the obstetric aspect of idiocy, and I would refer those who take an
interest in this subject to the valuable statistics of Dr. Langdon
Down, which contain the result of his inquiries into the history of
2,000 cases of idiocy that have come under his observation; from which
it would seem that primogeniture plays an important part, as no less
than 24 per cent. of all the idiot children observed were primiparous.
The increased difficulty of parturition seemed to be an important
factor. In reference to the use of the forceps in delivery as an
assigned cause of idiocy, Dr. Down says, "there is no evidence that
instrumental interference has any injurious influence on the mental
condition of the children, but he thinks that those who delay the use
of the forceps incur a much greater risk from the prolongation of
pressure, resulting in suspended animation, which condition should be
especially avoided. Of Dr. Down's 2,000 cases, the ratio of males to
females was 2·1 to 0·9. This was probably due to the larger size of
the head giving rise to the prolonged and difficult parturition,
continued pressure, and suspended animation."--_Obstetrical Journal_,
vol. iv., p. 681.
[22] Dr. Hammond, Professor of Diseases of the Nervous System at
Bellevue College, New York, has published some interesting statistics
in reference to the relative weight of the brain, as compared with
that of the body, in various classes of vertebrate animals, by which
he shows that there is no definite relation between the intelligence
of animals and the absolute or relative size of the brain. Thus, he
says, "the canary bird and the Arctic sparrow have brains
proportionately larger than those of any other known animals,
including man, and yet no one will contend that these animals stand at
the top of the scale of mental development. Man, who certainly stands
at the head of the class of mammals, and of all other animals, so far
as mind is concerned, rarely has a brain more than one-fiftieth the
weight of the body, a proportion which is much greater in several
other mammals, and is, as we have seen, exceeded by many of the
smaller birds."
[23] Clinical Lecture on Idiocy, p. 14.
[24] L'Encéphale, March 1881, p. 82.
[25] At a meeting of the Medico-Psychological Society of Paris, my
friend M. Auguste Voisin exhibited plates of the brains of idiots who
had only begun to speak at the age of from three to five years, in
which the frontal and first parietal convolutions were rectilinear
without secondary folds, resembling the fœtal condition of the
convolutions at the sixth month of intra-uterine life.
[26] The imagination of certain psychologists seems to have gone
rampant upon this subject; one writer, M. Moreau, of Tours, maintained
that genius was a nervous disease--"le génie est une névrose"; and in
order that there may be no mistake about his meaning, he adds that
"the constitution of many men of genius is in reality the same as that
of idiots!" M. Moreau's doctrine may thus be summarised in his own
words--"Les dispositions d'esprit qui font qu'un homme se distingue
des autres hommes par l'originalité de ses pensées et de ses
conceptions, par son excentricité on l'énergie de ses facultés
affectives, par la transcendance de ses facultés intellectuelles,
prennent leur source dans les mêmes conditions organiques que les
divers troubles moraux, dont _la folie et l'idiotie_ sont l'expression
la plus complète."
[27] Le Cerveau et la Pensée, par Paul Janet Membre de l'Institut.
Paris, 1867, p. 58. This learned treatise contains an immense deal of
information in reference to the mysterious connection between matter
and mind, and I have found it of great service to me in my
psychological researches.
[28] "Nineteenth Century," March, 1880, p. 509.
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.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] "Darwinism Tested by Language," Rivington, 1877; "Aphasia or Loss
of Speech, and the Localisation of the Faculty of Language," 2nd
edition, Churchills, 1890. The reader is referred to these treatises,
and especially to his work on Darwinism, for a fuller exposition of
the author's views, here only incidentally sketched; and also for a
more complete knowledge of the scientific facts and different
authorities quoted in support of the position here taken in reference
to the connection between Matter and Mind.
[30] "Das Leben ist nur ein besonderer, und zwar der complicirteste
Act der Mechanik; ein Theil der Gesammtmaterie tritt von Zeit zu Zeit
aus dem gewöhnlichen Gange ihrer Bewegungen heraus in besondre
organisch-chemische Verbindungen, und nachdem er eine Zeit
lang darin verharrt hat, kehrt er weider zu den allgemeinen
Bewegungsverhältnissen zurück."--
_Gesammte Abhandlungen zu wissenschaftlicher Medicin_ s. 25.
[31] One of the leaders of scientific thought in this country tells us
that "Life is composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only in
the manner in which its atoms are aggregated," and it has been gravely
stated that the production of man in the chemist's retort may be
recorded as one of the future discoveries of the age!
A clever French writer, commenting on these purely hypothetical
statements of the "mechanistic school," makes the following
appropriate remarks--
_"Quand on nous dit que l'organisme des êtres vivants n'est qu'un
laboratoire où tout se passe en combinaisons et en compositions des
éléments matériels primitifs, on oublie que ce laboratoire est habité
par un hôte intime, le principe vital qui ne fait qu'un avec les
éléments en fusion. Ici la combinaison chimique ne se fait pas toute
seule; elle s'opère sous l'action d'une cause qui en transforme les
éléments de façon à en faire un produit d ordre nouveau qui s'appelle
la vie."--"La Vie et la Matière," par E. Vacherot, Revue des Deux
Mondes,"_ 1878.
[32] In an original and very remarkable essay, entitled "The Brain not
the Sole Organ of the Mind," Dr. Hammond, of New York, says, "There is
no exception to the law that mental development is in direct
proportion to the amount of grey matter entering into the composition
of the nervous system of any animal of any kind whatever; and that in
estimating mental power, we should be influenced by the absolute and
relative quantity of _grey nerve tissue_, in which respect we shall
find man stands pre-eminent, although, as we have already seen, his
brain, _as a whole_, is relatively much smaller than that of many
other animals; and it is to this preponderance of grey matter that Man
owes the great mental development which places him so far above all
other living beings. As this grey tissue is not confined to the brain,
but a large proportion of it is found in the ganglia of the
sympathetic and some other nerves, and as an amount second only to
that of the brain in quantity--and, indeed, in some animals larger--is
present as an integral constituent of the spinal cord, Dr. Hammond
infers, and he cites numerous experiments in support of this
inference, that mental power must be conceded to the spinal cord, and
that the brain can no longer be considered as the sole organ of the
mind."
[33] "The Physical Basis of Mind." Page 441.
[34] The late Bishop of Carlisle illustrates the independence of the
Ego, by an allusion to moral feelings. "A murderer," he says, "is
convicted twenty years after the offence had been committed, or he
gives himself up after so many years, because his memory and his
conscience make his life miserable. He has no doubt as to the fact
that the person who did the deed of darkness years ago, is the same
person as he who feels the pangs of remorse to-day. Every material
particle in his body may have changed since then, but there is a
continuity in his spiritual being out of which he cannot be argued,
even if any ingenious sophist should attempt the task."--_Nineteenth
Century_, March, 1880, p. 510.
[35] To those who may wish to pursue this subject further, I recommend
a perusal of an essay on "Materialistic Physiology," in the _Journal
of Psychological Medicine_ for April, 1877. In this article, the
writer, Dr. Winn, seems to share my views as to the paramount
importance of boldly facing this matter, when he says--
"The unphilosophical and extravagant dogma, that matter can think, is
now so loudly and confidently asserted, and so widely spread by a
numerous class of medical men and physiologists, both in this country
and abroad, that the time has arrived when a doctrine so fallacious,
and so fraught with danger to the best interests of society, should be
fairly and carefully scrutinised. It is not by mere assertion, or the
use of obscure and pedantic language, that such a theory can be
established; and if it can be shown that the arguments on which it is
based are shallow and speculative, words can scarcely be found too
strong to censure the recklessness and folly of those who promulgate
views so subversive of all morality and religion.
"The physicists have utterly failed to establish their position. They
were asked to prove by inductive reasoning the truth of their theory,
that the universe is the mere outcome of molecular force, and their
defence has been clearly proved to be of the most evasive and
inconclusive character.
"The doctrines of the modern school of materialistic physiology are
permeating all classes of society, and it is these doctrines, based on
the assumption that mind is a mere function of the brain--an
assumption that, if true, would reduce man to the level of the beasts
that perish--that we are offered as a substitute for the belief in the
immateriality of the mind."
The essay from which the above quotations are taken is full of sound
and logical reasoning, and the writer's position is not supported by
mere _theoretical statements_, but by arguments drawn from
_well-accredited facts_ in anatomy and physiology.
THE PNEUMA, OR SPIRITUAL ATTRIBUTE OF THE IDIOT.
Ὁ δε νους εοικεν εγγινεσθαι 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.