“True science,” said the Curmudgeon Philosopher, “began with
publication, in 1620, of Lord St. Albans’ _Novum Organum_. Why not Lord
Bacon’s? Because, my benighted friend, there was no ‘Lord Bacon.’ He
was Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, and, later, Viscount St. Albans. When
you hear a man speak of ‘Lord Bacon’ fly from that man.
“The _Novum Organum_, or new method, has overthrown the _Organum_
of Aristotle and released men’s minds from thraldom to the belief
that truth could be got by mere reasoning, unaided by observation
and experiment. This faith in the all-sufficiency of Logic had
persisted for more than two thousand years, an intellectual paralysis
invulnerable to treatment; and all the while the world thought itself
enjoying robust mental health.
“Belief in the sufficiency of Deduction was not the only delusion that
dominated and shackled the human mind, and some of the others are with
us to-day, to comfort and inspire! We think that if we did not have
them we should be sick.”
Pleased with his wit, the Curmudgeon Philosopher executed the great
convulsion of nature which he knew as a smile.
“One of the most mischievous of these false and futile faiths is known
as the Reformation of Criminals. With no result, we have been embracing
it with a devout fervor since the dawning of time. Our mistake is not
so much that we have neglected to get the consent of the criminals as
that we think ourselves able to reform them without it.
“Each habitual criminal is the hither end of an interminable line
of criminal ancestors. He can reform no more than he can fly: his
character is as immutable as the shape of his head or the texture of
the muscle that he calls his heart. Our efforts in his behalf recall
the story of the physician who, after examining a patient afflicted
with a disorder of the skin, said: ‘This is hereditary; we must begin
at the beginning. Go home and tell your father to take a sulphur bath.’
Our criminals are in worse case than that patient; he had an accessible
father for the treatment.
“What have I to propose? What is the ‘New Method’ that I favor?
What would I substitute for ‘reformation’ of the unworthy? Their
destruction—I would kill them.”
With obvious pride in this humane suggestion, he stroked his ragged
beard with both hands and adored his reflection in the mirror opposite
his pedestal.
“It sounds harsh, I dare say, to one unfamiliar with the thought, and I
might have said ‘remove’ if that would seem less alarming; but ‘kill’
is an honest word, and I’ll stand to it.
“Think of it! The New Method would give us in two generations a nation
without habitual criminals! What other will do that? Think of the
lessened misery, the security of life and property, the lighter burden
of taxation to maintain the machinery of justice, the no police—all
that the besotted proponents of ‘Reformation’ hope and hope again and
hope in vain to accomplish brought about in the lifetime of one man!
“And by means that are merciful to the criminals themselves. Can there
be a doubt that if in him the love of life were not the mere brute
instinct of a perverted soul the habitual criminal would prefer death?
What does life hold that is worth anything to such as he, devoid of
self-respect and the respect of others, victim alike of justice and
injustice, denied the delights that come of refined sensibilities,
hunted from pillar to post and ever cowering in fear of the law?
Nothing is more cruel than to let him live. And at last he dies anyhow.
“But suppose that the painless putting to death of all criminals
were as deep a misfortune as it would be to—to philosophers, for
example? Yet in the long run it would vastly lessen the total of
human unhappiness, even of public executions. The earth was not made
yesterday: for thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of years, men
have been putting other men to death for crime.
“Even under the mild laws of to-day in civilized countries the number
executed will in the course of the ages enormously exceed to-day’s
total criminal population. Moreover, it would not be necessary to kill
them all: most of them, if confronted by a law for their killing, would
take themselves out of the country, quarter themselves upon foolish
nations still willing to stand their nonsense—nations still enamored of
that ancient delusion, Reformation of Criminals.
“That would serve _your_ purpose as well as anything, but as a citizen
of the world, owing my first allegiance to Mankind,” concluded the
Curmudgeon Philosopher, with a gesture appropriate to some noble
ancestral sentiment, “I should deem it my duty to endeavor to prevent
their escape by writs of _ne exeat regno_.”