THE 
MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
Wo: 408.} 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
Of the INFLUENCE of Harty ImpREsSIONS 
on the Future Cuaracter. By 
Tuomas Jarrotp, M.D.—Read before 
the Literary and Philosophical Society 
of Manchester. 
HE history of the human race is 
that of but one family. The Gre- 
cian, the Roman, and the Jew, in com- 
mon with all civilized nations, advanced 
by slow, and almost imperceptible steps, 
from the common barbarism of the 
world; till knowledge triumphed over 
ignorance, kindness over cruelty, and 
_ that which was coarse and contracted in 
sentiment, gave place to refinement and 
liberality. 
But, beyond the records of the histo- 
rian, beyond and apart from the origin 
of nations, there has lived a portion of 
our race :—I allude to individuals bred 
up in solitude; man, dwelling in the 
forest, and contending with the beasts 
‘for the means of subsistence. Peter the 
Wild Boy, the Savage of Avignon, that 
also of the Pyrenees, those of the Dis- 
mal Swamp in Virginia, and others, 
were of this description. That such 
have existed, is beyond controversy: 
the circumstances of their capture, and 
their subsequent history, is faithfully 
recorded ; and their sad narrative forces 
on the mind the unwelcome truth, that 
those individuals who grow up to man- 
hood, without intercourse with their 
species, are without reason—are idiots; 
not in the common acceptation of the 
term,—not from a deprivation of fa- 
culty, but from a want of its develop- 
ment. As man does not possess innate 
ideas, the knowledge he obtains must be 
through his senses,—it must be com- 
municated to him. But these forlorn 
beings knew no instructor: they never 
heard the human voice, rousing from its 
dormancy the reasoning faculty; they 
never saw their species, and, therefore, 
imitation, which so much assists others, 
has been denied to them ;—no caresses 
gave birth to their sympathies, no frown 
chid their misconduct. Man, thus 
‘destitute, is lost to his species; lost to 
himself: his reasoning faculties have 
not been early called into exercise, and 
now they are incapable. 
Peter was not more than twelve or 
Mostury Mac. No. 408, 
APRIL 1, 1825. 
| Price 2s. 
—as Dee 
fourteen years of age when he was cap- 
tured; but instruction could not break 
through the darkness that enveloped his 
understanding—his mind was a chaos, 
which defied the skill of the master :— 
though much caressed, he preferred the 
loneliness of the forest,—though gene- 
rously subsisted, he preferred the spon- 
taneous productions of nature ; his asso- 
ciates were beasts, and he sunk almost 
to their level; his body grew and ma- 
tured, but his mind was that of infancy. 
By this unexpected fact it appears, that 
the reasoning faculty is excited and 
dawns in the cradle, or is eclipsed for 
ever. Peter could not learn. The first 
impressions which were made on his 
savage mind fixed his character beyond 
the power of education to controul. 
Dr. Arbuthnot, under whose care Peter 
was placed by George the First, aban- 
doned his charge after a few months, 
from his inability to teach the boy to 
speak. He was afterwards placed with 
a farmer, who succeeded in teaching 
him to hum a few tunes. But, although 
he lived to be an old man, he never was 
a voluntary inmate,—the house was his 
prison, the wood his home, to which he 
escaped at every opportunity, and re- 
turned to the habits of his childhood, 
living on the bark of trees. Peter had 
not the appearance of an idiot, and the 
method which marked his conduct 
proves that he was not one. 
The other individuals bred, like him, 
in solitude, with some shades of diffe- 
rence, evinced the same inaptitude to 
receive instruction. The forest had 
been the scene of their first impressions; 
here they obtained a determination of 
character, which no subsequent influ- 
ence could counteract. 
By what mysterious circumstance 
these children lived, apart from society, 
it is difficult to conjecture. If aban- 
doned by their parents, children of three 
years old would never forget the habits 
of their species; and at an earlier age, it 
is not easy to discover by what means 
they subsisted. It has been supposed 
that an animal bereft of its young may 
have seized upon a child, and have nur- 
tured it,—But these are speculations 
foreign to my purpose;-—the conse. 
quences of solitude, rather than its cirs 
2C cumstances 
