Note 566 — Chapter V

It would be a waste of time to insist upon the fact that those who commit these acts have nothing in common with ordinary criminals but the name. Most criminals are individuals whose social sentiments are reduced to a minimum, and who injure others purely for the satisfaction of their own desires. The political criminals of whom we are speaking, on the other hand, are the direct opposite; they risk their most sacred interests, their liberty and their life, for the benefit of society; they injure the ruling class only to aid the oppressed classes, and consequently all humanity. While the ordinary criminal is generally “l’homme canaille” (as van Benedikt phrases it in his “Biologie und Kriminalstatistik”) the political criminal is “homo nobilis.” History rights the matter, for the name of the ordinary great criminal is pronounced only with horror, and ends by falling into oblivion, while the political criminal survives in the memory of posterity as a hero.566