Remorse may be evidence, not so much of exceptional delinquency as of exceptional sensitiveness to ethical considerations. By the baser and more degraded souls it is rarely experienced. The greatest criminals usually meet their doom, untouched by any feeling of remorse. Perhaps it does not greatly matter how this infinite regret is occasioned. Sometimes—
"… pain in man Has the high purpose of the flail and fan."
It separates and purifies. To one whose great suffering from disease is long continued, there must come a clearer vision of the infinite littleness of all transitory ambitions. Such supreme regret as that which came to Reid has great value. The poor soul once so longed for "fame"—which means only a little wider recognition to-day, and a little more enduring remembrance by posterity than that which is gained by the generality of mankind. Of that horde of torturers, avid also for "fame," whose causation of unreckonable anguish brings into their ignoble natures no thought of pity, no emotion of regret, everyone comes at last to rest in that deep forgetfulness which he deserves. Here, however, is the story of one whose penitence gives reason for longer remembrance, who greatly erred and greatly suffered, whose contrition atoned, whose example admonishes—JOHN REID, physiologist.
CHAPTER VI
IS TORTURE JUSTIFIED BY UTILITY?
At every point in the discussion of vivisection we are confronted by the plea of utility. If, to some extent, we may admit the reasonableness of the argument, yet such admission must be with certain definite reservations. The infliction of extreme pain either upon human beings or on animals for objects other than their own benefit—how far is it to be justified if some useful end is thereby achieved? The subject is worth of study.
The utility of judicial torture as a method of securing the confession of criminals does not seem to have been questioned for hundreds of years. The Romans often put all their slaves to torture as soon as any crime occurred, of which some of their servants could have been aware. That sometimes the innocent suffered beyond endurance and falsely confessed seemed to our forefathers no reason whatever for changing an ancient custom, so often productive of useful ends. Mysterious crimes, which under our modern methods of investigation escape detection, were frequently brought to light in earlier times simply by the threat of torment and the sight of the executioner. There can be no question that in innumerable cases the torture of accused criminals whose guilt was almost certain, yet not absolutely proven, served to further the ends of Justice. If modern civilization condemns the torture of suspected lawbreakers, it is upon other grounds than that Justice finds it useless in every case.
The public punishment of great offences against the state—punishment accompanied with ignominy and extreme torment—seemed to our ancestors equally justified by utility. If an old woman were convicted of witchcraft—and nobody questioned the actuality of the offence two hundred and fifty years ago—her punishment by burning at the stake certainly might be expected to deter others from entering into compacts with the Evil One. If heresy and unbelief lead not only the sceptic himself, but all who follow his teaching, into eternal darkness, there seemed to our forefathers no surer method of checking the first tendencies toward intellectual revolt, and saving innumerable souls, than by delivering the heretic to the flames, and accompanying his execution by everything calculated to excite popular derision and execration. The public punishment of treason, and particularly of attempted or achieved assassination of the sovereign or head of the State, was made as excruciating and terrible as possible, in order THAT THE EXAMPLE MIGHT DETER.
We speak somewhat vaguely to-day of such tortures and their atrociously horrible accompaniments. It may be worth while to see just what they were. two or three centuries ago civilized nations considered that IF TORMENT WAS USEFUL IT WAS JUSTIFIABLE. There are three cases which stand out in history with especial distinctness, the details of which are little known, and I propose to cite them simply as evidence of the extent to which judicial torment was carried, but a little while ago, among some of the most enlightened and progressive nations of modern times.
If ever the assassination of a Prince deserved the severest punishment, it was the murder in July, 1584, of William the Silent, the leader of the Protestants of Holland in their struggle for independence from Spanish dominion. The sentence pronounced upon the murderer, Balthazar Gerard, a mere hired assassin, was carried out within ten days after commission of the crime. A contemporary writer, apparently an eyewitness of his execution, speaks of Gerard as one "whose death was not of a sufficient sharpness for such a caitiff, and yet too sore for any Christian." His description of the murderer' execution is as follows: