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It would be an unprofitable labor, in this place, to cite the numerous conflicting opinions, which the history of the art abundantly supplies. We quote a few by way of specimen. The learned and estimable instructer, Mr. T. Guyot of Groningen, assures us that the deaf and dumb are by nature cut off from the exercise of reason; that they are in every respect like infants, and if left to themselves will be so always: only that they possess greater strength, and that their passions, unrestrained by rule or law, are more violent; assimilating them rather to beasts than man.' (4) M. Eschke of Berlin says, 'The deaf and dumb live only for themselves; they acknowledge no social bond; they have no notion of virtue. Whatever they may do, we can impute their conduct to them neither for good nor for evil.' (5) M. Caesar of Leipsic remarks, that the 'deaf and dumb indeed possess the human form, but this is almost all, which they have in common with other men. The perpetual sport of impressions made upon them by external things, and of the passions which spring up in their own souls, they comprehend neither law nor duty, neither justice nor injustice, neither good nor evil; virtue and vice are to them as if they were not.' (6)

(5) Recherches sur les conmissances intellectuelles des sourds-muets, &c.

(6) Ibid.

Unfortunate as the condition of a deaf and dumb person without education obviously is, it is hard to suppose him so utterly degraded in the scale of being, as these extracts would warrant us in believing. We should hardly know how to estimate the opinions so confidently, in many instances so dogmatically, expressed, did we not bear in mind, that the world is not yet free from the disposition, first to theorize, and afterwards to compel facts into an accordance, however unwarranted, with a priori views. Nor can we forget, that most of these instructers have brought to their task the prejudices, which we have already enumerated as once universal, and not yet extinct. Nor can we overlook the tendency, inherent in human nature, to magnify the achievements of personal exertion, especially when a trivial coloring may impart to those achievements the character of the marvellous; when the world is sufficiently disposed to receive any statement, however extravagant; and when the known incompetency of the multitude to call such statement in question, renders the careful choice of expression a matter of little consequence. It is gratifying to observe that all have not yielded to this natural and seducing tendency, nor suffered themselves to be blinded by prejudice or deluded by speculative inquiry. M. Bebian, an accomplished colleague of Sicard, has given us his opinion in the following words: 'deaf and dumb persons only differ from other men in the privation of a single sense. They judge, they reason, they reflect. And if education exhibits them to us, in the full exercise of intelligence, it is because the instructer has received them at the hands of nature, endowed with all the intellectual faculties.' (7) M. Piroux, the accomplished teacher, now at the head of the institution at Nancy, in France, and formerly of the Royal Institution, expresses himself thus; 'Let us guard against believing, that the sole privation of speech deprives the deaf and dumb of every prerogative of moral life. Judgment and reason, memory and imagination, are faculties which spring up and form themselves by a natural impulse. The distinction of good and evil, and the moral sentiments, are a necessary consequence of the social relations.' (8) Peter Desloges, a deaf and dumb person, who lost his hearing at the age of seven years, having previously learned to read, asserts, with something perhaps of hyperbole, of the uninstructed deaf and dumb of his acquaintance, that 'there passes no event at Paris, in France, or in the four quarters of the globe, which does not afford matter of ordinary conversation among them.' Baron Degerando, whose conclusions are the result equally of philosophic inquiry, of personal observation, and of extensive intercourse and correspondence with practical men, uses the following language. 'The deaf and dumb, coming into the world with the intellectual faculties common to all men, though deprived of a sense and an organ, are capable of attention, of reflection, of imagination, of judgment and of memory.' Of the writers who have so greatly exaggerated a calamity, already sufficiently deplorable, he observes, 'It is worthy of remark that no one among them has cited a single fact in support of his opinion.' He supposes many of these writers to have been influenced by the notions of the Abbé Sicard, which he cannot contemplate without extreme surprise; but which he attributes to the exalted idea which the worthy Abbé had formed of his own success, -- an idea, which rendered him desirous of making the contrast between the educated and the ignorant dumb as wide as possible.

(8) Institut de sourds-muets des deux sexes, etabli à Nancy, &c. -- Advertisement.