The deaf and dumb : their education and social position / by W.R. Scott.

  • Scott, W. R. (William Robson), 1811-1877.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The deaf and dumb : their education and social position / by W.R. Scott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    existed, and indeed without regard to their past existence at all. Imagination, then, enables us to form new and ideal groups, but these are all formed out of the materials gathered in the first' instance from sensation. The painter, when he produces the finest specimen of his poetic imaguiatioa, has still in the first instance been indebted to his senses for a knowledge of those beautiful varieties of form and effects of colouring which compose his picture ; and though to his taste and genius belong the creative power of adapting them to the particular combination which they now exhibit, still it is the arrangement alone that is new. An artist with ever so much genius, had he neglected to study form and colour, could never produce a great imaginative work. Imagi- nation, therefore, deprived of the assistance of the senses, never could manifest itself; and this power, in the deaf-mute, partakes of the same depression which is suffered by his other powers, in consequence of the state of isolation to which he is doomed. The mind to receive knowledge must be brought into communion with the external world ; and this can only be accomplished by means of the senses.^'' These are separate and * In these [sensations] we find the elements of all our knowledge, the material on which the mind is ever operat-