Such a being
might murder one of the ratepayers of London, compound a felony, or enter
into conspiracy to depose the King himself, and, being detected, very
properly be put under restraint, or visited with chastisement either
deterrent or vindictive, or both. But the true inference from the
premisses would be that, although duress or banishment from the kingdom
might be essential, yet punishment, so called, ought not to be visited
upon the offender. For he or she could not be _nostri juris,_ and that
which was abominable to us might well be reasonable to him or her, and,
indeed, a fulfilment of the law of his being. Punishment, therefore, could
not be exemplary, since the person punished exemplified nothing to
Mankind; and if vindictive, then would be shocking, since that which it
vindicated, in the mind of the victim either did not exist, or ought not.
The ancient Greek who withheld from the sacrifices to Showery Zeus because
a thunderbolt destroyed his hayrick, or the Egyptian who manumitted his
slaves because a god took the life of his eldest son, was neither a pious
nor a reasonable person.
"Beyond question," he continues, "there are such beings upon the earth,
visitors or sojourners by chance, whose true commerce is elsewhere, in a
state not visible to us, nor to be apprehended by most of us; whose
relation with mankind is temporary.
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