CASE OF LAURA BRIDGMAN. . 317 



prettily; is docile; has a quick sense of propriety; dresses herself with 

 great neatness, and is always correct in her deportment. No definite 

 course of instruction could be marked out ; for her inquisitiveness was 

 so great, that she was very much disconcerted if any question, which 

 occurred to her, was deferred until the lesson was over. It was deemed 

 best to gratify her, if her inquiry had any bearing on the lesson ; and 

 often she led her teacher far away from the objects with which he com- 

 menced. With regard to the sense of touch it is very acute, even for 

 a blind person. It is shown remarkably in the readiness with which 

 she distinguishes persons. There were, a few years ago, forty inmates 

 in the female wing, with all of whom she was acquainted. Whenever 

 she is walking through the passage-way, she perceives by the jar of the 

 floor, or the agitation of the air, that some one is near her, and it is 

 exceedingly difficult to pass her without being recognized. Her arms 

 are stretched out, and the instant she grasps a hand, a sleeve, or even 

 part of the dress, she knows the person, and lets him pass on with some 

 sign of recognition. 



The details concerning this interesting being, and her gradual pro- 

 gress in moral and intellectual culture, can be learned from the annual 

 reports of the Institution, which Dr. Howe so ably superintends. 1 



How strongly do these cases demonstrate the independence of the 

 organ of intellect ; requiring, indeed, the external senses for its perfect 

 developement, but still capable of manifesting itself without the presence 

 of many, and probably of any, of them; and how inaptly, although 

 humanely, does the law regard such beings! "A person," says Black- 

 stone, 2 "born deaf, dumb, and blind, is looked upon by the law as in 

 the same state with an idiot, he being supposed incapable of any under- 

 standing, as wanting all those senses which furnish the human mind 

 with ideas." But if he grow deaf, dumb, and blind, not being born so, 

 he is deemed non compos mentis, and the same rules apply to him as to 

 other persons supposed to be lunatics. With regard to the deaf and 

 dumb, they are properly held to be competent as witnesses, provided 

 they evince sufficient understanding, and to be liable to punishment for 

 a breach of the criminal laws. 



M. Cabanis 3 embraces the views of Condillac regarding the external 

 senses ; but thinks, that impressions from these are insufficient to con- 

 stitute the materiel of the mental and moral manifestations. In con- 

 firmation of this opinion, he observes, that the young infant, and animals 

 at the very moment of birth, frequently afford evidences of complicated 

 acts originating in the nervous centres; and yet the external senses 

 can have been but little impressed. How can we, he asks, refer to the 

 operation of the external senses the motions of the foetus in utero, 

 which are perceptible to the mother, for the latter half of utero-gesta- 

 tion; or the act of sucking executed from the first day of existence? 

 Can we refer to this cause the fact of the chick, as soon as it is hatched, 

 pecking the gr^in that has to nourish it ? or the one, so frequently 



1 Annual Reports of the Trustees of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum 

 for the Blind to the .Corporation, for the years 1837, et seq. 



2 Commentaries on the Laws of England, i. 304. 



3 Rapport du Physique et du Moral, edit. cit. 



