The Indiscretions of a Juror He gasped protestation. "Surely you do not mean that they are as intelligent as members of this
club?" How can a man like that ever delude himself into thinking he can write novels about human beings? I had to explain to him that in the first place the members of that club are not educated men in any
select sense. They are duffers like the common run of us. One and another of us is educated to do some special thing. My friend, for instance, is admirably educated not to write novels.
I tried
173
be able to turn upon their own intellect and say to it: “Now, old intellect, clogged with myths and emotions and
sectarian persuasions, get free as you can from all the lumber that burdens you and think as clearly as possible about
this case which has been given you to decide." Few of us can do that, few have the will to try it. And those few are just as likely to be found in one class of men, in one trade or nationality as another.
Mary Anne sues grandfather's estate
come into court are the traditional
and tries to dispossess some prim old aunts, who think the little hussy is mighty ungrateful. The whole family
quarrels of neighbors, and that ex perience in life is the only training for
row comes out in court. Who can settle it fairly? Nobody short of demigods.
a juror (and the best training for a novelist). In the several arts and
But a farmer and a blacksmith and a grocer and a motorman know just as
sciences there can be specially trained experts. But there can be no trained expert in life. Human wisdom, common
Court judges. Moreover, they have no foolish theories of justice. They go
to explain to him that the cases which
sense, fairness of mind are not found in any one race, grade, class of men;
they are virtues peculiar to this and that individual. But the man who has had the privilege of special training as architect, novelist,
much about the mess as forty Supreme
at the problem just as they go at any neighbors’ quarrel. Their opinions about the ordinary civil suit are as valid as those of any other men. Do juries give outrageous verdicts? They do. But can any decision of any twelve men com
school teacher, engineer, is likely to
pare unfavorably with some of the
have a better all-round mind, more likely to rise above prejudices. So
decisions of federal judges? We know that one man's judgment cannot be exactly as good as another's. But in
argued my friend and thereby dis proved it.
For he was evincing the
little prejudice of his class, a prejudice that obscured his view of human nature. The prejudices of the so-called educated
man are as inflexible as those of a man who has worked with his hands since he was fourteen. Imagine a jury made up wholly of college professors. Who
practice we cannot tell which is better, for that involves a third judgment OUT own.
Nietzsche says, “We are primordially illogical and hence unjust human beings, and can recognize this fact; this is one
(There is one of my educated prejudices.) The fact is, the human being is a tangle of prejudices. Only a few men are
of the greatest and most baffling dis cords of existence." The whole matter comes to this, that none of us can ever tell who is fit to be juryman, who is fit to be judge. The negative foundation of democracy is that though I am in
sufiiciently self-conscious to know the dangers of their own judgments, to
still more incompetent to govern me.
would be litigant before such tribunal?
competent to govern myself you are
