THE EUROPEAN LAW OF TORTURE. 649 



delve among its dry bones of ancient delusion and wrong. It re- 

 veals a wide field of ideas which not long ago ruled the " civi- 

 lized " world, but now are forever put away. In fact, it exhibits 

 with photographic accuracy the Inquisition of central Europe. 



The prevalent idea of torture seems to be about as follows: 

 That two or three centuries ago a wicked portion of a priesthood 

 set up the Inquisition as a means of religious persecution, which, 

 after all, was probably not nearly as bad as reported. Another 

 class, somewhat better informed, can discourse at large of the 

 Spanish and German Inquisitions, and describe their ghastly relics 

 still shown in museums ; while others, again, full of ignorant zeal, 

 will denounce the whole subject as a base slander on human nature. 



But comparatively few now realize the full truth that in vari- 

 ous lands torture was the established method of authority to force 

 prisoners to convict themselves of every sort of crime for more 

 than a thousand years before the Holy Office was set up by church- 

 men ; that it still survived in parts of Europe as an authorized 

 court process for generations after they had abolished the Holy 

 Office; and that the much-advertised doings of the Inquisition 

 were but a few rough waves of that bloody ocean of wrong which 

 flowed over Europe from the time of Herodotus down to the nine- 

 teenth century. 



Books of reference give the facts mildly, softened from old 

 authors inaccessible to the many. But one must beware of his- 

 tory written, perhaps, for partisan purposes or with sectarian 

 bias. What is wanted to-day is scientific proof, impartial and un- 

 impeachable. For this is a delicate matter of family history. In 

 examining into the mental and moral condition of ancestors only 

 three or four generations back, let us beware of hearsay evidence. 

 But we shall be justified in the inquiry if we can obtain their 

 own testimony and make them convict themselves in their own 

 favorite style. 



For this purpose the Constitutio Criminalis Tlieresiana, or 

 criminal code of Austria and Hungary, put forth in 17G9 under 

 the imperial edict of Maria Theresa toward the close of her 

 reign, outweighs a whole library of recent suppositions. This 

 book contains three hundred and fifty folio pages, with one hun- 

 dred and four articles or chapters arranged in two parts, prefaced 

 by a lofty proclamation over her Majesty's hand and seal, ordain- 

 ing and enacting it as the lawful code of her domain. 



Part I is a general commentary upon crime and criminal pro- 

 cess, beginning with this benevolent and modern principle : " The 

 punishment of criminals is designed chiefly for the reformation 

 of evil-doers." The subject of torture is reached in Article 38, 

 where eleven large pages are devoted to an exhaustive treatise 

 on its principles and practice. It is called in the text " die pein- 



