The problem of our spiritual attitude toward positive badness,
social and individual wrongdoing, cruelty and oppression, is far
more difficult of solution than the problem of our attitude toward
worth really existent but concealed. The thorny question, how we
are to deal with wicked persons, whether we are to observe the
spiritual attitude toward them, and in what that attitude consists,
requires the most sincere and straightforward treatment.
Should we cultivate an attitude of indifference in such cases? A
ruffian cruelly beats his horse, the poor beast that has rendered him
faithful service for many a day, but is feeble now and sinks beneath
its load. With curses and the sharp persuasion of the lash, the
merciless driver seeks to force the animal to efforts of which it is
plainly incapable. Can we stand by and witness such a scene in
philosophic calm? Shall we say that the wretch is the product of
circumstances, and cannot be expected to act otherwise than he
does? Shall we liken evildoers generally, as at present is customary
in certain quarters, to the sick? Shall we say that such men are the
outcome of their heredity, their education, their environment? I
have known of a husband who in a state of intoxication brutally
struck and injured his wife, while she was holding in her arms a
babe not eight days old. Shall we say that that man was morally
sick, that he could not help becoming intoxicated, and therefore
was not responsible for the havoc he wrought when the demon of
drink had gained possession of him? Shall we say of the syndicate
of traders who hunt the natives on the Congo like rabbits,
massacre and mutilate them, that they are sick? A bad deed done
with intention argues badness in the doer. We impute to the man
the act and its consequences. We cannot separate the sin from the
sinner, and merely condemn sin in the abstract. There is no such
thing as sin in the abstract. Sin is sin only when it is incorporated
in the will of a human individual. We condemn the sinner because
he has wedded himself to the sin. If this were not the case, we
might as well close our courts of justice. We hold men accountable,
then, for their misdeeds, whatever speculative philosophy may urge
to the contrary. How could we revere virtue if we did not stigmatize its
opposite; how could we believe in human worth if we did not condemn
unworth where it appears?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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