Idiocy

“ Let us see how far these opportunities meet the want, and what becomes of those idiots and imbeciles for whom no distinct provision is made. Unfortunately, the statistics of idiocy are very imperfect, partly owing to the reluctance of their relatives to acknowledge such a defect in the family, and partly from there being no distinction made in the annual Report of the Lunacy Commissioners between idiots and lunatics. ”

“ The term “Reverie,” then, will imply the varied conditions of that faculty, which phrenology terms concentrativeness; the extremes of which mark the idiot and the sage.
Idiocy is the most abject and imperfect condition of the waking mind, resembling closely the first disposition to slumber, the sensation of doziness. The creature will commit the most absurd acts, and utter the most ridiculous or profane expressions, without the redeeming apology of being engaged in abstract thought or abstruse calculation. ”

“ I have already stated that the study of idiocy was of great interest to the theologian, for I can imagine no more powerful weapon for combating the materialistic tendencies of the day than is furnished by a consideration of the natural history of the idiot. ”

“ In the few remarks that I shall make, I hope to show you that the study of idiocy is fraught with interest, not only to the man of science and the philanthropist, but to the political economist, the statesman, and the theologian. ”

“ Brief, as he read them off, “you can’t go back on any of ’em, can you?”
“No,” said the Bibliomaniac; “that’s the great trouble with the Idiot. Even with all his idiocy he is not always a perfect idiot.” ”

“ Idiocy, for any thing I know, may, in that vast kingdom, enjoy a natural precedency; scrofula and leprosy may have some mystic privilege in a coffin; and the pariahs of the upper earth may form the aristocracy of the dead. That the idiots, real or reputed, were at rest,—that their warfare was accomplished,—might, if a man happened to know enough, be interpreted as a glorious festival. The sisters were seen no more upon staircases or in bed rooms, and deadly silence had succeeded to the sound of continual uproars. Memorials of them were none surviving on earth. ”

“ The Fool, crack-brained and simple, is the blending of idiocy and shrewdness sometimes known as 'an innocent.' Edgar, Gloucester's good son, cast out by his shortsighted father, feigns madness for the sake of disguise. ”

“ They are close to idiocy: both states drop the lower jaw and open the mouth; and assuming the idiotic physique tends, if there be any sympathetic and imitative power, to bring on the idiotic state. If we stare and wonder too long at such questions, we may make ourselves idiots,—never philosophers. ”

“ In fact, the development of idiocy, whether congenital or otherwise, is in most instances to be attributed to an hereditary morbid vice, and it is one of the most common and striking forms of the degeneration of the human species. ”

“ I have an accurate eye and steady hand."
"But how will you explain the sudden change that has turned you from an idiot to a sane man? People will want to know why you pretended to be an idiot. You will be severely punished for the ruse. Oh, my friend, all that makes me tremble."
"After I am married I shall tell you my reasons for my long comedy. As to my transformation from idiocy to sanity, that is to be the subject of a miracle. The thought struck me this morning while I followed your mistress and the Queen to the hermitage of St. Eusebius. ”

“ An idiocy resulting from what must have seemed a causeless and demoniac conspiracy would be more likely to melt away under the sudden transfer to kindness and the gayety of forest life than any idiocy belonging to original organic imbecility. ”

“ Ye shall close yourselves to truth, ye shall live in your own conceits, and your own conceits shall make fools and idiots of you, would be a statement applicable to not a few, and to not a few who pride themselves upon their superior intellectual attainments. Idiocy is arrested mental growth. Closing one's self for whatever reason to truth and hence to growth, brings a certain type of idiocy, though it may not be called by this name. ”

“ Certainly there is more excuse for innocent idiocy and moronesia than there is for the sophisticated bigotry of these fair folk who, in the secret recesses of their inner consciousness, lay claim to membership in the Intelligentsia. ”

“ In the same way, idiocy may be considered as a disease of the instrument rather than of the performer; the idiot's brain is damaged and has become an unfit instrument for the outward manifestation of the powers of the mind, but the lowest idiot possesses the germs of intellectual activity and moral responsibility ”

“ If it be asked what possible connection there can be between theology and idiocy, I would say, that if time permitted, I could show that the study of the nature and attributes of the [ 15] idiot has a striking bearing on the much-disputed question of the connection between matter and mind, and also that it points to a conclusion directly opposed to the materialistic tendencies of the day. ”

“ At first two kinds of insanity only seem to have been recognized by English law—idiocy and lunacy: the idiot who, from his nativity, by a perpetual infirmity is non compos, and the lunatic, who hath some-times his understanding, and sometimes not, aliquando gaudet lucidis intervallis, and therefore is non compos mentis, so long as he hath not understanding. ”

“ When there is a total, or nearly total, eclipse of the intellect, the disease is called idiocy, the state of an idiot. When there is an abnormally low grade of the reasoning power, it is styled imbecility. The failure or decay of reason in old age is called dotage.
The second kind of insanity is called illusional or delusional. In it the intellect is not impotent; on the contrary, it is often unusually active; but its action is abnormal, its conclusions are false. Not that it reasons illogically or draws conclusions which are not contained in the premises. Very keen logicians may be demented. ”

“ Suffice it to say that as the cause is always antecedent to any personal history of the child, idiocy is never dependent on the idiot himself, who has never become so through any vices of his own; he being in many instances the feeble expression of parental defects, and sometimes of parental vices, and is therefore more an object for commiseration than certain lunatics, who, in many instances, have become so through faults of their own. ”

“ They are, moreover, exceedingly grateful material for the (so-called) ‘comprehensives,’ for whom nothing is ever obscure. ‘Comprehensives’ always explain everything. The greater the idiocy, the more involved, the richer in import, the more exhaustive is its interpretation, and the greater the arrogance with which these beings of ‘perfect comprehension’ look down upon the barbarian, who stoutly refuses to see in fustian anything but fustian. ”

“ The imagination, the noblest manifestation of intellect, may, without judgment, be allowed to run riot, or abused by its exaltation; and with the faculty of wonder may lead to superstition, fanaticism and folly. The intellectual faculties may be altogether weak or almost wanting. In such cases we have foolishness merging into idiocy.
The examples here given of use, as opposed to neglect, misuse, or abuse, are simply illustrative of the point in question. ”

“ The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age. ”

“ All the country-side will crowd to see them make fools of themselves. Then, when they've muddled themselves into a state of semi-idiocy, they'll come and beg us--as a favour--to do what they wouldn't let us do at any price if we were to propose it now. ”

“ In their report the commissioners say that, "by diligent and careful inquiries in nearly one hundred towns in different parts of the state, we have ascertained the existence and examined the condition of five hundred and seventy-five human beings who are condemned to hopeless idiocy, who are considered and treated as idiots by their neighbors, and left to their own brutishness. They are also idiotic in a legal sense ”

“ Moore," cried Bessie, sternly, and the poet diplomatically allowed her interruption to finish his remark.
"Men are so foolish," observed the girl, knitting her brows in sad contemplation of masculine idiocy. "Really it is quite saddening when one considers their stupidity." ”

“ There were always girls in the school of varying degrees of intelligence, from absolute stupidity to brilliancy, but the report at the end of the term was so fashioned that the father and mother of the idiot were not offended, and the idiocy was so handled that it appeared to have some advantages. ”

“ But in the languid brain of an idiot excitement may even produce rationality.
Samuel Tuke tells us of a domestic servant, who lapsed into a state of complete idiocy. Some time after, she fell into typhus fever, and as this progressed, there was a real development of mental power. At that stage when delirium lighted up the minds of others, she was rational, because the excitement merely brought up the nervous energy to its proper point. As the fever abated, however, she sunk into her idiot apathy, and thus continued until she died. ”

“ Work among the feeble-minded, a philanthropic movement directed first toward the idiot, soon found a limit in dealing with a subject not trainable and but slightly if at all improvable. Thence, diverging and broadening as idiocy became better understood and imbecility in various phases became recognized, it found its true province in strengthening and encouraging feeble intellects, arousing and stimulating indolent and weak wills, and in training and directing into healthful channels the abnormal energy of those destitute of the moral sense. ”

“ He mounted a flat slab of granite, and, taking off his hat, bowed and waved it, as he had seen old Tramplara salute distinguished and wealthy visitors to Ophir. Imitation is strong in the savage and in the idiot. By the help of this faculty the social world gets on without jars, for there are savages and idiots in all ranks of life, and the deeper their savagery and their idiocy the more pronounced is the development of their imitative powers. They copy the manners of those around them, simulate their breeding and virtues, and so disguise their nature and pass muster. ”

“ He seemed to consider himself briefed by his Creator to turn into ridicule the opinions of those who disagreed with him, and to attribute dishonesty, idiocy, or a base motive to every one who supported a better case than he. ”

“ The first idiot that attracted the attention of scientific men was looked upon as a savage man, and every treatise on the subject contains some allusion to the so-called savage of the Aveyron, who excited so much curiosity, speculation, and interest among the psychologists of Paris in the early part of the present century.
In old books on medical nomenclature idiocy was classed amongst the varieties of insanity, and the visitor to a lunatic asylum half a century ago, would find the idiot skulking in the corner of a courtyard chained to a staple, and lying on a litter of straw ”

“ The benefits to be derived in apparently hopeless cases of idiocy, from the systematic and persevering use of all the modern adjuvants and appliances now available for treatment, are now so universally recognised, that it would be superfluous to dwell further on this point. ”

“ O Voltaire! O humanity! O idiocy! There is something ticklish in "the truth," and in the SEARCH for the truth; and if man goes about it too humanely—"il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien"—I wager he finds nothing! ”

“ In fact it will be found that a large proportion of the proverbial sayings which we glibly use are fallacies based on a very limited experience of the world, and probably were set afloat by the idiocy or prejudice of one person. ”

“ In order, therefore, to obtain a fair parallel, we should require a human being whose mental powers have become arrested in their development at an early age, while the bodily powers have continued to develop to mature age, so serving to supply the aborted human intelligence with full experiences of life. Now, the nearest approach that we have to these conditions is to be found in the case of idiots. Accordingly, in anticipation of this lecture, I have sent a table of questions to all the leading authorities on idiocy, and the answers which I have obtained display a very substantial agreement. ”

“ Wallace and his father added theirs, and there was soon a reaction in favour of Menie, much stronger than the original imputation. Every one believed her innocent; and the marriage, which took place a short time after, confirmed all.
THE PROFESSOR'S TALES. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF IDIOTS.
The very foundation of idiocy is peculiarity; whatever this unfortunate class may want, they do not want those features by which they are distinguishable from the ordinary ranks of mankind. ”

“ Be a —— to others and then all will go well.
The mind's the —— of the man.
Every man has at times in his mind the —— of what he should be, but is not.
IDIOCY (page 207) . QUESTIONS.
1. What is idiocy? 2. What is imbecility? How does it compare with idiocy? 3. How does insanity differ from idiocy or imbecility? 4. How do folly and foolishness compare with idiocy? 5. What is fatuity? stupidity?
EXAMPLES.
Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis —— to be wise. ”

“ All the hideousness of the eternal idiot, all the filthiness of vice and its stupidities, all the spasms and deformities of baptized flesh, all the tears of penitence, all the laughter of license; the mania, the cupidity, the craft, the lust, the fraud, the imbecility, the silent desperation, the sacred choruses, the howls of the possessed, the shouts of the ambulatory vendors, the clanging of the bells, the squeal of the trumpets, the lowing, the neighing, the bleating ”