50 DEFENCE OF CRIMINALS: 



almost every human impulse has at some age been held in esteem and 

 allowed full play; thus man came to recognise its beauty and value. But 

 then lest it should come (as it surely would) to tyrannise over the rest, it 

 has been dethroned, and so in a later age the same quality is scouted and 

 banned. Last of all it has to find its perfect human use and to take its 

 place with the rest. Up to the age of Civilisation (according to writers 

 on primitive Society) the early tribes of mankind, though limited each in 

 their habits, were essentially democratical in structure. In fact nothing 

 had occurred to make them otherwise. Each member stood on a footing 

 of equality with the rest; individual men had not in their hands an arbi- 

 trary power over others; and the tribal life and standard ruled supreme. 

 And when, in the future and on a much higher plane, the true Democracy 

 comes, this equality which has so long been in abeyance will be restored, 

 not only among men but also, in a sense, among all the passions and 

 qualities of manhood: none will be allowed to tyrannise over others, but 

 all will have to be subjects to the supreme life of humanity. The chariot 

 of Man instead of two horses will have a thousand; but they will all be under 

 control of the charioteer. Meanwhile it may not be extravagant to sup- 

 pose that all though the Civilisation period the so-called criminals are keep- 

 ing open the possibility of a return to this state of society. They are 

 preserving, in a rough and unattractive husk it may be, the precious seed 

 of a life which is to come in the future; and are as necessary and integral 

 a part of Society in the long run as the most respected and most honored 

 of its members at present. 



The upshot then of it all is that "morals "as a code of action have to be 

 discarded. There exists no such code, at any rate for permanent use. 

 One age, one race, one class, one family, may have a code which the 

 users of it consider valid, but only they consider it valid, and they only 

 for a time. The Decalogue may have been a rough and useful ready- 

 reckoner for the Israelites ; but to us it admits of so many exceptions 

 and interpretations that it is practically worthless. "Thou shalt not 

 steal. " Exactly ; but who is to decide, as we saw at the outset, in what 

 "stealing" consists ? The question is too complicated to admit of an 

 answer. And when we have caught our half-starved tramp "snaking" 

 a loaf, and are ready to condemn him, lo ! Lycurgus pats him on the 

 back, and the modern philosopher tells 7 him that he is keeping open the 

 path to a regenerate Society ! If the tramp had also been a philosopher 

 he would perhaps have done the same act not merely for his own benefit 

 but for that of Society, he would have committed a Crimean order to save 

 mankind. 



There is nothing left but Humanity. Since there is no ever-valid code 

 of morals we must sadly confess that there is no means of proving our- 

 selves right and our neighbors wrong. In fact the very act of thinking 

 whether we are right (which implies a sundering of ourselves, even in 

 thought, from others) itself introduces the element of wrongness ; and if 



