these, the right to it is generally regarded as next in sacredness to those of life and personal liberty.

Helen Sawyer. The other morning you said that a man's reputation is worth more to him than houses or lands or other earthly treasure.

Dr. Dix. And a moment ago I implied a different order, in the general estimation. Perhaps, as man advances in civilization, there may come about a complete readjustment in the acknowledged values of things, when even the courts will inflict a severer penalty upon a convicted slanderer than upon a convicted thief. The tendency seems to be in that direction. The time was when there was no such crime as libel recognized in law, no crime, in fact, except such as was committed directly against person or property. The penalty for all other offences was left to the sufferer himself, who often wiped them out in the blood of the offender.

Isabelle Anthony. That he was allowed to do this seems to show that those other offences were recognized as crimes, even if the law did not punish them.

Dr. Dix. Not necessarily, for the most trivial insult was often punished in this way, though it might excite only the laughter of all save the aggrieved party himself.

Charles Fox.
Dr. Dix. Yes.

You refer to the duel?

Be

That was the only means of redress men once had for all offences which were too subtle in their nature for the clumsy hands of the law to lay hold upon. If we look back far enough in history, we shall find that there was no other redress even for theft. tween that day and this, when such offences as libel and the "alienation of affection" are punishable by law, there is a wide gulf indeed! If the improvement goes on, if the time ever comes when all things shall be estimated at their true value, and those offences which are in reality the worst shall meet with the severest penalties, the mere stealing of one's purse will stand lower

in the list than it stands to-day. The slaying of the body is not the only crime that is worse than robbery or libel; the slaying of the soul is immeasurably worse than either. Is it not a singular commentary on the civil code that the chief offence attributed to the impersonation of all evil is rarely punishable by human laws? They among men who most closely resemble that impersonation in their wickedness, they whose lives are devoted to the work of undermining virtue and purity in the souls of their fellow-men, are, so far as human laws are concerned, very often totally unwhipped of justice.

Joseph Cracklin. Dr. Dix, do you believe there is such a being as the devil?

Dr. Dix. It matters not whether I do or not. Suffice it that there is a spirit of evil rampant among men, a moral gravitation which tends to draw their souls downward, as the earth draws their bodies downward. Against this power there is an inward force which tends to hold them erect. And as their bodies grow strong by continual resistance to the downward pull of earth, so may their souls grow strong and erect by their neverending battle with evil.

In what I said before this digression do not understand me to belittle the wickedness of theft. That there are still lower depths of wickedness does not diminish the depth of this. Its guilt is so obvious, so palpable, that though, as I said, it has not always been subject to legal penalty, there can never have been a time when it was not looked upon as a heinous offence. Helen Sawyer. The ancient Spartans are said to have encouraged and rewarded it.

Dr. Dix. The ancient Spartans were an exceptional people even for the savage times in which they lived. They encouraged theft, not as a meritorious act in itself, but as affording opportunities for the exercise of the courage, skill, and address which they prized so highly.

If these virtues were lacking, as shown by failure in the attempt or by detection, both the attempt and the lack of virtues were punished together.

From the very first the undisturbed possession of property must have been regarded by men in general as one of their inalienable rights. It has always been indispensable to their comfort, happiness, even life. Without it, the most powerful incentive to industry and the exercise of skill would not exist. The rudest savage must always have looked upon it as the just reward of his labor. The bow and arrows he had made, the hut he had built with his own hands, were, as a matter of course, his very own; and the attempt on the part of his fellow-savage to deprive him of them, without giving him a fair equivalent, was, as a matter of course, to be resented and punished.

Julia Taylor. But when his chief required them, even without recompense, I suppose he had no thought of resisting.

Dr. Dix. Like his civilized brother he was obliged to yield to superior force; but the inmost feelings of his heart were, no doubt, very much the same as yours would have been in his place.

Out-and-out, naked theft or robbery is one of those gross crimes which I described the other morning as needing no comment. Its revolting name is comment enough for all in whose souls the light of conscience is not yet extinguished. But there are forms of stealing and robbing which may well be commented on in a series of Talks on Morality, because their real nature is not always recognized. Like some forms of lying which we have mentioned, they are disguised by euphemisms: they are not naked, out-and-out thefts and robberies, but "embezzlements," "defalcations," "breaches of trust," "sharp practice," "able financiering," etc. Masquerading under these more or less respectable aliases, they take their places among other business transac

tions as well-dressed thieves and robbers mingle among honest men. But, in reality, two little words name them all, just as one little monosyllable names all forms of intentional deception. The man who takes that which does not justly belong to him, either by intelligent, free gift or fair exchange, is a thief or a robber, whether he does it with or without the sanction of the law. He may call himself, and others may call him, a clever business man, an able financier; he is a thief or a robber as truly as if he had literally as well as virtually picked his victim's pocket.

Henry Phillips. Why is it necessary to use two words? Why is not simply "thief" enough?

Dr. Dix. Because there is an important moral as well as legal distinction between the two words. Theft is properly defined as the wrongful appropriation of property without the owner's knowledge or consent, while robbery is the wrongful appropriation of it with his knowledge and with or without his consent, which may be wrongfully gained, as, for instance, by threats or violence. There are numerous legal subdivisions of each of these crimes, but the moral law is but little concerned with them. In its view all who take that which does not rightfully belong to them are either thieves or robbers, whether they do so with or without the sanction of the civil law.

Isabelle Anthony. Why does the civil law ever sanction the wrongful appropriation of property?

Susan Perkins. Why, indeed, does it sanction any act that the moral law condemns?

Dr. Dix. That is too broad a subject to enter upon to-day. We will try to answer you next time.

XXVII.

HONESTY, CONTINUED.

Dr. Dix. 66 Why does the civil law ever sanction the wrongful appropriation of property? Why, indeed, does it sanction any act that the moral law condemns?"

One reason is that its province is necessarily so largely confined to what is external, material, and tangible. What a man does with his body may be known to all; what he does with his mind is known fully only to himself. Every offence of the one may, therefore, meet with full recompense at the hands of the law, while the deepest wickedness of the other may be unrecognized and unpunished, save by that moral retribution which awaits both open and secret sins with equal certainty.

So what a man involuntarily suffers in his body through the means of another may be known to all and the offender may be duly punished; what he suffers in his mind and character through the baleful influence of an evil companion may be known scarcely to himself. This deepest of all wrongs is the one which most completely evades the civil law.

But though the civil law may permit the ruin of my soul with impunity, why, you ask, need it permit the theft or robbery of my purse, a purely physical matter?

Because, though my purse is a purely physical matter, the act by which it is wrongfully taken from me may not be; it may be, in fact, as purely psychical as the act by which my virtue is taken from me.

If a man puts his hand into my pocket and takes my purse without my knowledge, he is a thief, whom the