VIII. THE BRAND OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS

 Seemingly from the dawn of man all nations have had governments; and all nations have been ashamed of them. Nothing is more openly fallacious than to fancy that in ruder or simpler ages ruling, judging and punishing appeared perfectly¹ innocent and dignified². These things were always regarded as the penalties of the Fall; as part of the humiliation³ of mankind, as bad in themselves. That the king can do no wrong was never anything but a legal fiction; and it is a legal fiction still. The doctrine⁴ of Divine Right was not a piece of idealism, but rather a piece of realism, a practical way of ruling amid the ruin of humanity; a very pragmatist piece of faith. The religious basis of government was not so much that people put their trust in princes, as that they did not put their trust in any child of man. It was so with all the ugly institutions which disfigure human history. Torture and slavery were never talked of as good things; they were always talked of as necessary evils. A pagan spoke⁵ of one man owning ten slaves just as a modern business man speaks of one merchant sacking ten clerks: “It’s very horrible; but how else can society be conducted?” A mediaeval scholastic⁶ regarded the possibility of a man being burned to death just as a modern business man regards the possibility of a man being starved to death: “It is a shocking torture; but can you organize a painless world?” It is possible that a future society may find a way of doing without the question by hunger as we have done without the question by fire. It is equally possible, for the matter of that, that a future society may reestablish legal torture with the whole apparatus⁷ of rack and fagot. The most modern of countries, America, has introduced with a vague savor⁸ of science, a method which it calls “the third degree.” This is simply the extortion of secrets by nervous fatigue⁹; which is surely uncommonly¹⁰ close to their extortion by bodily pain. And this is legal and scientific in America. Amateur ordinary America, of course, simply burns people alive in broad daylight, as they did in the Reformation Wars. But though some punishments are more inhuman¹¹ than others there is no such thing as humane¹² punishment. As long as nineteen men claim the right in any sense or shape to take hold of the twentieth man and make him even mildly uncomfortable, so long the whole proceeding¹³ must be a humiliating one for all concerned. And the proof of how poignantly¹⁴ men have always felt this lies in the fact that the headsman and the hangman, the jailors and the torturers, were always regarded not merely with fear but with contempt; while all kinds of careless smiters, bankrupt knights¹⁵ and swashbucklers and outlaws¹⁶, were regarded with indulgence or even admiration¹⁷. To kill a man lawlessly was pardoned. To kill a man lawfully¹⁸ was unpardonable. The most bare-faced duelist might almost brandish¹⁹ his weapon. But the executioner was always masked.

This is the first essential element in government, coercion²⁰; a necessary but not a noble element. I may remark in passing that when people say that government rests on force they give an admirable instance of the foggy and muddled²¹ cynicism of modernity. Government does not rest on force. Government is force; it rests on consent or a conception of justice. A king or a community holding a certain thing to be abnormal, evil, uses the general strength to crush it out; the strength is his tool, but the belief is his only sanction. You might as well say that glass is the real reason for telescopes. But arising from whatever reason the act of government is coercive and is burdened with all the coarse and painful qualities of coercion. And if anyone asks what is the use of insisting on the ugliness of this task of state violence since all mankind is condemned²² to employ it, I have a simple answer to that. It would be useless to insist on it if all humanity were condemned to it. But it is not irrelevant²³ to insist on its ugliness so long as half of humanity is kept out of it.

All government then is coercive; we happen to have created a government which is not only coercive; but collective. There are only two kinds of government, as I have already said, the despotic and the democratic. Aristocracy is not a government, it is a riot; that most effective kind of riot, a riot of the rich. The most intelligent apologists of aristocracy, sophists like Burke and Nietzsche, have never claimed for aristocracy any virtues²⁴ but the virtues of a riot, the accidental virtues, courage, variety and adventure. There is no case anywhere of aristocracy having established a universal and applicable order, as despots and democracies have often done; as the last Caesars created the Roman law, as the last Jacobins created the Code Napoleon. With the first of these elementary forms of government, that of the king or chieftain, we are not in this matter of the sexes immediately concerned. We shall return to it later when we remark how differently mankind has dealt with female claims in the despotic as against the democratic field. But for the moment the essential point is that in self-governing countries this coercion of criminals is a collective coercion. The abnormal person is theoretically thumped²⁵ by a million fists and kicked by a million feet. If a man is flogged we all flogged him; if a man is hanged, we all hanged him. That is the only possible meaning of democracy, which can give any meaning to the first two syllables²⁶ and also to the last two. In this sense each citizen has the high responsibility of a rioter. Every statute²⁷ is a declaration of war, to be backed by arms. Every tribunal is a revolutionary tribunal. In a republic all punishment is as sacred and solemn as lynching.

 

1 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

2 dignified   

a.可敬的，高贵的

参考例句：

• Throughout his trial he maintained a dignified silence. 在整个审讯过程中，他始终沉默以保持尊严。
• He always strikes such a dignified pose before his girlfriend. 他总是在女友面前摆出这种庄严的姿态。

3 humiliation   

n.羞辱

参考例句：

• He suffered the humiliation of being forced to ask for his cards.他蒙受了被迫要求辞职的羞辱。
• He will wish to revenge his humiliation in last Season's Final.他会为在上个季度的决赛中所受的耻辱而报复的。

4 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 scholastic   

adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的

参考例句：

• There was a careful avoidance of the sensitive topic in the scholastic circles.学术界小心地避开那个敏感的话题。
• This would do harm to students' scholastic performance in the long run.这将对学生未来的学习成绩有害。

7 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

8 savor   

vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味

参考例句：

• The soup has a savor of onion.这汤有洋葱味。
• His humorous remarks added a savor to our conversation.他幽默的话语给谈话增添了风趣。

9 fatigue   

n.疲劳，劳累

参考例句：

• The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
• I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。

10 uncommonly   

adv. 稀罕(极，非常)

参考例句：

• an uncommonly gifted child 一个天赋异禀的儿童
• My little Mary was feeling uncommonly empty. 我肚子当时正饿得厉害。

11 inhuman   

adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的

参考例句：

• We must unite the workers in fighting against inhuman conditions.我们必须使工人们团结起来反对那些难以忍受的工作条件。
• It was inhuman to refuse him permission to see his wife.不容许他去看自己的妻子是太不近人情了。

12 humane   

adj.人道的，富有同情心的

参考例句：

• Is it humane to kill animals for food?宰杀牲畜来吃合乎人道吗？
• Their aim is for a more just and humane society.他们的目标是建立一个更加公正、博爱的社会。

13 proceeding   

n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报

参考例句：

• This train is now proceeding from Paris to London.这次列车从巴黎开往伦敦。
• The work is proceeding briskly.工作很有生气地进展着。

14 poignantly   

参考例句：

• His story is told poignantly in the film, A Beautiful Mind, now showing here. 以他的故事拍成的电影《美丽境界》，正在本地上映。

15 knights   

骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马

参考例句：

• stories of knights and fair maidens 关于骑士和美女的故事
• He wove a fascinating tale of knights in shining armour. 他编了一个穿着明亮盔甲的骑士的迷人故事。

16 outlaws   

歹徒，亡命之徒( outlaw的名词复数 )； 逃犯

参考例句：

• During his year in the forest, Robin met many other outlaws. 在森林里的一年，罗宾遇见其他许多绿林大盗。
• I didn't have to leave the country or fight outlaws. 我不必离开自己的国家，也不必与不法分子斗争。

17 admiration   

n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕

参考例句：

• He was lost in admiration of the beauty of the scene.他对风景之美赞不绝口。
• We have a great admiration for the gold medalists.我们对金牌获得者极为敬佩。

18 lawfully   

adv.守法地，合法地；合理地

参考例句：

• Lawfully established contracts shall be protected by law. 依法成立的合同应受法律保护。 来自口语例句
• As my lawfully wedded husband, in sickness and in health, till death parts us. 当成是我的合法丈夫，无论疾病灾难，直到死亡把我们分开。 来自电影对白

19 brandish   

v.挥舞，挥动；n.挥动，挥舞

参考例句：

• She answered with a brandish of her umbrella.她挥动着伞回答。
• Come on together! Brandish the florid youth together!一起舞动绚丽的青春吧！

20 coercion   

n.强制，高压统治

参考例句：

• Neither trickery nor coercion is used to secure confessions.既不诱供也不逼供。
• He paid the money under coercion.他被迫付钱。

21 muddled   

adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子

参考例句：

• He gets muddled when the teacher starts shouting. 老师一喊叫他就心烦意乱。
• I got muddled up and took the wrong turning. 我稀里糊涂地拐错了弯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

22 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。

23 irrelevant   

adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的

参考例句：

• That is completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.这跟讨论的主题完全不相关。
• A question about arithmetic is irrelevant in a music lesson.在音乐课上，一个数学的问题是风马牛不相及的。

24 virtues   

美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处

参考例句：

• Doctors often extol the virtues of eating less fat. 医生常常宣扬少吃脂肪的好处。
• She delivered a homily on the virtues of family life. 她进行了一场家庭生活美德方面的说教。

25 thumped   

v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Dave thumped the table in frustration . 戴夫懊恼得捶打桌子。
• He thumped the table angrily. 他愤怒地用拳捶击桌子。

26 syllables   

n.音节( syllable的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a word with two syllables 双音节单词
• 'No. But I'll swear it was a name of two syllables.' “想不起。不过我可以发誓，它有两个音节。” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

27 statute   

n.成文法，法令，法规；章程，规则，条例

参考例句：

• Protection for the consumer is laid down by statute.保障消费者利益已在法令里作了规定。
• The next section will consider this environmental statute in detail.下一部分将详细论述环境法令的问题。