A conception of the idiotic mind was used to substantiate late 19th-century theories of mental evolution. A new school of animal/comparative psychologists attempted from the 1870s to demonstrate that evolution was a mental as well as a physical process. This intellectual enterprise necessitated the closure, or narrowing, of the ‘consciousness gap’ between human and animal species. A concept of a quasi-non-conscious human mind, set against conscious intention and ability in higher animals, provided an explanatory framework for the human–animal continuum and the evolution of consciousness. The article addresses a significant lacuna in the historiographies of intellectual disability, animal science, and evolutionary psychology, where the application of a conception of human idiocy to advance theories of consciousness evolution has not hitherto been explored. These ideas retain contemporary resonance in ethology and cognitive psychology, and in the theory of ‘speciesism’, outlined by Peter Singer in Animal Liberation (1975), which claims that equal consideration of interests is not arbitrarily restricted to members of the human species, and advocates euthanasia of intellectually disabled human infants. Speciesism remains at the core of animal rights activism today. The article also explores the influence of the idea of the semi-evolved idiot mind in late-Victorian anthropology and neuroscience. These ideas operated in a separate intellectual sphere to eugenic thought. They were (and remain) deeply influential, and were at the heart of the idea of the moral idiot or imbecile, targeted in the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act, as well as in 20th-century animal and human consciousness theory.

中文翻译：

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意识减少：“白痴”在早期进化心理学中的作用


白痴心智的概念被用来证实 19 世纪晚期的心智进化理论。从 1870 年代开始，一派新的动物/比较心理学家试图证明进化既是一个心理过程，也是一个物理过程。这项智力事业需要缩小或缩小人类和动物物种之间的“意识差距”。与高等动物的有意识意图和能力相对立的准无意识人类心灵的概念，为人类-动物连续体和意识进化提供了解释框架。这篇文章探讨了智力障碍、动物科学和进化心理学史学中的一个重大缺陷，迄今为止，尚未探索如何应用人类白痴概念来推进意识进化理论。这些想法在动物行为学和认知心理学以及彼得·辛格在《动物解放》（1975）中概述的“物种歧视”理论中保留了当代的共鸣，该理论声称对利益的平等考虑并不任意限制于人类物种的成员，并且提倡对智力残疾的人类婴儿实施安乐死。物种歧视仍然是当今动物权利活动的核心。文章还探讨了半进化白痴思维观念对维多利亚晚期人类学和神经科学的影响。这些思想在与优生思想不同的知识领域中运作。他们曾经（并且仍然）具有深远的影响力，并且是道德白痴或低能者观念的核心，是 1913 年《精神缺陷法案》以及 20 世纪动物和人类意识理论的目标。