Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/63

 to the conclusion that judges and lawyers are, so far as their professional training is concerned, unequipped for the task undertaken and really as much at sea as they have frequently shown themselves when they have employed their grave wisdoms in settling the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Their self-confidence in such affairs is supported by their certified expertness in handling evidence—of a sort. They think that they understand the law. They have explained it to the jury in just about this fashion and in nearly these words:

'The question before you, gentlemen, is very simple.' (That is their first error: the question before the gentlemen is one of abysmal complexities. But let us not interrupt the Court.) 'The question is not to say how this book affects you, or persons of your seasoned experience and virtue. The question is whether this book tends to deprave the minds of those open to such influences, and into whose hands a publication of this character might come. It is within the law if it would suggest impure and libidinous thoughts in the young and inexperienced. A book to be obscene, need not be obscene throughout the whole of the contents; but if the book is obscene in part, it is an obscene book.'

A schoolboy far below Macaulay's conception of the type can perceive at a glance that any jury which honestly obeyed these instructions could bar from the mails the Bible, Shakespeare, or even an unabridged English Dictionary, which, as there is testimony to prove, is quite capable of suggesting