MENTALITY, DEVELOPMENT OF
C. C. Abbot writes in the New York Sun:
Beasts and birds long ago became afraid of man, and afraid of him in a way wholly different from their fear of other forms of animal life. This demonstrates that they recognize a difference, as when I can not approach a snipe that will permit a cow almost to tread upon it. Fear being the sum of disastrous experiences, the birds that soonest learned the lesson of prudence left the most descendants. The fearless ones paid the price of their foolhardiness and died out. Such conditions did not call for anatomical changes, but mental ones, and this increased mentality that led to the preservation of the species is so near the border line of what Goldwin Smith calls self-improvement that it can be looked upon only as its forerunner, as birds and all beasts foreran the man who was to prove their arch enemy.
(2015)
Mercenary Spirit, The—See [Gold, Taint of].
MERCY, LIMITATION OF
Says the old hymn:
While the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return.
An old Saxon king had some serious trouble with his subjects: they murmured against him and at last rose up in rebellion. The king set out to subdue them, and soon the well-disciplined troops won a decided victory over the tatterdemalion horde opposing them. Having conquered, the king determined to show mercy. He adopted the novel expedient of placing a candle in the window of his castle and proclaiming that all should be pardoned who returned “while the candle burns.” (Text.)