“I think it’s Huxley who makes me angry with Darwinism. He didn’t find it out, and he went swaggering about using it as a weapon; frightfully conceited about it. That Thomas Henry Huxley should come off best in an argument was quite as important to him as spreading the Darwinian theory. I never read anything like his accounts of his victories in his letters.”
“That is most certainly not the spirit of Darwin, who was a most gentle creature. … But you really surprise me in your attitude towards the profession of law.”
“I don’t know anything whatever about laws; but I have met lawyers, barristers and solicitors, and I think they are the most ignorant, pigheaded people in the world. They have no minds at all. They don’t affect me . But if I were ever before a judge I should shoot him. They use cases to show off their silly wit, sitting thinking of puns; and people are put to death.”
“You are in this matter both prejudiced and unjust, believe me. You cannot in any case make individuals responsible in this matter of capital punishment. That is for all humanity. I see you are like myself, a dreamer. But it is bad to let what might be, blind you to actuality . To the great actuality, in this case, that in matters of justice between man and man England has certainly led the civilised world. In France, it is true, there is a certain special generosity towards certain types of provoked crime; but France has not the large responsibilities of England. The idea of abstract justice, is stronger in England than anywhere. But what you do not see is that in confessing ignorance of your law you pay it the highest possible tribute. You do not know what individual liberty is because you know nothing of any other condition. Ah you cannot conceive what strangeness and wonder there is for a Russian in this spectacle of a people so free that they hold their freedom as a matter of course.”