexity of the cerebral convolutions, or on their symmetry in each hemisphere?17 Upon this point, I am bound to tell you that science speaks with a somewhat uncertain sound, volumes having been written upon it without any definite solution or tangible result.

An eminent Italian psychologist, Dr. Mingazzini, in a recent work on the study of the cerebral convolutions, shows that in men of genius, the brain offers no certain indications of intellectual eminence, either by the greater richness of the frontal or the parietal lobes; and in support of this opinion he cites the researches of Wagner, which showed that, in the development and richness of the convolutions, the brains of many celebrated Gottingen professors were inferior to those belonging to individuals of low intellectual capacity.18

The average brain weight in man may be said to range from 40 to 52½ ounces, and in women from 35 to 37½ ounces; the question of the increase in size and weight of the brain, in proportion to intellectual power, is by no means determined; statistics exist of the weight of 23 eminent men, the list being headed by Cuvier, the naturalist, whose brain weighed 64½ ounces, whilst that of the orator, Gambetta, weighed only 39 ounces, being much below the average weight in the adult male; an imbecile died at the Montrose Asylum, whose brain weighed 63 ounces, and the heaviest brain on record, which weighed 67 ounces, was that of a bricklayer, who could neither read nor write; it must therefore be conceded that no definite statement can be made as to the relation that brain weight has to intelligence.19

It was formerly supposed that idiots always presented some obvious malformation of the cranium or skull. This is by no means necessarily the case; one of the most remarkable cases of idiocy that has come under my notice was that of a child with a well-formed head, remarkably handsome face, and a well-proportioned body.

Dr. Ireland says, "the principal anomalies met with in the skull of genetic idiots are flatness of the head behind, a rapid slope of the clivus, an osseous rim round the foramen magnum, unsymmetrical size of the cavities on each side, irregularities in the wings of the sphenoid, and differences in the size and shape of the jugular and other foramina; but these appearances are not constant, and often the skull is quite regular, both in structure and capacity."20

One of the most noted writers on the subject, after stating that a number of scientific men had spent thirty years in measuring and weighing the heads of idiots, sums up their conclusions as follows: —

1st. There is no constant relation between the development of the cranium and the degree of intelligence.

2nd. The dimensions of the anterior part of the cranium, and especially of the forehead, are, at least, as great among idiots as others.21

3rd. Three-fifths of idiots have larger heads than men of ordinary intelligence.

4th. There is no constant relation between the degree of intelligence and the weight of the brain.22

5th. Sometimes the brain of idiots presents no deviation in form, colour, and density from the normal standard; it is, in fact, perfectly normal.

After such a statement as this, I can readily imagine that some of you may say, it seems to us that you doctors really know but little about the genesis of idiocy. I am afraid this is, to some extent, true. We are only on the threshold of inquiry, and science of to-day is unable to bridge over the gulf that separates matter from mind.

Modern investigation, however, does not quite bear out the above sweeping statements in their integrity, although the most conflicting theories have been enunciated. Doubtless, attention has been too much concentrated on the gross morphology of the brain, without taking into account microscopical appearances. Dr. Shuttleworth, in giving the result of his long experience at the Royal Albert Asylum says, "We have occasionally found, when least expected, extraordinary defects in brain conformation;… microscopic examination will discover in many instances some abnormality of structure, such as the preponderance of simply formed braincells devoid of processes, denoting persistence of fœtal structures; or, on the other hand, degenerative changes resulting from inflammatory atrophy."23

Professor Luys, of Paris,24 gives the result of the examination of the brain of 14 idiots, the anomalies observed being want of symmetry in the frontal lobes, and partial atrophy of the cortical folds especially of the frontal convolutions.25

Quite recently, Dr. Andriessen, at a meeting of the Leeds and West Riding Medico-Chirurgical Society, exhibited specimens of the brains of epileptic idiots, which showed conditions of microgyria with atrophy and sclerosis of the convolutions.

In considering the pathology of idiocy, I think sufficient attention has not been given to the chemical constitution of the cerebral substance. The most extravagant notions were at one time prevalent as to the rôle played by phosphorus in the animal economy; the Dutch naturalist, Moleschott, maintaining that "without phosphorus there was no thought." A celebrated chemist, Couerbe, also considered phosphorus to be the exciting principle of the brain, and according to him, the brain of ordinary men contained 2½ per cent. of phosphorus, that of the idiot 1½, and that of the madman 4 to 4½; from these data he concluded, "that the absence of phosphorus in the brain reduced man to the condition of the brute; that a great excess of this element irritated the nervous system and plunged the individual into the frightful delirium which we call madness; and that a medium proportion re-established the equilibrium and produced the admirable harmony which is none else than the soul of the spiritualists."26 Professor Janet, in criticising the above theory, remarks that the brain of fishes, who do not pass for great thinkers, contains a large amount of phosphorus, also that the statistics of M. Lassaigne have shown that the brain of madmen does not contain more phosphorus than that of sane individuals.27

The late Bishop of Carlisle, in rebutting this phosphorus theory, remarks, "Why should we not go further and assert that there could be no thought without carbon or without any other element of which the human body is composed; for you can have no actual thought without a living creature, and no living creature without a body, and no body without carbon."28

I have treated the subject of the Chemistry of the Brain at considerable length in my treatise on "Aphasia and the Localisation of Articulate Language," to which book I would refer those who desire further information in reference to the connection between the amount of phosphorus and intellectual vigour.

MATTER AND MIND

"Quare frustra sudaverit, qui cœlestia religionis arcana nostræ rationi adaptare conabitur." Bacon, "De Augmentis Scientiarum."

I have already stated that the study of idiocy was of great interest to the theologian, for I can imagine no more powerful weapon for combating the materialistic tendencies of the day than is furnished by a consideration of the natural history of the idiot. This is neither the time nor the place for me to enter into the question of the mysterious connection between matter and mind, a subject which I have developed at some length in my published works.29 In my various public appeals on behalf of the Asylum for Idiots, I have also usually taken the opportunity of pointing out how the experience afforded by the study of idiocy is utterly opposed to the extravagant dogmas of the materialistic school, and to the crude notions which pseudo-science has engendered; and I have also shown how the results of idiot training furnish a forcible demonstration of the dualistic theory of mind and matter, upon which science reposed till the times of Spinosa, Laplace, Haeckel, Huxley, and others.

The pseudo-philosophers of our time have bewildered the public mind by the wild flights of their imagination; thought, the so-called spiritual attributes of man, are merely a function of brain protoplasm; the brain, say they, secretes thought, just as the liver secretes bile, or as oxygen and sulphur produce sulphuric acid, and all the varied phenomena of nature are nothing more than the molecular changes of matter; the operations of the mind are but the products of the caudate cells of the brain, and volition and consciousness are mere physical manifestations. They see only the physio-chemical side of nature, they utterly ignore any spiritual attribute in man, they regard metaphysics as a relic of mediæval superstition, and they assert that all mental operations are bodily functions, and simply the result of some molecular or atomic change in the brain; indeed, the German philosophers go so far as to say that life itself is only a "special and most complicated act of mechanics;"30 that there is no real distinction between living and dead matter, and that vitality is a metaphysical ghost (ein metaphysisches Gespenst).31

At the International Psychological Congress held in Paris, in 1878, at which it was my privilege to be present, Professor Mierzejewski, of St. Petersburg, laid before the congress the result of his elaborate experiments on the brains of idiots, his communication being illustrated by casts of the brains of idiots, and also of certain animals, and the learned Russian professor's conclusions strongly militated against the theories of the philosophers of whom I have been speaking.

In order to understand the great value and import of Dr. Mierzejewski's investigations, I must remind you that the human brain is composed of two kinds of nerve structure, of an essentially different nature, grey matter and white matter. Examined microscopically, the grey matter is found to be composed of cells, while the white matter consists of fibres; their function also is different, the former being regarded as the generator of nerve force, while the latter simply serves as the medium by which this force is transmitted. As the manifestation of the intellectual powers is supposed to be in some way connected with the development of the grey matter of the cerebral convolutions, one would expect to find in idiots a deficiency of this element of brain tissue.32 Dr. Mierzejewski maintained that this is by no means the case, and he mentioned an instance of an idiot in whose brain the surface of grey matter was enormous. So it would seem that there is no fixed relation between the amount of grey matter of the brain and intellectual power, for richness of grey substance and abundance of nerve cells may be accompanied by idiocy.

Now, as these startling statements of the Russian professor were not made in a hole and corner, but were enunciated in the presence of leading psychologists from all parts of the world, I felt myself justified in telling the materialists that they must be faced, and either answered or admitted as correct; and as my comments upon these experiments were subsequently published in a leading London periodical and widely circulated, I am now justified in assuming that the inferences I then drew from these remarkable experiments cannot be controverted, and that the time has not yet arrived when the broad distinctions between mind and matter are to be obliterated, and man reduced to a mere automaton, a creature of a blind necessity.

Without unduly exaggerating the importance of Dr. Mierzejewski's experiments, it must be admitted that very great interest attaches to them at this juncture, when attention is so widely directed to the mysterious connection between matter and mind. Unhappily, instead of solving the question, the Russian professor's researches tend to shroud it in a still deeper mystery, and show that what has been termed the "slippery force of thought – the vis vivida animæ" – cannot be weighed in the balance; and they fully justify the eloquent language of a recent writer when he says, "Far more transcendent than all the glories of the universe is the mind of man. Mind is indeed an enigma, the solution of which is apparently beyond the reach of this very mind, itself the problem, the demonstrator, the demonstration, and the demonstrants ."

Those who maintain that the brain is the organ of the mind, do not tell us what we are to understand by organ, brain, or mind; they seem to me to confound two things, the one with the other. In fact, they make no distinction between thought, mind, consciousness, and the instrument by which these attributes become externally manifested. It is true, we have no evidence to show that the mind can operate independently of the nervous system; on the contrary, all physiological data bearing upon the question of this mutual relation, go to prove that where there is no nervous system there are no mental manifestations. Moreover, as G.H. Lewes says, "It is the man, and not the brain, that thinks: it is the organism as a whole, and not one organ, that feels and acts."33

Every faculty manifests itself by means of matter, but it is important not to confound the faculty with the corporeal organ upon which the external manifestation of such faculty depends. The word organ is the name given to a part of the human frame by which we have sensation, and by means of which we do a certain act or work; such are the organs of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. All these organs are passive, and require to be operated on ab extra, precisely in the same way as the musical organ, which is an instrument constructed by man, requires man's interference for the production of musical sounds.

When a musician sits down to a piano, the music cannot be said to be in the instrument, but in the soul of the performer. If the instrument be in good order, the inspiration of a Thalberg or of a Liszt will become apparent; break the cords or otherwise damage the instrument, and nothing but discordant strains are produced, the musical faculty of the performer, however, remaining unaffected. We are all familiar with Plato's celebrated dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul, where a disputant with Socrates inquires if the soul is not like the harmony of a lyre, more beautiful, more divine than the lyre itself, but yet is nothing without the lyre, vanishing when this instrument is broken.

Let me further illustrate this point by an allusion to the electric telegraph, by means of which ideas and words are transmitted from mind to mind with a rapidity to which ordinary language cannot attain. Now, the electrical battery may be not inaptly compared to the brain, and the telegraph wires to the nerves which emanate from it. If the battery be out of order, or the telegraph wires be broken, this lightning language, by which mind speaks to mind, becomes impossible. In the same way, idiocy may be considered as a disease of the instrument rather than of the performer; the idiot's brain is damaged and has become an unfit instrument for the outward manifestation of the powers of the mind, but the lowest idiot possesses the germs of intellectual activity and moral responsibility; and within his malconstructed organism, there lies concealed in its fragile, fleshly casket, a precious jewel of immortality – an imperishable essence that is destined to live on for ever and for aye, through countless æons of time, when the dicta of these dreamers of whom I have been speaking, to use the language of one of them, "shall have melted away like streaks of morning cloud into the infinite azure of the past."

I repeat it, we must take care not to confound the organ with the person who possesses this organ: the eye is not that which sees, it is only the organ by which we see; the ear is not that which hears, it is only the organ by which we hear. Precisely in the same way and in the same sense, the brain is the organ of mind, the organ by which our mental faculties become externally manifested. That it cannot be otherwise is shewn by the results of memory. The brain is of a perishable nature, its atoms are constantly changing; the body is continually throwing off old particles and appropriating new ones, every breath that is drawn, and every exertion that is made, cause some minute change in the bodily frame-work, so that it is never entirely the same;34 there is no person, therefore, who has the same brain that he had 20 years ago; and the vivid impressions of the past are utterly inexplicable on the supposition that mental activity is a mere function of any perishable organ like the brain, but they necessitate the conclusion that mind and body, spirit and matter, are two entirely heterogeneous substances, and that mind – the concrete Ego– is independent of the material organ by which its external manifestation is alone possible.35

However tempting it might be, I feel I must not trespass any further by dwelling on the mysterious connection between matter and mind, a subject the complete comprehension of which is beyond the limits of our finite capacities. As Goethe philosophically remarks, "We are eternally in contact with problems. Man is an obscure being, he knows little of the world, and of himself least of all."

It would seem that the great Roman orator, nearly 2,000 years ago, with prescient eye, foresaw the attempts that would hereafter be made to pry into the hidden mysteries of Nature, when he said: —

"Latent ista omnia, Luculle, crassis occultata et circumfusa tenebris, ut nulla acies humani ingenii tanta sit, quæ penetrare in cœlum, terra intrare possit."

These lines of Cicero would seem to be peculiarly applicable to certain modern philosophers, who, in their attempts to bridge over the gulf – the impassable gulf – which separates matter from mind, persistently ignore the fact that there are certain things which, from their very nature, are beyond the pale of precise knowledge, and which cannot be determined by physical investigation – which, in fact, lie outside the sphere of man's intellect. I believe the question I am discussing is one of these, and that, although we may grope with the taper of science into the dark caverns whence seem to issue the springs of humanity, we shall probably fail to understand the mysterious connection between matter and mind, a theme essentially beyond the grasp of human intelligence, and which cannot be fathomed by the puny plummet of human thought or touch.

The study of the idiot is calculated to elucidate this overwhelmingly important subject, and I believe the Idiot Asylum is destined to become the arena and battlefield on which this great question will have to be fought out.

THE PNEUMA, OR SPIRITUAL ATTRIBUTE OF THE IDIOT

Ὁ δε νους εοικεν εγγινεθαι ουσια

τις ουσα, και ου φθειρεσθαι.

Aristot. De Anima, I. 4.

Inasmuch as the instrument by which the manifestation of mind is alone possible is undoubtedly damaged in idiots, they were formerly supposed not to belong to the human family, and their place in the order of creation was disputed. All admitted that they had the σωμα, or material part of our nature; they also conceded to them the ψυχη, or principle of animal life, but they considered that the πνευμα, or spirit of immortal life – that which essentially differentiates man from the brute – was absent in the idiot. This idea seemed to have been entertained by a great theologian of the 16th century, who, on being asked by a father what he was to do with his idiot boy, replied that the child might be drowned as he possessed no soul! Times are happily changed. We don't admit the lawfulness of drowning idiots in these days, but we teach them to swim against the adverse currents to which they are exposed; we buoy them up on the tempestuous waves of life; we pilot them through the rocks and shoals of their ill-starred career till their chequered race is run, and they are safely landed in the haven of everlasting rest.

Not only in the 16th century, but certain philosophers of a later date have questioned the idiot's place in creation, and have disputed his right to be classed among the human family; and some scientists – believers in the so-called doctrine of Evolution, as applied to the Descent of Man – have gone so far as to pretend that the brain of the microcephalic idiot is so far removed from the human type, as to constitute him a connecting link between man and the anthropoid apes! Now, the interesting results of our training institutions, showing the capacity for progressive improvement which exists in the idiot, gives the lie to this absurd and purely sensational hypothesis.