'Yes,' she answered,' heavy punishments, of which some, I think, are effected by bitter penalties, others by a cleansing mercy.1 But 118:1 -- It must not be supposed from the words ' cleansing mercy ' ( purgatoria clementia ) that Boethius held the same views as were held by the Church later concerning purgatory, and as are now taught by the Roman Catholic Church.It is true that St.Augustine had in 407 A.D.hinted at the existence of such a state, but it was not dogmatically inculcated till 604, in the Papacy of Gregory the Great.Page 119it is not my intention to discuss these now.My object has been to bring you to know that the power of evil men, which seems to you so unworthy, is in truth nothing; and that you may see that those wicked men, of whose impunity you complained, do never miss the reward of their ill-doing; and that you may learn that their passion, which you prayed might soon be cut short, is not long-enduring, and that the longer it lasts, the more unhappiness it brings, and that it would be most unhappy if it endured for ever.Further, I have tried to shew you that the wicked are more to be pitied if they escape with unjust impunity, than if they are punished by just retribution.
And it follows upon this fact that they will be undergoing heavier penalties when they are thought to be unpunished.'
'When I hear your arguments, I feel sure that they are true as possible.But if I turn to human opinions, I ask what man would not think them not only incredible, but even unthinkable? '
'Yes,' she said,' for men cannot raise to the transparent light of truth their eyes which have been accustomed to darkness.They are like those birds whose sight is clear at night, but blinded by daylight.
So long as they look not Page 120
upon the true course of nature, but upon their own feelings, they think that the freedom of passion and the impunity of crime are happy things.
Think upon the sacred ordinances of eternal law.If your mind is fashioned after better things, there is no need of a judge to award a prize; you have added yourself to the number of the more excellent.If your mind sinks to worse things, seek no avenger from without: you have thrust yourself downward to lower things.It is as though you were looking at the squalid earth and the heavens in turn; then take away all that is about you; and by the power of sight, you will seem to be in the midst now of mud, now of stars.But mankind looks not to such things.What then shall we do?
Shall we join ourselves to those whom we have shewn to be as beasts? If a man lost utterly his sight, and even forgot that he had ever seen, so that he thought he lacked naught of human perfection, should we think that such a blind one can see as we do? Most people would not even allow another point, which rests no less firmly upon strong reasons, namely, that those who do an injury are more unhappy than those who suffer one.' 1'I would hear those strong reasons,' I said.
'You do not deny that every wicked man deserves punishment?
'
'No.'
'It is plain for many reasons that the wicked are unhappy?
'
120:1 Plato, Gorgias , 474 and ff.Page 121'Yes.'
'Then you doubt not that those who are worthy of punishment are miserable? '
'No, I agree.'
'If then you were sitting as a judge, upon which would you consider punishment should fall -- the man who did the injury, or the man who suffered it? '
'I have no hesitation in saying that I would make amends to the sufferer at the expense of the doer of the injustice.'
'Then the doer of the injustice would seem to you more miserable than the sufferer? '
'That follows.'
'Then from this,' said she,' and other causes which rest upon the same foundation, it is plain that, since baseness makes men more miserable by its own nature, the misery is brought not to the sufferer of an injustice, but to the doer thereof.But the speakers in law-courts take the opposite course: they try to excite the pity of the judges for those who have suffered any heavy or bitter wrong; but more justly their pity would be due to those who have committed the wrong.These guilty men ought to be brought, by accusers kindly rather than angry, to justice, as patients to a doctor, that their disease of crime may be checked by punishment.Under such an arrangement the occupation of advocates for defence would either come to a complete stand-still, or if it seemed more to the advantage of mankind, it might turn to the work of prosecution.Page 122And if the wicked too themselves might by some device look on virtue left behind them, and if they could see that they would lay aside the squalor of vice by the pain of punishment, and that they would gain the compensation of achieving virtue again, they would no longer hold it punishment, but would refuse the aid of advocates for their defence, and would intrust themselves unreservedly to their accusers and their judges.In this way there would be no place left for hatred among wise men.For who but the most foolish would hate good men? And there is no cause to hate bad men.
Vice is as a disease of the mind, just as feebleness shews ill-health in the body.As, then, we should never think that those, who are sick in the body, deserve hatred, so are those, whose minds are oppressed by a fiercer disease than feebleness, namely wickedness, much more worthy of pity than of persecution.
'To what good end do men their passions raise, even to drag from fate their deaths by their own hands? If ye seek death, she is surely nigh of her own will; and her winged horses she will not delay.
Serpents and lions, bears, tigers and boars, all seek your lives with their fangs, yet do ye seek them with swords? Is it because your manners are so wide in variance that men raise up unjust battles and savage wars, and seek to perish by each other's darts? Such is no just reason for this cruelty.Page 123Wouldst thou apportion merit to merit fitly? Then love good men as is their due, and for the evil shew your pity.'
