i64 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



To such ct posteriori evidence* Mr. Romanes opposes 

 certain assertions respecting "the psychological status 

 of wholly uneducated deaf-mutes," in spite of the fact 

 that each such mute "inherits a human brain, the struc- 

 ture of which has been elaborated by the speech of his 

 ancestors," and "is also surrounded by a society the 

 whole structure of whose ideation is dependent upon 

 speech." Such mutes, he tells us, f " grow up in a state 

 of intellectual isolation, which is almost as complete as 

 that of any of the lower animals." But, in the first 

 place, their state is an abnormal one, and therefore they 

 might (according to what we laid down in our intro- 

 ductory remarks) be expected to seem to fall even below 

 the condition of animals in a normal state. Secondly, we 

 cannot draw valid conclusions as to the essential nature 

 of our intellect from human beings who are avowedly 

 mentally deficient, and every deaf-mute must be so, either 

 essentially or accidentally. It would be obviously as 

 absurd to judge of the nature of the human rational 

 faculty from an absolute idiot, as it would be to study 

 the power of flight in a bird the wings of which had 

 been cut. 



But let us accept Mr. Romanes's instances as valid, 

 without further protest, and see whether they " can 

 never rise to any ideas of higher abstraction than those 

 which the logic of feelings supplies." He cites % the 

 Rev. S. Smith as telling him of a deaf-mute who 



forms of aphasia coexisting with a complete power of thinking, 

 and sometimes even of manifesting thoughts by appropriate 

 gestures, have been observed and recorded. 



* As to some of which, see above, pp. 138-146. 



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