IMBECILITY must not be confounded with idiocy. In the former, there is the int peVect development of mind; in the latter, there is the non-development of mind. In the feeble intellect there may be present every faculty which distinguishes the most gigantic understanding, and these may act under ordinary laws; but they are dwarfed, incapable of continued growth and training, and are exercised and applied under the guidance mind assistance of others, or of external circumstances. There are large num bers of weak-minded, useless persons in every community, who differ from the more robust intellects solely in degree. But the more marked and recognizable imbecility, as transmitted congenitally, as following dentition, chorea, convulsions, and diseases which retard vigorous bodily development, or as induced by the great constitutional changes at puberty. is characterized by all or many of the following symptoms. The expression is vacant, the senses are dull; the head is small, the body deformed; the gait is vacillating and restless; the head is pendent, thrown back, or agitated; the saliva escapes; the language is limited and infantile; the ideas are few, and consist of mere sensuous impressions; the temper is timid. facile, and vain; and the passions are little susceptible of control. The affection has been regarded as general, or involving the whole mind; or as partial, when the intellect only, or the sentiments only, or a particular faculty may be feeble and ineducable. In a legal view such persons have been divided
into those who have, and those who have not, a moral perception of right and wrong. It is, however, worthy of consideration, that while they may know right from wrong in their ordinary and habitual range of duties, and within the scope of their own capa city. they may fail to do so beyond these narrow limits, and where questions of prop erty, propriety, or abstract justice are concerned. Many imbeciles are muscular. capable of performing acts requiring strength and endurance rather than dexterity; and in this country, as well as many others, they are not merely the " naturals," who run everybody's messages. but they are converted into the domestic drudges of the home stead, the white slaves of the farm. From the more clever and cunning of the class were the professional fools of former ages selected. Imbeciles are often con founded with genuine idiots, and their partial educability has exaggerated the supposed success in the attempts to elicit and mature the embryo mind. However far this train ing may be carried, and even when the subject has become self-maintaining, it may be Palely asserted that he is never self-guiding nor self-governing. nor capable of an inde pendent existencellowe,. 92 11te flizneOs of :Macy ; Reports, id 'it4t School, Earlswooi ; De chez les Enfants, par Felix Voisin.