which ingenious men have noticed and recorded. In the Transactions of the Royal Society at Edinburgh (vol. vii., pt. 1) is a Memoir communicated by Dugald Stewart, which gives an account of James Mitchell, a boy born deaf and blind. The history of this lad, who laboured under the uncommon affliction of this double deprivation, illustrates and confirms all that has been above stated. He made what use he could of the only senses which he possessed, those of touch, taste, and smell, and gained from them a number of ideas. It was a proof of the diligence with which he employed the limited means which were given him, that he had, by the sense of touch, thoroughly explored the ground in the neighbourhood of the house where he lived, for hundreds of yards. But deprived of sight, of hearing, and of intercourse by speech, it was very evident to those who observed him, as might be expected, that his knowledge was in amount exceedingly small. He was destitute of those perceptions which are appropriate to the particular senses of which he was deprived; and also of many other notions of an internal origin, which would undoubtedly have arisen if the powers of the mind had previously been rendered fully operative by means of those assistances which it usually receives from the bodily organs.-Such instances as these, however they may at first appear, are extremely important. They furnish us with an appeal, not to mere speculations, but to fact. And it is only by checking undue speculation, and by recurring to facts, that our progress in this science will become sure, rapid, and delightful.*

§ 42. Illustration from the case of Caspar Hauser.

There is a recent instance, perhaps more decisive than has ever before occurred, and as melancholy as it is deeply interesting. We refer to the case of Caspar Hauser. It appears, from all that can be gathered on the subject, that this unfortunate lad was from infancy confined in a

*The statements concerning the young man of Chartres are particularly examined in Condillac's Essay on the Origin of Knowledge, at Section fourth of Part first. The interesting Memoir of Stewart has recently been republished in the third volume of his Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind.

low and small apartment, which he sometimes called a cage. No light ever entered this little prison. Till his release in the seventeenth year of his age, he never saw the sky, nor the pleasant light of day, nor ever perceived any difference between day and night. Whenever he awoke from sleep, which was generally sound and at stated intervals, he found a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water near him. Sometimes the water was mixed with opium or some other intoxicating drug. Under the influence of this mixture, which was occasionally given him, he was suddenly cast into a profound slumber; and when he afterward awoke, he found that he had a clean shirt on, and that his nails had been cut. He never saw the face of the man who changed his clothing and brought him his food and drink. The only objects which he had to amuse himself with were two wooden horses and several ribands. These horses he believed to have a degree of life and sensibility. His only occupation was to move them backward and forward by his side; and to tie the ribands upon them in various positions. While in his little prison he never heard a human voice, nor any other sound except what he himself made in playing with his little wooden companions. Thus it was in a solitude and inactivity little less than that of the infancy, childhood, and youth.

grave, he

he spent his

But it is unnecessary to go into all the particulars of this unfortunate young man's history. When he was released from his confinement in the year 1828, he was, as nearly as could be ascertained from the structure and developements of his body, about 17 years of age.-And what was the condition of his mind ?" He had no knowledge of language, excepting a few words, to which he seems to have attached scarcely any meaning. When he appeared, helpless and alone, in the streets of Nuremberg, the common questions of the police officers were put to him. What is your name? What is your business? Whence came you? But he had no perception of their import. He heard without understanding; he saw without perceiving; the tears stood in his eye; unintelligible sounds and sorrowful moans burst from his lips. He was entirely ignorant of all the common objects and occurren

ces of nature, and of all the usual customs and conveniences of life. Like the blind boy couched by Cheselden for the cataract, he was incapable of estimating the true direction and distance of things. The objects which were presented to his notice affected him as they do an infant or a little child. He endeavoured, for instance, to lay hold of all bright and glittering objects just as a child does; and when he could not reach them, or was forbidden to touch them, he cried. He was attracted by the brightness of an object; but he seemed incapable of distinguishing one object from another. When objects were brought very near to him, he generally gazed at them with a stupid look, which only in particular instances was expressive of curiosity and astonishment. He could not distinguish animated things from inanimate ; but ascribed a degree of life to all. He had no ideas of family, of relationship and friendship, and would often ask for an explanation of what is meant by mother, brother, and sister. He had no moral or religious ideas; and even the sentiments of modesty and shame, so deeply implanted in the human breast and so easily called into action, seem never to have been excited in his bosom. In a word, his mind was essentially an unintelligent blank; and this merely because it had been shut out from any connexion with the outward world of men and nature. No basis had been laid for its operations; the power destined to bring it into action had never touched it; it was like some desert place of earth, where the sun never shone, and the breeze never blew, and the rain never descended, that presents to the eye of the beholder one unvaried surface of arid and withering desolation.

§ 43. Of connatural or innate knowledge.

The considerations of this chapter naturally bring us upon the question of innate or connatural knowledge. It was formerly maintained by certain writers, that there are in the minds of men ideas and propositions which are not acquired or taught at any time or in any way, but are coetaneous with the existence of the mind itself, being wrought into, and inseparable from it. It was maintained that they are limited to no one class, neither to the

rich nor the poor, neither to the learned nor the ignorant, to no clime and to no country, but all participate in them alike. These propositions and ideas, being coetaneous with the existence of the soul, and being there established at the commencement of its existence by the ordinance of the Deity, were regarded as the first principles of knowledge, and as the rules by which men were to be guided in all their reasonings about natural and moral objects.

From these innate and original propositions, the following may be selected as specimens of the whole: (1.) Of the natural kind. The whole is greater than a part: Whatever is, is: It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time and in the same sense.(2.) Of the moral kind. Parents must be honoured: Injury must not be done: Contracts should be fulfilled, &c. —(3.) Of the religious kind. There is a God: God is to be worshipped: God will approve virtue and punish vice.

§ 44. The doctrine of innate knowledge not susceptible of proof.

It will not be deemed necessary to spend much time on this subject, or to enter into any length of investigation. There seems to be an utter absence of all satisfactory evidence, that there is in men any amount of knowledge whatever answering to this description. The prominent argument brought forward by the supporters of this doctrine was this, that all mankind, without exception, and from the earliest period of our being able to form an acquaintance with their minds, exhibit a knowledge of ideas and propositions of this kind, and that this universal knowledge of them cannot be accounted for, except on the ground of their being coetaneous with the mind's existence, and originally implanted in it. Now if we admit that all men are acquainted with them and assent to them, this by no means proves them innate, so long as we can account for this acquaintance and this assent in some other way. It is granted by all that the mind exists, that it is capable of action, and that it possesses the power or the ability of acquiring knowledge. If, therefore, in the exercise of this ability, which all admit it to have, we can come to the knowledge of what are called innate or connatural ideas and propositions, it is unneces

sary to assign to them another origin, in support of which no positive proof can be brought.

But the truth is, that all men are not acquainted with the ideas and propositions in question, and especially do not exhibit such an acquaintance from the first dawn of their knowledge, as would be the case if they were connatural in the mind. The supposed fact on which this argument is founded is a mere assumption; it has never been confirmed by candid and careful inquiry, which ought to be done before it is made use of as proof; nor is it susceptible of such confirmation.

§ 45. The doctrine tried by the idea of a God.

Every enumeration of innate propositions embraces the following, That all men have a notion of a God; and undoubtedly, if there be any one which has a claim to universality and early developement, it is this. But, in point of fact, we know that all men are not acquainted with this notion; the testimony of travellers among uncivilized nations has been given again and again, that there is not such a universal acquaintance. It is true that all men have in themselves the elements from which the idea may be formed; but, owing to the peculiar circumstances of extreme depression and ignorance in which they are sometimes placed, there are some individuals in whom it is not developed; and perhaps whole tribes or classes of men, as some travellers have stated, in whom the developement is so weak, if it exists at all, as to be imperceptible. There is also a class of unfortunate persons to be found in civilized and Christian nations (we have reference to the deaf and dumb, those in the situation of the young man at Chartres), who will throw light on this subject, if men will but take the trouble to examine those who have in no way received religious instruction. There is reason to believe that, in many cases, they will be found utterly without a knowledge of their Creator.

Massieu was the son of a poor shepherd in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux. Destitute from birth of the sense of hearing, and, as a natural consequence, of the power of speech, he grew up, and knew barely enough to enable him to watch his father's flocks in the fields.

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