Diderot and the Blind
By PHYLLIS D. HICKS
THIS year marks the bicentenary of the publication of Diderot's Lettre sur les Aveugles, a work small in size but great in influence. Indeed, it may be claimed as the begin- ning, if not the begetter, of the world-wide work which today is carried on for the welfare of the blind. Deforc Diderot there were undoubtedly a few outstanding examples of blind people who had overcome their handicap. His book, indeed, deals largely with the almost incredible achievements of one, Nicholas Saunderson, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, who lost his sight completely while still an infant. For the vast majority, however, blindness implied unteachability. Since books were barred to them, there was nothing that could be done about it, and the simplest manual occupations were all that could be expected from them. The hospital for the blind founded by St. Louis indicates the highest point to which philanthropy had hitherto reached, and in that there was no idea of education, no purpose in life for the unhappy sufferer.
The immediate cause of Diderot's book was the announcement by " a foreign physician" that on such and such a day he would publicly perform an operation restoring sight to a girl born blind. Diderot was sceptical, and, although the bills said that the operation was to be performed publicly, his courteous request to be allowed to be present was refused on the grounds that the presence of a philosopher would be disquieting for both surgeon and patient. In the Lettre, however, he examines the effect of such a restoration, questioning whether the patient would be able to correlate his new sense of sight with the touch and hearing on which he had hitherto relied. The problem is interesting, although in these days of highly-developed care for blind children it is likely to be a purely academic one, as any chance of giving sight to one born blind would have been taken and acted upon.
To the vast majority of the moot; blind people in England and Wales the problem is precisely opposite—the difficulty of accustom- ing oneself to learning from touch and hearing what one has been accustomed to learning from sight. A conversation with a lady who was born blind showed clearly that the memory of conscious sight in itself puts those of us who have become blind into a different category—I had almost said a different world. At times one's stumbling efforts at adjustment to a world of darkness make one envy the confident, balanced movements of those born blind. Her remarks, however, on the difficulty of intercourse between those born blind and those who have lost their sight in adulthood—on the loneliness and the impossibility of understanding conversation which deals with a world in which most people can see—was as illuminating as were the investigations, both personal and carried out through records, which Diderot records in his essay.
The anecdotes are set down with the dispassionate clarity of the scientific investigator. Some of the little portraits are unforgettable. There is the old man who found that the only way to live was to turn night into day, and who spent the first part of his active night putting back into their proper places the things which had been misplaced by the thoughtless sighted people around him. This man was so happy in his dependence on touch that he declared that to possess a really long arm, capable of reaching a few hundred lards, would In his opinion be far more useful than being given his sight—basing his conclusion on the number of times those who can see arc mistaken in their impressions. He was very much interested in mirrors and glasses, but, not unnaturally, found them difficult to understand. He was extremely clever with his fingers, and even managed to thread a needle by sucking the thread through the eye. Another blind man could judge distance so accurately by sound that, in a fit of rage, he hit his brother on the forehead with " the first thing that came to his hand," and knocked him flat. As a result of " this and other adventures," the blind man was brought before the magistrates, who committed him to the dungeon. On hearing his sentence, the blind man said, " As to that, I have been in one these twenty-five years "—a remark which Diderot recognised as a fine text for a sermon.
A considerable part of the Lettre is devoted to an elaborate description of Nicholas Saunderson's method of doing arithmetic, a method which strikes one as extraordinarily complicated, but which appears to have been very efficient. Saunderson's death-bed con- versation with the clergyman who tried to convince the blind man of the existence of God by speaking of the wonders of nature, con- cludes with the poignant cry, "What have you or I done to God that you should be able to see and I should be blind ? " and " 0 thou God of Clark and Newton, have mercy on me I " The latter words have, for blind people, the additional significance as an example of the necessity, under which the blind suffer more than most people, of accepting the opinions and evidence of others. No doubt even those with sight have to take much information on trust, but for the blind it is an experience which dogs them through- out the day, and has grievous spiritual frustrations and humiliations.
Diderot's essay contains food for thought on almost every page. Nevertheless, there Is one passage which has had more practical effect on the lives of blind people in the succeeding couple of cen- turies than any other. It runs: "It is only the want of one sense which can make us thoroughly acquainted with the advantages of the symbols appointed for those which we enjoy. And what a consolation would it be to those whose misfortune it is to be deaf, blind and dumb, or who should lose those three senses by any accident, were there a clear and precise language for the touch."
Eighty years after Diderot's essay that " clear and precise language for the touch" was produced by Louis Braille. Braille's own educa- tion, however, was due indirectly to Diderot's little book, for it was through reading the Lettre sur les Aveugles that Valentin Huy was moved to found the Ecole des Jeunes Aveugles at Paris where Braille worked as pupil and junior master. Braille's system remained practically unused for over twenty years, so that the academic and general education which it has made possible for the blind has been operative for roughly a century. It is fitting that this year, which secs the bicentenary of Diderot's work, should see also, in the conference recently held at Oxford, the greatest gathering of blind people that has ever taken place.
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