The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
But if he were a real physician, whose mission is the
highest that man can follow, to save life and min-
ister to human suffering — to save life regardless
of what the life is — to prevent suffering regardless
of whose suffering it is — and no mission could be
higher than that — and if he were called on for an
opinion that might send his fellow man to doom, I
can imagine him doing it reluctantly, carefully, mod-
estly, timorously, fearfully, and being careful that
he did not turn one hair to the right or left more
than he should, and giving the advantage in favor
of life and humanity and mercy, but I can never
imagine a real physician who cared for life or who
thought of anything excepting cash, gloating over
his testimony, as Dr. Krohn did in this case.
The mind, your Honor, is an illusive thing.
Whether it exists or not no one can tell. It cannot
be found as you find the brain. Its relation to the
brain and the nervous system is uncertain. It sim-
ply means the activity of the body, which is co-or-
dinated with the brain. But when we do find from
human conduct that we believe there is a diseased
mind, we naturally speculate on how it came about.
And we wish to find always, if possible, the reason
why it is so. We may find it; we may not find it;
because the unknown is infinitely wider and larger
than the known, both as to the human mind and as
to almost everything else in the universe.
I have tried to study the lives of these two most
unfortunate boys. Three months ago, if their
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