Moral essays. With an English translation by J.W. Basore

—ON MERCY, II. IV. 1-4ness ; but no \-irtue is the opposite of a virtue. Whatthen is set over against mercy ? It is cruelty, whichis nothing else than harshness of mind in exactingpunishment. " But," you say, " there are some whodo not exact punishment, and yet are cruel, such asthose who kill the strangers they meet, not for thesake of gain, but for the sake of kilhng, and, notcontent ^^"ith killing, they torture, as the notoriousBusiris and Procrustes, and the pirates who lash theircaptives and commit them to the flames alive."This indeed is cruelty ; but because it does notresult from vengeance—for no injur}' was sufferedand no sin stirs its wTath—^for no crime preceded itit falls outside of our definition ;for by the definitionthe mental excess was limited to the exaction ofpunishment. That which finds pleasure in torturewe may say is not cruelty, but savager}-—we mayeven call it madness ; for there are various kinds ofmadness, and none is more unmistakable than thatwhich reaches the point of murdering and mutilatingmen. Those, then, that I shall call cruel are thosewho have a reason for punishing, but do not havemoderation in it, like Phalaris, who, they say,tortured men, even though they were not innocent,in a manner that was inhuman and incredible.Avoiding sophistry we may define cruelty* to be theinchnation of the mind toward the side of harshness.This quality' mercy repels and bids it stand afar fromher ; with strictness she is in harmony.At this point it is pertinent to ask what pity is.For many commend it as a virtue, and call a pitifulman good. But this too is a mental defect. Weought to avoid both, closely related as they are tostrictness and to mercy. For under the guise of437