in which the education of imbeciles is undertaken with a care and industry which might be worthy of a better cause. It is doubtless true that most imbeciles are susceptible to some influences, are amenable to some discipline, and can, to some extent, be improved. We have just had occasion to refer to the fact that in many cases a more severe penalty inflicted upon such persons would have the effect of putting some notion of duty into even an empty head; but, on the whole, we cannot say that, so far as our observations go, the result of these educational efforts has been altogether satisfactory. The educational improvement of which imbeciles are capable, and that is almost all the education which can be bestowed, does not improve, but tends only to make the imbecile more mischievous and troublesome. Their extra training seems only to teach them how more cunningly to perpetrate their vicious acts. It rather tends to make them more vicious. The reason of this is obvious. The education cannot be carried far enough to establish in the individual any good principles of morals. So, while the intellect has slightly improved, the moral nature is still undeveloped. Only one course of conduct could result from this. It is a question, therefore, whether much education, as it is ordinarily understood in institutions for idiots and imbeciles, should be resorted to. There has been a somewhat absurd social hunger for education. Those national appetites come in very various forms. In Australia there have been land hungers. People bought land without any reason for so doing. It was as absurd as the tulipomania. So it is we have been hungering for education (54) without considering whether it is good or bad. We have often been content if we could make men half clever, instead of attempting to make them even a little wise. We have devoted ourselves to the culivation of the intellect, while we have neglected all moral training. However that may be, and depend upon it, if it is so, we will have to suffer for it in the scourge (of scorpions) which our criminals and lunatics are to this country-still it is true that this extraordinary desire for the education of all has had its influence even upon our large idiot asylums; and possibly the munificence by which these are supported has been to some extent due to annual exhibitions of the results of education upon imbeciles. Old people are amused by toys. If they see a monkey do what a man does they laugh. The feeling which appreciates satire in them is gratified. So it is with idiots' improvement: there is pleasure derived in this way which is tempered by a feeling of somewhat loathing sympathy with the poor children, which is not altogether disagreeable. In this way the question of improvability has been fairly tried, and in a large class with the result that has been above indicated. In that small class of imbeciles who are only intellectually weak, and who are capable of moral improvement, education might be had recourse to with advantage, but certainly without hope of rendering the individual a useful member of society. 877. The Limits of Effective Punishment of Imbeciles. As we have seen above, punishment may in certain cases have a beneficial result. Imbeciles can, if the imbecility under which they labor is not of the worst type, be broken of many of their degraded propensities by timely punishment, and a certain amount of moral understanding is undoubtedly instilled into them by such penalties when they are certain and immediate. But it is well to be cautious in drawing inferences from this fact as to the legal responsibilities of such classes of imbeciles. These punishments have this salutary effect, because they follow certainly and immediately upon the offence for which they are inflicted; but most of the penalties which the law can put in force against offenders are too remote in point of time to have any influence upon the actions or conduct of the imbecile. It requires some mental power to be able sufficiently to comprehend the relation between a crime and its punishment by law. Owing to this circumstance, less reliance ought to be placed on the fact that rewards and punishments are found to be efficacious in a household, or in an institution where imbeciles are assembled, at least when any inference would be drawn from it with reference to the responsibility of the imbecile for his or her criminal acts. The constant presence of a nurse or governess who has threatened the punishment is a very different, and more prominent and powerful motive to a weak mind than a statute-book threat made by something of which it knows and sees nothing, except its representative to the common people, a policeman. 278. Mono-imbecility considered. We have said that there is a close analogy between the forms of partial mania and the forms of partial imbecility, which may be observed. Just as one faculty may be deranged, so may one faculty be defective and dwarfed. We have noted several instances of this. There are innumerable varieties in the relative development of faculties in the sane. One man has a memory for faces, and cannot remember names. One man has peculiar aptitude for observing forms, while another has the nicest discrimination of colors. And as we find these differences in in what we call health, so we might expect similar differences in relation to what we call disease. To these we have, as we think we were warranted in doing, applied the name of monoimbecilities. In this connection, however, it is more important to note cases in which, instead of one faculty being defective, the majority of the mental powers are thus dwarfed and stunted. 55 In many cases, we find a singular power of reproducing musical sounds. We have ourselves seen an idiot girl who could not speak, but who could remember and repeat any music she had once heard. She sung some musichall tunes in our presence. It seemed strange, but natural. Concerning the various degrees of capacity and education, very little requires to be said. Some imbeciles can read, write, and count, some can even, it is said, attain to one accomplishment. But they never do profit in the same way from their opportunities that their sane neighbors do. This is what was to be expected. We have heard it said that there was an indication of some injustice in the parable of the lord who left his servants money with which they were to trade during his absence. It will be remembered that the man who had received five talents made five, and the man who had two made two. The man who made two from two evidently did better than he who made five from five, and yet the man who had made the five got the one of him who buried his talent, besides his five. So it is with sane men and imbeciles. The powers of acquisition of the latter are limited by the very small amount of capital they start with. while merely a proportionate progress upon the part of the sane man, to that made by the imbecile, would scarcely be any progress at all. 79. Characteristics of Imbecility.-Many imbeciles know the value of money, and are capable of bearing testimony in certain cases, but are usually unable to carry on a connected conversation for any length of time. In most cases, they are incapable of any excellent emotion; and if they do become attached, are usually very fickle. They are restless and uneasy in their manners, and somewhat incapable, in most instances, of reasoning with reference to the future from the facts supplied by the experience of the past. The greatest number of imbeciles are found amongst the lower orders of society, just as more maniacs are found amongst the better educated. Imbecility is the disease of the dark ages, mania of those which are enlightened by civilization. There is the most marked difference observable in the wards of different lunatic asylums as to noise and excitement. In those which contain the patients which have been drawn from the great country districts of England, the lunatics are mostly stupid and stolid, while in those which contain patients from great centres of industry, there is usually much noise and excitement. 80. Imbecility and Vice. It is well known that the word "innocent" is in the old English an equivalent of imbecile. Thus, in "All's Well that ends Well," we find Parolles saying: "He was whipped for getting the Shrieve's fool with child, a dumb innocent who could not say him nay." But as Dr. Bucknill points out, these imbeciles, although innocent of producing their own defects-and that is what cannot be predicated of all insane persons, as we have already seen in considering the causes of insanity-they cannot be looked upon as innocent in the sense of not sinning, or of not developing most mischievous and evil propensities. We shall see that many crimes have been committed by imbeciles and idiots, and very many indeed become thoroughly [50] vicious. It is wonderful how little mind will do to be wicked with. Many of them are drunken, and most are lazy. Temptations of the most trivial kind have with some of them an omnipotent influence; and motives which would not attract the attention of a sane man, not unfrequently govern their conduct. Any one who knows anything of the ordinary criminal courts of this country must know how many of those imbeciles are constantly being accused of crimes; of theft, assault, rape, arson, murder. And it must have struck any one whose attention has been called to the subject of mental unsoundness, how closely persons belonging to the ordinary criminal class approach to imbeciles in general appearance, in manners, in conduct, and in such manifestations of intelligence as they may have an opportunity of displaying. And yet this is surely no good ground for exempting the former from punishment, or for subjecting the latter to it, seeing that a reasonable and clear distinction can be drawn between these two classes, as we have seen in another part of this work. 2 81. Classifications of Imbecility.-Hoffbauer' has made elaborate and almost useless distinctions between what he terms stupidity (dummheit) and imbecility (blödsinn), and goes still further, and divides the former into three different degrees, and the latter into five. There is some ingenuity displayed in his effort, but much ingenuity in this world is thrown away. Georget has some interesting remarks upon this subject, which have been quoted by many recent writers. Dr. Howe, who is certainly an authority on this subject, has made the following classification: "Idiots of the lowest class are mere organisms- masses of flesh and bone in human shape-in which the brain and nervous system have no command over the system of voluntary muscles, and which consequently are without power of locomotion, without speech, without any manifestation of intellectual or affective faculties. Fools are a higher class of idiots, in whom the brain and nervous system are so far developed as to give partial command of the voluntary muscles; who have, consequently, considerable power of locomotion and animal action, partial development of the intellectual and affective faculties, but 1.66 Diepsychologie in ihren hauptanwendungen auf die rechtspflege," §§ 26-46. |