And so on; it is not necessary to say more. If there are such powers in man, then there is indeed an exact science possible. Short of it there is only a temporary and phantom science. "Whatever is known to us by (direct) consciousness," says Stuart Mill in his System of Logic, "is known to us beyond possibility of question;" what is known by our local and temporary consciousness is known for the moment beyond possibility of question; what is known by our permanent and universal consciousness is permanently known beyond possibility of question.[33]
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Thus the study of Geometry would be primarily an education of the eye, and the mind's eye, to the perception of geometrical forms and facts, the judgment of angles, etc.—and secondarily only a process of deductive reasoning—a body of empirical knowledge strengthened and tied together by bands of logic; the study of Natural History would be primarily an affectionate intimacy with the habits of animals and plants, and classification would be treated as a secondary matter and as a help to the former; Physiology would be studied in the first place by the method of Health—the pure body—becoming gradually transparent with all its organs to the eye of the mind—and dissection would be used to corroborate and correct the results thus attained; and so on.
[32] Compare the Sphinx-riddle: What is that which goes on four legs, etc.
[33] See for continuation of this subject the chapter on "A Rational and Humane Science," [p. 219] infra.
DEFENCE OF CRIMINALS:
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY
The State is the actually existing realised moral life. For it is the unity of the universal essential Will with that of the individual, and this is "Morality."—Hegel.
A criminal is literally a person accused—accused, and in the modern sense of the word convicted, of being harmful to Society. But is he there in the dock, the patch-coated brawler or burglar, really harmful to Society? is he more harmful than the mild old gentleman in the wig who pronounces sentence upon him? That is the question. Certainly he has infringed the law: and the law is in a sense the consolidated public opinion of Society: but if no one were to break the law, public opinion would ossify, and Society would die. As a matter of fact Society keeps changing its opinion. How then are we to know when it is right and when it is wrong? The Outcast of one age is the Hero of another. In execration they nailed Roger Bacon's manuscripts out in the sun and rain, to rot crucified upon planks—his bones lie in an unknown and unhonoured grave—yet to-day he is regarded as a pioneer of human thought. The hated Christian holding his ill-famed love-feasts in the darkness of the catacombs has climbed up to the throne of S. Peter and the world. The Jew moneylender whom Front-de-Boeuf could torture with impunity is become a Rothschild—guest of princes and instigator of commercial wars; and Shylock is now a highly respectable Railway Bondholder. And the Accepted of one age is the Criminal of the next. All the glories of Alexander do not condone in our eyes for his cruelty in crucifying the brave defenders of Tyre by thousands along the sea-shore; and if Solomon with his thousand wives and concubines were to appear in London to-morrow, even our most frivolous circles would be shocked, and Brigham Young by contrast seem a domestic model. The judge pronounces sentence on the prisoner now, but Society in its turn and in the lapse of years pronounces sentence on the judge. It holds in its hand a new canon, a new code of morals, and consigns its former representative and the law which he administered to a limbo of contempt.