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In Dr. Ray's work upon the medical jurisprudence of insanity, this popular classification is accepted, but the attempt is made to give it a scientific statement and bring it in accord with the current notions of mental philosophy. (I refer to the first edition of his work.)

He also quotes Hoffbauer, a German writer, who refines this classification not only by his mode of discriminating between idiocy and imbecility, but by establishing several sub-classes in each.

Esquirol, however, contents himself with the two classes of imbeciles and idiots, and describes, with characteristic felicity, the peculiar features of each. He also refers to the fact that the whole class may be divided into congenital and post-natal. This may or may not influence the mental condition of the idiot or imbecile; may or may not be a factor in the prognosis as to future development. From an impression rather than from any absolute statistics, I should say usually not.

Other well-known writers recognize the same general distinctions, and it is therefore, fair to assume that there is a natural basis for such classification in the phenomena of idiocy. It will be seen that this classification is strictly a psychological one, and so far imperfect, because it takes cognizance of only -- what may be called -- the external features of idiocy.

I may now refer to an attempt at classification in another direction. It is found in the work of Dr. Edward Seguin, published in Paris in 1846, on "The Moral Treatment, Hygiene, and Education of Idiots." He turned over a new leaf in the discussion of the subject. He approached it from a new point of departure. Prior observations had been made, chiefly upon adult idiots, mingled with the mass of insane and demented in the public asylums. They were henceforth to be regarded as undeveloped or imperfectly developed human beings. Their condition was to be studied, not only independently, but in relation to others of their own age endowed with normal faculties. The new question was, Can such beings be developed by any means of training and education?

Incidental to this was a desire for another classification that should have a relation to the degree of susceptibility of training and education.

Seguin, then, laid the foundation of his classification in the assumption that the mental and moral features of idiocy were dependent upon conditions of the nervous system. He therefore proposed a classification based upon the seat or location of these underlying physical conditions or states. The remote cause or source might be physiological or pathological; the immediate cause was in abnormal conditions, either of the central nervous masses or in the nervous apparatus radiating from these centres, and which connect them with the individual's environments.

Hoffbauer had discriminated between intensity and extensity, meaning thereby, as the first term, "the power of the mind to examine the data presented to it by the senses and therefrom to deduce correct judgments;" and for the second, "the mind perceives and embraces these data and suffers none to escape." One of these, it may be added, is the reflective the other the perceptive power.

Dr. Seguin proposed to inquire and classify upon the underlying facts, namely, whether that portion of the nervous system that constitutes the mode of communication between the world of relation and the individual was affected; or that deeper or more central portion, whose function it is to receive, to feel, to consider, and to act upon the stimuli, the perceptions communicated from without.

Hence he speaks of the essential forms of idiocy:

1st. The chronic affection of the whole or a part of the central nervous masses, which is characterized as profound idiocy.

2d. A partial or total affection of the nervous apparatus, which ramifies through the tissues and presides over the life of relation, the result of which is superficial idiocy.

He also wisely discriminates upon another point. He describes, under the title of "backward children," a class of cases where there is a retarded mental development in childhood, which may be said, briefly, to result from a mere functional torpidity of the nervous system.

Having thus laid down these essential divisions of idiocy, he then refers to the fact that all the forms of idiocy may be accompanied by various maladies, which may in their occurrence be precursory, coincident, or consecutive. He speaks of all such as accessory, but expresses the hope that others, with an accumulation of experience, may in time work out the problem of the relation or relations, if any exist, between these accessory maladies and the infirmity itself. He further adds, that it would not only be desirable to know such relations, but also quite important to class these correlated affections in the order of their importance relatively to the idiocy itself. "Idiocy and imbecility can be, let us always bear in mind, simultaneous with various particular states, like hemiplegia, paraplegia, epilepsy, etc., all special affections which the medical man should be able to diagnosticate by their symptoms, evidently distinct from the conditions of the nervous system proper to idiocy. These complications aggravate the primitive infirmity, without doubt, but it is not necessary to confound them with it."