| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: impossible to show less solicitude for social defence against
criminal attacks. For it is certain that the mad murderer ``has
committed no crime'' from the ethical and legal point of view of
the classical school; but it is still more certain that there is a
dead man, and a family left behind who may be ruined by the deed,
and it is very probable that this homicide, ``innocent before the
law,'' will renew his outrage on other victims--and at any
rate they are innocent.
And as for the indefinite period of seclusion in an asylum, it is
well to remember, from the point of view of individual rights,
that the formula with which a mad criminal is committed to an
|
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: Gr:unfeldt, was received with considerable favor:
The horse of Epiphanes shall be maintained at the public expense;
this upon pain of death.
But the following rendering, by Gospodin, was received by
the learned world with yet greater favor:
The priest shall explain the wisdom of Epiphanes to all these people,
and these shall listen with reverence, upon pain of death.
Seven years followed, in which twenty-one fresh and widely
varying renderings were scored--none of them quite convincing.
But now, at last, came Rawlinson, the youngest of all the
scholars, with a translation which was immediately and
What is Man? |
