Now, our wicked friend the fanatic, who calumniates Kate,
abuses the advantage which, for such a purpose, he derives from the
exaggerated social estimate of all violence. Personal security being so
main an object of social union, we are obliged to frown upon all modes
of violence as hostile to the central principle of that union. We are
_obliged_ to rate it, according to the universal results towards
which it tends, and scarcely at all, according to the special condition
of circumstances, in which it may originate. Hence a horror arises for
that class of offences, which is (philosophically speaking)
exaggerated; and by daily use, the ethics of a police-office translate
themselves, insensibly, into the ethics even of religious people. But I
tell that sycophantish fanatic--not this only, viz., that he abuses
unfairly, against Kate, the advantage which he has from the
_inevitably_ distorted bias of society; but also, I tell him this
second little thing, viz., that upon turning away the glass from that
one obvious aspect of Kate's character, her too fiery disposition to
vindicate all rights by violence, and viewing her in relation to
_general_ religious capacities, she was a thousand times more
promisingly endowed than himself.
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