170 



KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



What happens to individuals with respect to 

 theft, murder, and incendiarism, likewise takes 

 place in other individuals, with respect to any- 

 other organ endowed with an extraordinary 

 degree of activity. The quality dependent on 

 this organ, then, acts in them mechanically at 

 each impulse, without any reflection, and t with very 

 little consciousness. We have seen that the 

 savage simpleton of Aveyron, had the singular pro- 

 pensity of putting everything exactly in its place. 

 Since we saw this savage, we have known a young 

 man whom his parents were very unwilling to re- 

 gard as simple, because, besides some intellectual 

 faculties which he manifests, he has " order" re- 

 markably developed. He is, however, simple in 

 many respects. M. Pinel speaks of an idiot woman, 

 who had a decided irresistible propensity to imitate 

 all that she saw done in her presence : she re- 

 peats, instinctively, whatever she hears, and imi- 

 tates the gestures and actions of others, with the 

 greatest fidelity, and without troubling herself 

 with any regard to propriety. " We remark," says 

 Fodere, "that by an inexplicable singularity, 

 several of this class of individuals possessed of such 

 feeble intellect, are born with a peculiar talent for 

 copying, drawing, for finding rhymes, and for 

 music. I have known several who have learned, by 

 hemselves, to play tolerably on the organ and the 

 harpsichord; and others who understand, without 

 having been taught, how to repair clocks, and to 

 make some pieces of mechanism. This, probably, 

 depends on the more perfect organisation of the 

 organ with which such an act is connected, and 

 not on the understanding ; for these individuals 

 not only could not read the books which treated of 

 the principles of their art, but they were con- 

 founded if spoken to on the subject, and never im- 

 proved themselves." We knew ayoung girl, idiotic 

 to a great degree, who sings with great propriety, 

 and always follows the tone and the measure. 



These examples prove that the talents in 

 question may exist separately ; that a particular 

 propensity or talent results from the peculiar 

 activity of an organ, and that there may exist 

 great activity in one organ, while, in regard to 

 other organs, there is actual imbecility. 



For the rest, this state having various degrees, 

 we cannot affirm that, for beings so badly 

 organised, all means of correction will always be 

 fruitless. Lavater, however, regards these indi- 

 viduals as incorrigible, and it is in the front that 

 he places the signs of their incorrigibleness. 

 "The short foreheads," says he, "wrinkled, 

 knotty, irregular, deep on one side, slanting, or 

 that always incline different ways, will never be a 

 recommendation to me, and will never gain my 

 friendship. While your brother, your friend, oryour 

 enemy; while man, though that man were a 

 malefactor, presents you a well-proportioned and 

 open forehead, — do not despair of him ; he is still 

 susceptible of amendment." It will be seen that 

 Lavater had noticed the phenomena which I have 

 described, and of which I have cited numerous 

 examples. My doctrine alone gives their true 

 solutions. It would be impossible to explain 

 partial and incomplete imbecility, did we not 

 recognise the fact that the different properties of 

 the soul and mind have each their different organs, 

 and that the manifestation of these properties 

 depends on the organisation. 



Though these partially-imbecile individuals are 

 not moral beings, nor consequently, punishable, 

 the care of watching them no less pertains to the 

 police; and it is indispensable to separate from, 

 social commerce, all kinds of weak-minded persons 

 in whom strong indications of evil dispositions are 

 perceived. 



Application of my Principles to illegal Actions, 

 which are the consequence of Mental Alienation. 



Mental alienation is either general, when the 

 functions of all the faculties of soul and mind are 

 disturbed, — or partial, when this derangement 

 takes place only in one or several of the organs. 

 Mental alienation, whether general or partial, may 

 be either continued or intermittent. 



General alienation, when continued or perma- 

 nent, manifests itself in a manner so evident, that 

 there is no /t room for imistake l as.*itoi,its"'' existence. 

 We thus run no risk of regarding the actions 

 committed in this state as done with moral liberty, 

 and, consequently, of rendering their authors 

 responsible. 



It is only to', this species of alienation that the 

 definition given by Locke belongs, who says that 

 madness consists in a derangement of the judg- 

 ment and the reason. Other writers call mental 

 alienation, — the state in which one is not con- 

 scious of his own actions. But this definition 

 is evidently false ; for, — this absence of self-con- 

 sciousness cannot be proved in any species of 

 mental alienation. If it be said that the indi- 

 vidual, when restored to sanity, has no recollection 

 of his late madness, — I answer, first, that this 

 failure of memory is not uniform ; and, secondly, 

 that this, want, of recollection does notsprove that 

 consciousness does not exist at the moment of 

 alienation. I make it a point to rectify these 

 defective or erroneous notions, because they lead 

 us to pass false judgments on several actions. 

 They suppose the culpability of actions, which, 

 when examined with more attention, ought only 

 to be regarded as the consequences of real 

 alienation. 



But if I say that there is mental alienation, 

 when the*ideas or sensations, either, generally or 

 partially, are at variance with the laws of the 

 functions of a regular organisation, and with the 

 actual state of external things, this definition 

 applies to all species of alienation ; and while it 

 indicates that the individual imagines things 

 which are not, or represents things to himself 

 differently .from what they are, it justifies the 

 use of the expressions, mental aberration and 

 alienation. 



I have already said that general permanent 

 alienation cannot be mistaken. But the case is 

 very different when general alienation is periodical, 

 and when the paroxysms, after having ceased 

 entirely, recur, either at irregular periods, or 

 after a fixed interval ; or when it is limited to 

 certain qualities in particular, especially when 

 this partial alienation completely disappears from 

 time to time, and recurs, sometimes periodically, 

 sometimes irregularly. Several moral qualities 

 or intellectual faculties experience some derange- 

 ment during the paroxysm of partial alienation ; 

 and in this, as well as in the general intermittent 

 alienation, the lucid intervals manifest no trace of 

 aberration. Neither is partial alienation always 



