| Show Phases oC Hevelonment Different centuries produce different I types of humanity though born of the same race The best of men will commit com-mit deeds in one era at which the I worst would hesitate in another The standard obviously therefore Is all al I I Important in determining morality and not less so than is the supply of air and food and water in regulating the public health Standards be it observed ob-served may vary from the sublime to the ridiculous Italy during the Middle Ages affords an interesting example of their influence influ-ence Without a central authority to hold the nobles In check the country became a prey to the powerful families I whose perpetual struggles between themselves and with the republics which attempted to defend their freedom free-dom show clearly the result of arbitrary arbi-trary power upon the nature of man I is certainly not probable that Italy during this period produced a sudden increase of abnormally ferocious and evilminded men freedomed to crime crme from their birth The worst of the borgias and the visconti were merely the product of their age which encouraged crime and rewarded the finer qualities with contempt con-tempt and failure The story of the little son of the chief minister of the Duke of Athens who during the lat ters rule in Florence used to delight in being present at the tortures ordered or-dered by his father is a striking example ex-ample of the effect of circumstance II upon character The child had acquired ac-quired a taste for these scenes and used to plead that the tortures might I be prolonged beyond the time appointed i appoint-ed asking for special kinds to be inflicted in-flicted because he enjoyed witnessing I the extreme agony they caused This seems almost diabolic to the modern I conscience yet in all probability there is not a child in a British nursery at I this moment who might not under I certain conditions have developed the i same ferocity as that which horrifies I us in the little savage of the Middle Ages The cruelty of boys is proverbial Tradition checks them at a certain point but not the sense of pity The savage is overcome in man exactly so far as his tradition takes him At that tideline his mercy abruptly stops Woe to those whom he encounters on the wrong side of it During the period pe-riod of the renaissance the possession of power seems to have induced Inmost In-most of the seigneurs of Italy a sort of insanity of cruelty such as we find among the Roman emperors after their rule became absolute When there is no criterion but a mans own conscience con-science even If that conscience be originally or-iginally of exceptional nobility he ends by losing all balance and proportion in his ideas he becomes morally dizzy or insane The Westminster Review |
