The Idiot: His Place in Creation, and His Claims on Society — John Shaqi
The Idiot: His Place in Creation, and His Claims on SocietyBateman, Frederick, Sir
Science
The Idiot: His Place in Creation, and His Claims on Society
Bateman, Frederick, Sir
Mental retardation; Stupidity
Those who maintain that the brain is the organ of the mind, do not
tell us what we are to understand by organ, brain, or mind; they seem
to me to confound two things, the one with the other. In fact, they
make no distinction between thought, mind, consciousness, and the
_instrument_ by which these attributes become externally manifested.
It is true, we have no evidence to show that the mind can operate
independently of the nervous system; on the contrary, all
physiological data bearing upon the question of this mutual relation,
go to prove that where there is no nervous system there are no mental
manifestations. Moreover, as G.H. Lewes says, "It is the man, and not
the brain, that thinks: it is the organism as a whole, and not one
organ, that feels and acts."[33]
Every faculty manifests itself by means of matter, but it is important
not to confound the faculty with the corporeal organ upon which the
external manifestation of such faculty depends. The word organ is the
name given to a part of the human frame by which we have sensation,
and by means of which we do a certain act or work; such are the organs
of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. All these organs are
passive, and require to be operated on _ab extra_, precisely in the
same way as the musical organ, which is an instrument constructed by
man, requires man's interference for the production of musical sounds.
When a musician sits down to a piano, the music cannot be said to be
in the instrument, but in the soul of the performer. If the instrument
be in good order, the inspiration of a Thalberg or of a Liszt will
become apparent; break the cords or otherwise damage the instrument,
and nothing but discordant strains are produced, the musical faculty
of the performer, however, remaining unaffected. We are all familiar
with Plato's celebrated dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul, where
a disputant with Socrates inquires if the soul is not like the
harmony of a lyre, more beautiful, more divine than the lyre itself,
but yet is nothing without the lyre, vanishing when this instrument is
broken.
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