whether the trout in much-fished rivers and lakes do or do not exhibit
increased “wariness,” or even “intelligent caution” in avoiding the
flies so cunningly thrown before or above them by the skilful angler. It
is argued that there cannot really be any increased indisposition of
trout to take the fly based on experience, because on an estimate of the
number of trout in a river like the Test, and of the limited number of
anglers, every fisherman would have to hook and lose some thousands of
fish every year for the experience to be general among trout that the
horrid artificial flies “hide a still more horrid hook.” It is, of
course, held that the trout cannot communicate their experiences to one
another by any form of conversation (though leadership and imitative
habit might have some effect), and it is also not suggested that a trout
which had acquired an overpowering aversion to the angler’s fly as a
result of being hooked and breaking free, could transmit that aversion
to its offspring by the mere fact of reproduction. Hence it is
maintained that there is no such increasing “wariness” in English and
Scotch trout. It is a curious thing that in discussing this matter the
fundamental principle should have been overlooked by which Darwin and
Wallace have long ago explained to the satisfaction of naturalists, the
aversions and cautious proceedings of all kinds of animals, from the
smallest insects up to birds, beasts, and fishes. The principle of
natural selection and survival of the fittest accounts for the increased
caution of trout in well-fished rivers in the simplest way. Assume (as
is perfectly reasonable) that some trout are more shy than others “by
nature,” that is to say, are born so, that some are born with a slightly
more rapid response to the sight of food than others—as one sees often
enough with a lot of the young of any animal—then the increased shyness
or pretended “intelligence” of the trout after many years’ fishing
follows as a necessity. The rash fish are caught and destroyed, the shy
fish remain in the river, and—here is the important point, a
well-ascertained fundamental law of heredity—propagate their like. They
produce shy fish. Every year this selection goes on till you get a race
of fish in the well-fished river which are so shy that they cease to
rise at all! This unpleasant result is avoided by the proprietors of
trout streams to a certain extent by introducing a race of trout which
has not in consequence of over-fishing developed an innate shyness of
character (such as the Loch Leven and some others) to mix and breed with
the timid over-fished race.
It is in the same way that the human population of country villages,
most sad to see, is every year rendered less intelligent than it was a
hundred years ago. All the enterprising, intelligent young men and
maidens are “fished” away, drawn by baits and hooks to the great towns;
only the dull and relatively incapable are left in the village to marry
and produce a new generation. The village population necessarily becomes
made up of a dull stock—incapable, as appears from official reports, of
being educated beyond a very low stage. In some districts 70 per cent.
of the children are thus unintelligent, though not unhealthy or
imbecile. It is possible that the want of home-training and example in
very early childhood is to some extent a cause of the dullness of
village children. And so it goes on, generation after generation, as
facilities for leaving the village increase and inducements to stay or
return decrease. The 30 per cent. of the new generation who have any
“wits” leave the village, never to return. And no one re-stocks the
village. That must be taken in hand soon.
XXIX
THE FEEBLE-MINDED
A considerable proportion of the young which are produced as a new
generation of either plants or animals are not merely unlike their
parents in some small particulars of colour, proportion, activity, and
so on, but are, as compared with the normal or usual standard of the
species, “defective”; that is to say, they are wanting in some organ or
part, as though maimed, or by some cause restricted or reduced in regard
to that part. This occurs in human beings, and in domesticated animals
more obviously than in wild animals and plants, for two reasons:
firstly, because in wild conditions the defective young die off very
early in the struggle for existence and so escape human observation;
whereas man protects his own “defective” young, and often, also, those
of domesticated animals, so that they are allowed to “grow up” more or
less; secondly, such defective structure appearing at birth, and
therefore called “congenital,” is carried on by heredity, more or less
completely, should the defective animal or plant be allowed to breed.
Such breeding of defective individuals is prevented in wild nature by
their early destruction; their defects cause their early death by
unfitting them for the competition and struggle which are in natural
conditions rigidly severe. Only a few survive among the many thousands
of each species born into conditions of limited food and
space—conditions which are not sufficient to support more than a very
small number so as to enable them to reach the adult or breeding stage
of life. But man, on the contrary, protects his own young, and often
those of his domesticated animals and plants, from this destructive
competition, and thus allows those which are to a certain extent
defective to breed.
The official returns of the Registrar-General record every year a
proportion of deaths of infants which are entered as due to “congenital
defects.” These defects are of many and various kinds. A frequent
“congenital defect” is one which does not necessarily cause death,
namely, the imperfection of the wonderfully elaborate organ of sight,
rendering it useless. Children often are born blind, and so are a
certain proportion of each species of animal normally provided with
eyes—dogs, horses, cattle, birds, fish. Even insects, lobsters, and
crabs are in quite considerable and definite number born blind. The
inborn or congenital defects of the eyes which result in blindness are
of several kinds. The whole of the eyeball or eye-structure may be
atrophied, that is to say, dwindled and incomplete, or one essential
part only may be defective, and the rest quite well-formed; or, again,
the nerves connecting the eye with the brain or the several parts of the
brain concerned in the function of sight may, one or more of them, be
defective. Wild animals born in this condition must perish, except when
they happen to be born in caverns or in the deep sea. Then they are no
worse off than animals with “good” eyes. But the animals with good eyes,
or even with only somewhat defective eyes, will follow up the gleams of
light which in moving about they have the fortune to encounter, and so
will escape from the cavern or dark depths of the sea, leaving behind in
the dark only those with defective eyes. These will breed together, and
perpetuate their defective eyes in a more and more marked degree in
successive generations. Always those which can see, or see only a
little, will leave the dark place, and so at last there will be a race
of animals established in such places with defective eyes (as in the
ocean, at a depth of two thousand fathoms, and in the great caves of
Europe, and notably in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, U.S.A.), and often
the eyes will altogether disappear. This, however, is a digression.
The cause of congenital defect in eyes is not obvious. The failure of
the germinal substance of the reproductive egg or particle detached from
parents with sound eyes, to unfold itself—to develop—into a creature
with sound eyes like those of its parents, is apparently due, in some
instances, to one cause, and in other instances to other causes, of none
of which can it be said that we have a satisfactory and comprehensive
knowledge. The same want of full knowledge exists in regard to the
causation of other congenital defects. These are as numerous and varied
as the parts of the body which may be from birth onwards, in one
instance or another, distorted, devoid of some essential inner
structure, swollen to great size, or shrunken, or even absent
altogether. Such defects are sometimes caused by mechanical pressure or
nipping in early stages of growth before birth, but there are many which
cannot be accounted for in that way. The wonder really is not that the
inconceivably complex structure of higher animals should sometimes fail,
in this or that part, to develop in due course from the simple-looking
germ, destitute of visible structure, but that it should, on the
contrary, so regularly and completely come off successfully in millions
of instances every day. We can imagine or suggest disturbing agencies
which may be the causes of failure, but it is very difficult to
demonstrate with certainty the causes which have been at work in each
and every case.
One result of failure of the germ to “grow up” into the perfect likeness
of its parents is that it may “throw back,” as the breeders say, and
resemble in this or that quality a remote, even an extremely remote,
ancestor. It is suggested by some inquirers that the congenital or
inborn defect, frequent in human beings, which is called
“feeble-mindedness” is a reversion or throw-back to the condition of the
brain in the animal ancestors of man. That is possible, and, in view of
some cases, seems probable. But it must be noted that we do not know
what are the causes which favour throwing-back, or “atavism,” as it is
called, in regard to all sorts of structures, and that the mechanical
conditions connected with the growth of the cavity of the skull in which
the brain itself grows are so very elaborate that it is obvious that a
very slight disturbance of one element or another might arrest or turn
aside the growth of that vastly complex organ, which has become so much
larger and more delicate in man than in the animals from which he has,
at no remote period in the history of life on the earth, taken his
origin.
Mankind have always within the period of written records (a mere trifle
in the lapse of time since man became man) regarded mental defect and
aberration as due to fantastic causes. To this day we use the word
“lunatic” for one of the two typical forms of mental aberration: we
imply that the moon is concerned in its production. The other form of
brain-failure has appropriated the term “idiot,” which, it is surprising
to find, was less than two centuries ago applied in common speech to any
person who was characterised by independence of judgment. The term
“softy” is a common and really more suitable term for this class, whilst
“cracked” is the word applied to a lunatic. The notion that mental
aberration is due to “possession” by evil spirits, which can be expelled
and the patient accordingly cured, was prevalent a century ago, and the
belief is common at the present day (though quite erroneous) that people
“go mad” in virtue of some immaterial and unaccountable influence, and
may therefore “go sane” again. The lunacy laws and the laws relating to
the care of the feeble-minded in this country are admitted to be tainted
with ignorance and misconception, and both are in process of correction
by the Government of the day.
The approved professional terms used in distinguishing the varieties of
“the mind diseased” are not accepted with much favour by the public, and
it is unnecessary to introduce them here. The important fact is that
persons of diseased mind may be separated into two groups—(_a_) the
idiots or softies, and (_b_) the lunatics or cracked people. The idiotic
group are those with a defective amount or quality of brain substance
(whether the skull itself is small or abnormally distended by “water on
the brain”), and are more or less incapable of being educated. They are
often subject to epileptic fits, and are usually weakly in build, though
they sometimes have great muscular strength. The “feeble-minded,” of
whom so much has lately been written, owing to the recent report of a
Government Commission, belong to this group. They are distinguished from
the more marked section of idiots in that they are not absolutely devoid
of some intelligence, and are capable, under proper supervision, of some
degree of self-control. Some of them even can take part in industrial
operations, though they require constant direction when so employed, and
are never, even in the least serious cases, susceptible of mental
development beyond a strangely and abruptly limited degree. Contrasted
with the idiots are the lunatics; they often are gifted with the highest
receptivity, and frequently are men or women of the highest education
and intellect, normal in every feature of body and mind except that
their mental machinery works in a defective, “mad” way as to one or more
subjects—often only as to one subject or class of subjects. They
exhibit in different individuals a vast variety of illusions and
propensities which may be merely unreasonable or may be dangerous to
themselves and to others.
It seems that the idiotic and feeble-minded are devoid of, or defective
in, general mental receptivity, although in regard to a few things they
may have retentive but unintelligent memory. Even the less afflicted
among them are incapable of “thinking” at all, because their defective
memory or receptivity gives them nothing to think about. On the other
hand, the lunatic exhibits the ordinary receptivity of a healthy human
being, but thinks wrongly or absurdly upon one or a few lines, though
normally and soundly upon every other.
The State in civilised countries has long since made provision for the
proper medical care and restraint of lunatics and of the extreme cases
of the other class, the idiots. But by an oversight in this country,
which the gravedigger in _Hamlet_ would consider very natural, the less
extreme cases of idiocy—the so-called feeble-minded—have been left
without State guardianship. It is a fact that these cases occur both in
the wealthiest and the poorest class of the community, though they are
put away under medical care by well-to-do families, and are left by the
very poor to wander about and get into terrible mischief. Hence there
has grown up a belief that feeble-minded offspring are more frequently
produced by mentally sound parents who are very poor than by those who
are rich or well-to-do, though there are not facts or figures which
establish that conclusion. It has further been maintained that this
supposed large proportional rate of production of feeble-minded among
the poorest, ill-fed, ill-housed, and vicious dregs of the community is
due to the action of defective nutrition, alcoholism, and lack of fresh
air and healthy occupation upon the parents, and that a deterioration of
the reproductive material, a twist, as it were, of the inner substance
of the stock or breed in the direction of feeble-mindedness, has been
thus established.
In reply to this somewhat hasty but at first sight plausible conclusion,
we maintain (1) that the definite defect called feeble-mindedness is as
common in well-nourished, well-to-do families as in the poorest; (2)
that it is not proved that lack of food and good air can act upon the
germs contained in a parental animal, so as to alter it in such a way
that the brain of offspring begotten by that parent will not develop in
normal structure and proportion; and, moreover, that “it has not been
shown” (that is the important clause of the statement) that defective
food and air can so alter the germs in a parent as to cause other
deformation or structural defect in the young which grow from those
germs. It is, on the other hand, true that such defect of food and air
may cause the death of the parent, or may directly cause the death of
the young, if the young are subjected to such defective conditions of
life. It is necessary to point out, in reply to those who hold the
starvation theory, of feeble-mindedness that it is capable of being
handed on by hereditary transmission once it has appeared, and that in
the most wretched groups of the population, both in cities and in
country villages, the feeble-minded are not taken in charge by any
authority, but leave their parents and shift for themselves, and, owing
to their weakness, accompanied by unrestrained animal desires, they
become, in an irregular way and at a very early age, themselves the
parents of feeble-minded children. Thus feeble-mindedness is increased
in the poorest class, but not in that of the rich. The facts ascertained
are too horrible and painful for citation here. The recent Commission
has made it clear that it is absolutely necessary for the State to
interfere and prevent this terrible increase of helpless imbeciles.
There are eighty-four schools in London for the education of children
who are not included under the extreme terms idiots or imbeciles, but
are “feeble-minded and defective.” They are attended by 6000 children,
of whom about two-thirds learn some useful manual work, whilst the rest
are hopeless, and require permanent custodial care—which at present is
not to be had by those whose parents cannot pay for it—but will, there
is every reason to hope, soon be provided for them by the State. In its
absence they constitute a real and ghastly danger to the community,
since some of them are certain to propagate their kind, and not only
will thus add to the existing large body of imbeciles, but perpetuate
the taint of feeble-mindedness in the race.
It is an interesting question as to whether there is a definite gap—a
difference of kind between these poor, defective children and the
markedly stupid boys and girls of some village schools. I am inclined to
believe that there is. The one group does not pass by a gradual series
into the other. It has been stated that in some remote country districts
of England only one-third of the school children can be taught more than
the merest elements of writing, reading, and arithmetic; the majority
are immovably dull, only the minority are as bright as ordinary London
children. But even the dull village children get so far as to master the
elements of learning, and probably their brains are not structurally
defective, but only inactive for the time being. They may hereafter
become village Hampdens. It certainly does seem to be the fact that the
villages are continually deprived of the more intelligent members of
their population by the attractions of the big towns, and that only the
duller portion stay to breed in the village like the blind animals in a
cave. But dullness is not identical with feeble-mindedness.
It is maintained that even in towns the multiplication of the
hard-working, cautious, and capable section of the community is at a
standstill. Its members seek comfort, intellectual exercise, and
self-culture; they refuse to deprive themselves of these things, which
cost money, and to spend that money on bringing up large families. On
the other hand, the far more numerous “working-class” has no such
ambition as a rule, and no anxiety as to what is to become of its
offspring, however numerous. The more children the larger are the
earnings of the family, and all in turn shift for themselves at an early
age. The rates pay for such education as they require, and their parents
have no desire to push them up the social ladder; but food, lodging, and
clothes cost money. The working-man who desires to read, see things for
himself, and be more than an animated cog on a wheel, cannot afford to
have children and transmit to them that modicum of intelligence above
the average which distinguishes him from his fellows, and demands for
its cultivation the money with which he might keep a large family.
Consequently the population is more and more largely replenished by the
unenterprising poor and the unenterprising rich; the group which is
enterprising and capable, and directs the work and thought of the
civilised world, is, by the very qualities which make the increase of
its strain desirable, debarred from contributing its fair proportion to
the increase of the population. Is it possible for the community, by any
system or by legislation, to overcome or evade this unfortunate
tendency?
The neglect by both the local and central government to provide any
supervision of feeble-minded children has had a special result of a
strange and unhappy description. Let me hasten to say that now that we
have secured by recent legislation the vitally important medical
inspection of children in connection with Board schools, and the
registration and official inspection of feeble-minded children which
will surely be made compulsory before another year has passed, the
danger of which I am about to speak will very shortly no longer exist.
It is this. Feeble-minded children (whose condition falls short of that
of actual idiocy) are almost impossible to manage as members of an
ordinary family or household. Their condition is often not properly
recognised; their parents or guardians find them to be obstinate,
unteachable, and dirty. Often, when the family is poor, they are, under
these circumstances, “boarded out” for a very small payment, or even
taken charge of, out of charity. None of the persons concerned in these
transactions know that they are dealing with a hopelessly unteachable
child, born with this defective brain. They find scolding has no effect
in guiding the child, mild chastisement fails, and the poor ignorant
foster-parent (sometimes even the child’s own mother) becomes
exasperated and determined to subdue what seems to be mere obstinacy and
indifference. The awful demon of cruelty is let loose. What seems at
first a virtuous determination to control and regulate the child’s
behaviour for its own good leads to the infliction upon it of blows of
savage violence, then to the less dangerous but revolting attempt to
enforce obedience by the pain caused by a burn, and to starvation as a
final instrument of discipline. A very large number of the cases of
cruelty to children and adolescents which from time to time are brought
into the law courts have their origin in the fact that the victim was
“feeble-minded,” and that the guardian found guilty of cruelty did not
(any more than do the judge and jury) understand or, indeed, know
anything at all about such a condition. Often the feeble-mindedness
itself has been attributed to the cruel treatment of the child, whereas
the latter really was set going by the former. To a large extent the
community is to blame for allowing “feeble-minded” children to be
boarded out except in proper medical institutions, guaranteed and
inspected by State authority. It is the same story as that which was
once common enough in regard to “lunatics,” but has now been put an end
to by the law. The boarding-out of children, whether healthy or
weak-minded, should in all cases be illegal, except under proper
official sanction and guarantee. It is not only for the sake of the
children that this provision is necessary. It is certain that foolish
people have been led, in the absence of all restraint and interference
by public authority, to undertake without evil intention the care of
discarded children, and have been led on by the hopeless dullness and
obstinacy of a child with defective brain into cruel treatment of it;
and when in some cases the child has died as the natural consequence of
its congenital feebleness, the miserable guardians have been found
guilty of causing its death. Though little excuse can be made for such
miscreants, it is greatly to be desired that the law should step in at
an earlier period, and both ensure proper care for the feeble-minded
child and remove from unqualified guardians the chance of developing
from a state of mere ignorance into one of criminal responsibility.