"Human nature is weak," I said sadly. "If I saw a boy sticking a pen-knife into the tyre of my bicycle I should kick him ... kick him hard and then kick him again. There is such a thing as elemental rage in every man--even Christ used a whip in the temple. There are times when you cannot reason: you act impulsively. Principle can't touch this, but it comes in when rage is gone. If I am a magistrate and a boy comes before me charged with destroying a bicycle I personally have no rage against the boy, and if I punish him I'm merely serving out juridical vengeance. If I order him to be birched the jailor has no grudge against the boy. The main point is that the owner of the cycle acts before reasoning, while the magistrate acts after reasoning. And his reason cannot prompt him to behave any better than the injured owner did. The owner is primitive man for the time being: the magistrate stands for reasoning civilisation. In other words reasoning civilisation is no better than the barbarian. That's why I object to juridical punishment." "Ha! Ha!" he laughed with a sneer, "when it touches yourself you let all your principles slide, just as the most extreme Socialist turns Tory if he happens to get money!" "Macdonald," I said slowly, "I'm sorry you said that, for it means that you'll reject everything I bring forward. You'll grasp the idea that my views are useless because I tell you I can smite when I am angry, and you'll consequently reject everything I say. You're like the man who cries to a Socialist orator: 'Why don't you sell your watch and divide the proceeds among this crowd?' or like the man who tells a member of the no-hat brigade that he should go naked to be consistent. If I were to adopt your tactics I might ask why you don't get the School Boards to provide muzzles for the children on the plea that so much of your energy is taken up in keeping them silent. If you make them salute you I see no logical reason why you shouldn't carry respect to its extreme and force them to kneel down and kiss your boots. If you insist on perfect truthfulness why do you try to hide the truth about the sex of pigeons? You pretend to be a believer in perfect obedience to authority, and yet I saw you ride a bicycle without a light the other night. I am quite willing to prove that every man is inconsistent. Bernard Shaw would no doubt find some difficulty in explaining how his humanitarian vegetarianism blends with his wearing of leather boots; for I don't suppose that he has boots made from the hides of animals that died of old age. I gave up shooting and fishing because I saw that both were cruel, yet I will kill a wasp or a rat on occasion. If a tiger got loose down in the village I should at once borrow Frank Thomson's gun, but I should refuse to go tiger-hunting in Bengal. My dear chap, I am as full of inconsistencies as an egg's full of meat. So are you; so is every man. The best of us are but poor weaklings, for we are each carrying the