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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVI. No. 39; 



has been in perfect harmony with their environment are 

 here compared to a few individuals differentiated from their 

 kind by some abnormal variation, the abnormal factor in 

 the case rarely of a fixed character. If the editor of the 

 Naturalist can find among his blind species individuals 

 possessing sight, or, in the depths of which he speaks, batra- 

 chians with the power of hearing, he will then present us a 

 parallel case with deaf people in a hearing world. To affirm 

 the possibility of a deaf race in a world of sound by the ex- 

 istence of blind and deaf species where there is neither light 

 nor sound, is not the sort of evidence that our men of 

 science are wont to rest upon in the verification of their 

 theories. 



The second witness. Professor Alpheus Hyatt, in present- 

 ing his evidence, begins with a cautious "if." He readily 

 indorses the theory, on the ground, apparently, that all 

 characteristics tend to become inherited. He nowhere de- 

 fines what he means by a characteristic, and the question 

 naturally arises whether he regards the ante-natal lesion of 

 the auditory nerve or the rupture of the eai'-drum as pecul- 

 iarities to be transmitted. One may as well talk of a one- 

 armed man transmitting his defect as to speak of many of 

 those who are deaf transmitting theirs. This writer evi- 

 dently does not realize that we are still in the dark as to 

 what the physical causes of deafness are. Of adventitious 

 deafness the causes are innumerable, but the whole field of 

 ante-natal deafness has been comparatively neglected. 

 Whether the few cases noted of apparently hereditary deaf- 

 ness are due to some malformatien of the hearing-organs, or 

 whether they are the result of a vitiated diathesis predispos- 

 ing to deafness, is a question not yet decided. We have 

 sufficient evidence, from the reports to the British House of 

 Commons and from other sources, to prove that scrofula is 

 directly responsible for a large proportion of the cases of 

 deafness. 



Dr. H. P. Bowditch, the third authority quoted in this 

 scientific symposium, has very little to say, except to assure 

 his correspondent that he is " perfectly right " in his theory, 

 and, in closing, to compliment him on striking a note of 

 "warning of the danger which attends the purely philan- 

 thropic method of dealing with social problems." Just what 

 the author of this opinion means by his last remark, it would 

 be interesting to know. But if we may be permitted to in- 

 terpret this implied censure, it is that the philanthropy which 

 has done so much for the education of,, the deaf; which has 

 made it possible for them to own farms, 'to be editors, 

 lawyers, and teachers, to be factory-men, shoemakers, and 

 carpenters; which fits them, indeed, to exercise all the rights 

 of men and of citizens, — is also in some way responsible for 

 what these people do after leaving school. Philanthropy 

 really finishes its work with the education of the deaf, and 

 then leaves them where the students of other schools are left. 

 But it so happens that these people are social beings, that 

 they are endowed with all those instincts which lie at the 

 basis of our common life; and they often marry among their 

 kind, living in happiness and peace, finding in each other's 

 society some compensation for the loneliness of their lot; 

 and for this, too, that abstract thing philanthropy is held 

 responsible. Those concerned in the education of the deaf 

 are no more accountable for the matrimonial alliances of 

 their pupils than the professors of a university are for the 



marriages of the students who come under their tuition. The 

 social problems, whether among the deaf or the hearing, are 

 often grave enough, but surely not of a character to justify 

 the covert charge to which this writer has given expression. 

 The deaf married before special schools were organized, and 

 they marry under the system which has the special advocacy 

 of the author of "Facts and Opinions." Twenty per cent of 

 the deaf between twenty and eighty years of age in Germany 

 are married. That misfortunes of a special kind sometimes 

 come upon the offspring of the deaf is not to be questioned. 

 Every step forward in civilization develops some new evil. 

 Education produces forgers and counterfeiters. Knowledge 

 of chemistry has put into the hands of the criminal classes 

 terrible forces of destruction. A long indictment against the 

 arts and improvements of modern life could easily be made. 

 Not one of them is an unmixed good. The dependent and 

 delinquent classes in the last census numbered 400,000 per- 

 sons. If we add to this the death-rate of all under five years 

 of age, it will be seen that if people are to be deterred from 

 marrying by the possible ills, moral and physical, which 

 may fall upon their offspring, the race would soon become 

 extinct. 



The fourth authority in the testimony quoted. Professor 

 William H. Brewer, is worthy of notice as giving the num- 

 ber of generations necessary to fix a new variety. "Five 

 generations of sires and four of dams is a common rule." 

 But in " Facts and Opinions" (p. 103) we find that a deaf- 

 mute of the fifth generation marries a deaf woman, genera- 

 tion unknown, and the five children of this union all hear 

 and speak. Another interesting fact which shows the diffi- 

 culty of predicating heredity is given by a former principal 

 of the Pennsylvania Institution for Deaf-Mutes: A deaf 

 man from a family of five deaf children married a deaf 

 woman from a family of three deaf children, and the seven 

 children resulting from this marriage are free from the afflic- 

 tion of their parents. As long as facts of this character are 

 to be found in great number, it is not to be wondered at that 

 those who mingle freely among the deaf refuse to assent to 

 the extreme statement of the case as found in "Facts and 

 Opinions " and other published addresses. While Professor 

 Brewer tries to prove the probability of the evolution of a 

 deaf variety, he insists upon "fixity in the distinctive char- 

 acter," — an indefinite phrase, which may mean a dozen 

 things, — and admits that if dgafness is not transmitted to 

 the offspring as a rule, then the special points are but indi- 

 vidual peculiarities. This admission is fatal to his theory, 

 for the probability of transmitting a like anatomical defect 

 is so remote as to remove the question to the domain of the 

 doctrine of chances. 



It is with considerable hesitation that one ventures to say 

 any thing of the honored name which holds the next place 

 in this symposium. Professor Simon Newcomb is a man 

 of most varied learning and acquirements, a distinguished 

 astronomer, an eminent physicist, a writer on political 

 economy, an estimable man ; and it is a matter of consider- 

 able surprise, that, with the resources of the Washington 

 College within easy access, he has permitted himself to in- 

 dorse the theory upon the ex parte statement of the case 

 presented to him. It is true that the writer simply presents 

 an hypothetical case; but there are hypotheses so reasonable 

 as to carry in their statement every presumption of truth. 



