[[1]]
The Sphere and Duties of Government, from the German of Baron
Wilhelm von Humboldt, pp. 11-13.
[[3]]
There is something both contemptible and frightful in the
sort of evidence on which, of late years, any person can be judicially declared unfit
for the management of his affairs; and after his death, his disposal of his
property can be set aside, if there is enough of it to pay the expenses of
litigation‐which are charged on the property itself. All of the minute details
of his daily life are pried into, and whatever is found which, seen through
the medium of the perceiving and escribing faculties of the lowest of the
low, bears an appearance unlike absolute commonplace, is laid before the
jury as evidence of insanity, and often with success; the jurors being little,
if at all, less vulgar and ignorant than the witnesses; while the judges, with
that extraordinary want of knowledge of human nature and life which continually
astonishes us in English lawyers, often help to mislead them. These
trials speak volumes as to the state of feeling and opinion among the vulgar
with regard to human liberty. So far from setting any value on
individuality‐so far from respecting the rights of each individual to
act, in things indifferent, as seems good to his own judgment and inclinations, judges and
juries cannot even conceive that a person in a state of sanity can desire such
freedom. In former days, when it was proposed to burn atheists, charitable
people used to suggest putting them in a madhouse instead: it would be
nothing surprising now-a-days were we to see this done, and the doers
applauding themselves, because, instead of persecuting for religion, they had
adopted so humane and Christian a mode of treating these unfortunates, not
without a silent satisfaction at their having thereby obtained their deserts.