104 NATURAL HISTORY. 



of twenty-four,, to perfect hearing. The account 

 which is given in the memoirs of the Academy of 

 Sciences, 1703, page 18, is as follows : 



" A young man, of the town of Ciiartres, between 

 the age of twenty-three and twenty-four, the son of a 

 tradesman, and deaf and dumb from his birth, began 

 to speak all of a sudden, to the utter astonishment of 

 the whole town. He gave them to understand that, 

 about three or four months before, he had heard the 

 sound of the bells, and was greatly surprised at this 

 new and unknown sensation. After some time, a kind 

 of humour issued from his left ear, and he then heard 

 perfectly well with both. During these three months 

 he listened to every thing ; and without attempting to 

 gpeak aloud he accustomed himself to utter softly the 

 words spoken by others. He laboured hard also in 

 acquiring the pronunciation of words, and in learning 

 the ideas of which they are expressive. At length, 

 having supposed himself qualified to break silence, he 

 declared, that he could now speak, though as yet but 

 imperfectly. Soon after, some able divine questioned 

 him concerning his ideas of his past state ; and prin- 

 cipally with respect to God, his soul, the moral beauty 

 of virtue, and deformity of vice. The young man, 

 however, had not directed his solitary speculations in- 

 to that channel. He had gone to mass indeed w ith 

 his parents, had learned to sign himself with the cross 

 to kneel down, and to assume all the grimaces of a 

 man in the act of devotion. But he did all this with- 

 out any manner of knowledge of the intention or the 

 cause ; he saw others do the like, and that was e- 

 nough for him. He had formed no idea of deatli ; 

 but he led a life of pure animal instinct ; and though 

 entirely taken up with sensible objects, and such a* 



