nine spheres, apart from the blessed immigrants, whose privileges did
not extend so near to the Heart of the Presence. How many realms there
may be between mankind's and that ultimate object of pure desire
cannot at present be known, but it may be affirmed with confidence
that any denizen of any one of them, brought into relation with human
beings, would act, and reasonably act, in ways which to men might seem
harsh and unconscionable, without sanction or convenience. Such a
being might murder one of the ratepayers of London, compound a felony,
or enter into a conspiracy to depose the King himself, and, being
detected, very properly be put under restraint, or visited with
chastisement, either deterrent or vindictive, or both. But the true
inference from the premises would be that although duress or
banishment from the kingdom might be essential, yet punishment,
so-called, ought not to be visited upon the offender. For he or she
could not be _nostri juris_, and that which were abominable to us
might well be reasonable to him or her, and indeed a fulfilment of the
law of his being. Punishment, therefore, could not be exemplary, since
the person punished exemplified nothing to Mankind; and if vindictive,
then would be shocking, since that which is vindicated, in the mind
of the victim either did not exist, or ought not. The Ancient Greek
who withheld from the sacrifice to Showery Zeus because a thunder-bolt
destroyed his hayrick, or the Egyptian who manumitted his slaves
because a God took the life of his eldest son, was neither a pious,
nor a reasonable person."

There is much debatable matter in this considered opinion.