Real patriotism demands that a true citizen and an honourable man should with might and main, even at the price of his life, oppose any injustice about to be committed by his government and his misguided compatriots; and, further, that he should strive to maintain his country in the path of Right and Morality even if, as sometimes happens, in a dispute between his nation and a foreign one the latter has Right and Morality on its side. On the plea of inevitable partiality a judge may refuse to try a case in which a near relative of his is involved. That is a permissible concession to that human imperfection which causes reason to fall silent when feeling raises its voice; and justice does not suffer, for there are other judges who can take the seat that has been voluntarily vacated. No citizen has the right to evade the duty of judging his country, because, if he fails, there is no other judge who can be put in his place and fulfil his duty. Every citizen is personally responsible for the just and moral behaviour of his community, responsible to his own conscience, to his nation, to the world, to the present and to the future; and if he is powerless to prevent depravity and misdeeds, he must at least solemnly and loudly condemn them, as this is his only means of avoiding joint responsibility for the infamy. If he fails to do this, the public crime becomes his personal crime as well. The elder Brutus, so much and so justly admired by the Romans, is an example to all, for without mercy he handed his own flesh and blood over to the executioner, when according to the law his life was forfeit. The state has no greater claim to indulgence and mercy than had Brutus's son, if knowingly and intentionally it indulges in vice. For if you allow the dictum, "Right or wrong, my country," to be valid, then you must also apply it to the state of filibusterers that once existed in the Antilles, and must demand of its citizens that their patriotism should approve and defend theft, piracy, rape and assassination, for the systematic perpetration of which their state was founded. In contrast with this wretched "My country, right or wrong," the inflexible dictum of the ancients stands out: "_Fiat justitia, pereat mundus!_" (Let justice be done though the world perish!). And what does most honour to the French Revolution is the phrase so often mocked by political profiteers: "Sooner shall the colonies perish than a principle!" That was the standpoint of the prophets of Israel, who truly did not love their people less than do the wretched scoundrels who shout "hurray!" and yell songs, when their country deals Morality and Right a brutal blow, because the leaders think that this will profit the country, or themselves.