But all this does not fully justify my Negro chief in putting to death his slave, who may or may not have been more than self-deceived and deceiving, who may or may not have had a temporary satanic possession, who may or may not have been guilty of murder before the bar of God or man. That chief and all his assistants in the execution, and all other users of the black art, had, in the beginning of their fetich life, been users of only the defensive white art; had inevitably grown into the use of the offensive black art, and in all probability at some time or other had used divinations, with and by the aid of witchcraft doctors, for the destruction of others in a similar way and under the same motives as those admitted by my poor slave woman. My chief's argument syllogized would be: Whoever kills should be killed; this woman has killed; therefore she should be killed. His first premise stands; but neither he nor any of his people had a right to use it; consistently, he and all his should themselves have been at the same bar with the woman; they either had done, or would some day be doing, just what they were charging her with doing. His second premise may or may not have been true; certainly, the only one who could know whether it was true was the accused herself, and she may have been self-deceived; and her confession should have no standing in court, having been forced under torture. I could not therefore admit his conclusion; and I think that, had the Master stood visibly on Corisco Island that day, He would have said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." CHAPTER X FETICHISM--A GOVERNMENT In civilization, under governments other than autocratic, law being made and executed, at least professedly, with the consent of the governed, all enactments find not only their justification, but also the possibility of their enforcement, in their support by public opinion. It is the general consensus as to the need of an enactment regarding certain conditions affecting the lives or happiness or rights of the majority, that crystallizes opinions into a form of words, and gives authority for the enforcement of the decisions expressed by those words. This is also partly true even under governments more or less despotic, where the will of the ruler, not of the ruled, is made the basis of law. Few despots are so utterly tyrannical as deliberately to arouse opposition on the part of their subjects. Even a Nero, who would refuse a petition if it happened to run counter to his whim or caprice of the day, would grant that same petition if it happened to coincide with his own whim of another day. Even he thought it desirable to pander to the public taste for the butcheries of the amphitheatre, not simply because he himself enjoyed them. Though he could initiate no measure for the real good of Rome, he recognized the necessity of responding to the cry, "panem et circenses."