the usual desires, appetites, aversions, no matter if at starting the being is even what we call an idiot, a drivelling imbecile, disgusting all who see him, a sheer burden upon society, the process of making him clean in his habits, capable of labouring with a good and intelligent purpose, and of associating inoffensively with others, is just as certain in its principles and in its progress—infinite progress—as the navigation of a ship or the building of a house?
This is even so with a cretin, whose body is deformed beyond remedy, whose brain is contracted, whose face is contorted, whose limbs are half paralyzed, whose every organ is defective, and who has inherited these conditions from goitrous parents and grandparents.
Dr. Seguin says: "The idiot wishes for nothing; he wishes only to remain in his vacuity."
Even so thinks Dr. Cartwright of the negro; and surely nothing worse can be thought of him.
But Dr. Seguin adds: "To treat successfully this ill-will [indisposition to take care of himself], the physician wills that the idiot should act and think himself, of himself and, finally, by himself. The incessant volition of the moral physican urges incessantly the idiot into the sphere of activity of thinking, of labour, of duty, and affectionate feelings."
Is there no such law of progression of capacity for the black imbeciles? All the laws of the South have the contrary aims: to withdraw them as much as possible from the sphere of self-willed activity, thought, labour—to prevent the negro from thinking by himself, of himself, for himself; and the principle on which these laws are based is thus defined by Mr. De Bow:—
"The Almighty has thought well to place certain of His creatures in
certain fixed positions in this world of ours, for what cause He has not
seen fit to make quite clear to our limited capacities; and why an ass is
