THE VANITY OF EXPERIENCE.
ASOMEBODY who was present at the execution of Margaret Waters on Tuesday morning wrote a letter to the Echo of the same day to explain that, at nine o'clock on Tuesday, he believed firmly in capital punishment, and at ten o'clock on the same day he was convinced that it was only another sort of murder, that one murder done in cold blood can't "undo another,"
Waters, instead of praying and exhibiting emotion in the last few The same sort of vanity of experience which induces the momenta of her life, had been quite unmoved ? Would he have correspondent of the Echo to declare himself converted from a been confirmed in that belief, if he himself had suffered less creed which he never could have held with anything that had any than he did? Was there any conceivable form of expectation right to the name of conviction, by an experience which really goes which it would have been sane for him to entertain, and which, if to support the intellectual basis of that creed, is often exhibited, it had been fulfilled, would have confirmed him in what he is but with less unreason, by persons who are arguing that all war is pleased to call his former " belief " in capital punishment, instead wicked, and who support their thesis by asking you if you of sweeping it quite away ? If not, he must be well aware that ever saw a battle-field,'—warning you gravely, if you never did, as he did not entertain an impression which it was even possible that you do not understand what you are talking about, and for facts to sustain, his conversion goes for nothing ; be was not should not say another word in apology for even the most defen- converted at all, but simply taught that vague impressions formed sive war till you have. No doubt, this is not so absurd as the without any reference to facts will not stand when the facts are assurance would be that if you could only go and see an execution more clearly apprehended. If, on the contrary, there was any- you would give up capital punishment for ever, for while the thing in his experience which a man who had never seen an execu- imaginative horror which an execution excites is at least part of tion could not have anticipated, and that of a nature to convince the argument for it, the anguish visible on a battle-field really him that capital punishment is a pure evil, and all the arguments belongs, and belongs solely, to the argument against war. Still, for it utterly baseless, he has not in the least succeeded in explaining even here it is quite true that the experience of what the horrors what it wag, or even what sort of thing it was. The only thing of war mean may disturb the judgment, instead of improving it. he insists on is the terrible character of the scene ; but that has It is obvious that a man who has a very real and vivid experience always been an argument for capital punishment, and not against of the evil and misery which are implied in one branch of an alter- it. It is in the highest degree desirable that there should be certain native, and no such experience of the evil and misery which punishments which inspire terror both in those who suffer and those are implied in the other, is likely to be in a worse position for who behold them, and therefore in a less degree in those who anti- choosing between the two than the man who has had full experi- cipate and imagine them. He appears to imply, too, that seeing the ence of neither, and who judges of both only by what he can learn execution convinced him that it was itself a murder, which is one of from others. An Italian who has fully experienced both the evil the most puzzling elements in his puzzling and puzzled letter. Of and misery of subjugation and the evil and misery of war, will, no course, it is possible to see that punishment of any kind inflicts doubt, miens paribus, be a better judge of the alternative before pain, and to see that it inflicts much acuter pain than the spectator him than the Englishman who has experienced neither ; but the had imagined. Yet as regards physical pain, the convert of Englishman who has experienced neither will probably be a better the Echo did not believe it to be great, but rather small. What judge of the matter than an Englishman who had had full experience he was impressed by, was the anguish of the culprit. Now, every of war and none of subjugation. In short, though it may be true, man who visits a prison probably realizes afresh the amount especially of artists, that, as Goethe once remarked to Erckmann, of pain that imprisonment and forced labour cause. But bow "one always finds the advantage of knowing something,"—it your eyes can inform you that a capital sentence not only gives really is a great question whether that advantage is not often more mental pain than you expected, but is a kind of murder, balanced, where any practical judgment is needed, by the great whereas, until you saw it with your eyes, you had only supposed it disadvantage of knowing one half of a question better than you to be a very terrible and final but brief sort of penalty inflicted by know the other half. A judge who had heard only one side of a men who have no desire to inflict it, who have nothing except case pleaded would probably be less likely to decide correctly than distress to get for themselves from its infliction, and who only a judge who had heard neither, or at least the balance of chances inflict it at all because the law requires them to do so,—it is indeed would be so great in favour of the side which had been fairly difficult to say. The difference between murder, and any represented to him, that the other side would have comparatively killing which is not murder, lies, we suppose, wholly in the no chance at all. So there is no theorizer so mischievous on grounds on which those who put an end to life, act. Can technical affairs of any sort, as the man who has just become well any conceivable exercise of the eyes in any individual execu- acquainted with the outside of them, and no more. A purely tion make any difference on this head? The man who thought English governor-general is always preferred in India to one capital punishment to be quite distinct from murder at nine who has made Indian affairs his special study for some three o'clock on Tuesday morning, before he had seen any sentence months or so,—who has travelled in India, and thinks that on executed, and believed it to be only a particular kind of murder that account he knows more of India than English states-
at ten o'clock, after he had seen a sentence executed, must have men who stay at home. In point of fact, he has only dis-
hed eyes which could see what mortal eyes never yet saw,—the bad turbed the perspective of his ignorance, and though he knows motives which inspired the law then merely put in force. The fact, rather more than before, is leas competent to judge than he we suppose, to hate been that a man who had never even taken would have been if he had known nothing, and only formed his.
the trouble to realize that all deliberate killing is a very revolting judgment by listening to able advice, and comparing the different, operation, for the first time took in that this is so, and as soon as counsels he obtained. The vanity of experience is one of the most he had felt what disgust and horror it inspires, he began to revile mischievous and misleading of all kinds of vanity, and nobody it, to call it murder,' and to declare himself a convert to the ought to be more carefully put down than a man who tells you he belief that it is wicked, from the previous belief that it is just. If has suddenly changed his mind on any subject from having made this were so, all we can say is that this gentleman had no belief on acquaintance in his own personal experience with a very small the subject worthy of the name before he saw the execution of proportion of the facts on which he is invited to form an opinion. Margaret Waters, and that he has no belief worthy of the name now. All he saw only went to prove that capital punishment inspires great terror in the sufferer and great horror in those who THE PRINCESS LOUISE.
behold it,—which is not only not a novelty, but is indeed the very IN the midst of a very great war, a war the history of which ground upon which those who think it desirable for exceptional 1 will be studied centuries hence with minute care, a clever
crimes rest their creed. The man who was converted to think capital young woman is engaged to a promising but as yet undistin- punishment wicked by witnessing the execution would probably guished young man, and the English world pauses in its contem- be equally converted to think all severe punishment wicked,if he plation of the conflict to consider that event. And it is an event, —a conviction hardly referable, we should hope, to the particular could only witness its execution in all cases. Suppose we could by experience he had had, for if the writer held before nine o'clock on any conceivable process,—say a dream which should seem to last Tuesday morning that capital punishment could " undo " the through all the dreary misery of every day's and night's imprison- murder of which it is the penalty, his view was so eccentric, and ment for thirty years, while really lasting only an hour or two,— perhaps, we may say, so insane, that he can hardly be supposed to really apprehend in detail the meaning of the penalty involved in be a fit representative even of the ordinary British public,—and a life sentence or a sentence of penal servitude for a long term finally, that before long capital punishment will cease in England. of years, should we not in all probability feel infinitely more Now, one would like very much to know what the gentleman who horror than even at the short sharp agony of a capital sentence? believed in capital punishment at nine a.m. on Tuesday morning and If the Echo's correspondent by being present at an execution could condemned it with all his soul at ten a.m. on the same day, expected convince himself that capital punishment is murder, • he would to see, nay, what he could possibly have seen that would have con- certainly very soon convince himself by such processes as we hive firmed him in his original impression,—we must decline to call it suggested that all the severer sorts of secondary punishment are a belief,—that capital punishment for the worst crimes is desirable. torture, and that even the greatest crimes should virtually go Would he have come away confirmed in that belief if Margaret unpunished altogether.
Waters, instead of praying and exhibiting emotion in the last few The same sort of vanity of experience which induces the momenta of her life, had been quite unmoved ? Would he have correspondent of the Echo to declare himself converted from a been confirmed in that belief, if he himself had suffered less creed which he never could have held with anything that had any than he did? Was there any conceivable form of expectation right to the name of conviction, by an experience which really goes which it would have been sane for him to entertain, and which, if to support the intellectual basis of that creed, is often exhibited, it had been fulfilled, would have confirmed him in what he is but with less unreason, by persons who are arguing that all war is pleased to call his former " belief " in capital punishment, instead wicked, and who support their thesis by asking you if you of sweeping it quite away ? If not, he must be well aware that ever saw a battle-field,'—warning you gravely, if you never did, as he did not entertain an impression which it was even possible that you do not understand what you are talking about, and for facts to sustain, his conversion goes for nothing ; be was not should not say another word in apology for even the most defen- converted at all, but simply taught that vague impressions formed sive war till you have. No doubt, this is not so absurd as the without any reference to facts will not stand when the facts are assurance would be that if you could only go and see an execution more clearly apprehended. If, on the contrary, there was any- you would give up capital punishment for ever, for while the thing in his experience which a man who had never seen an execu- imaginative horror which an execution excites is at least part of tion could not have anticipated, and that of a nature to convince the argument for it, the anguish visible on a battle-field really him that capital punishment is a pure evil, and all the arguments belongs, and belongs solely, to the argument against war. Still, for it utterly baseless, he has not in the least succeeded in explaining even here it is quite true that the experience of what the horrors what it wag, or even what sort of thing it was. The only thing of war mean may disturb the judgment, instead of improving it. he insists on is the terrible character of the scene ; but that has It is obvious that a man who has a very real and vivid experience always been an argument for capital punishment, and not against of the evil and misery which are implied in one branch of an alter- it. It is in the highest degree desirable that there should be certain native, and no such experience of the evil and misery which punishments which inspire terror both in those who suffer and those are implied in the other, is likely to be in a worse position for who behold them, and therefore in a less degree in those who anti- choosing between the two than the man who has had full experi- cipate and imagine them. He appears to imply, too, that seeing the ence of neither, and who judges of both only by what he can learn execution convinced him that it was itself a murder, which is one of from others. An Italian who has fully experienced both the evil the most puzzling elements in his puzzling and puzzled letter. Of and misery of subjugation and the evil and misery of war, will, no course, it is possible to see that punishment of any kind inflicts doubt, miens paribus, be a better judge of the alternative before pain, and to see that it inflicts much acuter pain than the spectator him than the Englishman who has experienced neither ; but the had imagined. Yet as regards physical pain, the convert of Englishman who has experienced neither will probably be a better the Echo did not believe it to be great, but rather small. What judge of the matter than an Englishman who had had full experience he was impressed by, was the anguish of the culprit. Now, every of war and none of subjugation. In short, though it may be true, man who visits a prison probably realizes afresh the amount especially of artists, that, as Goethe once remarked to Erckmann, of pain that imprisonment and forced labour cause. But bow "one always finds the advantage of knowing something,"—it your eyes can inform you that a capital sentence not only gives really is a great question whether that advantage is not often more mental pain than you expected, but is a kind of murder, balanced, where any practical judgment is needed, by the great whereas, until you saw it with your eyes, you had only supposed it disadvantage of knowing one half of a question better than you to be a very terrible and final but brief sort of penalty inflicted by know the other half. A judge who had heard only one side of a men who have no desire to inflict it, who have nothing except case pleaded would probably be less likely to decide correctly than distress to get for themselves from its infliction, and who only a judge who had heard neither, or at least the balance of chances inflict it at all because the law requires them to do so,—it is indeed would be so great in favour of the side which had been fairly difficult to say. The difference between murder, and any represented to him, that the other side would have comparatively killing which is not murder, lies, we suppose, wholly in the no chance at all. So there is no theorizer so mischievous on grounds on which those who put an end to life, act. Can technical affairs of any sort, as the man who has just become well any conceivable exercise of the eyes in any individual execu- acquainted with the outside of them, and no more. A purely tion make any difference on this head? The man who thought English governor-general is always preferred in India to one capital punishment to be quite distinct from murder at nine who has made Indian affairs his special study for some three o'clock on Tuesday morning, before he had seen any sentence months or so,—who has travelled in India, and thinks that on executed, and believed it to be only a particular kind of murder that account he knows more of India than English states-
at ten o'clock, after he had seen a sentence executed, must have men who stay at home. In point of fact, he has only dis-
hed eyes which could see what mortal eyes never yet saw,—the bad turbed the perspective of his ignorance, and though he knows motives which inspired the law then merely put in force. The fact, rather more than before, is leas competent to judge than he we suppose, to hate been that a man who had never even taken would have been if he had known nothing, and only formed his.
the trouble to realize that all deliberate killing is a very revolting judgment by listening to able advice, and comparing the different, operation, for the first time took in that this is so, and as soon as counsels he obtained. The vanity of experience is one of the most he had felt what disgust and horror it inspires, he began to revile mischievous and misleading of all kinds of vanity, and nobody it, to call it murder,' and to declare himself a convert to the ought to be more carefully put down than a man who tells you he belief that it is wicked, from the previous belief that it is just. If has suddenly changed his mind on any subject from having made
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