ery alarming to his parents, had in fact been voluntary interferences of a too daring nature. His emotional reflexes also were Maillot Arsenal Pas CHer far more under control than in the rest of us. Thus if, in some anger-provoking situation, he did not wish to feel angry, he could easily inhibit the anger reflexes. And if anger seemed desirable he could produce it. He was indeed “Odd John.”
About nine months after John had learnt to speak, some one gave him a child’s abacus. For the rest of that day there was no talking, no hilarity; and meals were dismissed with impatience. John had suddenly discovered the intricate Maillot Roumanie Pas CHer delights of number. Hour after Boston Bruins Barn hour he performed all manner of operations on the new toy. Then suddenly he Protège Tibias Pas CHer flung it away and lay back staring at the ceiling.
His mother thought he was tired. She spoke to him. He took no notice. She gently shook his arm. No response. “John!” she cried in some alarm, and shook more violently. “Shut up, Pax,” he said, “I’m busy with numbers.”
Then, after a pause, “Pax, what do you call the numbers after twelve?” She counted up to twenty, then up to thirty. “You’re as stupid as that toy, Pax.” When she asked why, he found he had not words to explain himself; but after he had indicated various operations on the abacus, and she had told him the names of them, he said slowly and triumphantly, “You’re stupid, Pax, dear, because you (and the toy there) ‘count’ in tens and not in twelves. And that’s stupid because twelves have ‘fourths’ Ostaa Halpa Nike Air Max 1 Miehet and ‘threeths’, I mean ‘thirds’, Isco Drakt and tens have not.” When she explained that all men counted Scarpe Nike Air Force 1 Donna in tens because when counting began, they used their five fingers, he looked fixedly at her, then laughed his crackling, crowing laugh. Presently he said, “Then all men are stupid.”
This, I think, was John’s first realization of the stupidity of Homo sapiens, but not the last.
Thomas was jubilant over John’s mathematical shrewdness, and wanted to report his case to the British Psychological Society. B |