IMPOSSIBILITY OF JUST JUDGMENT
Natural laws rule the world. It is a mistake to believe that the conduct
of man is outside of natural law. The laws of being that move all the
sentient world rule him. His first impulse is to preserve his life, and
his next to preserve the species. Nature planted these instincts so
deeply in his being that no civilization can root them up. To destroy
these instincts would be to destroy the human race. The first instinct of
man is to preserve his life. To do this he must obtain the food, shelter
and raiment that enable him to live. His constant effort has been ever
to get these at the smallest expenditure of time and strength. In a
semi-coöperative state like ours the strongest choose the easiest, most
remunerative occupations society can bestow. The less fortunate the
next best, and so on down the scale. At the lowest place some are forced
to abject toil, to practical slavery, to beggary, to crime. Men would
not steal sheep if they had land on which to raise mutton. Men would
not explore their neighbor’s houses at dead of night, if their own were
filled; and women would not sell their bodies if society left them any
other fairly decent and pleasant way to live.
Even if punishment by the state could ever be justified, no man is wise
enough or good enough to administer that punishment. It is the theory of
the law that by means of its magical wisdom it is enabled to fix a code
enumerating the acts that are sufficiently evil to constitute a crime;
and for each of these enumerated acts it sets a penalty which it presumes
is sufficiently severe and drastic to in some mysterious way atone for,
excuse, absolve or at least in some way make right, or certainly make
better the commission of the act. Punishment must proceed upon the
theory that some are wilfully bad, possessed of devils, and the bad must
be punished when found bad, to prevent others who are bad from committing
crime. Men could only be punished because they were wilfully bad. If men
are part good and part bad it will not do to punish. How could the law
or courts fix the exact line as to how bad a man might be to deserve
punishment, and how good to excuse it? Neither is it the act that should
be punished, for it would be a hard and cruel and strange code of
negative ethics that should say that a man should be punished for an evil
act and not be rewarded for a virtuous one; and even judges might find
difficulty in balancing the good and bad; and besides, does not the law
in its wisdom say that an evil act shall be punished regardless of its
consequences? I may steal my neighbor’s horse at night and return it in
the morning. I am none the less a thief and my home is the prison. I may
burglarize a safe and find it empty, but the crime has been completed and
it deserves the penitentiary. In each case I deserve the penitentiary
because my heart is bad. Thus the old theory is the only one on which the
believer in punishment could rest for a moment, that some men are bad and
some are good—at least some are bad.
The law is not concerned with the good. Its business is not rewarding,
but punishment; not love but hate. How can human judgment determine what
heart is bad? Men’s lives are a strange mixture of thought, motive and
action; an infinite mixture of good and evil, as it is given to finite
man to know good and evil. No life is wholly good, and no life is wholly
bad. A life of great virtues may here and there be interspersed with an
evil act. The law picks out the evil and ignores the good. A life barren
of real affirmative goodness may still be free from serious positive
sin, and thus escape the condemnation of man and his courts. The conduct
which falls under the observation of others is not so much due to the
goodness or badness of the heart as to the emotion or placidity of the
nature. In balancing the evil of a life against the good, no one can give
the exact weight to each for no two men weigh moral worth or turpitude
with the same scales. Neither can a man’s standing be determined until
his life is done. Acts which seem evil if left to develop character are
often the means of softening the heart, of developing love and charity
and humanity, of really building up the moral worth of man. But no person
can be judged even by his conduct. Goodness and evil are both latent
in man and this fact shows the evil of resistance and force. One may
be intrinsically good and live a long life and still never be touched
upon the proper side to develop character and reveal to the world the
real self. It requires circumstance, opportunity and the proper appeal
to develop the best in man, the same as to develop the worst in man.
To judge the character of a human soul from one isolated act, would be
as impossible as to judge his physical health by testing his sight or
hearing alone. Every person’s first impressions show how often these
are really wrong, and how much they depend upon the circumstances of
time and place. To really judge another’s character requires almost
infinite knowledge, not of their acts alone, but of their thoughts and
aspirations, their temptations, and environment, and every circumstance
that makes up their lives. But if the administration of punishment is to
depend on the good or evil of the man, then each person must be judged
from his own standpoint. One’s merit or demerit depends not on what he
does but on his purpose and intent, upon his desire to do good or evil.
In short, upon the condition of his heart, which can only be told in part
from his isolated acts.
Each person has his own rule of conduct and of life. The highest that
can be done by any human soul is to live and strive according to his
best conception of the highest life. To one man an act appears harmless
which to another is a heinous crime. One man would blaspheme, but under
no circumstances would beat a dog or kill a fly. One might commit larceny
or even murder by the very strength of his love. Again, real character,
merit and demerit cannot be judged except in view of the capacity, the
opportunity, the teaching of the life. No honest judgment of the worth of
any soul can be measured except with full knowledge of every circumstance
that made his life, and with this knowledge the man who would accuse
would but condemn himself. But even if every act of every life were open
to the sight of man, this could furnish no guide to true character.
The same temptation does not appeal alike to all. One man may not be
tempted by strong drink and may never fall. Another with an appetite
born in a remote ancestor may struggle manfully and fail. The temptation
to take property by force does not appeal to one who can get it by
inheritance or gift or fraud. The desire to kill never moves the soul
of the placid man. To know what it means requires an intimate, infinite
knowledge of every emotion of the soul, of every fiber of the body, and
the understanding, not of how the temptations or inducements that he met
would affect the judge, but how they would affect the man. Science has
determined a way to measure the height, and the girth of an individual,
to tell the color of his eyes and hair, to determine the shape and
contour of his skull. It has not yet found a way to look beneath the
skull and weigh the actions and responsibilities of that hidden involved
mystery—the human brain, or to look at the real man,—the human soul, and
judge whether the Infinite Maker made it white or black. If every man who
passed an unjust judgment on his fellow should be condemned, how many
judges would be found so vain and foolish as to review and condemn their
Maker’s work?