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What shall I say of these judgments which men pronounce on men, and
which are necessary in communities, whatever outward peace they enjoy?
Melancholy and lamentable judgments they are, since the judges are men
who cannot discern the consciences of those at their bar, and are
therefore frequently compelled to put innocent witnesses to the torture
to ascertain the truth regarding the crimes of other men. What shall
I say of torture applied to the accused himself? He is tortured to
discover whether he is guilty, so that, though innocent, he suffers
most undoubted punishment for crime that is still doubtful, not because
it is proved that he committed it, but because it is not ascertained
that he did not commit it. Thus the ignorance of the judge frequently
involves an innocent person in suffering. And what is still more
unendurable, a thing, indeed, to be bewailed, and, if that were
possible, watered with fountains of tears, is this, that when the
judge puts the accused to the question, that he may not unwittingly put
an innocent man to death, the result of this lamentable ignorance is
that this very person, whom he tortured that he might not condemn him
if innocent, is condemned to death both tortured and innocent. For if
he has chosen, in obedience to the philosophical instructions to the
wise man, to quit this life rather than endure any longer such
tortures, he declares that he has committed the crime which in fact he
has not committed. And when he has been condemned and put to death,
the judge is still in ignorance whether he has put to death an innocent
or a guilty person, though he put the accused to the torture for the
very purpose of saving himself from condemning the innocent; and
consequently he has both tortured an innocent man to discover his
innoence, and has put him to death without discovering it. If such
darkness shrouds social life, will a wise judge take his seat on the
bench or no? Beyond question he will. For human society, which he
thinks it a wickedness to abandon, constrains him and compels him to
this duty. And he thinks it no wickedness that innocent witnesses are
tortured regarding the crimes of which other men are accused; or that
the accused are put to the torture, so that they are often overcome
with anguish, and, though innocent, make false confessions regarding
themselves, and are punished; or that, though they be not condemned
to die, they often die during, or in consequence of, the torture; or
that sometimes the accusers, who perhaps have been prompted by a desire
to benefit society by bringing criminals to justice, are themselves
condemned through the ignorance of the judge, because they are unable
to prove the truth of their accusations though they are true, and
because the witnesses lie, and the accused endures the torture without
being moved to confession. These numerous and important evils he does
not consider sins; for the wise judge does these things, not with any
intention of doing harm, but because his ignorance compels him, and
because human society claims him as a judge. But though we therefore
acquit the judge of malice, we must none the less condemn human life as
miserable. And if he is compelled to torture and punish the innocent
because his office and his ignorance constrain him, is he a happy as
well as a guiltless man? Surely it were proof of more profound
considerateness and finer feeling were he to recognize the misery of
these necessities, and shrink from his own implication in that misery;
and had he any piety about him, he would cry to God "From my
necessities deliver Thou me."
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