[4] Mr. Whitworth's Special Report.
CHAPTER I.
Feeble resources of civilized man in a desert—Ross Cox, Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron—A Moskito Indian on Juan Fernandez—Conditions necessary for the production of utility.
Let us suppose a man brought up in civilized life, cast upon a desert land—without food, without clothes, without fire, without tools. We see the human being in the very lowest state of helplessness. Most of the knowledge he had acquired would be worse than useless; for it would not be applicable in any way to his new position. Let the land upon which he is thrown produce spontaneous fruits—let it be free from ferocious animals—let the climate be most genial—still the man would be exceedingly powerless and wretched. The first condition of his lot, to enable him to maintain existence at all, would be that he should labour. He must labour to gather the berries from the trees—he must labour to obtain water from the rivulets—he must labour to form a garment of leaves, or of some equally accessible material, to shield his body from the sun—he must labour to render some cave or hollow tree a secure place of shelter from the dews of night. There would be no intermission of the labour necessary to provide a supply of food from hand to mouth, even in the season when wild fruits were abundant. If this labour, in the most favourable season, were interrupted for a single day, or at most for two or three days, by sickness, he would in all probability perish. But, when the autumn was past, and the wild fruits were gone, he must prolong existence as some savage tribes are reported to do—by raw fish and undressed roots. The labour of procuring these would be infinitely greater than that of climbing trees for fruit. To catch fish without nets, and scratch up roots with naked hands, is indeed painful toil. The helplessness of this man's condition would principally be the effect of one circumstance;—he would possess no accumulation of former labour by which his present labour might be profitably directed. The power of labour would in his case be in its least productive state. He would partly justify the assertion that man has the feeblest natural means of any animal;—because he would be utterly unpossessed of those means which the reason of man has accumulated around every individual in the social state.
We asked the reader to suppose a civilized man in the very lowest state in which the power of labour may be exercised, because there is no record of any civilized man being for any length of time in such a state.
Ross Cox, a Hudson's Bay trader, whose adventures were given to the world some twenty years ago, was in this state for a fortnight; and his sufferings may furnish some idea of the greater miseries of a continuance in such a powerless condition. Having fallen asleep in the woods of the north-west of America, which he had been traversing with a large party, he missed the traces of his companions. The weather being very hot, he had left nearly all his clothes with his horse when he rambled from his friends. He had nothing to defend himself against the wolves and serpents but a stick; he had nothing of which to make his bed but long grass and rushes; he had nothing to eat but hips and wild cherries. The man would doubtless have perished, unless he had met with some Indians, who knew better how to avail themselves of the spontaneous productions around them. But this is not an instance of the continuance of Labour in the lowest state of its power.
The few individuals, also, who have been found exposed in forests, such as Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron,—who were discovered, the one about a century ago, in Germany, the other about forty years since, in France,—differed from the civilized man cast naked upon a desert shore in this particular—their wants were of the lowest nature. They were not raised above the desires of the most brutish animals. They supplied those desires after the fashion of brutes. Peter was enticed from the woods by the sight of two apples, which the man who found him displayed. He did not like bread, but he eagerly peeled green sticks, and chewed the rind. He had, doubtless, subsisted in this way in the woods. He would not, at first, wear shoes, and delighted to throw the hat which was given him into the river. He was brought to England, and lived many years with a farmer in Hertfordshire. During the Scotch Rebellion, in 1745, he wandered into Norfolk; and having been apprehended as a suspicious character, was sent to prison. The gaol was on fire; and Peter was found in a corner, enjoying the warmth of the flames without any fear. The Savage of Aveyron, in the same manner, had the lowest desires and the feeblest powers. He could use his hands, for instance, for no other purpose than to seize upon an object; and his sense of touch was so defective, that he could not distinguish a raised surface, such as a carving, from a painting. This circumstance of the low physical and intellectual powers of these unfortunate persons prevents us exhibiting them as examples of the state which we asked the reader to suppose.
Let us advance another step in our view of the power of Labour. Let us take a man in one respect in the same condition that we supposed—left upon a desert land, without any direct social aid; but with some help to his labour by a small Accumulation of former industry. We have instances on record of this next state.