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Untitled Article
of a youth , who was kept almost wholly from intercourse with nature or mankind , until the age of seventeen . The tale , if true , is valuable , because it affords evidence or illustration of many points in metaphysics ; if fictitious , it is still valuable , as a treatise of metaphysics on a novel plan , calculated to amuse and instruct many who will not look into an abstract work on human nature .
We confess that we expected to find l Caspar Hauser ' a German romance , filled with horrors and extravagancies , —possibly a German Frankenstein ; but with the exception of the inexplicable fact of the youth ' s being kept in a state of captivity till the age of seventeen , and debarred from intercourse with mankind and
external nature ; and of a subsequent attempt upon his life ; the work is an unusually simple and unpretending narrative of a human being in an almost inconceivable state of helplessness and ignorance , and of his progress in improvement . It has no appearance of being written for effect ; a professed writer of fiction could hardly have maintained so subdued a tone . If it be a fiction , it must be the work of a more profound and acute metaphysician
and novelist than we could readily point out . But the existence of the youth is a well-known fact ; he has been seen by thousands ; and the book appears under the name of Von Feuerbachr , the celebrated jurist , who was officially concerned in the legal investigations which took place , and who has been interested in the youth ever since . And it appears that Karl Stanhope has taken a great interest in him , and at present provides for his education and support .
We shall now give a sketch of the condition and progress of Caspar Hauser , trusting that our readers may be thereby induced to peruse the work itself , which of course presents the subject in a more agreeable point of view , than is possible in a brief abridgement .
On the 28 th of May , 1828 , a youth was found in the streets of Nuremberg . His appearance -of brutish dulness , his inattention to external objects , and his invariable reply of the same incoherent words to all questions , led to the suspicion that he must be either an idiot , a madman , or an impostor . A letter which was in his hand when he was found , stated little more than that lie whs left
in 1812 in charge of the anonymous writer , who represented himself as a labourer . Being conveyed to the police , he there attracteJ much attention . Lie used his hands and fingers in the most awkward manner conceivable . His feet , which , like his
hands , were small , and beautifully formed , bore no marks of a shoe , and were as soft on the sole as the palms of his hands . His walk was a waddling , tottering , groping motion , and he stumbled slowly and heavily forward , with outstretched arms , which lie seemed to use as balance poles , and the sli ghtest
Untitled Article
Ca 9 par Hamer . 519
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 519, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/7/
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