This, then, being admitted, that a vitiated quality of the brain may be transmitted to the offspring with accumulating effect, let us see what are the general characteristics of this effect. We have no reason to suppose that the brain is exempt from the operation of the same organic laws which govern the rest of the animal economy. Observation abundantly shows that its working capacity is diminished, and its activity becomes irregular in one or more of the various degrees of irregularity, ranging from a little eccentricity up to raving mania. Occasionally, such defect is accompanied by remarkable manifestations of mental ability, but it is no part of our doctrine that such conjunctions are incompatible. Byron and Johnson accomplished great things; but who will deny that without that hereditary taint they would have done more and done it better? The latter, it is well known, was much dependent on moods, and spent long periods in mental inactivity. The labors of the other were fitful, and his views of life betray the influence of the same cerebral defect that led to so much domestic woe. The narrow-chested, round-shouldered person, whose lungs barely oxydize blood enough to maintain life, is not expected to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, or to excel as a performer on wind-instruments. We impute to him no fault for this sort of incompetence. We should rather charge him with consummate folly, if he undertook a line of exercises for which he is so clearly unfitted. We do not wonder, in fact, when this unfortunate pulmonary constitution sends its possessor to an early grave. Why not apply the same philosophy to the brain, which may partake of all the defects incident to organized matter? Why expect of one among whose progenitors insanity, idiocy, scrofula, rickets, and epilepsy have prevailed in an extraordinary degree all the moral and intellectual excellences displayed by those whose blood through a long line of ancestors has been untainted by any of these affections?
It is chiefly, however, in abnormal activity that the presence of this cerebral depreciation is indicated. And here we find the same disposition to insist on positive and absolute conditions, overlooking those nicer shades of diversity which mark the movements of Nature. It is the common belief that between eccentricity and insanity a great gulf is fixed; and in courts of justice this notion is often used with great effect to overthrow the conclusions of the medical expert, who, while he admits their essential difference, finds it not very easy to avoid the trap which a quick-witted lawyer is sure to make of it. Let him recognize the fact that they are the results of a common agency, differing chiefly in degree, and then his path is clear, though it may not lead to popular confidence in his professional views.
Neither is the cerebral depreciation confined to any particular portion of the organ; and therefore its effects may be witnessed in any of those manifestations which are known to depend upon it. The affective powers, meaning thereby the passions, affections, and emotions, are, like the intellectual, connected with the brain, and, like them too, are shaped, in a great degree, by the quality of that organ. It is curious, however, that, while this fact is admitted in general terms, there is a prevalent reluctance to make the legitimate practical application. It is denied that the moral powers and propensities can be affected by disease, though connected with a material organ. Everybody believes that a man who thinks his legs are made of glass is insane; but if his affections only are disordered,—love and kindness being replaced by jealousy and hate,—an habitual regard for every moral propriety, by unbounded looseness of life and conversation,—the practice of the strictest virtue, by unblushing indulgence of crime, and all without apparent cause or motive,—then the morbid element in the case is overlooked and stoutly repudiated. We admit that a man may be a fool without any fault of his own; but if he fall short of any of the requirements of the moral law, he is regarded as a sinner, and perhaps punished as a criminal. Before we utterly condemn him for failing to recognize all the sharp distinctions between right and wrong, for yielding to temptation, and walking in evil courses, we are bound in justice to inquire whether a higher grade of moral excellence has not been debarred him by the defective quality of his brain, the organ by which all moral graces are manifested,—whether it has not become deteriorated by morbid predispositions, transmitted with steadily accumulating force, to insanity, or other affections which are known to spread their noxious influence over the nervous system.
A scientific fact is supposed to be entitled to credence, when accompanied by proper scientific proof; but, nevertheless, many worthy people cannot resist the conclusion, that, if a man's moral character is determined by the quality of the brain, then there is no such thing as responsibility. And so we are brought up all standing against the old problem of moral liberty, on which oceans of ink have been shed to little purpose. Heaven forbid that we should add another drop! for our object will be served by stating very briefly the scientific view of this phenomenon. Every creature is free, within the limits of the constitution which Nature has given him, to act and to think, each after his kind. The horse rejoices in the liberty of acting like a horse, and not like an ox; and man enjoys the privilege of acting the part of a man, and not of a disembodied spirit. If the limbs of the former are struck by an atrophy, we do not expect him to win the race. If the brain of the latter is blasted by disease or deterioration, we cannot expect the fruits of a sound and vigorous organism. When we say that a person with a brain vitiated by an accumulation of hereditary defects is incapable of that degree of moral excellence which is manifested by men of the soundest brains, we utter a truism as self-evident, apparently, as when we say that the ox is incapable of the fleetness of the horse or the ferocity of the tiger. It is immaterial whether the cerebral condition in question is one of original constitution or of acquired deficiency, because the relation between the physical and the moral must be the same in the one case as in the other. In the toiling masses, who, from childhood, are brought face to face with want and vice, we do not expect to find the moral graces of a Channing or a Cheverus; and we do not hold them to a very strict responsibility for the deficiency. But they are not utterly destitute of a moral sense, and what we have a right to expect is, that they improve, in a reasonable degree, the light and opportunities which have fallen to their lot. The principle is precisely the same as it regards those whose brains have been vitiated by some noxious agency. To make them morally responsible in an equal degree with men more happily endowed would be repugnant to every idea of right and justice. But within the range of their capacity, whatever it may be, they are free, and accountable for the use of their liberty. True, there is often difficulty in making these distinctions, even where the necessity for it is the greatest; but we dissent from the conclusion, that therefore the doctrine can have but little practical value. It is something to have the fact of the intimate connection between organic conditions and moral manifestations distinctly recognized. The advance of knowledge will be steadily widening the practical application of the fact. A judge might not be justified in favoring the acquittal of a criminal on the ground of his having inherited a brain of vitiated quality; but, surely, it would not be repugnant to the testimony of science, or the dictates of common sense and common justice, if he allowed this fact to operate in mitigation of sentence.
A NEW SCULPTOR.
Once to my Fancy's hall a stranger came,
Of mien unwonted,
And its pale shapes of glory without shame
Or speech confronted.
Fair was my hall,—a gallery of Gods