Halsey v. N. Y. Society (234 N. Y. 1, 4).
The proposition thus laid down is nothing but common sense,—the common sense which was expressed, over a century ago, in a trial in the Irish King’s Bench, for the publication of an alleged libel:
“Mr. Burrowes.—My lords, I beg to know, whether the Court be of opinion, that without any averment respecting other passages in the book, the counsel for the crown are entitled to read them.
Mr. Justice Day.—In order to show the quo animo, they may read those other passages.
Mr. Justice Osborne.—I think they have such right, as evidence of the intention.
Lord Chief Justice Downes.—And the defendant, if he thinks fit, may read all the rest of the book.” (Fitzpatrick’s Case, 31 Hows. St. Tr. 1170, 1186.)
It follows that if the book must be taken as a whole, then it cannot be condemned piecemeal. No part can be read without a mind to its relation to the whole. In the latest case on the subject, Andrews J., speaking for the majority of the court, twice concedes that, taken by themselves, certain parts of the book are not to be justified:
“It contains many paragraphs, however, which taken by themselves are undoubtedly vulgar and indecent. * * * On the other hand, it does contain indecent paragraphs.” Halsey v. N. Y. Society (234 N. Y. 1, 4, 6).
Yet the book was upheld for all that, both because, in the words which the court adopted from the late Professor Wells of Sewanee, the author there involved “helps us over the instinctive repulsion that we feel for the situation”, and because he excites “a purely artistic interest”, etc. (Halsey v. N. Y. Society, 234 N. Y. 1, 5.)