because the latter are punished for destroying the rational being, and not the physical man.  Murder and the destruction of the intellect are, therefore, equally punishable.  The one merits the punishment of death as well as the other.  Nor are we to take the possibility of a cure into consideration, any more than we do the possibility of extinguishing a fire.  But where the law does not prescribe the punishment of death irrespectively of the possibility of recovery, the punishment would rarely exceed ten years in the House of Correction.  We must understand Tittmann’s remarks, however, to refer entirely to the law of Saxony,—­that being the government under which he lived, and the only one in whose criminal code this crime is recognized.

Feuerbach wished to have this murder of the soul inserted in the criminal code of Bavaria as a punishable crime; but he was unsuccessful, and the whole doctrine has subsequently been condemned.  Mittermaier, in a note to his edition of Feuerbach’s “Text-Book of German Criminal Law,” denies that there is any foundation for the distinction taken by him and Tittmann.  He says, that, in the first place, it has not such an actual existence as is capable of proof; and, secondly, all crimes under it can easily be reached by some other law.  The last objection does not, however, seem to be a very serious one.  If, as Feuerbach says, the crime against the soul is more heinous than that against the body, it certainly deserves the first attention, even if the one is not merged in the other.  The crime being greater, the punishment would be greater; and the demands of justice would no more be satisfied by the milder punishment than if a murderer were prosecuted as a nuisance.  The fact, therefore, that the crime is reducible to some different head, is not an objection.  We meet with the most serious difficulty when we consider the possibility of proof.  Taking it for granted that the crime does exist in the abstract, the only question is, whether it is of such a nature that it would be expedient for government to take cognizance of it.  The soul being in its nature so far beyond the reach of man, and the difficulty of ever proving the effect of human actions upon it, would seem to indicate that it were better to allow a few exceptional cases to pass unnoticed than to involve the criminal courts in endless and fruitless inquiry.  Upon the ground of expediency only should the crime go unnoticed, and not because it can be reached in some other way.  For proof that it does exist, we can point to nothing more convincing than the life of Caspar Hauser itself.  No one can doubt that his soul was the victim of a crime, for which the perpetrator, untouched by human laws, stands accused before the throne of God.

* * * * *

PAMPENEA.

AN IDYL.

  Lying by the summer sea,
  I had a dream of Italy.