“ The bad side of human thought will always be defined by the paradox of Jean Jacques Rousseau,—you remember,—the mandarin who is killed five hundred leagues off by raising the tip of the finger. Man’s whole life passes in doing these things, and his intellect is exhausted by reflecting on them. ”
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo (1845). copy citation
| Author | Alexandre Dumas |
|---|---|
| Source | The Count of Monte Cristo |
| Topic | life killing |
| Date | 1845 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1184/1184-h/1184-h.htm |
Context
“The Orientals are stronger than we are in cases of conscience, and, very prudently, have no hell—that is the point. ”
“ Really, madame, this is a scruple which naturally must occur to a pure mind like yours, but which would easily yield before sound reasoning. The bad side of human thought will always be defined by the paradox of Jean Jacques Rousseau,—you remember,—the mandarin who is killed five hundred leagues off by raising the tip of the finger. Man’s whole life passes in doing these things, and his intellect is exhausted by reflecting on them. You will find very few persons who will go and brutally thrust a knife in the heart of a fellow-creature, or will administer to him, in order to remove him from the surface of the globe on which we move with life and animation, that quantity of arsenic of which we just now talked.” source
“ Really, madame, this is a scruple which naturally must occur to a pure mind like yours, but which would easily yield before sound reasoning. The bad side of human thought will always be defined by the paradox of Jean Jacques Rousseau,—you remember,—the mandarin who is killed five hundred leagues off by raising the tip of the finger. Man’s whole life passes in doing these things, and his intellect is exhausted by reflecting on them. You will find very few persons who will go and brutally thrust a knife in the heart of a fellow-creature, or will administer to him, in order to remove him from the surface of the globe on which we move with life and animation, that quantity of arsenic of which we just now talked.” source
