1870.] On Idiocy. 53 



We present, as pev>ples, indications of defective vital force, which 

 are not witnessed amongst those human heings that live in a 

 state of nature. There must then be something rotten in some 

 parts of our boasted civilization ; and not only a something 

 which has to do with our psychology, but a great deal more 

 with our power of physical persistence. It is a fact that the type 

 of the perfect minded just above the highest idiots or the simpletons 

 is more distinguishable amongst the most civilized of the civilized, 

 than amongst those who are the so-called children of nature. Dolts, 

 boobies, and stupids, et hoc genus omne, abound in young Saxondom, 

 but their representatives are rare amongst the tribes that are slowly 

 disappearing before the white man. We notice a wild flower, and 

 observe that it flourishes in the woods, on the hill side, and down 

 in the valley; its growth is magnificent and the reproduction is 

 invariable. We transplant the flower into our gardens and care for 

 it, and year after year its beauties remain in perfection; but if, 

 in order to improve upon nature and to attempt to excite some 

 hidden powers of growth, the plant is removed to the green- 

 house and " cultivated," one system of vital phenomena invariably 

 extends to the detriment of another. The vegetative and the re- 

 productive systems are constantly antagonistic under the artificial 

 treatment. You select splendid flowerers and strain every function 

 to perpetuate the unusual inflorescence ; ' but what occurs in the 

 majority of cases ? The outside is splendid, but everything else is 

 sacrificed. You have outraged nature and have obtained the 

 homologue of an idiot in a highly civilized community. It is the 

 same with animals, and there is not much difficulty in "cultivating" 

 any of our domestic pets until the progeny becomes stupid and very 

 difficult to keep alive. Nature only cares for those organisms that 

 possess all their functions in perfection, and the struggle for 

 existence soon militates against those whose nutrition is defective 

 or hard to influence. It is clear that there are some vices and 

 defects in our civilization that are positively antagonistic to the 

 production of a population perfect in mind and body, and nega- 

 tively so also by evolving evil out of what is hardly otherwise than 

 normal in so-called savage nations. The marriage of close relations, 

 over-indulgence in food and spirituous liquors, continuous misery- 

 and moral degradation, hopeless poverty, over-work, agricultural 

 drudgery, everlasting hebetude from the general sameness of sur- 

 roundings, are amongst the proximate causes of congenital idiocy, 

 and of that kind which develops itself in healthy children some time 

 after birth, and which has similar phenomena. 



The production of insanity and the development of idiocy are 

 two different things, and it is one of the signs of the times that 

 idiots are being separated from lunatics. The public mind still 

 associates the two conditions, and the public purse is certainly well 



