"Their aim is to support class interests. Courts, according to my idea, are only instruments for the perpetuation of conditions profitable to our class."
"That is an entirely new view," said Ignatius Nikiforovitch, smiling calmly. "Usually somewhat different aims are ascribed to courts."
"In theory, but not in practice, as I have learned. The only aim of the courts is to preserve the existing state of things, and for this reason they persecute and kill all those who are above the common level and who wish to raise it as well as those who are below it."
"I cannot agree with the view that criminals are executed because they are above the level of the average. For the most part they are the excrescence of society, just as perverted, though in a different manner, as are those criminal types whom you consider below the level of the average."
"And I know people who are far above their judges."
But Ignatius Nikiforovitch, not accustomed to being interrupted when speaking, did not listen to Nekhludoff, which was particularly irritating to the latter, and continued to talk while Nekhludoff was talking.
"I cannot agree with you that the aim of courts is to support the existing order of things. The courts have their aims: either the correction——"
"Prisons are great places for correction," Nekhludoff put in.
"Or the removal," persistently continued Ignatius Nikiforovitch, "of those depraved and savage people who threaten the existence of society."
"That is just where the trouble is. Courts can do neither the one nor the other. Society has no means of doing it."