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Then one of the
judges of the city stood forth and said,
Speak to us of Crime and Punishment.
And he answered, saying:
It is when your
spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and
unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong
committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the
blessed.
Like the ocean is
your god-self;
It remains for ever
undefiled.
And like the ether
it lifts but the winged. Even like the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the
ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self
dwells not alone in your being.
Much in you is still
man, and much in you is not yet man,
But a shapeless
pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in
you would I now speak.
For it is he and not
your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment
of crime.
Oftentimes have I
heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you,
but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even
as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in
each one of you,
So the wicked and
the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf
turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer
cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession
you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and
the wayfarers.
And when one of you
falls down he falls
for those behind
him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for
those ahead of him, who though faster and
surer of foot, yet removed not the
stumbling stone.
And this also,
though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not
unaccountable for his own murder,
And the robbed is
not blameless in being robbed.
The righteous is not
innocent of the deeds of the wicked,
And the white-handed
is not clean in the doings of the felon.
Yea, the guilty is
oftentimes the victim of the injured,
And still more often
the condemned is the burden bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.
You cannot separate
the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;
For they stand
together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white
are woven together.
And when the black
thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall
examine the loom also.
If any of you would
bring to judgment the unfaithful wife,
Let him also weigh
the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.
And let him who
would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.
And if any of you
would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree,
let him see to its roots;
And verily he will
find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all
entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who
would be just,
What judgment
pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in
spirit?
What penalty lay you
upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?
And how prosecute
you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,
Yet who also is
aggrieved and outraged?
And how shall you
punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?
Is not remorse the
justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?
Yet you cannot lay
remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.
Unbidden shall it
call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.
And you who would
understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the
fullness of light?
Only then shall you
know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight
between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,
And that the
corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its
foundation.
