in other words, the one evil — disporting itself with the subtleties of sin!
Even honest thinkers, not knowing whence they come, may deem these delusions verities, before they know it, or really look the illusions in the face. The ages are burdened with material modes. Hypnotism, microbes, X-rays, and ex-common sense, occupy time and thought; and error, given new opportunities, will improve them. The most just man can neither defend the innocent nor detect the guilty, unless he knows how to be just; and this knowledge demands our time and attention.
The mental stages of crime, which seem to belong to the latter days, are strictly classified in metaphysics as some of the many features and forms of what is properly denominated, in extreme cases, moral idiocy. I visited in his cell the assassin of President Garfield, and found him in the mental state called moral idiocy. He had no sense of his crime; but regarded his act as one of simple justice, and himself as the victim. My few words touched him; he sank back in his chair, limp and pale; his flippancy had fled. The jailer thanked me, and said, “Other visitors have brought to him bouquets, but you have brought what will do him good.”
This mental disease at first shows itself in extreme sensitiveness; then, in a loss of self-knowledge and of self-condemnation, — a shocking inability to see one's own faults, but an exaggerating sense of other people's. Unless this mental condition be overcome, it ends in a total loss of moral, intellectual, and spiritual discernment, and is characterized in this Scripture: “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” This state of mind is the exemplification of total depravity, and the result
