Idiot
A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States · John Bouvier · 1839
A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States
persons, is a person who has been without understanding from his nativity, and whom the law therefore presumes never likely to attain any.
Shelf. on Lun, 2.
It is an imbecility or sterility of mind, and not a perversion of the understanding.
Chit. Med. Jur. 345, 327, note (s.); 1 Russ. on Cr. 6; Bac. Ab. h. t. (A); Bro. Ab. h. t.; Co. Litt. 246, 247; 3 Mod. 44; 1 Vern. 16; 4 Rep. 126; 1 Bl. Com 302.
When a man cannot count or number twenty, nor tell his father’s or mother’s name, nor how old he is, having been frequently told of it, it is a fair presumption that he is devoid of understanding.
F. N. B. 233.
Vide 1 Dow. P. C. new series, 392; S. C. 3 Bligh, R. new ser.
1.
Persons born deaf, dumb and blind, are presumed to be idiots, for the senses being the only inlets of knowledge, and these, the most important of them, being closed, all ideas and Co. Litt. 42; Shelf. on Lun. 3.
Vide Locke on Human Understanding, B. 2,c.11, §§ 12,13; Ayliff ’s Pand. 234; 4 Com. Dig. 610; 8 Com. Dig. 644.
Idiots are incapable of committing crimes, or entering into contracts: they cannot of course make a will. But they may acquire property by descent. Vide, generally, 1 Dow’s Parl. Cas. new series, 392; 3 Bligh’s R. 1; 19 Ves. 286, 352, 353; Stock on the Law of Non Compotes Mentis.