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Academic Thoughts
The Object of Government —
It is the habit
of men to blind themselves by customary trains of associated thought, to come to look on the means as an end and honour it
with a superstitious reverence as a wonder-working fetish.
The principle of good government is not to keep men quiet, but
to keep them satisfied. It is not its objective to have loyal servants
and subjects, but to give all individuals in the nation the utmost
possible facilities for being men and realising their highest manhood.
The ideal of the state is not a hive of bees or a herd of cattle,
shepherded by strong watch-dogs, but an association of free men
for mutual help and human advancement. The mere fact of a
government doing what it does well and firmly, is nothing in its
favour. It is more important to know what it does and where it
is leading us.
*
European Justice — The modern court
is a curious and instructive institution. Under a civilised disguise it is really the
mediaeval ordeal by battle; only in place of the swords or lances
of military combatants, it is decided by the tongues of pleaders
and the imagination of witnesses; whoever can lie most consistently, plausibly and artistically has the best chance of winning.
In one aspect, it is an exhilarating gamble, a very Monte-Carlo
of surprising chances. But there is skill in it too and satisfies the
intellect as well as the sensations. It is a sort of human game of
'Bridge', combining luck and skill or an intellectual gladiatorial
show. The stake in big cases is a man's property or his soul.
Vae Victis! Woe to the conquered! If it is a criminal case, the
tortures of the jail are in prospect, be he innocent or be he guilty.
And as he stands there — for to add to the pleasurableness of his
case, the physical ache of long standing is usually added to the
strain on his emotions — he looks eagerly not to the truth or
falsehood of the evidence for or against him, but to the skill with
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which this counsel or the other handles the proofs or the witnesses and the impressions they are making on the judge or jury.
One understands, as one watches, the passion of the Roman
poet's eulogy of the defence-lawyer, prœsidium mœstis reis, a
bulwark to the sorrowful accused. For in this strange civilised
game of pitch and toss, where it is impossible to be certain about
guilt or innocence, one's sympathies naturally go to the sufferer
who may be innocent yet convicted. If one could eliminate this
element of human pity, it would be a real intellectual pleasure to
watch this queer semi-barbarous battle, appraise the methods of
chief players, admire in whatever climes the elusiveness and fine
casualness of Indian perjury or the robust, manly downrightness
of Saxon cross-swearing. And if one were to complain that
modern civilisation [eliminates] from life danger and excitement
one could well answer him, "Come into the courts and see!"
But after all praise must be given what it
is due and the English system must be lauded for not normally exposing the accused
to the torture of savage pursuit by a prosecuting judge or the
singular methods of investigation favoured by the American
Police. If the dice are apt to be loaded, it is on both sides and not
on one.
*
The European Jail — is a luminous commentary on the humanitarian boasts of the Occident and its pious horrors at Oriental barbarities. To mutilate, to impale, to torture, how shocking,
how Oriental! And we are occasionally reminded that if we had
independence, such punishments would again be our portion.
England forgets that to half hang a man, draw out his entrails
and burn them before his eyes was an English practice in the 18th
Century. France has forgotten the wheel and galleys. But these
things have gone out. What of the penal system ? It strikes us as
the refined and efficient organisation of the methods of savages,
who have indeed progressed and have learned that the torture of
the soul is a more terrible revenge than the torture of the body,
to murder the human nature a greater satisfaction than to slay
the animal frame.
Ancient nations punished their enemies by death, slavery,
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torture, humiliation and degradation. The jail system is an organisation of these four principles. Physical death has been reduced
to a minimum, it is now only a punishment for murder and rebellion. A century or more ago, every crime almost was punished
with death in England. The principle was — your life for my
shilling, your life for my handkerchief. It is now — your life
for the life you have taken, your life for the mortal fear you put
me into of the loss of my power, emoluments and pleasures. The organisation of slavery is the first principle of the system. I take
my enemy, put him on a dog's diet, load him with chains, set
guards to beat and kick him into obedience and diligence, and make him work for
my profit for a period fixed by myself, careless whether his nature is brutalised or his life shortened in the
process — for he is my slave to do my will with, and if I do not
kill him for taking my shilling or my handkerchief, it is because
I am civilised and merciful, not a barbarous Oriental. For the
same reason, I do not inflict physical torture on him, unless he is
unwilling or unable to do the amount of work I have fixed for
him, or either deliberately or accidentally remembers that he
was a human being or behaves like the brute I have successfully
laboured to make him. Even then I torture according to his physical capacity and take care not to maim or kill this serviceable
animal. Degradation and humiliation are as well organised as
the slavery. It is done, not once in a way but driven in daily,
hourly, momently, in every detail of his dress, food, conduct,
discipline. In every possible way I brand in upon his soul that he
is no longer such a one, no longer possessed of the name, rights
or nature of humanity, but my slave, beast and property — of
myself and of my servants. It is my object to wipe out every trace
of the human in him and I stamp my foot daily on anything in
him that may remind him of such human qualities as modesty,
culture, self-respect, generosity, fellow-feeling. If everything else
fails, I have the exquisite rack of mental torture, called solitary
imprisonment to shake his reason or destroy his manhood.
And if in the end I have not succeeded, if he comes out a man and
not a brute or idiot, it is not my fault, but his, I have done my
best. This is the European prison system, and it is inflicted on
all alike with machine-like efficiency. The curious thing is, that
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it is inflicted in part even on undertrial prisoners, who may be
perfectly innocent. This also is probably directed by the finer
feelings of the modern civilised accident and intended mercifully
to prepare his gentle and easy descent into Inferno around them.
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