at all? This opens up the vast domains of Law and Government, and
requires the perusal of Montesquieu, Bodin, Rousseau, Mill, etc., etc.
Sociology would also be called in to determine the beneficent or
maleficent influence of the death-punishment upon the popular mind; and
statistics would be required to trace the operation of the systems of
punishment in various countries. History would be consulted to the same
effect. The sanctity of human life being a religious dogma, the religions
of the world would have to be studied, to see under what conditions it
has been thought permissible to destroy life. One ought not to rely on
translations: Confucius should be read in Chinese, the Koran in Arabic,
and the few years spent in the acquisition of Persian would be rewarded
by a first-hand familiarity with the Zend Avesta. The Old Testament
enjoins capital punishment. On what grounds, then, if one is leaning the
other way, may a text be set aside that seems to settle the matter
positively? Here comes in the vast army of Bible commentators and
theologians. But perhaps the text is of late origin, interpolated. The
Dutch and German savants rise in their might, with their ingenious
theories and microscopic scholarship. But there are other scientists who
bid us not heed the Bible at all, because it contradicts the latest
editions of their primers. Is, then, science strictly accurate? To answer
this you must have a thorough acquaintance with biology, geology,
astronomy, besides deciding for yourself between the conflicting views at
nearly every point. By the time you have made up your mind as to whether
capital punishment should be abolished, it has passed out of the
statute-book, and you are dead, or mad, or murdered.

"But were this the only question a man has to settle in his short span of
years, he might cheerfully engage in its solution. But life bristles with
a hundred questions equally capital, and with a thousand-and-one minor
problems on which he is expected to have an opinion, and about which he