The perfectibility of
Mankind is an idea that has driven some of the most majestic of human
enterprises, and some of the most tragic. The line between heroic science and
hubris is sometimes so thin as be unnoticed until it is crossed. Julia
Douthwaite takes a slightly unusual approach, or at least a less conventional
one. While she acknowledges the familiar stories of Kaspar Hauser and Victor of
Aveyron, she navigates this territory with a particular eye on the "wild
children", especially the girls, who were sometimes found roaming alone
and untamed in the forests of Europe. She concentrates, in the cases discussed,
on France in particular, and looks at those who were rescued, tutored and
civilised, often celebrated and equally often abandoned and neglected once
their novelty had worn off.

She locates the "dangerous
experiments", the civilizing of the wild children, within the ethos of the
Enlightenment, and shows, with some persuasive argument, how this ethic reveals
itself on the level of personal interactions, philosophical speculation and
political action. One of the most original ideas she puts forward is the way in
which the treatment of these children, indeed the entire way they were
conceptualised and seen to be emblematic of a raw state of nature, served a
political and well as scientific purpose.

No one can discuss the grand
vision of the Enlightenment without coming to Rousseau, and Douthwaite sees him
as one of the principal figure in the whole movement. A self-declared genius,
he seems the archetype of that may be possible, and all that is vain. His ideas
infused an intellectual, not to say romantic, movement the ramifications of
which can still be felt today. Man can perfect Man. The savage, noble or not,
has only to be treated in a climate of pure reason to become an ideal, and
idealised, citizen.

The wild men, the savages, were
always more than waifs rescued. They were emblematic of the triumph of
rationalism and reason. Man had conquered the world, and was the master of his
own fate. She makes interesting links to the literature of the period, and pays
particular attention to Defoe and, a little later, Shelley. Robinson Crusoe
is not a Boy’s Own adventure, a ripping yarn of adventure in the South
Seas. It is a study on the relationship of the European man, and it is too
early to really include the Americas as being truly civilized and beyond
question that the East or the South have anything more than exotic value, with
his natural self. The discussion of Frankenstein centers on the
well-known subtitle, the New Prometheans. Here, the revenge exacted by
hubris is a salutary lesson.

As she moves from the
perfectibility of Mankind, she begins to discuss imperfection. She argues that
the imperfect, be it gigantism or dwarfism, hirsutism or albinism, the
Porcupine Man who was covered in dermatological eruptions, or Marie Sabina, the
"spotted Negro," begin to be interpreted as not so much misfortune,
but unnatural and something to be feared. There were allusions made to aberrant
genetics, although not quite in those words as the concept was not yet articulated,
even to the idea that as more albinos are born to black people than black
babies born to white parents, the natural tendency must be towards whiteness,
and blackness must be aberrant. Clearly, the creation of the Other is at work,
and those who are different are somehow a threat, a potential contaminant.

Douthwaite’s thesis is well-argued
and impressively referenced. She marshals the evidence well and is
comprehensive and considered in her appraisals. She is to some extent
revisiting classic Enlightenment territory, but manages to construct an
argument that encompasses the moral and philosophical ethos of the day. She
does, in the final chapter, send out a warning to her contemporary readers
about the fascination, as she puts it, with genetically altered livestock and "Frankenfoods".
She contends that this is the "same experimental mentality that seems to
be running amok". Certainly, there is an essence of the idea of progress
in this, but if anything it seems to weaken her argument because it remains
unanswered. She may be right in illuminating the blind spots and hubris of
scientific endeavour, but she is a better historian than present day pundit.

© 2003 Mark Welch  

Dr
Mark Welch is currently a Senior Lecturer and Postgraduate Coordinator in The School of Nursing
at the University of Canberra, Australia. His PhD investigated the
representation of madness in popular film, and his other research interests
include the mental health of refugees and victims of torture, and the history
of psychiatric epistemology.

Categories: Philosophical, Psychology