2 26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the more recently developed, faculties should be the first to disappear, 

 while those faculties which man shares with the lower animals should 

 be the most persistent. And this expectation I have found to be fairly 

 well realized. Beginning from below, the first dawn of intelhgeiice in 

 the ascending scale of idiots, as in the ascending scale of animals, is 

 invariably to be found in the power of associating simple concrete ideas. 

 Thus, there are very few idiots so destitute of intelligence that the 

 appearance of food does not arouse in their minds the idea of eating ; 

 and, as we ascend in the scale idiotic, we find the principle of associa- 

 tion progressively extending its influence, so that the mind is able, not 

 only to establish a greater and greater number of special associations, 

 but also to retain these associations with an ever-increasing power of 

 memory. In the case of the higher idiots, as in the case of the higher 

 animals, it is surprising in how considerable a degree the faculty of 

 special association is developed, notwithstanding the dwarfed condition 

 of all the higher faculties. Thus, for instance, it is not a difficult mat- 

 ter to teach a clever idiot to play dominos, in the same way as a clever 

 dog has been taught to play dominos, viz., by teaching special asso- 

 ciations between the optical appearances of the facets which the game 

 requires to be brought together. But the idiot may be quite as unable 

 as the dog to play at any game which involves the understanding of a 

 simple rationale, such, for instance, as draughts. And, similarlj', many 

 of the higher idiots have been taught to recognize, by special associa- 

 tion, the time on a watch ; but it is remarkable that the high power of 

 forming special associations which this fact implies occvirs in the same 

 minds which are unable to perform so simple a calculation as this : If it 

 is ten minutes to three, how many minutes is it past two? Thus it 

 will be seen that among idiots, as among animals, the faculty of form- 

 ing special associations between concrete ideas attains a comparatively 

 high degree of development. Let us then next turn to the faculties of 

 abstraction and reason. Prepared as I was to expect these faculties to 

 be the most deficient, I have been greatly surprised at the degree in 

 which they are so. As regards the power of forming abstract ideas 

 which depend on the logic of signs, it is only among the very highest 

 class of idiots that any such power is apparent at all ; and even here 

 it is astonishing in how very small a degree this power is exhibited. 

 There seems, for instance, to be an almost total absence of the idea of 

 right and wrong as such ; so that the faculty of conscience, properly 

 so called, can rarely be said to be present. Most of the higher idiots, 

 indeed, experience a feeling of remorse on offending the sympathies of 

 those whom they love, just as did mj'^ dog on tearing the window-cur- 

 tains ; but I have been able to obtain very little evidence of any true 

 idiot whose action is prompted by any idea of right and wrong in the 

 abstract, or as apart from the idea of approbation and disapprobation 

 of those whose good feeling he values. 



Again, the faculty of reason is dwarfed to the utmost — so much so. 



