University of Virginia Library

Power of habit

The authentic history of Kaspar Hauser is a useful hint as to the frailty and inadequacy of mortal mind. It proves beyond a doubt that education consti- tutes this so-called mind, and that, in turn, mortal mind manifests itself in the body by the false sense it imparts. Incarcerated in a dungeon, where neither sight nor sound could reach him, at the age of seventeen Kaspar was still a mental infant, crying and chattering with no more intelligence than a babe, and realizing Tennyson's description:

His case proves material sense to be but a belief formed by education alone. The light which affords us joy gave

him a belief of intense pain. His eyes were inflamed by the light. After the babbling boy had been taught to speak a few words, he asked to be taken back to his dun- geon, and said that he should never be happy elsewhere. Outside of dismal darkness and cold silence he found no peace. Every sound convulsed him with anguish. All that he ate, except his black crust, produced violent retchings. All that gives pleasure to our educated senses gave him pain through those very senses, trained in an opposite direction.