Chapter IV: I. Introduction (3)

Only second in importance to the cases of feral men are the investigations which have been made of the results of solitary confinement. Morselli, in his well-known work on _Suicide_, presented statistics showing that self-destruction was many times as frequent among convicts under the system of absolute isolation as compared with that of association during imprisonment. Studies of Auburn prison in New York, of Mountjoy in England, and penal institutions on the continent show the effects of solitary incarceration in the increase of cases of suicides, insanity, invalidism, and death.

Beginnings have been made in child study, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis of the effects of different types of isolation upon personal development. Some attention has been given to the study of effects upon mentality and personality of physical defects such as deaf-mutism and blindness. Students of the so-called "morally defective child," that is the child who appears deficient in emotional and sympathetic responses, suggest as a partial explanation the absence in infancy and early childhood of intimate and sympathetic contacts with the mother. An investigation not yet made but of decisive bearing upon this point will be a comparative study of children brought up in families with those reared in institutions.

Psychiatry and psychoanalysis in probing mental life and personality have related certain mental and social abnormalities to isolation from social contact. Studies of paranoia and of egocentric personalities have resulted in the discovery of the only or favorite child complex. The exclusion of the boy or girl in the one-child family from the give and take of democratic relations with brothers and sisters results, according to the theory advanced, in a psychopathic personality of the self-centered type. A contributing cause of homosexuality, it is said by psychoanalysts, is the isolation during childhood from usual association with individuals of the same sex. Research in dementia praecox discloses a symptom and probably a cause of this mental malady to be the withdrawal of the individual from normal social contacts and the substitution of an imaginary for a real world of persons and events. Dementia praecox has been related by one psychoanalyst to the "shut-in" type of personality.

The literature on the subject of privacy in its relation to personal development is fragmentary but highly promising for future research. The study of the introspective type of personality suggests that self-analysis is the counterpart of the inhibition of immediate and impulsive self-expression in social relations. Materials for an understanding of the relation of retirement and privacy to the aesthetic, moral, and creative life of the person may be found in the lives of hermits, inventors, and religious leaders; in the studies of seclusion, prayer, and meditation; and in research upon taboo, prestige, and attitudes of superiority and inferiority.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF ISOLATION

I. CHARACTERISTIC SENTIMENTS AND ATTITUDES OF THE ISOLATED PERSON

(1) Zimmermann, Johann G. _Solitude._ Or the effects of occasional retirement on the mind, the heart, general society. Translated from the German. London, 1827.

(2) Canat, René. _Une forme du mal du siècle._ Du sentiment de la solitude morale chez les romantiques et les parnassiens. Paris, 1904.

(3) Goltz, E. von der. _Das Gebet in der aeltesten Christenheit._ Leipzig, 1901.

(4) Strong, Anna L. _A Consideration of Prayer from the Standpoint of Social Psychology._ Chicago, 1908.

(5) Hoch, A. "On Some of the Mental Mechanisms in Dementia Praecox," _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, V (1910), 255-73. [A study of the isolated person.]

(6) Bohannon, E. W. "Only Child," _Pedagogical Seminary_, V (1897-98), 475-96.

(7) Brill, A. A. _Psychanalysis._ Its theories and practical application. "The Only or Favorite Child in Adult Life," pp. 253-65. 2d rev. ed. Philadelphia and London, 1914.

(8) Neter, Eugen. _Das einzige Kind und seine Erziehung._ Ein ernstes Mahnwort an Eltern und Erzieher. München, 1914.

(9) Whiteley, Opal S. _The Story of Opal._ Boston, 1920.

(10) Delbrück, A. _Die pathologische Lüge und die psychisch abnormen Schwindler._ Stuttgart, 1891.

(11) Healy, Wm. _Pathological Lying._ Boston, 1915.

(12) Dostoévsky, F. _The House of the Dead; or, Prison Life in Siberia._ Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett. New York, 1915.

(13) Griffiths, Arthur. _Secrets of the Prison House, or Gaol Studies and Sketches._ I, 262-80. London, 1894.

(14) Kingsley, Charles. _The Hermits._ London and New York, 1871.

(15) Baring-Gould, S. _Lives of Saints._ 16 vols. Rev. ed. Edinburgh, 1916. [See references in index to hermits.]

(16) Solenberger, Alice W. _One Thousand Homeless Men._ A study of original records. Russell Sage Foundation. New York, 1911.

II. TYPES OF ISOLATION AND TYPES OF SOCIAL GROUPS

(1) Fishberg, Maurice. _The Jews._ A study of race and environment. London and New York, 1911.

(2) Gummere, Amelia M. _The Quaker._ A study in costume. Philadelphia, 1901.

(3) Webster, Hutton. _Primitive Secret Societies._ A study in early politics and religion. New York, 1908.

(4) Heckethorn, C. W. _The Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries._ A comprehensive account of upwards of one hundred and sixty secret organizations--religious, political, and social--from the most remote ages down to the present time. 2 vols. New ed., rev. and enl. London, 1897.

(5) Fosbroke, Thomas D. _British Monachism, or Manners and Customs of the Monks and Nuns of England._ London, 1817.

(6) Wishart, Alfred W. _A Short History of Monks and Monasteries._ Trenton, N.J., 1900. [Chap. i, pp. 17-70, gives an account of the monk as a type of human nature.]

III. GEOGRAPHICAL ISOLATION AND CULTURAL AREAS

(1) Ratzel, Friedrich. _Politische Geographie; oder, Die Geographie der Staaten, des Verkehres und des Krieges._ 2d. ed. München, 1903.

(2) Semple, Ellen. _Influences of Geographic Environment, on the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropogeography._ Chap. xiii, "Island Peoples," pp. 409-72. New York, 1911. [Bibliography.]

(3) Brunhes, Jean. _Human Geography._ An attempt at a positive classification, principles, and examples. 2d ed. Translated from the French by T. C. LeCompte. Chicago, 1920. [See especially chaps. vi, vii, and viii, pp. 415-569.]

(4) Vallaux, Camille. _La Mer._ (Géographie Sociale.) Populations maritimes, migrations, pêches, commerce, domination de la mer, Chap. iii, "Les isles et l'insularité." Paris, 1908.

(5) Gerland, Georg. _Atlas der Völkerkunde._ Gotha, 1892. [Indicates the geographical distribution of differences in skin color, hair form, clothing, customs, languages, etc.]

(6) Ripley, William Z. _The Races of Europe._ A sociological study. New York, 1899.

(7) Campbell, John C. _The Southern Highlander and His Homeland._ New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1921. [Bibliography.]

(8) Barrow, Sir John. _A Description of Pitcairn's Island and Its Inhabitants._ With an authentic account of the mutiny of the ship "Bounty" and of the subsequent fortunes of the mutineers. New York, 1832.

(9) Routledge, Mrs. Scoresby. _The Mystery of Easter Island._ The story of an expedition. Chap. xx, "Pitcairn Island." London, 1919.

(10) Galpin, Charles J. _Rural Life._ New York, 1918.

IV. LANGUAGE FRONTIERS AND NATIONALITY

(1) Dominian, Leon. _The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe._ New York, 1917. [Bibliography, pp. 348-56.]

(2) Auerbach, Bertrand. _Les Races et les nationalités en Autriche-Hongrie._ 2d rev. ed. Paris, 1917.

(3) Bernhard, L. _Das polnische Gemeinwesen im preussischen Staat._ Die Polenfrage. Leipzig, 1910.

(4) Bourgoing, P. de. _Les guerres d'idiome et de nationalité._ Tableaux, esquisses, et souvenirs d'histoire contemporaine. Paris, 1849.

(5) _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. XI, "The Growth of Nationalities." Cambridge, 1909.

(6) Meillet, A. "Les Langues et les Nationalités," _Scientia_, Vol. XVIII, (Sept., 1915), pp. 192-201.

(7) Pfister, Ch. "La limite de la langue française et de la langue allemande en Alsace-Lorraine," Considérations historiques. _Bull. Soc. Géogr. de l'Est_, Vol. XII, 1890.

(8) This, G. "Die deutsch-französische Sprachgrenze in Lothringen," _Beiträge zur Landes- und Volkskunde von Elsass-Lothringen_, Vol. I, Strassburg, 1887.

(9)----. "Die deutsch-französische Sprachgrenze in Elsass," _ibid._, 1888.

V. DIALECTS AS A FACTOR IN ISOLATION

(1) Babbitt, Eugene H. "College Words and Phrases," _Dialect Notes_, II (1900-1904), 3-70.

(2)----. "The English of the Lower Classes in New York City and Vicinity," _Dialect Notes_, Vol. I, Part ix, 1896.

(3)----. "The Geography of the Great Languages," _World's Work_, Feb. 15 (1907-8), 9903-7.

(4) Churchill, William. _Beach-la-mar: the Jargon or Trade Speech of the Western Pacific._ Washington, 1911.

(5) Dana, Richard H., Jr. _A Dictionary of Sea Terms._ London, 1841.

(6) Elliott, A.M. "Speech-Mixture in French Canada: English and French," _American Journal of Philology_, X (1889), 133.

(7) Flaten, Nils. "Notes on American-Norwegian with a Vocabulary," _Dialect Notes_, II (1900-1904), 115-26.

(8) Harrison, James A. "Negro-English," _Transactions and Proceedings American Philological Association_, XVI (1885), Appendix, pp. xxxi-xxxiii.

(9) Hempl, George. "Language-Rivalry and Speech-Differentiation in the Case of Race-Mixture," _Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association_. XXIX (1898), 31-47.

(10) Knortz, Karl. _Amerikanische Redensarten und Volksgebräuche._ Leipzig, 1907.

(11) Letzner, Karl. _Wörterbuch der englischen Volkssprache Australiens und der englischen Mischsprachen._ Halle, 1891.

(12) Pettman, Charles. _Africanderisms._ A glossary of South African colloquial words and phrases and of place and other names. London and New York, 1913.

(13) Ralph, Julian. "The Language of the Tenement-Folk," _Harper's Weekly_, XLI (Jan. 23, 1897), 90.

(14) Skeat, Walter W. _English Dialects from the Eighth Century to the Present Day_. Cambridge, 1911.

(15) Yule, Henry, and Burnell, A. C. _Hobson-Jobson._ A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical, and discursive; new ed. by Wm. Crooke, London, 1903.

VI. PHYSICAL DEFECT AS A FORM OF ISOLATION

(1) Bell, Alexander G. "Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race." _National Academy of Sciences, Memoirs_, II, 177-262. Washington, D.C., 1884.

(2) Fay, Edward A. _Marriages of the Deaf in America._ An inquiry concerning the results of marriages of the deaf in America. Washington, D.C., 1893.

(3) Desagher, Maurice. "La timidité chez les aveugles," _Revue philosophique_, LXXVI (1913), 269-74.

(4) Best, Harry. _The Deaf._ Their position in society and the provision for their education in the United States. New York, 1914.

(5) ----. _The Blind._ Their condition and the work being done for them in the United States. New York, 1919.

VII. FERAL MEN

(1) Rauber, August. _Homo Sapiens Ferus_; oder, Die Zustände der Verwilderten und ihre Bedeutung für Wissenschaft, Politik, und Schule. Leipzig, 1885.

(2) Seguin, Edward. _Idiocy and Its Treatment by the Physiological Method._ Pp. 14-23. New York, 1866.

(3) Bonnaterre, J. P. _Notice historique sur le sauvage de l'Aveyron, et sur quelques autres individus qu'on a trouvés dans les forêts à différentes époques._ Paris, 1800.

(4) Itard, Jean E. M. G. _De l'éducation d'un homme sauvage, et des premiers developpemens physiques et moraux du jeune sauvage de l'Aveyron._ Pp. 45-46. Paris, 1801.

(5) Feuerbach, Paul J. A. von. _Caspar Hauser._ An account of an individual kept in a dungeon from early childhood, to about the age of seventeen. Translated from the German by H. G. Linberg. London, 1834.

(6) Stanhope, Philip Henry [4th Earl]. _Tracts relating to Caspar Hauser._ Translated from the original German. London, 1836.

(7) Lang, Andrew. _Historical Mysteries._ London, 1904.

(8) Tredgold, A. F. _Mental Deficiency._ "Isolation Amentia," pp. 297-305. 3d rev. ed. New York, 1920.

TOPICS FOR WRITTEN THEMES

1. Isolation as a Condition of Originality.

2. The Relation of Social Contact and of Isolation to Historic Inventions and Discoveries, as the Law of Gravitation, Mendelian Inheritance, the Electric Light, etc.

3. Isolated Types: the Hermit, the Mystic, the Prophet, the Stranger, and the Saint.

4. Isolation, Segregation, and the Physically Defective: as the Blind, the Deaf-Mute, the Physically Handicapped.

5. Isolated Areas and Cultural Retardation: the Southern Mountaineer, Pitcairn Islanders, the Australian Aborigines.

6. "Moral" Areas, Isolation, and Segregation: City Slums, Vice Districts, "Breeding-places of Crime."

7. The Controlled versus the Natural process of Segregation of the Feeble-minded.

8. Isolation and Insanity.

9. Privacy in the Home.

10. Isolation and Prestige.

11. Isolation as a Defence against the Invasion of Personality.

12. Nationalism as a Form of Isolation.

13. Biological and Social Immunity: or Biological Immunity from Infection, Personal or Group Immunity against Social Contagion.

14. The Only Child.

15. The Pathological Liar Considered from the Point of View of Isolation.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Is the distinction between isolation and social contact relative or absolute?

2. What illustrations of the various forms of isolation, spatial, structural, habitudinal, and psychical, occur to you?

3. By what process does isolation cause racial differentiation?

4. What is the relation of endogamy and exogamy (a) to isolation, and (b) to the establishment of a successful stock or race?

5. In what ways do the Jews and the Americans as racial types illustrate the effects of isolation and of contact?

6. What do you understand to be Bacon's definition of solitude?

7. What is the point in the saying "A great town is a great solitude"?

8. What is the sociology of the creation by a solitary person of imaginary companions?

9. Under what conditions does an individual prefer solitude to society? Give illustrations.

10. What are the devices used in prayer to secure isolation?

11. "Prayer has value in that it develops the essentially social form of personal self-realization." Explain.

12. What are the interrelations of social contact and of privacy in the development of the ideal self?

13. What do you understand by the relation of erudition to originality?

14. In what ways does isolation (a) promote, (b) impede, originality? What other factors beside isolation are involved in originality?

15. What is the value of privacy?

16. What was the value of the monasteries?

17. What conclusions do you derive from the study of the cases of feral men? Do these cases bear out the theory of Aristotle in regard to the effect of isolation upon the individual?

18. What is the significance of Helen Keller's account of how she broke through the barriers of isolation?

19. What were the mental effects of solitude described by Hudson? How do you explain the difference between the descriptions of the effect of solitude in the accounts given by Rousseau and by Hudson?

20. How does Galpin explain the relation of isolation to the development of the "rural mind"?

21. What are the effects of isolation upon the young man or young woman reared in the country?

22. Was Lincoln the product of isolation or of social contact?

23. To what extent are rural problems the result of isolation?

24. What do you understand by Thomas' statement, "The savage, the Negro, the peasant, the slum dwellers, and the white woman are notable sufferers by exclusion"?

25. What other of the subtler forms of isolation occur to you?

26. Is isolation to be regarded as always a disadvantage?

27. What do you understand by segregation as a process?

28. Give illustrations of groups other than those mentioned which have become segregated as a result of isolation.

29. How would you describe the process by which isolation leads to the segregation of the feeble-minded?

30. Why does a segregated group, like the feeble-minded, become an isolated group?

31. What are other illustrations of isolation resulting from segregation?

32. How would you compare Europe with the other continents with reference to number and distribution of isolated areas?

33. What do you understand to be the nature of the influence of the cradle land upon "the historical race"?

34. What illustrations from the Great War would you give of the effects (a) of central location; (b) of peripheral location?

35. How do you explain the contrast between the characteristics of the inhabitants of the Grecian inland and maritime cities?

36. To what extent may (a) the rise of the Greek city state, (b) Grecian intellectual development, and (c) the history of Greece, be interpreted in terms of geographic isolation?

37. To what extent can you explain the cultural retardation of Africa, as compared with European progress, by isolation?

38. Does race or isolation explain more adequately the following cultural differences for the several areas of France--divorce, intensity of suicide, distribution of awards, relative frequency of men of letters?

39. What is the relation of village and city emigration and immigration to isolation?

40. What is the difference between a natural and a vicinal location?

41. In what ways does isolation affect national development?

42. What is the relation of geographical position in area to literature?

FOOTNOTES:

[94] J. Arthur Thomson, _Heredity_, pp. 536-37. (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1908.)

[95] From Francis Bacon, _Essays_, "Of Friendship."

[96] Adapted from Jean Jacques Rousseau, _Letter to the President de Malesherbes, 1762_.

[97] Adapted from George Albert Coe, _The Psychology of Religion_, pp. 311-18. (The University of Chicago Press, 1917.)

[98] From T. Sharper Knowlson, _Originality_, pp. 173-75. (T. Werner Laurie, 1918.)

[99] From Maurice H. Small, "On Some Psychical Relations of Society and Solitude," in the _Pedagogical Seminary_, VII, No. 2 (1900), 32-36.

[100] _Anthropological Review_, I (London, 1863), 21 ff.

[101] _All the Year_, XVIII, 302 ff.

[102] _Chambers' Journal_, LIX, 579 ff.

[103] _The Penny Magazine_, II, 113.

[104] Wagner, _Beitragen zur philosophischen Anthropologie_; Rauber, pp. 49-55.

[105] "Histoire d'une jeune fille sauvage trouvée dans les bois à l'âge de dix ans," _Magazin der Natur, Kunst, und Wissenschaft_, Leipzig, 1756, pp. 219-72; _Mercure de France_, December, 1731; Rudolphi, _Grundriss der Physiologie_, I, 25; Blumenbach, _Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte_, II, 38.

[106] Adapted from Helen Keller, _The Story of My Life_, pp. 22-24. (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1917.)

[107] Adapted from W. H. Hudson, "The Plains of Patagonia," _Universal Review_, VII (1890), 551-57.

[108] Adapted from C. J. Galpin, _Rural Social Centers in Wisconsin_, pp. 1-3. (Wisconsin Experiment Station, Bulletin 234, 1913.)

[109] Adapted from W. I. Thomas, "Race Psychology," in the _American Journal of Sociology_, XVII (1911-12), 744-47.

[110] Adapted from Robert E. Park, "The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Behavior in the City Environment," in the _American Journal of Sociology_, XX (1915), 579-83.

[111] Adapted from L. W. Crafts and E. A. Doll, "The Proportion of Mental Defectives among Juvenile Delinquents," in the _Journal of Delinquency_, II (1917), 123-37.

[112] Adapted from N. S. Shaler, _Nature and Man in America_, pp. 151-66. (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900.)

[113] Adapted from George Grote, _History of Greece_, II, 149-57. (John Murray, 1888.)

[114] From William Z. Ripley, _The Races of Europe_, pp. 515-30. (D. Appleton & Co., 1899.)

[115] Adapted from Ellen C. Semple, _Influences of Geographic Environment_, pp. 132-33. (Henry Holt & Co., 1911.)

[116] Fishberg, _op. cit._, p. 555.