Translations:Victor of Aveyron/102/en

It was originally my intention to have recapitulated here all the facts that are scattered through this work; but I have since thought that whatever force they might acquire by their re-union, it would not equal that which arises from this last result. I, therefore, give it to the public unconnected with any reflections, so that it may mark, in a manner still more strikinar. the epoch at which we are already arrived, and become security for that which it is reasonable for us to expect that we shall ultimately reach. In the meantime, we have a right to conclude, from our observations, especially from those which have been recorded in these two last sections, that the child known under the name of the Savage of Aveyron, is endowed with the free exercise of all his senses; that he gives continual proofs of attention, reflection, and memory; that he can compare, discern, and judge, and apply in short all the faculties of his understanding to the objects which are connected with his instruction. It is proper to remark, as a point of essential importance, that these happy changes have been produced in the short space of nine months, and in a subject which was supposed to be incapable of attention; hence we are author iscd iu concluding, that his education is possible, if it is not even absolutely demonstrated already by these early instances ol‘ success, independently of those that we may in future expect from time, which, in its invariable progress, seems gradually to bestow upon infancy those powers, intellectual and moral, which it insensibly steals from a man on the decline of life *.