With age, too, he grows more surly. Of
what vast value this 'gift' might be to the world of science, if
coupled with average intelligence, is readily imagined. That it
will ever be understood is unlikely. As it is, the power staggers
belief and makes modern psychology, with its study of
brain-cells, stand aghast. As to poor Fields himself, he excites
only sympathy. Homeless, unkempt, and uncouth, traveling
aimlessly on a journey which he does not understand, he hugs to
his heart a marvelous power, which he declares to be a gift from
God. To his weak mind it lifts him above his fellow-men, and yet
it is as useless to the world as a diamond in a dead man's hand."
Wolf-Children.--It is interesting to know to what degree a human
being will resemble a beast when deprived of the association with
man. We seem to get some insight to this question in the
investigation of so called cases of "wolf-children."
Saxo Grammaticus speaks of a bear that kidnapped a child and kept
it a long time in his den. The tale of the Roman she-wolf is well
known, and may have been something more than a myth, as there
have been several apparently authentic cases reported in which a
child has been rescued from its associations with a wolf who had
stolen it some time previously.
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